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The western frontier has long since been tamed and the romance of the wild days only live on in dime store novels. The western towns have either grown or died a slow death as people left the towns once whatever cause them to be built was gone. Which is where Jack Marston found himself wandering into.

On an old horse drawn cart, being pulled by his horse Doug, Jack has been wandering here and there for years. He made some money off of selling his story of his father and the gang he use to ride around with. He did changed some things here and there and changed some names but it’s based on what he remembers. He keeps his life savings on him and makes his living working odd jobs here and there before heading off for somewhere else. (1)

Jack is in the state of Colorado, heading to the nearest port town. He’s running low and everything and needs to find some work soon, he only has a 7 cans of beans left and unlike Doug, he can’t just eat grass. He and Doug have been living in a ghost town they found for over a year now with little contact with anyone.

The town was just a single street with only a few buildings that weren’t in ruins. Jack made his home in the old sheriffs office that was the only stone building. He kept Doug in a still intact stable and took up farming and hunting. But once his supplies began running out he knew he would go to the town and get supplies or work till he got the money he needs.

Jack got close to the port and wonders if the war is over. He got to where the town built on the side of a mountain slope. The town was small only having a few dozen buildings but is a hub for the ranches and farms to sell their wares where by cart be taken to the other town with a railroad. The town is mostly gone with it being destroyed by something that Jack only thought to be a myth.

The Slide-Rock Bolter was said to have inhabited the mountains of Colorado. However, it would specifically reside on the slopes of the mountains that were no more than a 45 degree angle. This creature was whale-like in appearance having a massive head, sunken eyes, and a tail that resembled the fluked tail fin of a dolphin. This creature's tail had grabbing-hooks on the end of it, which it used to grasp the mountains. It would then wait patiently for any tourists or helpless animal to cross it. Upon finding food, the Slide-Rock Bolter would release its grip on the mountain, and slides rapidly towards its prey. With its colossal mouth, the Slide-Rock Bolter would devour everything in its path. The Slide-Rock Bolter would then climb back up the mountain after having its fill to wait for its next meal.

That’s the only thing the large creature could be that is now sliding up another mountain after it had slide down and through the town.

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Belgian Congo -

A unit of soldiers came back from the jungle, with a large cage containing a beast of legends a Mulilo slug. The Mulilo is an herbivorous giant slug said to live in the dense forests of the Congo, near the Zaire and Zambia regions. This large slug is said to be as long as 6 feet long and 12 inches wide. It is described as being grayish-white to brown to black in color. The Mulilo is also said to only appear when there is a rainbow and has poisonous breath. They are thought to slowly climb trees. Natives would supposedly catch them with cages using roosters as bait, because their flesh supposedly had magical properties.

With the government offering rewards for any magical creatures, hunters and soldiers have been hunting for magical creatures.

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South America -

Charles F. Muntz a famous explorer, he found the bones of a tropical bird in South America but the scientific community claimed they were fake. Insulted, Muntz searches the South American wilderness for a live member of the same bird species, traveling in a zeppelin with his many pet dogs. He didn’t find the bird but he did find something. (2)

The beast resembles a cow-sized jaguar with a reddish waterproof coat, a thick mane, long droopy ears half a meter in length, and an overpowering stench catinga. It has jaguar like legs, or and hooved, donkey-like hindlegs. His dogs managed to corner it and he shot it with a dart knocking it out. He place it into a cage large enough to hold it and now he’s heading back to show his prize. (3)

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India -

The bodies of the villagers lay on the ground as British soldiers secured the area. The mob was broken and many lay dead, as the soldiers gave no quarter, not with the prize they would receive only as long as the cargo is intact. The cargo that the crowd had tried to take for themselves, is a female naga found in the jungle.

The soldiers capture her and are escorting her to a port to ship her off to England. The crowd learning there’s a naga had wanted to eat her flesh as someone said eating her flesh will give them magical powers. The soldiers open fire and slaughtered many of the villagers.

The soldiers would all be getting a big fat bonus for finding a magical creature and the naga can talk, adding to the value of their prize. They’re not going to allow some villagers from a middle of nowhere place go and take that away from them. The crown is offering lots of money for magical items and creatures and to have a bunch of no named people who think eating a naga will grant them magical powers just shows how dumb they are. It be killing the goose that lays gold eggs. (4)

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Russia -

In her room of the palace Maria Feodorovna, is writing letters to the extended family members. She’s been staying with Sunset while her other families all return back to their homes. She’s been getting close to her granddaughter and learning more about her and helping where she can.

