When Princess Celestia had asked Krieg about his life, Krieg responded with several tales about the ponies he had killed, and his blank flank. She had no reason to believe he was lying. Neither did Krieg.
Pondering on the potential horrors that awaited him once he stepped off the train into the unknown, Krieg thought back to his meeting with the princesses, as he stared back at what appeared to be a stranger’s reflection on the train's window. The darkness of night combined with the dim lighting of the carriage he was in made his brown mane, glasses, both his blue eye and green eye and newly-grown appendage clearly visible. It seemed almost unnatural to have such a thing sticking out of his forehead. After going a few minutes without looking at his mirrored reflection, he would forget all about it, only to be momentarily shocked again at the sight of such a monstrosity sticking out of his forehead. Then his mind would wander back to the perplexing zebra he had met only yesterday, who had concocted some bizarre potion he couldn't make sense of, promising that with one long swig his faith would be rewarded with the sudden growth of an asset he would be in dire need of: a horn. The potion tasted salty but smelled of sweet fruits in its thick texture, all contained within a wide wooden cup. Still studying the abnormalities of his own reflection, Krieg poked and prodded the horn with his hoof. The simultaneous sensation of not only feeling the horn's cylindrical indentations on his hoof, but also experiencing the flat, smooth surface of his hoof through his horn provoked a foalish giggle from Krieg. So this is what it feels like to be a unicorn, said his internal monologue. The distinctive outline of his tucked away wings was also visible in the reflection. He could see them, but trusted the zebra when she said that nopony else could. Krieg looked just like an alicorn. Having lived his entire life as a pegasus, Krieg was both aware and content with pegasi's place in equestrian society. Having a horn to directly utilize magic, or having the strong prowess of an earthpony never seemed particularly appealing to him.
Tiredness was taking the reins of Krieg's eyelids, trying its utmost to pull them down over his eyes. He knew that eventually he would have to oblige, having been told that he would not arrive at Ponyville until the next morning, where he would alight and complete his objective. A tiny amount of fear crossed his mind; fear of the unknown, considering it's not everyday you're sent to a kingdom that vanished. It reminded him of the story of King Sombra and the Crystal Empire; such a thought caused him to shudder.
Krieg was told that he would be sent to the dimension the kingdom would have also ended up in. There he would be planted on a train with a ticket to Ponyville. He wondered what peril would be awaiting him in this new realm, even though the kingdom had only vanished into thin air five days ago. However, one thing was likely to be true about this place, or more specifically, its regime, was the fact that it nurtured the ideals of unicorn-supremacy.
Before Krieg dematerialized from the throne room, Princess Celestia, with Luna at her side, informed him that a final letter had arrived at Canterlot Castle only a few seconds before the kingdom's disappearance. He levitated it over for Krieg to read. Most of the letter was unreadable scribbles. However, he did make out the words, ‘unicorns are supreme. I have done it. I have finally done it! Finally, we ascend.' There had been growing tensions between unicorns, pegasi and earthponies before the kingdom's disappearance. Mass riots breaking out and racially-inspired murders. “I'm certain one of my students wrote that letter,” Princess Celestia said grimly, “she beginning to cozy up to that ridiculous ideology. If anypony...”
“...that we know of,” corrected Princess Luna.
Celestia gave a stern look of annoyance at the interruption before continuing, “...that we know of could make such a thing happen to an entire kingdom, it's Twilight.” Krieg nodded in acknowledgement of his superior's words. “Oh and before you go,” Celestia announced, causing Krieg to return his attention to the Royal Sisters and acknowledging them with a formal salute, “this journey you are about to partake on will be a treacherous one. A journey that would break any other pony, but not you, so I’ve been told.” Krieg had spared the princesses the sight of his blushing cheeks by having donned his Royal Guard helmet, although no amount of armour could protect him from the sheer amount of overwhelming pride that Celestia’s words had stirred inside him. “After consulting with Princess Luna, as reluctant as we are to grant this, the current circumstances we find ourselves in have given us no choice. Shining Armor has assured me of his faith in you implicitly, Krieg, and now it’s time we put our faith in you as well, by giving you this...” The two princesses took to the air, extending their winds as if to blot out all traces of the sun from entering the castle, despite significantly more light being projected by their very presence. Krieg was in awe of the spectacle he was witnessing. He took off his helmet, somewhat out of courtesy combined with the desire to watch the unfolding scene without the limited vision that the helmet had previously offered. Wrapped within a haze of yellow and blue, hovering towards Krieg was something he never would have thought to have laid eyes upon.
