!

The Roman Klabautermanns proved to be the prefect shock troops, the enemy soldiers both the Bolshevik and White army found out quickly. The Roman Klabautermanns used their crew copies in their ship forms to overwhelm the enemy forces. The Roman Klabautermanns used old tactics like forming a tortoise formation but with heavy machine guns pointing out from the gasps and mowing down enemy soldiers, while being protected by a wall of metal shields that could withstand all but cannon fire. In close combat they proved to be stronger than any man and combine with their armor and melee weapon of choice the iconic gladius to cut down the enemy soldiers.

The Roman Klabautermanns when using their single body forms got into positions on the battlefield and transform into their ship forms and created a fort with their ship bodies. Letting them unleash their crew copies out in the battlefield, leaving the generals or leaders of either armies trying to get their soldiers to fight and not to flee. Not helped by that Some of the Roman Klabautermanns are armed with cannons and mortars that their ship bodies can carry, leaving the enemy soldiers baldly out gunned. They’re also much harder to kill, thanks to their real wooden ship bodies that have been armored up with metal plating and reinforced. Where even head shots aren’t fatal to them. (1)

The Russia Klabautermanns lead the Roman Klabautermanns who use their more powerful weapons and even stronger bodies, that have taken cannon fire. They just power through everything that the enemy soldiers throw at them, with very little being able to actually damage their heavily armored metal bodies. Made easy thanks to the fact that the enemy soldiers are poorly armed on the most part. The few enemy soldier units who are armed with weapons that can harm a battleship are few and are concentrated protecting key locations, mostly where the leaders are holed up.

The US army unit under the command of Theodore Roosevelt Jr and using magic orbs instead of radios that could be listened by others, allowed the ex-president to listen to the in coming reports on the battlefield and give out orders without having to wait for someone to decode it. Along with a magic map that shows where the units are in real time, allowing Roosevelt to send reinforcements where they’re needed or anything else that happens on the battlefield.

As for Sunset she handled the important task of logistics both for her army and for her people. With the civil war ravaging the country, trade and travel has all but grind to a halt because of the soldiers of both the Bolshevik and White army plunder the lands for food, supplies, and valuables. Sunset’s army on the other hand does the opposite, they give them food and supplies to survive for the ones that were stolen from and pay using Roman coins for the villages and settlements that weren’t, thus winning them over.

They also leave behind at least 4 or 10 Roman Klabautermanns who be stationed at the villages and settlements. Building a Roman style fort and garrison by the ship’s copy crew. Giving the people in said settlement security and protection, and unlike the soldiers of either Bolshevik and White army, didn’t go and steal and rape at will. They also repaired what was destroyed and resupplied them with food and other supplies that they need to survive. Giving the lands they pass new infrastructure, paved roads, security and gaining the people’s loyalty. Slowing the advance but the long term gains, is far greater than the lost of momentum.

There are forces who are still loyal to the royal family who joined the army but they’re always with the Klabautermanns to keep them in line. Sunset spend most of her time meeting and talking with people who remained loyal to her family and wish to join her side. Which she would summon Rasputin which unknown to everyone but her Klabautermanns is nothing more than an illusion she created. While the ghost has their attention, Sunset cast a truth spell that prevents the person from lying which she plays off as being Rasputin’s power. Allowing her to find out which ones are loyal and which ones aren’t. Weeding out the ones who can’t be trusted from the ones who can be trusted, some of the untrusted ones only side with her for personal reasons or to survive. Which is fine with Sunset as long as they know their place. She has a country to rebuild and a government to create to replace the old one, she does need people to be apart of her new government.

Sunset is looking at the list of people who have pledged their loyalty to her and pass her truth spell. The ones who didn’t depending on who they are, have been impaled as a warning to others. Reserve for the ones who are planning on betraying her or have other plans to use the power they had hope to gain from her. She showed the people of the old government that she isn’t playing by the old rules anymore and nothing like the girl they remember. She needs competent people in power and not incompetent morons like the generals that lead her human father’s army.

“Princess,” the voice of Baba Yaga spoke from the crystal ball.

“Yes?” Sunset ask looking at the crystal ball showing Baba Yaga.

“Your uncle of England is trying to summon HMS Victory’s Klabautermann. He has been gathering everything he could think of to use to summon her,” Baba Yaga said.

“There aren’t any magic users who have the skills to do something like that left. The witch hunts took care of that. And I been trying to find anyone who does and found nothing, and you also been searching as well,” Sunset said.

“I did found a small hidden community of magic users but they been isolated too long by themselves and have inbred to the point where they have very little magic left and look the part,” Baba Yaga said.

“Like the Habsburgs?” Sunset ask.

“Yes,” Baba Yaga said. “Seems that they were apart of a larger community of a hidden magic world but they always refused to teach anyone who isn’t a fully blooded magic user. Resulting them becoming inbred and losing their knowledge they once had. The wards that hides the community from muggles as they call them, they have no idea how to recreate them.” (2)

“What happen to them?” Sunset ask.

“I killed them off. They wanted to use me as a breeder to give them powerful magical children,” Baba Yaga said.

“Good, and how is my uncle trying to summon a Klabautermann?” Sunset ask.

“He’s been singing with an orchestra playing the songs you done trying to get the same results as you did,” Baba Yaga said.

“The spies have discovered that a ruler is needed?” Sunset asks.

