A Tiger in Equestria

Albrecht, seeing the new card that I drew from the stack, flipped his cards over with a grunt. While Dietrich and I threw in a few more Reichsmarks into the pile. Gerhard seemd to be mulling over if he wanted to follow or not. We were waiting for him for his decision. Hope this pressure means he makes a wrong move. He followed and threw two Reichsmarks into the pile. He flipped over his hand to reveal two pairs of 7 and 9. I threw over mine to reveal a three-of-a-kind, made up of three 5 cards. Dietrich, seeing my hand, whooped and threw down his slightly larger three sixes. He then grabbed the small pile of Reichsmarks and stuffed them in his pocket. I'm going to be broke if I go on at this rate. As fate would have it, Bernhard decided to inform us that their leader had arrived.

"I think their leader is here!

"Great, join the crew if you want to lose all your money to Dietrich."

Dietrich just gave me a really happy smile.

I exchanged my spot with Bernhard and looked out. I saw what appeared to be a giant pony, nearly twice as big and tall as the normal ponies. She had both wings and horns, and her skin was so white that even if you threw yourself into a vat of bleach you wouldn't be this white. The weirdest thing was her mane and tail, it seemed to be like rainbow coloured water, but somehow defying gravity and flowing sideways. She had a golden crown on her head and she had a sun on her butt. Knowing that taking the initiative would meant that I would control the conversation, I spoke first.

"So, you are the leader of these ponies, correct?"

"Yes, I am. I am Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria."

"Did you just rhyme that on purpose?" It looked kinda surprised at that comment.

"What? Oh, that was... unintentional."

"Whatever, first thing's first, where are we."

"You are in the land of Equestria" No thanks, Captain Obvious.

"Never mind, is there a place called Germany here?"

"I don't think so, would that happen to be Germania?"What? Is she talking about the Roman country?

"No I think that would be a different country, now how about you send us back to Germany, and we'll forget about all of this."

"I regret to inform you that I am unable to transport you back to this... 'Germany' you speak of." Great. Just great. Now we're stuck in this country with talking technicoloured horses.I wonder how my sister will do now? Well she was expecting me to die when I left for the front lines, I guess she'll have to live with it.

"Now if you don't mind me asking," she said, "How did you get here?"

I threw my hands up and said, " I thought you knew! How in the bloody name of the Fuhrer should I know how we got here from Budapest! We'd just like to go back to Earth!"

She seemed to recognize the word 'Earth'.There's something you're not telling me here.

"You should have said you were from Earth. I am able to teleport you back to earth." Wait, did she say teleport!?

"Hold it, you're able to teleport me back to Earth, but not Germany?"

"Yes."

"That means you have no idea where we're getting teleported to, just on the same planet?!"

"Yes?"

"That means that me and my crew could find themselves in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in a seventy ton tank!?"

"I suppose so, but you may be able to be teleported to this... Germany you speak of."

"You have a 0.124% chance of sending us to the right country." I deadpanned.

She seemed taken aback by news, that the chance of us getting to the right country was that low.

"If I may ask, how big is this Germany?"

"About 633,000 square kilometers."

"How long is one kilometer?"

"A thousand meters"

"How long is one meter?"

"A tenth of the length of this tank."

"Then how big is your planet?"

"510,072,000 square kilometers."

She seemed very surprised at this, with her eyebrows shooting up into her forehead.

"How many people are on this planet, in your time?"

"2.3 billion people. Why?"

She seemed to stare into space for a second there, muttering something that I couldn't make out. Her expression then hardened and she asked me a really strange question.

"Do you mean harm to my little ponies?"

I nearly fell over laughing at this question.Are you serious?

"Look Celestia, if I wanted to harm 'your little ponies' I would've easily done so. Earlier when you weren't here, and even now I could've easily killed most of you."

She seemed to accept this reasoning, and was contemplating something. I took this as an opportunity to tell my crew that we weren't going home anytime soon. The news was met with... mixed results.

"How will I see my wife? Or my Daughter?"

"My parents need me to help them!"

"I knew my brother was annoying, but he was all I had."

"We're stuck here, unless you want to risk the 0.124% chance that you'll end up in Germany."

