A Tiger in Equestria

It was 1944, the Red Army had managed to stop our Blitzkrieg into their lands, and had begun counter-attacking. Our Fuhrer, fearing that the Hungarians would surrender to the Communist scum, sent us into Budapest to make sure that they would continue the fight. It was a routine mission, and one I thought was going to be very easy, and with very little risk of damage for us. I was in the newest result of quality German engineering, a Tiger II. This beauty wouldn't be penetrated by the strongest of anti-tank guns, and I was certain that the Hungarians didn't have much in the way of opposing us.

I was the tank commander of this tank, and my fellow patriots were Albrecht, the tank gunner, Bernhard, the loader, Dietrich, the Radio Operator, and finally Gerhard, our driver. Driving through the city wasn't exactly the best of the plans High Command made, but orders were orders. Having my head inside the turret to prevent it from being shot off by someone in the buildings or a lucky shot. Don't get me wrong, serving the fatherland was one of the greatest honors, I would like to go home alive after this though. This meant that I didn't notice as the scenery was completely changed. The only thing I noticed was the radio suddenly being silent, and Dietrich suddenly adjusting the radio,  letting off a string of curse words. After fiddling with it for a while, he called for me.

"Schmidt, I think you need to see this,"he said.

"Ja, what seems to be the problem?"I replied.

"Either the radio died, or we're cut off!"

"Schiess, anything wrong with the radio?"

"Nein!"

I opened the hatch and looked out, what greeted me was extremely surprising.

Instead of the ruined city I was expecting, I saw an open plain with a clear blue sky. The tank was in the middle of the pathway, where the pathway led to, I had no idea. As I looked behind me, I saw a weird forest. It was eerie to say the least, and it looked dark. The trees trunks weren't brown, instead being a weird black color. The leaves were no better, instead of looking green, they looked quite dark, as if someone decided it would be a good idea to paint them black. Oh god, am I finally cracking under the stress? I ducked my head back into the turret to ask if Gerhard and Albrecht saw the same thing. A few ideas flashed through my mind about what happened. I'm not being affected by some strange gas the Hungarians got their hands on, right? The madness part was dispelled by Gerhard and Albrecht affirming that they also saw the same thing. Dietrich and Bernhard left their posts to look through the gunner scope and driver window.

Shouts of confusion ensued.

"How did we get here? Where the fuck is Budapest?"

"Oh Scheiss, how in the name of the Fuhrer did we get here?"

"In fact, where the bloody hell are we?"

"Enough!" — I held my hand to my head, knowing that the headache was going to come at any second — "Our first priority is to find the nearest civilization, and then identify if they are hostile. Panicking is not going to help get us back to Germany!"

They immediately stopped panicking and I was able to order Gerhard to start driving the tank down the dirt road. One of the disadvantages of this tank, was that it was horribly slow. An earlier Panzer would have been much faster, but I was not giving up the protection that this tank provided. I guess it was paranoia, but hey, it's not paranoia when you have a legitimate reason to do so!

Everyone was tensed up, prepared to spring into action if necessary, and I have to admit, I was so too. I had no idea how we got here, but I sure as hell am going to find out!

A while down the dirt path, I spotted was appears to be a village, but the style of the design was more... older. It reminded me of some older German villages back in the Fatherland. Which reminds me, we should get back so we could contribute to the war effort. A bit close on the path, was... apparently a giant apple farm. A red barn and a lot of apple trees, with buckets under each of them. A white picket fence surrounded the entire farm, and ended with an archway with a giant apple sign hanging from the arch.

The path narrowed considerably when reaching the arch, and I felt that crashing through the arch would not be a good idea to introduce ourselves, and I was unwilling to leave the relative safety of the tank in order to walk in. Not knowing what the farmers defended themselves with, ranging from pitchforks to shotguns, I wasn't in the mood to be shot.

"Keep us moving, I don't think the farmer folk would be too happy to see us. Especially if we destroy part of their property getting in." And I'd rather not die in a strange land.

As the the outskirts of the town came into view, I was able to see the town much more clearly. The roofs seemed to be made of thatching, and the walls were built out of something white. If I had to hazard a guess, it would probably be quite strong and hard. There were some anomalies from the standard design though, one being that weird little house that looked like it was made out of frosting and cake. I had no idea how it was standing if this was true,it was probably painted over materials then. Crossing over a ledge, I saw... Is that a house? Built in a tree? That's a giant fire hazard if I ever saw one, and the height of it means that it'll attract lightning. Surprised that this hasn't burst into flames yet.

As the tank rolled into the middle of the town, this is surprisingly quiet. I had a feeling that something was off. Too quiet...

"Cut the engine, no use wasting fuel here," I said.

"Jawohl!" Gerhard said, turning off the engine in the process.

"Dietrich, Gerhard, get your STG 44s and let's scout the area out, the radio's kaput and we're not going anywhere until I have some answers."

They agreed an were grabbing their STG 44s as I stepped out from the cupola, STG 44 in my hand and a Luger in my pocket just in case. The candy house seemed like it would be a good first place to search.

"On either side of me, and stay alert, we have no idea what the local inhabitants will do."