The train gave an unpleasant jolt which drew his attention away from looking back on that meeting. Having looked at his reflection enough to almost get used to the sight of a horn, Krieg decided to avert his attention towards the rest of the carriage’s interior. He looked to his left, taking a mental note of the fabric seats, cozy compartment encased in beige plastered walls and rusted metal luggage racks that ran a few metres above the seats to their exact length. His brown saddle bags were on the rack directly above his head, along with his (also brown) coat, which he had purposefully folded into a shape that roughly resembled a rectangle. He was the only pony in the compartment; it made him wonder how busy the train really was. He let out a sigh, rolling his eyes and curling up with his head leant against the window, still with difficulty thanks to the horn. He was eventually comfortable, or rather, as comfortable as he was going to get, and nodded off to sleep.
“... Are you even listening, soldier?” The beckoning call from his superior officer had caught Krieg off guard, causing him to bolt upwards from his slumber in a state of panic, the resulting grogginess adding further to his confusion.
“C-captain Shining Armor, what are you doing-“
“Krieg,” Shining Armor cut in, oblivious to his subordinate’s appeal to voice his current concerns, “before you go, there’s something I need to ask of you, colt to colt.” Krieg had never seen the captain so conflicted before. His voice was hoarse, authoritative yet diluted by a combination of grief and worry, accompanied by fleeing tears that he tried ever so hard to fend off. If he wasn’t his commander, Krieg would have made an attempt to console Shining Armor, but ultimately his sense of duty prevented him from breaking the unflinching discipline that was expected from every Royal Guard. “When you get there, promise me you’ll do everything in your power to bring my sister back home.” As Krieg was about to interject, a harsh hoof upon his shoulder had dragged him closer towards Shining Armor, whose stern glare sent a shudder through him, diminishing any confidence Krieg had previously harboured. “I have no doubt the Princesses will have told you about their suspicions, but I know Twily, she would never do something like that.” Shining Armor became inaudible as a fit of sniffles had erupted due to his current state of distress. “I-I’m sorry, soldier,” he snivelled “It’s just that I haven’t spoken to her in a long time now, with her being a princess and my place being in the Crystal Empire. And as much as I hate to admit it, we haven’t been on the best of terms as of late, and with her gone I’d... I can’t bear the thought of losing her, not without Twily knowing that her Best Brother Best Friend Forever will always love her no matter what our differences. And above all, that I’m sorry.” Krieg looked into the captain’s eyes, a sight he had only caught glimpses of during formal occasions, and even those were few and far between. But despite this, somehow, they possessed some sense of familiarity about them, like he had seen their ilk somewhere before, somewhere... His brain began to swell with pain as he delved deeper into that thought. A violent throbbing tormented him to the rhythm of a loud heartbeat, slowly gaining momentum with every wince-inducing pulse. The pain proved too much for him. Shooting open his eyes, he saw every window in his compartment shattered into a thousand shards to at the command of the relentless pounding in his head. Wait a minute, he caught himself thinking amongst the endless pain, as the remnants of broken glass that rained upon him did not belong to that of the train windows. In fact, it was quite clear that each and every fragment had once belonged to the stained glass windows that resided in Canterlot Castle. Upon this realisation, Krieg found himself engulfed in a sea of gloomy violet, seemingly pouring out of the cavities left by the shattered windows. The roof began to melt away, unravelling the curtains to allow a depraved audience of a thousand stars to bear witness to his humiliation. His bare flanks began to burn, branded by the shame they inflicted as the onlookers in the sky laughed on at such a pitiful sight. Drowning in mortification as the same waves of purple that had flooded his surroundings pushed him under, removing any traces of his existence, Krieg was rendered powerless by his torment. The frightened stallion began to flail his forelegs in desperation; the depths retaliated by dragging him down without warning, concealing him to his watery grave. ‘Ripples,’ he pondered, as strange as it was, ripples began to emerge within the opaque substance as if the occurring events had actually just been an illusion.
When Krieg opened his eyes, he became temporarily blinded by rays of imposing light, confirming to him that he had indeed, been asleep. The horrors that he had been inflicted to had only been figments of his subconscious, although the light-headedness and blistering headache he had fallen victim to stubbornly lingered on. Despite Krieg’s relief that his distorted experience had only been a dream, his nightmare had only just begun. Houses and apartment blocks flicked past him; Ponyville. It still looked relatively peaceful, despite urban decay having taken its toll on the buildings. As the train slowed down on its approach to Ponyville Station, Krieg watched ponies walking through the cracked and unkempt streets, probably just going about their daily business. ‘How did this place become so run down? It's only been gone for five days,’ he wondered. Krieg had spent most of his foalhood in Ponyville and remembered it as a quaint little town. The sight of the rusted water tanks, ivy growing thick up the sides of buildings with bricks showing through cracked paint and riddled with smashed windows made him feel a little sad as his mind contrasted it to the Ponyville he had lived in previously. It was when he moved away from Ponyville to Canterlot that his life took a dark turn; being relentlessly tormented for his permanently blank flank.
