Sunset Shimmer staggered across the strange forest she found herself in. This was not how she had imagined her grand plan going. When she had gone through the mirror she had expected things to immediately start looking up for her, she was Sunset Shimmer, was she not? The most beautiful and magically powerful unicorn in all of Equestria? Now however she was alone in a forest, could not do any magic and did not have the faintest clue of what to do now. She had been moving through the evergreen trees for almost two hours and had not found any sign of civilization. Even more harrowing was that now she had been transformed into some strange creature that could not even do magic. Sunset was willing to admit that she had had a bit of a panic attack when she realized that she had lost her most powerful ability. She was not willing to give up, there must be a reason Celestia had not revealed to her the secret behind the mirror. She had to discover the truth, she was Sunset Shimmer and she would-. In the middle of her internal rant Sunset had not been paying close enough attention to where she was going. As she continued to run sunset did not see the embankment before her, its presence partially concealed by a line of thick bushes. As she tumbled down and slammed her head on the thick concrete, the last thing she saw was a pair of strange glowing orbs.
The Kaiser (Emperor) of the reborn Holy Roman Empire, better known to some as the HRE, jerked awake as the convoy suddenly slammed to a stop. They were returning from a meeting with High Admiral Juliska Német, commander of the Sol system defense fleet. It was the year 2319. Now he had been on his way home to the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, however something had interrupted their nighttime journey. The Kaiser activated his personal energy shield and reached for his laser pistol, only to drop his hand away from it. He was as dangerous as a wolf in a space battle but he was next to worthless when it came to a firefight. With the alarmed faces of his imperial guardsmen right behind him the Kaiser strode out from the safety of his customized and heavily shielded and armored transport to survey the situation. The guards in the other vehicles in the convoy had already secured the area by the time the Kaiser had left his transport, their usual efficiency well demonstrated as they insured that there were no foes waiting to ambush them. Surveying the situation, the Kaiser cringed as he saw colonel Artem Mihaylov, head of his personal security detail, staring daggers at him. Mihaylov was a tall Russian man with thick eyebrows and a clean shaven face, and had been the head of the Kaiser’s personal guard for as long as anyone could remember. The Kaiser knew that he was going to get a lecture about keeping himself alive above satisfying his own curiosity as soon as he returned to the palace. Nevertheless he soon approached the front of the convoy, where a small gathering had occurred. Besides Artem Mihaylov, there were several other Guardsmen and strangely one of his security details medics. The medic was examining a prone form on the ground, though the Kaiser could not see who or what it was from his position. As he came closer to the scene the driver of the lead armored car approached as well, seeming very shaken about something. The female driver looked very young, but that did not mean much in this day and age. The Kaiser himself did not look a day over 35, but was well into his third century of life. Medical advances had come a long way since the days before the unification of mankind and the return of the Holy Roman Empire. However, she did appear surprisingly shaken, so perhaps she really was as young as she looked. It was unusual that someone so young should have been chosen to head the convoy, she must have impressed someone. The driver approached Colonel Mihaylov, who was in charge of the convoy despite the Kaiser's presence, as far as the command structure was concerned he was just a very powerful passenger, and saluted.
“Sir.” She intoned, somewhat shakily, “she just fell off the embankment right into our path, I am sorry for stopping the convoy but… it was instinct sir, I couldn’t just run her over.”
Colonel Mihaylov gave her a dark expression but said nothing. Technically the convoy should not stop for anything because they could endanger their precious cargos life which The Kaiser found a bit unnecessarily harsh. He would make sure the Colonel did not come down too hard on her. regardless now the Kaiser's curiosity was peaked and he wanted to know what had happened.