Sunset has shown unlike her late father, she is a born ruler. Her better understanding of the darker sides of politics and hard-line attitude make her not only a better ruler than her father, but a more popular one as well. She purged many nobles and politicians, giving power and titles to the ones who had remained loyal to the royal family, she even made Rasputin’s daughter into a noble and granted her a title and lands of a former noble who had sided against the royal family. As many of the upper classes had turned their backs to her family, she’s returning the favor by stripping the titles and lands from the ones who had worked against her family. Sunset made it clear to the nobles that she doesn’t need them, as she has her Klabautermanns who no matter what will always side with her.

The palace is staffed and guarded by mostly Klabautermanns, with some of the old servants being rehired. The Klabautermanns all know the human staff by face and name, so there can’t be anyone who can just slip in unnoticed. The Klabautermanns all being beautiful and busty women, made it impossible for anyone to try to pass off as one of them, and even if one could find a woman that could pass off as a Klabautermann, the real ones could tell.

Sunset has also been helping the peasants by rising their standard of living, thanks to all the new infrastructure she’s having built. Rebuilding everything that was destroyed during the civil war and improving things while she’s at it. Putting lots of out of work people back to work as there’s lots of building that needs to be done. And giving them the latest farming equipment to be able to grow more food, in exchange for a percent of the harvest.

For more dangerous jobs, the prisoners of war are being force to work. The ones who didn’t were impaled and left out as examples, Sunset has no use for keeping people who rebelled against her around. They work or they die, simple as that. For she isn’t going to give anyone a chance to rebel again. Everyone that was apart of the Bolsheviks have all been impaled and put on display for all to see. The population of Russia been made to understand that any sort of rebellion against the throne will end with them being impaled. Simple but very effected in keeping order in the war torn country.

There is also new cities being built around sites for new factories that will be building Tesla’s machines. The people displaced by the war are already signing up to live and work at the new cities. Many of the Jewish communities that have been destroyed before and during the war are being given a new place to call home and be fully protected by the Klabautermanns. Who have built shelters for them and fed them while plans are being made in what to do with them and others who have been displaced.

With the Russian church against their new Tsarina using magic, Sunset in turn broke ties with them. Resulting in the church no longer having a place in the states affairs, and keeping to her promise Sunset is treating everyone fairly and the same. Meaning that unlike before under her father she’s protecting the Jewish communities in her lands and giving them new places to settle as many of the other communities didn’t want them. Which is why she’s offering them homes in the plan cities she’s building, she needs a workforce.

Maria went with her granddaughter in touring the new city being built that would be for learning and research of magic. Where Tesla’s main laboratory is already housed and built, where he’s studying the magic cube that allowed Sunset to summon Klabautermanns, unlocking its secrets. They rode on the flying ship of Baba Yaga, who has been looking more and more younger as time goes by. Before she was an old woman, but now she’s still an elderly woman but with a body a much more shapely and younger woman. Explaining that thanks to a new age of magic, she’s regaining her youth and strength.

The source are the new magic pumps that Tesla designed and built after Baba Yaga explained what mana lines are. The mana lines are so anorexic and underused that the magic fields they created around them had faded. Leaving Baba Yaga as an old woman, but thanks to so many Klabautermanns, the mana lines are regaining strength like a river that had all but dried up, suddenly having flowing water running down it again.

Sunset is planning on building more flying ships to allow greater movement around the country.

Maria sighed thinking about her granddaughter. She puts on a strong front but, she has seen her when she sleeps, using Standart and making her look like her late mother. Sunset is now the ruler of all of Russia but she is still a young girl who misses her mother and the rest of her family. Which is why she lashed out so cruelly to those who took that away from her.

From what Sunset told her of her other life in Equestria, she didn’t had a loving mother, all Celestia ever saw of her is a student. The memories of Anastasia and having a real loving family, filled her with something that she never knew before. And is why she was so cruel to the ones who took it away, making it so horrible that anyone who thinks about taking what’s hers again, know that the price for failing is that she will take everything from them. Making them watch as their families are killed in front of them or make them do the deed themselves in the faint hope of being spared. Just like the ones who killed her other self and her family.

Maria is doing what she can to be there for her granddaughter, which is why she’s exchanging letters to the extended family of the other royal houses. Sunset needs someone in her life that she can depend on, be with her and not be one of those Klabautermanns. A husband to show the royal line will continue and is stable.

Maria has been looking through the letters from suitors, having taken upon herself in finding a husband for Sunset. She did made it clear that she doesn’t want anyone related to her, by marriage is one thing but by blood is another. She doesn’t want what happen to her brother happening to any of her children.

Leaving Maria to look over the letters and photos of the suitors to Sunset’s hand. Maria knows that other countries are all planning on using the marriage to their advantage. As how the unmarried children of Wilhelm are now all being sent engagement letters. With Wilhelm controlling the German Klabautermanns, after giving up his good arm has risen his popularity with his people. Using them to rebuild his nation, as the Ottoman sultan is doing with his. And both nations are building new warships so that they can turn them into more Klabautermanns.

