Platoon 42

Shining Armour's Diary JOURNAL.

Entry 001:

Hello, my name is Shining Armour. A few weeks ago, a few of my friends and I were accepted into the royal guard. We're currently serving under the name 'Platoon 42'.  We haven't really done much other than training exercises so far, but although we've scored the lowest overall fitness rating for any platoon in the guard ever, I think we're ready to take on whatever the world has to throw at us! That said, we've still got a few flaws, a couple of rough edges to smooth. Actually, considering two out of our five members still sleep with a stuffed animal, myself included, I'm not entirely sure we can handle it.

My buddy, Rock, always says that if we keep our chins up, we'll do great. Then again, Rock is an idiot. It's not that I don't like him, we've been friends for as long as I can remember, but he doesn't half say and do some stupid stuff. A couple days ago he spotted a spider on one of the drapes in the throne room. Convinced it was trying to eat him, he proceeded to remove it... with a blowtorch. He only got out of hospital yesterday, and the palace tailors still haven't repaired the damage yet. So, yeah, he's not overly bright, but he's a good guy at heart and especially loyal. He looks out for his friends and family, even if his methods are just blatantly idiotic. As he always says: "I like hitting things with bricks." It's got nothing to do with his character, but it highlights his idiocy.

So Rock isn't exactly the brains of our group, that'd be Sparks, our only female member. Dropped out of high school before she'd even reached sixteen, probably because she already had every qualification from Saddle Arabian Textiles Design to Royal Family Genealogy. She's one of the smartest ponies I know, and for some obscure reason, she's wasting her talent with us. I mean, why would any pony step out of college or university or whatever with every A grade under the sun and say: "You know what? I'm gonna get a low wage job with a high chance of death!" I'm exaggerating a little, of course, I doubt she's got all the qualifications, that'd be absurd, but if you ever need a pony to build you a bomb, tell you the history of the Changeling empire or solve a crossword, she's the mare. And for the record, she's help me with two out of three of those things. And I still haven't solved that crossword...

Well, looks like this most of this chapter has already gone in to describing my team, so I might as well finish it. Next up, we've got Ace. In high school, he was voted 'most likely to succeed', 'most likely to become a millionaire' and 'vainest stallion going'. They literally had to invent a whole new yearbook section dedicated to how much he loves himself. Don't get me wrong, it's not like he's bigheaded or arrogant. He just looks good, and he knows it. And he makes sure everyone else knows it too. Can't go a day without him gazing into his hoof-held pocket mirror, ruffling his hair and saying: "Woah... I look good today." If I'm being totally honest, he does. No clue why he joined the guard, he says it's to prove that he's 'not just a pretty face'. So far, he has not proven this. I remember one time we were doing an assault course, and he stopped halfway through because he 'chipped a hoofnail', he then paused abruptly because he was distracted by his own reflection in a nearby puddle. In all honesty, Ace is alright, we wouldn't be a team without him. I think the only thing holding him from getting a girlfriend is the fact that he'd probably rather go out with himself if he could.

Last but not least is Peter. What? Were you expecting a more imaginative name like 'Glitter Dust' or 'Rainbow Surprise' or whatever the stereotypical demographic for a pony name is? Newsflash: this is the twenty first century, I don't care what names the five-year-olds that ran Hasbro in the eighties gave us. Anyhow, Peter's not exactly what I'd call 'cool' or 'hip' or 'down-with-the-kids', and yes he has used all of the above to describe himself at some point. He's a twenty seven year old who still lives with his mom, he can't sleep without 'Mr. Snuffles', his toy bear and his lunch box has a picture of a princess on it. I think you're probably getting an idea of what kind of person Peter is. And yes, he has never had a girlfriend. He's got a fear of just about anything that scuttles or makes a squeaky noise, but he's bearable.

I guess that leaves me, Shining Armor. Yeah, I'm not too sure what my parents were thinking when they named me. I mean, 'Shining Armor'? Really? How long-winded is that? You can't even pull a nickname from that! And what's worse is that nobody knows whether to spell it as 'Armor' or 'Armour'. Heck, even I don't know! My sister's name is Twilight Sparkle. You can do pretty much anything with that! 'Twi', 'Twily', 'Sparkler', the list of possible abbreviations is infinite! What have I got? 'Shiny', maybe? That's practically a girl's name! Anyhow, name ranting aside, I'm the captain, well the closest thing we've got to a captain. It's a group effort overall, but honestly, I do most of the planning... and the fighting... and just about everything else that the job requires.

It's not that I'm not grateful for my team, I am; but they really can be quite useless sometimes. That said, we all can be. The only thing that's keeping me in this job is the fact that the next few seasons of the show and the remainder of this story are dependant on it. None of us are perfect, not even close, but we're a team, a unit. We are Platoon 42, and I guarantee that this speech will be reused at the end of this story just to add effect.