The train was drawing slower and slower on its way to Ponyville's lonesome train station. Standing up on his two rear hooves to reach for his coat and using his invisible wings to help keep balance, Krieg managed to unfold it in a few shakes as he held it in his mouth before inserting each relevant limb into their respective holes. Of course, this would have been quicker if he could have simply used magic to levitate the coat, but his horn was for synthetic purposes only. The coat was long enough to cover his flanks and was weighed down by the saddle bags which he brought down next from the luggage rack. Walking out of the compartment and down the corridor to the train's door, he didn’t catch a glimpse of a single pony. With a slight jolt, the train came to a complete stop a couple of seconds after Krieg reached the door. He lifted his hoof to the door's handle to open it, only to find that the handle was non-existent. Staring curiously at the area where he had expected to find the door handle, to his surprise, he saw the door slide out and open for him automatically.He was the only pony to step off the train. The doors promptly closed after he stepped out. Krieg trotted slowly and cautiously on the concrete platform, which he remembered to have previously been wooden, to the train station's only building to exit. The building housed a ticket office and waiting room. Although he remembered it to have a thatched roof, it was now tiled, even though large patches of tiles were missing.
He made his way to the street outside the station, which had numerous cracks with grass growing through them at varying lengths. Still walking, knowing that using his wings to fly would be far too risky. To his left towered an abandoned construction site with bare metal guarders exposed with nothing for them to hold, resembling a skeleton. There was also a long row of tall, narrow terraced houses along either side. A few glum-looking ponies trotted up and down the sidewalks. It was quiet. Krieg began to wonder where to go next. Even though he knew what he was there to do, how to do it was completely up to his own volition.
It was then when he became distracted by the sight of what looked like approximately ten armoured ponies striding quickly down the street. Alongside them, towed by two more armoured ponies, was a strong-looking cart made of metal. They each stood tall, without a single speck of fur left uncovered by their heavy armour. They even wore helmets with reflective visors that covered their eyes. He watched, curiously, as one of them banged furiously on the door of one of the houses while the others waited beside him, still standing up straight to maintain their intimidating appearance. There was no answer at the door. The armoured pony turned to one of the others, nodded and another one of them strode forwards to the door, levitating a battering ram. The small house's door was shortly snapped off its hinges. The ponies entered the house, stepping on the door remorselessly, their horseshoes denting it even further. Krieg wondered why they forced their entry to the house, but his question was answered for him when the one of the armoured ponies emerged from inside the house carrying a crying filly pegasus with his magic.
“Mommy! Mommy!” She wailed, her vocabulary limited by her young age. Other ponies on the street looked away with their heads downward. The filly's mom, a unicorn, emerged from the frame where her front door used to be, restrained by another armoured pony. He was using both his hooves and magic to limit her movement. He stopped walking as he reached the unicorn who had been carrying the young pegasus.
“Is this yours?” He asked her in a demanding manor, his voice deepened by the helmet he was wearing. The mare's eyes turned to her crying daughter, then back at the armoured pony before she sheepishly nodded. “Then you will go with her. That is the punishment for not giving that creature up at birth,” he said apathetically. Hearing this, she broke down into tears, still remaining pragmatic, showing no restraint to her order. The filly was levitated into the back of the cart, before her mother was escorted into it. The doors of the cart were slammed shut and meticulously locked. Then they left, leaving the street as quiet as it once was. Krieg was shocked. As he looked around at the other ponies, he noticed one more peculiar thing: they were all unicorns. Krieg gasped, having come to the realization that this strange place was, indeed, unicorn-supremacist.
Moving quickly through the dilapidated street, Krieg turned left at an intersection and into a narrow alleyway which shaded from any sunlight by its high brick walls, still comprehending what he had seen. He was in a lost kingdom run by a maniac with only one week to get back to Equestria to avoid being stranded. Something light blew into Krieg's face. A piece of paper. He removed from his face using his front hoof and began to read what was on it, raising an eyebrow in curiosity. In large, bold writing all in capital letters on top of the portrait-orientated paper was the word 'kindness'. The writing was a shade of blue that was similar to that of a robin's egg. Underneath it in purple equally large bold text, also in all capital letters was 'loyalty'. At the bottom was, in black, larger writing, was the word 'safety'. In the centre was a black and white picture of a single wing with some kind of claw clenched around the wing, crushing it. Krieg discarded the sheet of paper by tossing it aside, thinking that it was most likely some kind of propaganda. When Krieg finally emerged from the alleyway, he gasped and took a step back at the sight of five armoured ponies surrounding him at the exit. Their horns began to glow, charged with magic as one of them stepped forward. “You weren't levitating that poster,” he said sternly.