“Sir” Mihaylov said, stepping forward to block his lord's path but the Kaiser just passed by, his curiosity once again overriding his good judgment. He wanted to see who had interrupted his convoy’s path. To his surprise a young woman lay, bleeding from the head and clearly unconscious, in the road. She was wearing what appeared to be standard teenager attire, but that was all that was normal about her. Her hair was a fiery color, striped with red and yellow, and her eyes were a striking blue green color, much like the Kaiser's own, yet those were not the strangest thing. Her skin was an orange color, not natural by any stretch of the imagination, only skin dyeing or genetic modification could have created that. While such things happened in the empire, and were quite legal, they were uncommon enough that her appearance was striking. The Kaiser turned to the medic who was examining her
“Is she alright?”
“yes my lord, but…there are two things that are odd that I can see with a quick scan. One her skin color has been modified genetically, not dyed, and two she has no nanites.” Nanites were the standard way of treating all medical conditions, almost every human had them in their bodies. From age treatments to keeping basic sickness away nanites were a part of everyday life in the imperium. To find someone who did not have them would be extremely odd. It also meant that she was the age she appeared, for without nanites she could not have modified her physical age. The Kaiser withdrew a few paces to speak with a somewhat annoyed Mihaylov.
“What do you think old friend?” the Kaiser asked, somewhat of a wry smile on his bearded face. Mihaylov returned the expression
“well my lord I think that this is just another one of the bizarre circumstances that follow you like glue.” His face grew more serious after that joke. “in all professionalism I don’t know what to think, whoever she is she is not normal.”
“I agree, we will take her back to the Hofburg’s medical wing, see what we can learn about her there.” Mihaylov nodded and saluted before heading back to the girl. “and Mihaylov,” the Kaiser stated. “make sure she stays sedated till we get home, just to be on the safe side.” Mihaylov nodded, and turned back to the wounded girl. It was only a few moments later that the convoy moved on towards their ultimate objective of the Hofburg Palace.
The palace itself had not changed much since it had been reclaimed by the Kaiser during the third world war. Its beautiful white edifice glimmered gold in the lights that illuminated it. The unidentified girl had been already transferred to the palace’s medical wing. The palace was far more than a residency for the Kaiser, it was the center of the entire empires government, filled with the thousands of staffers, autocrats, bureaucrats, diplomats and other functionaries the kept the 26 planets and innumerable moons and space stations of the empire together. The empire did not practice direct rule, letting the individual systems govern themselves for the most part, usually ruled by a duke or duchess of the empires appointment. As long as they followed the imperial constitution (and paid their taxes) they were largely allowed to do what they wanted. Of course the days of nobles having their own private armies and navies were long gone, but they still held considerable power.
None of that mattered now however as the Kaiser moved down the halls towards the medical wing to see what they had to say about their mystery girl. As he strode through the halls followed by his guards the small personal phone he had went off, only a few people could reach him there and all of them knew not to abuse the privilege. After retracting the phone from a pocket on his uniform and activating it, the screen revealed an image of a small Hungarian woman with dark hair and eyes. She was clothed in a dark blue military uniform and had a worried look in her eyes, even if her face otherwise looked to be impassive. As his image was transmitted back to her she was visibly relieved, though only someone who knew her well could have spotted it. She was High Admiral Juliska Német, the person he had been originally meeting that day and his old friend.
“So I heard you got held up on the way back.” She asked, a slight hint of worry in her voice. She had always been somewhat paranoid, though the amount of times both of them had nearly been killed over the years might have had something to do with that.
“Just a minor hiccup, we discovered a very unusual girl on the way back.” The Kaiser proceeded to tell the tale of what happened. Német was not at all happy with what had transpired on the journey.
“My Kaiser you need to be more careful, with all due respect there are still a lot of people that would like to see you dead. I know you believe that you cannot bow to fear but you need to remember that your life matters. We both know that in a ground fight your useless so try to not put yourself in that situation again. So where is the girl now?”
“In the Palace’s medical wing, she…” he was cut off by the barely contained rage on the other end of the phone.
“You let an unidentified girl with strange origins into the palace?! Sir she could be an assassin or spy or any one of a hundred different things.”
“She is being guarded and watched, nothing’s going to happen. This is not the war anymore, there may be some dissidence but the days of killing are over. This is not the Rhine campaign again, I learned my lesson then.”
