The lights flickered and dust fell as an artillery shell landed just above the bunker. Oberfeldwebel Otto Heidkemper wiped the sweat from his brow and checked to make sure his StG 44 was loaded. He kneeled behind the barricade, he could hear voices right down the hall. He reached down, grabbed a stick grenade, and unscrewed the cap. Otto glanced over at Oberschütze Hans Mauss and Oberschütze Adolf Heiß as they were doing the same. Otto nodded, they all pulled the strings, and tossed the grenades. Three simultaneous booms soon followed along with screams of the enemy.
“Hans get the MG ready! Adolf go find some more ammo and grenades,” ordered Otto.
Adolf went running down the hall towards the armory. Another artillery shell hit but this time the ceiling collapsed right on to Adolf, burying him beneath a ton of wood and dirt.
“Adolf,” shouted Hans.
Otto grabbed Hans’s arm, “He’s gone, and we can’t afford to grieve his death now. We have to honor him by holding the Ivans”
More shouting announced the arrival of Russian reinforcements. Hans aimed down the sights of his MG-42 and Otto prepared another grenade. They saw the first Russian slowly moving forward, fortunately he didn’t see Otto and Hans. The Russian called forward the rest of his squad and started their way towards the barricade. Otto threw the grenade over his shoulder and Hans fired a burst into the enemy. They dropped the first four Russians and the rest fled back to the end of the hall and started taking pot shots at the defenders.
Hans’s MG 42 ran dry and started the long process of reloading and with this absence of fire a couple Russians got curious. They stuck theirs heads around the corner and Otto put a burst into each of them. They fell with satisfying thumps as they hit the ground. Otto glanced over at Hans and saw that he was having trouble loading the MG. A Russian leaned out with his Mosin–Nagant and fired.
Hans let out a gasp as the bullet ripped into his chest. Otto let out a scream, stood up, and emptied his entire clip in the Ivan. He also threw a grenade to buy himself some more time.
“Hans, hang in there buddy.” Otto started applying pressure to the wound. “Don’t die on me, Hans.”
“Oberfeldwebel,… this is... tell my… wife… that… I… lov-.” Blood started filling his mouth and he stopped breathing.
“Rest in peace my friend.” Otto closed Hans’s eyes for the last.
This gave the last couple Russians enough time to reorient themselves. They fixed their bayonets and charged him. Otto threw his knife into the right eye of one of the Russians and sidestepped the other Russian. He brought his elbow down on the neck of the Russian as he passed, the Russian fell flat, and Otto stomped on the Ivan’s neck.
Otto grabbed his StG 44, took up position on the barricade again and started waiting. A few minutes passed before several German soldiers came up from behind him.
“Are you part of the Forschungsreise squad,” asked the middle soldier.
“Yes, I’m the leader of the Forschungsreise squad,” Otto said sourly.
“Oberstphysiker Rattenhuber wants all members to report to lab 11 immediately.” The soldier looked over at the barricade.” Don’t worry we’ll hold this position. “
“Good luck soldiers.’” Otto set off down the hall towards lab 11.
“Ok men the Führer wants us to find a suitable dimension for the High Command to fallback to,” Otto said.” And the Oberstphysiker is saying the portal is almost ready to go.”
The Oberfeldwebel scanned each face of what remained of the Forschungsreise squad and concluded that he was proud to serve alongside these soldiers. He peered through the glass at the scientist, as they were working on a massive ring like construct. The heavy steel door leading to the massive room opened and Oberstphysiker Rattenhuber walked through. The entire squad snapped to attention with arrival of the superior.
“Hmm so this is the Forschungsreise squad?” Rattenhuber inspected each of the eight men. “You will do nicely for this… experiment.”
“Thank you, Oberstphysiker it’s an honor that you selected my squad for this mission,” responded Otto.
Oberstphysiker motioned them towards the steel door,” Now come time is of the essence.”
The nine men walked through the door. Hundreds of massive cables were running to the ring, which had to be at least 7 meters in diameter. A soft humming started up and slowly grew louder, a small sphere of light appeared in the middle of the ring. All the lights went out but the light in the ring was enough to light the entire room. The light soon filled the entire ring and they knew it was ready.
“Ok everyone it’s time to make history,” Rattenhuber shouted just to be heard.
“I’ll go first, and then Hafner and you can figure the rest out on your own.” Otto stepped on to the platform. “See you on the other side.”
As Otto Heidkemper jumped head first into the portal, a massive 406mm round from a Russian artillery piece struck the bunker. It penetrated through all the concrete and steel and detonated inside the portal room destroying everything and killing everyone. Only Otto Heidkemper was able to make it through the portal and any hope of coming home was lost in the explosion.
Luna watched over Equestria from her balcony, the wind was blowing through her mane. She looked at the moon almost ready to lower it for the night. She looked in the direction of White tail woods, feeling that something was… off. Luna was about to dismiss it when a bright flash and a loud boom quickly followed.
“Blue Storm! Night Hawk,” Princess Luna shouted.
“What’s wrong Princess?” Blue Storm and Night Hawk came bursting in.
“Come with me, we have a problem out in the White tail woods.” Luna leapt off the balcony and spread out her dark blue wings.
The two followed the princess of the night and they flew towards the White Tail woods. Luna wondered who could possibly have done this knowing only the most powerful ponies could have created this powerful of a portal.