For all their complaints, there really didn't want to risk that small chance.

"I guess my family were prepared in the event I didn't come back..."

"Yep, so were mine."

"Oh but I can't stand their faces."

"Get over it. Moping won't help. "

I left them to mope to each other. Looking out again, I found that Twilight had been in an animated conversation with Celestia. I left them to their own devices until they remembered our presence. Closing the hatch, I looked back inside, hoping a nice poker match would take their minds of their families.

Apparently they got carried away, as it was quite a while before they knocked on the hatch. Or they were too scared to approach the tank. Either way, I opened the hatch, and found another large pony staring in my face. This one was slightly smaller than Celestia, and had a black crown on her head. Hence I presumed the pony in question was another Princess. She also had the same gravity defying hair, but this time it was blue and dark blue instead of a rainbow color. She was dark blue, instead of bleached white, and she had a moon on her butt. She also seemed to lack volume control, and liked to speak in Ye Olde English.

"Does thou not see that we want to speak with thee?"

I covered my ears from the noisy barrage, and the crew grabbed the nearest gun when they heard the sound. I waved them off, and then looked back to the Princess.

"What was that for?!"

"It is tradition to speak with our subjects using the Royal Canterlot Voice!"

"Yeah well cut it Princess before I become deaf!"

She sheepishly looked away before speaking in a much more manageable volume.

"Thou think that I am too loud?"

"Yes, and cut the Olde English!"

"But it is tradition to refer to me as us, and  you as thou!"

"Ack, again with the volume, just speak normally!"

"We do not know how to speak... normally as you might say."

"What? Why?"

"When we were banished to the moon for a thousand years, we —"

I held my hands up to stop her, saying, "Wait, you were banished to the moon? And for a thousand years!? How did you even get up there?! Not to mention how you breathed up there?!"

"My sister banished me to the moon with the Elements of Harmony."What are these 'Elements of Harmony' and to be so powerful as to send someone to the moon!

"What are these Elements of Harmony?"

"They were taken from the Tree of Harmony"Raises more questions instead.

"Okay, what is this Tree of Harmony?"

"It is the tree that governs the harmony in the land."

"And how does it do so?"

"Magic!"

"Magic doesn't exist, it's usually an illusion."

She seemed horribly confused and slightly angry.

"What does thou mean by magic not existing? Magic clearly exists!"

To prove her point, her horn glowed and a boulder was surrounded a blue-ish glow. It then proceeded to lift it up for a few inches.What? There must be some sort of crane here. I looked up and found only the sky. Does magic really exist here? Or that they made the crane hard to see? Probably the latter.

"Very nice crane, you almost had me there for a second."

She looked frustrated, and then she... teleported?!

"Hazzah! Now does thou believe in the presence of magic?"

Okay, now I believe it. Wait, do those wings work?

"Wait, then can you fly too?"

"Of course we can!"

She flew up in the air, flapping her wings to keep her hovering in the air above the tank.

I ducked in to call the rest of the crew, and told them to get on top of the turret. They were extremely surprised by this new pony hovering in mid-air with her wings. I asked her to demonstrate magic again, and she obligingly teleported onto the turret, which caused us to grab our guns as an instinctive reaction.

"Apparently, ponies can fly and they have magic."

They were too shocked to respond, I ordered them back in, thinking that they would get around to it later. I asked what her job was.

"Our job is to raise the moon at night, and lower it in the morning."

That was one of the most ridiculous things I ever heard, and thus I reacted accordingly. I began to laugh so hard that I was crying tears of joy and my stomach hurt. She did not seem amused.

"'Tis the truth!"

"Yeah, uh,I don't think you can move a large rock in the sky, next thing you'll be telling me Celestia moves the sun."

She actually nodded her head at that.

"You've got to be kidding me, you moving the moon is believable, but no way is she moving a enormous ball in the sky!"

"Magic."

"It all comes down to magic doesn't it. Oh, wake me up in the morning, not that your moon isn't pretty, but we're used to a very rigid sleeping schedule. Good night!"

I slammed down the hatch and locked it. Settling myself next to the engine for warmth, the rest of the crew already curled up next to it, I slowly joined them in dreamland.