The military might and the other uses for Klabautermanns has made them all very valuable that all nations want. Hence why the suitors are coming out of the wood works. A troubling thought made Maria remembered how Sunset said that she doesn’t care if her consort or husband is from a noble house or not, she doesn’t care about following traditions in only marrying someone from a noble house, as she doesn’t want to marry into another inbred noble house. And if the other nobles are against it, she’s the one who has the Klabautermanns on her side. She’s the one who makes the laws now and she won’t be held back by outdated laws and traditions.

Sunset made it clear that she will bring Russia out from the Middle Ages and crush anyone who stands in her way. Even if she has to drag the nation kicking and screaming to do it. For she is their ruler and she is responsible and she has to make the tough choices that will affected millions, the weight of the crown and the responsibilities she holds isn’t for the kind hearted. She will be thought but fair, a promise that she will keep.

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Author's Note

1 - Jack from Red Dead Redemption.

2 - Up Film.

3 - The Tapirê-iauara, or Tapir Nymph, enjoys a wide distribution in the Amazon, from the Orinoco in Venezuela to the Rio Negro, the Madeira, the Tapajós, and the Amazon down to Pará. Sightings have been reported from around Codajás, Fonte Boa, Itacoatiara, Nova Olinda, Oriximiná, Santarém, and Urucurituba. It lives in slower-moving waters, near groves of aninga or palm trees, and avoids human settlements.

The name tapirê-iauara is etymologically complex. Tapiré is Tupi for “tapir”, while y is “water” and ara is “lady” in língua geral; it also draws from the Tupi uara (“dweller”) or yguara (“dweller in water”). Hence, “tapir water-lady” or “tapir nymph” is a rough translation. This same derivation gives us the Amazonian nymphs Yara and Oyoára, the sea monster Hipupiara, and Paraná Pura Iuraretê, which was apparently a giant turtle creature that later was subsumed into the tapirê-iauara (iuraretê meaning either “turtle” or “jaguar”).

Reports of the tapirê-iauara appearance have varied somewhat. Most accounts agree that it resembles a cow-sized jaguar with a reddish waterproof coat, a thick mane, long droopy ears half a meter in length, and an overpowering stench (catinga). It may have jaguar legs, or the forelegs of a jaguar and hooved, donkey-like hindlegs. It may have horse legs with or without catlike paws, duck feet, or large otter paws. Variations in fur color include red, gold, and black with a cream patch in the chest. It notably does not look much like a tapir.

A tapirê-iauara is heard and smelled before it is seen. The large, finlike ears flap noisily against the water as it swims, while its putrid odor precedes it. From a safe distance, it’s merely nauseating; at close quarters the stench of a tapirê-iauara is enough to cause fainting and outright death. Tapirê-iauaras can also mesmerize prey into standing still before pouncing on them.

Tapirê-iauaras have a broad diet that includes large fish, capybaras, caimans, and humans. They are attracted to hauls of fish and the halitosis resulting from eating poorly-cooked fish. They often show up to inspect fishermens’ catches – or the fishermen themselves. When they do, they are fast, persistent, and resilient, relying on their odor to weaken prey before killing it with their sharp teeth and claws. One fisherman had to empty 12 slugs from a .22 rifle into a pursuing tapirê-iauara before the beast expired. Other fishermen have not been so lucky, having their catches stolen at best or being dragged into the river and devoured at worst.

Sometimes the stink of a tapirê-iauara is enough to cause a human’s shadow (and therefore soul) to depart. A person who has lost their shadow in this way is said to be assombrado. They can recover their soul by inhaling the fumes of a fire made with leaves, sticks, and the bones of undercooked piranhas.

Caraña resin (Protium heptaphyllum) is repulsive to tapirê-iauaras, and anyone concerned about tapirê-iauara attack should equip themselves with some before heading into the Amazon. Tapirê-iauaras also cannot climb, and so shelter should be sought in trees. As the tapirê-iauara’s odor will cause fainting and potentially falling out of the tree, secure branches must be found.

The Tai-açu-iara from around Parintins is similar and may be the same animal. It appears as a black piglike creature with jaguar paws.

4 - Eating the flesh of magical beings is the same in real life of people who thinks that rhino horn cures anything.

5 - Because of no Soviet government there will not be any purges or deaths in the millions that cause the demographic problem that real life Russia is facing. As you can’t kill millions and millions of people in a country and not have a population problem down the line.

Overpopulation crisis has been replaced by a depopulation crisis as many people just don’t want to have as many kids as people did before.