She flinched at the reminder of that particular near tragedy, but nodded slowly.
“Be careful, Német out.”
The Kaiser put his phone away with some trepidation and continued his journey to the medical wing. As much as he hated to admit it Német had a point, nothing could be assumed about this situation at all. He should also try to be more careful, if only to save his friends the worry. Német had not shown it in any clear way but the abruptness, if technically correct, method of the calls ending told the Kaiser that she was still upset over his carelessness. Most of the time the rules of political rank bound their conversations and actions, but Német and, Mihaylov for that matter, were still his friends.
After arriving at the medical wing the doctor in charge of the mystery girl came out and shook the Kaiser's hand. He was a gruff but competent man with many years of experience treating battle wounds. The long years of combat had given him a no nonsense no frills outlook on life, and a somewhat startling lack of respect towards authority for someone so high up in the empire. However, despite these facts no one could deny that he was good at his job.
“My Kaiser,” he stated with very little inflection in his voice. “I have run some basic test on her including several rounds of DNA testing, and I have found something odd.” He continued on without any pause, “Her DNA is almost within normal variations for humans, but there are definitely some oddities. Under normal circumstances I would be only a bit suspicious but considering everything…” He allowed his words to hang ominously in the air, implying everything that had not been said.
The Kaiser frowned slightly “illegal genetic modification?” While some genetic modification was legal, going too far with it or trying to tailor someone was illegal.
“Not likely, in the cases I have seen they have almost always been more obvious on the genetic level at least, if you’re going to be modified anyway you might as well go all out. Also the variations present in her don’t seem to provide any noticeable advantage.”
The Kaiser nodded, and motioned for colonel Mihaylov to come over from where he had been lurking. “I want you to have those woods and surrounding areas swept for anything unusual, even if a stick is out of place I want to know.”
Mihaylov merely smiled at his Kaiser, “what do you think I was doing while you were talking to the admiral?”
The Kaiser, slightly chagrined, nodded with more than a little appreciation for his friend’s competence and Mihaylov returned to his old location,
The doctor continued his report, slightly annoyed at the interruption. “Now if you will let me continue I was going to say that the girl, who claims her name is Sunset Shimmer,” he snorted at the name, “is now awake. She has told us she is suffering from amnesia and can’t remember anything.” The skeptical look on his face told the Kaiser all he needed to know about that.
“You think she’s faking.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes,” the doctor replied, “amnesia with total memory loss is very rare and it usually requires more trauma than she experienced. Most of the time there are many other symptoms as well, taking a hit to the head powerful enough to erase memory usually causes damage to other parts of the brain. It’s not impossible she is telling the truth, just unlikely.”
The Kaiser nodded, concern creasing his face. “Thank you doctor, that will be all.”
As the doctor retreated the Kaiser again turned to Mihaylov. “See what you can find out about her, though I suspect it will not be much. Tomorrow I will see her in person so make all the necessary arrangements, just in case she is not what she seems.” There was a pause as the Kaiser tried to think of something more to say, then decided that there was nothing to add and retreated out the door and headed to his quarters for a well-deserved rest. Behind him the rest of his ever present detail followed him, Mihaylov already making arrangements.
Sunset Shimmer sat back on the hospital bed and thought about all the strange things, both good and bad, that had happened since she fell through the portal. She of course was not suffering from amnesia, and she suspected that the doctors knew it. However from what she could tell they had no way to prove she was faking. As much as she did not like the flimsy lie there was really no other way to proceed since she did not have any knowledge of this world. Sunset had overheard enough conversations to know that by sheer luck or fate she had managed to stumble into some very powerful people. As the doctors and nurses continued about their work she allowed a small smile to appear on her lips, things were going to be very interesting indeed.
Author's Note
Been looking to create a story like this for a long time, let me know what you all think of it. Any questions about the history of the empire can be asked as well, and if by some very unlikely event there are lot I will make a blog about the history.