“Yes but then again you didn’t try to hide that fact,” Baba Yaga said.

“Gaining the title of Empress of Rome couldn’t have been hidden,” Sunset said and thought of something. “Has uncle found another wisdom cube?”

“No, all he has are old artifacts that are said to be magical,” Baba Yaga said.

“Good, the only one who knows besides use is Tesla and he’s been keeping quite in the lab I provided for him,” Sunset said.

“Has he made anything yet?” Baba Yaga asked.

“He made me a magic staff,” Sunset said looking at the staff Tesla made trying to harness the power of the wisdom cube. The staff is really a pylon where the main support is used as the handle and the top is a shielded Tesla coil. “It allows me to focus my powers and have more control.”

“Have you used it yet?” Baba Yaga ask.

“No, I haven’t. No need, the army is doing their job well and even when some are taken out, unlike the human soldiers, they can be rebuild,” Sunset said.

While the enemy soldiers often lack the weapons to damage the Klabautermanns, they did have explosives like sticks of TNT which they used. Resulting in many dead and wounded Roman Klabautermanns and damaged Russian Klabautermanns. But Sunset had come prepared and had Roman ships refitted to be mobile repair workshops being loaded with everything needed to repair and rebuild wooden ships or metal ones. The Russian Klabautermann Kamchatk a repair ship, along with Kommuna a salvage submarine ship with help from the Roman repair ships, repair their Russian sister ships. The wounded ones just needed to eat to repair themselves.

“There are also many spies and observers watching the civil war, among the reporters who have tagged along. They’re learning all they can about Klabautermanns and searching for weaknesses. Uncle Wilhelm‘s new fleet is drawing attention away from me, just as plan but the shock and awe you all present will fade as it’s normalized. And now that they know that magic is real they will eventually figure it out,” Sunset said.

“It’s a lost art for a reason,” Baba Yaga said.

“Yes and full of con artists who will try to profit off of the gullible trying to learn magic. The church made it very hard to learn magic and how priests who say they speak for God, which is why I’m separating the government from the church. But I could teach some young priests and nuns who have talent in magic to heal. Showing that magic is nothing more than a tool. No they will just use that to justify themselves for being the ones that people have to listen to live how they see fit,” Sunset said.

“But they will experiment and use anything to learn to use magic. And that show you did has them looking into music to use magic,” Baba Yaga said.

“Magic is a lost art but if people could learn to use magic once, eventually they will figure it out again,” Sunset said. (3)

“From what I have seen with your uncle. It will take years at the rate they’re going,” Baba Yaga said.

“And I have the only genius who can figure out magic using science,” Sunset said. “Have you found anything magical?”

“No, I haven’t found anything new. I’m going to travel to the Americans and see what, I can find there,” Baba Yaga said.

“The items you have sent are magic but weak magic. The humans haven’t refined or studied magic as they should. Now it be years for them to catch up without someone like me to show them how,” Sunset said.

“Like building a train when no one knows how but knows what they look like and an idea of how they work,” Baba Yaga said.

“Have tons of gifts being sent to me to win my favor and to teach magic. Mostly from my human family,” Sunset said.

“As if you owe them anything. The news of you being a magical pony unicorn that I used to make the new you has already spread here,” Baba Yaga said.

“They will either believe or don’t, either way if someone else from Equestria ends up here, they will know where to go to find someone else in the human world,” Sunset said.

“What about ones who got here before you?” Baba Yaga asks.

“They all should be dead but for the long lived races. But they would be humans, who don’t live that long. But there could be descendant,” Sunset said.

“How about the place you first appeared at?” Baba Yaga ask.

“Already sent a unit to secure the area and sent another unit to the mine where my human family bodies are. I will lay them to rest,” Sunset said.

“I will look for Equestrians,” Baba Yaga said signing off from the crystal ball.

Sunset got up from the table with the papers she’s been looking over and walk towards the bed, needing sleep. Where Standart is laying on having been in the room the entire time and ready to serve her princess. She didn’t have to be told what she needed to do, anytime her human family is brought up Sunset is hit by the memories of what her human counterpart had. Sunset cast a spell on Standart making her look like her mother and she lays down besides Standart and curls up to her and clings to her.

Standart hums as she holds her princess who only has the memories of her human self of what being with a mother is like. To have a father and siblings, to have a family. Something that her birth mother Celestia never gave her or could give. Sunset never missed what she never experienced before, but now with her human self’s memories, she knows what it would have been like. Her curling and hugging her mother Celestia who hugs her back while humming a tune, to help her sleep and give her comfort when she needed it.

!

Author's Note

1 - The Roman Klabautermanns are able like in video games heavily armored enemies who can take several headshots before they die. Which unlike in video games where it’s just for gameplay, the reason is that the Klabautermanns are really ships and they don’t go down just by shooting them in the head.

2 - A Harry Potter like hidden world but with the magic users refusing to let anyone else but them to join. Resulting in the magic users becoming inbred and losing their magic, thanks to being inbreds with tons of genetic problems and mental issues.

3 - in settings that doesn’t have people fighting everyday to live another day, people can rediscovered lost art forms, it just takes time or even come up with something better. Along with people being allowed to relearn the lost art form and no group is making sure that people don’t learn things that they believe is forbidden.

Like modern chemistry can replicate Roman concrete, but no one these days wants to pay the premium for a building that will endure like the Romans' did.