They stepped up to the side of me and were looking all around, trying to find if any threats were here. My biggest fear was that someone would appear from a window somewhere and put a bullet through my head. But the fear was unfounded as we managed to get to candy house. As I passed by I saw a sign that proclaimed, "Welcome to Sugarcube Corner!" Sugarcube Corner? Wait this is in English! The local inhabitants speak English? I could be in America for all I know! As Dietrich and Gerhard followed my gaze to the sign, they immediately tensed up, fearing that we were somewhere that spoke English. Only the Allies spoke English, none of the Axis countries had it as a primary language. I slowly pushed open the pink door and it was surprisingly dark in here.

It appears that Sugarcube Corner was a pastry shop, and a pretty big one at that. There were all sorts of desserts in glass display cabinets and there was a big three-layer cake in a corner. There was a table on the right where I assumed people could sit and eat at. All the blinds were pulled down for some reason and there was no light inside. I was going to the nearest window to open the blinds when I saw a pair of eyes look at me.Oh scheiss, scheiss, scheiss, this looks like a horror movie! Gerard and Dietrich were scanning the area, and when Gerard saw the eyes he was going to shoot them before I held a hand to his gun.

"Verdammt, don't shoot them unless we're sure they're hostile!"

He nodded and left to search the rest of the building. I opened the blinds to shed some light on the situation here. When I opened the blinds, instead of a person, I saw 6 horses all huddled in a corner. They were all the colors of the rainbow, one was white with a purple mane with a horn sticking out of its forehead. Wait, is this a unicorn? And do does horses have wings?

"Gerhard, Dietrich, did you find anyone?" I said.

"Nein, No one in the back." Gerhard replied

"No one upstairs." Dietrich yelled from the stairs.

I waved them over to where I was. I asked them, "Any idea why there are a bunch of horses huddled in corner?"

"Wait, how are they on the floor? Only sick horses lie on the floor! Those aren't horses, they're too small. They're more like ponies." Gerhard used to work on a ranch before he was conscripted to fight for the fatherland.

"How is that possible? Are they all sick?"

"I have no idea!"

"Should we put them —" Dietrich tapped my shoulder, "what?"

He pointed at the ponies and said, "I think the purple one is looking at us."

I turned my head and discovered that she was watching us intently, as if she was studying something. Then when she noticed me looking at her, she quickly turned her head away, Wait did they just understand what I said? If the sign is in English, they maybe I should try speaking English then. If they were intelligent, they should respond to this then!

"Should we use them for food? I think —"

Upon hearing this, Gerhard and Dietrich gave me confused faces as to why I suddenly switched to German, but the ponies were giving me a look of horror. Ah, so you are intelligent then.

"—that's a horrible idea." The ponies let go of a giant breath, and it was loud enough for both Gerhard and Dietrich to hear. Gerhard and Dietrich were alarmed by the noise, and looked to me for an reason.

"I believe we've found the local inhabitants. They're intelligent ponies." I explained, before turning to them and said, "We come in peace, we don't mean any harm."

One of them, a cyan pony with wings, jumped up and said, "Then why were you trying to use us for—" She broke off as she realized that she had spoken in response to me, getting daggers from the rest of the ponies. Dietrich and Gerhard looked like they were beyond confused.

"Well since the cat's out of the bag, why don't you all stand up and let's get to know each other, shall we?" I said, before giving them the biggest grin I had. Hopefully this alleviates their fears. Apparently not, as the ponies were even more scared when they saw me smile. I facepalmed and pointed at the purple one. "You, stand up, name and occupation. Now."

She stood up and said,"My name is Twilight Sparkle, I am a student of Princess Celestia, the ruler of this land."

"Do you have a method of contacting this... "Princess" then?"

"Yes, I do"

"Call her to wherever this place is, for I would love to meet her. I shall be waiting in the tank for her."

And with that, I left the building with Gerhard and Dietrich, and walked through the cupola and into the tank. Dietrich and Gerhard gave me a look that meant 'you'd better explain'.

I sighed and said, "My grandmother was English, and she moved down to the Fatherland to meet my grandfather. Even though she had willing gave up her English roots, she still thought it a good idea to teach me the language, just in case I ever needed it. Guess it was handy, isn't it?"

The crew looked at me for a while, before Albrecht finally got up.

He said, "Since you are the only one who knows English here, I guess you'll have to translate for us. I guess we'll all have to learn some English too."

"Since I basically demanded them to call for their leader, we'll be sitting pretty while whoever is their leader, I imagine another pony, comes down here to see us. Until then, you lot better go over what we have left in here, it could be a while."

Everyone got up and began to take inventory, in a few minutes I was reading off a checklist of what everyone had.

STG 44 x5

7.92x33 magazines x100

Luger x5

9x19 magazines x25

Stielhandgranate x5

Flammenwerfer x2

Assorted rations x50 cans

Water bottles x5

Assortment of spare parts

A toolkit w/ an assortment of tools x1

Panzerschreck x2

Panzerschreck rockets x10

Pack of cards x1

At the last item on the list, I looked up and asked, "Who got had those cards,  I'm not going to yell at you, just fess up."

Bernhard slowly raised his hand and sheepishly said, "It was me sir."

"Well then, anyone up for a game of cards? Seeing as you're the one who brought it, you get guard duty. Get up to the cupola and be on the lookout."

The rest of the crew huddled together as we started to play Poker to pass the time.