Paralyzed by fear, Krieg could only mutter, “oh shit."
There is no doubt about it,” Celestia said softly to her sister on the other side of a wide round table deep within the castle they both resided in. Her voice much less regal than it was whenever the princess addressed her beloved subjects, “her findings really are conclusive; they can drastically revolutionize the very essence of reality-” she paused her sentence, stricken with vivid thoughts surrounding the repercussions of the coming threat. “Equestria will never be the same.” Celestia broke eye contact with Luna straight after finishing her sentence by looking down at the table, cutting the view of Luna's face straight out of her line of vision.
“But, surely you can't be serious! If they know...” Her sister began to protest.
“No, Luna, you're right,” Celestia lifted her head once more, regaining eye contact, “the citizens of Equestria shouldn't know about this. Some forms of magic are best left forgotten in the pages they were recorded in.”
Krieg's head hurt. Unlike a regular headache, it had been the result of an impact; his head hitting either a wall or the floor (probably both) after being thrown forcefully into the vehicle, that he would usually have associated with prisoner transportation. The headache gradually worsened with every movement as he tried to pick himself up. He couldn't see anything through the darkness other than a tiny patch of light shining through from a tiny rectangular window with three bars extending vertically down to erase the miniscule chance that anypony could actually fit through and escape. Krieg began to lift himself up further to look out the window to get a view of his surroundings and therefore gain what situational awareness he possibly could. As he did, he heard deep, distorted voices. Identical to those spoken by the armoured ponies who had seen through the illusion of his counterfeit horn. “Pegasi and earthponies are still hiding out, they must be getting clever if one was able to disguise himself as a unicorn,” said one of them.
“We can still counteract their tactics. Besides, so long as we deal with new ones at birth, any pegasus or earthpony genes will eventually die out through Extreme Conditioning,” said another, equally emotionlessly.
So that's what they're doing, thought Krieg. He began to wonder what grim plans these ponies had for him. Through the window, he could see more of Ponyville rolling past. Some of the houses he saw were crumbled beyond recognition; imploded in on themselves with their residents long-since purged. A school which he vaguely recognized stood with its windows smashed into a dark interior, accompanied by a rusted flag pole vacant of any banner it may have once carried with pride. The state Ponyville had become made him want to look away from the window, to cower back into the corner he had been thrown into and await his fate. Yet his visceral resolve kept him standing, itching at his mind to find a way out, to complete his objective.
That was when everything turned upside down, literally. Using his wings, Krieg was able to quickly correct himself from the sudden state of disorientation that had pounced upon him without warning. As his eyes darted from left to right to scan for any changes other than the fact he was now standing on the ceiling and immediately saw that the walls were severely dented. He could hear hoofsteps and the same deepened voices but quieter and low enough to make words unrecognizable. As he turned himself around, Krieg could see that the door had been broken off. More specifically, it was hanging off a single metal hinge. Krieg could barely believe his eyes, as he stepped towards the door, turning around 180 degrees and raised his hind legs in the air before bucking it. With a deafening 'clang' sound, the door split away from the single remaining hinge and landed and on the grass a few metres away.
Stepping outside, Krieg found it difficult to contain his smile. A gust of wind lifted the tips of his mane and he could feel the cobbled path on his hooves. He realized that, if not freed by this unforeseen circumstance, he quite possibly would have never been outside to feel these again. What had caused the incidental miracle soon revealed itself when a hoof was placed on his neck. Instinctively, Krieg maneuvered himself away from it and pushed away whatever it was that the hoof belonged to. It was a surprised-looking orange mare. “Whoa, now! It's okay, they're dead,” she said defensively. Krieg eyed her suspiciously, she stood by the overturned kart and as she said, two armoured corpses lay on the ground, one of which had its head at a complete backwards angle. Beside her stood a pink pony with an equally pink mane that was somewhere between straight and curly. Like any puffy curls had deflated over time. After a couple of seconds of Krieg's mute scrutiny, the orange mare said hurriedly, “Now we gotta go, they'll send reinforcements!” Upon hearing that, Krieg bolted into action by searching the corpses. He searched pockets of armour with both his hooves and invisible wings. “What are you doing?!” asked the orange mare, sounding bemused at Krieg's lack of distress for the seriousness of the situation.
“They have something of mine,” he answered while continuing to rummage. “Got it!” He announced quickly while prizing out his saddle bags from a pocket of armour.
“Great,” she said equally quickly, “now let's get outta here!”
