Brandis, Germany. February 13th, 1945.
The winter of 1944-45 wasn’t too great for Germany. The Ardennes Counteroffensive had failed spectacularly, the Red Army was rampaging its way closer to Berlin, and their air superiority was only a myth. For Luftwaffe pilot Kurt Paulus, only the later really mattered at all. On this cold February day, he sat on the runway in the cockpit of a unique aircraft: a Messerschmitt Me 163 “Komet”, a rocket propelled interceptors operated by Jagdgeswader 400. Three such aircraft sat on the runway. Several miles away were their targets: a flight of twenty or so B-17 Flying Fortresses. There were three sitting on the runway, with Kurt in the number three aircraft. He was relatively new to this whole “Flying a volatile rocket into combat” thing. He joined the squadron after only a year of flying Bf 109’s against Allied bomber formations. Now, he sat in a Komet, waiting for the order to take off. Three ship missions were a rarity since the plant producing fuel for them was bombed back in September.
The aircraft itself had a stumpy, almost egg shaped fuselage with two enormous swept wings allowing it to glide with ease. Other than a rudder there was no tail, a trade mark of its designer Alexander Lippisch. It was painted in an acceptable camouflage for the winter: A light gray fuselage with dark green wings. He decided at some point a few weeks ago to be a bit ballsy and paint a dark red stripe along the fuselage to distinguish himself. It really didn’t matter too much, the Komet was small and nothing was faster. If it weren’t for the fact they were incredibly vulnerable after running out of fuel, he would consider it one of the best aircraft he ever had the chance to fly in his relatively short career.
That, and its tendency to explode with no warning.
Ich wünsche diese verdammten Bomber beeilen, He thought, Dieser Anzug ist schwerer!
Finally, the controller’s voice crackled over his radio, “Torpedo!,” The code for their aircraft to launch. Immediately, the first pilot started his aircraft’s rocket motor and it shot down the runway. He was soon followed by the second pilot. Finally, it was his turn. As the aircraft leapt off the runway, Kurt released the landing dolly.
“The Bombers are approaching from vector two-eight-seven.” The tower reported. The aircraft responded accordingly.
“This is One. affirmative.”
“This is two. affirmative.” There then came a long pause.
“Number three, Are you there?” Kurt jumped. “…Heheh, entschuldigung. This is Three. affirmative.” It was odd to speak in English to another German, but international law required it.
Once he reached 400 miles an hour, he pulled back on the stick, sending the tiny aircraft shooting into the sky. The rest of the flight was mostly in silence, though Kurt was certain the other two pilots were glaring at him. Soon, he reached 30,000 feet and began to level off. Except there was a problem.
It wouldn’t respond.
“Komm, du arbeitest verdammte ding!” Kurt shoved the stick as far as he could forward, but the aircraft’s nose continued to rise. Then without warning, the aircraft began to flip end over end.
“Scheiße!” was all he could scream before he began to black out. As one last attempt to save himself, he cut the engine to try and regain control, then everything went black.
When Kurt awoke, he found his aircraft was diving for the ground. Still above cloud cover, he fired up the engine and leveled out. Checking his Komet’s clock, he found he still had enough time to try and find the bombers before he ran out of fuel. He returned to his original heading and began his search. After flying for a few minutes with no luck, his aircraft finally ran out of fuel.
Was die... Wo ist alles? he wondered. He had bigger things on his mind, though. Like whether or not he had the momentum to glide back to base. After turning, he radioed the tower.
“Brandis, Three. Which way are you?” his only reply was static. “Brandis, This is Three. I need a vector.” Again, nothing. He tried the other pilots.
“One, Two, this is Three. Where are you?” As you would figure, all he got was silence.
Scheiße! dies ist nicht gut. Überhaupt nicht gut!His Komet continued its silent decent, slowly approaching the clouds. The only sounds were the aircraft’s clock ticking away and wind against the plane’s fuselage.
Mal sehen, mein Radio tot ist, habe ich keinen Brennstoff, und ich weiß nicht, wo ich bin. Dies kann nur gut enden… he thought. As he passed through the clouds, something truly bizarre caught his eye off the starboard wing. Standing on, that’s right, ON the cloud were two horses. What’s more they both had wings. One had a dark grey coat and an icy blue mane, while the other one had a white coat with a pink and green mane. The two horses-
Pegasuses! Das ist, was sie genannt werden, Pegasuses!The two Pegasai stared back at him as he passed bellow the clouds. With the clouds behind him, Kurt could now look for some sort of land mark.
“Mein Gott…” bellow him, just to his left was an enormous castle built into the side of a mountain.
Ich bin nicht mehr in Deutschland… He stared at it as long as he could before realizing he let the nose drop too much. Yanking back on the stick, he spotted a small town in the distance. Just behind it was a large forest. His best bet was to land near the town while trying to avoid careening into the trees on the edge of it. He brought his Komet closer to the ground, deploying landing flaps and extending the landing skid. With a crunch, the skid dug into the ground. The plane returned to the air for a moment before hitting the ground with another crunch.
“Arg, Scheiße!” Kurt slammed on the rudder pedal to avoid one of the few out-lying building. The Komet’s left wing dug into the ground as the plane rumbled to a stop behind the house. The pilot let out a sigh of relief.
Nun, um herauszufinden, wo…ich… as he turned to his left, he noticed a horse staring at him from the back of the house, this one light gray with a blonde mane. Well, trying to stare at him. One of its eyes was pointed towards the sky, while the other one seemed more interested in the horse’s nose. After checking himself to see if any T-stoff, the aircraft’s volatile fuel, leaked on him, he opened the cockpit and approached the horse.
Es ist nur ein Pferd. Was ist das Schlimmste, was passieren könnte? Famous last words.
All across Ponyville, citizens stopped to stare at a small, glistening object silently gliding through the sky. No one had seen anything like it before! The object continued its decent before disappearing behind some buildings. Moments later there was a loud bang. One concerned pony, a lavender unicorn, asked her assistant to send a letter to her mentor, the very ruler of the land.
Chapter 2: On the Lam
Kurt slowly approached the gray horse, though it’s size was closer to that of a pony, and it had wings as well. He unclipped his holster revealing the grip of a Walther P38, just in case. Alright, it was mostly just because he always wanted to intimidate someone by doing that, but the pegasus seemed oblivious to the weapon.
“Schönes Pferd, laufen nicht weg...” He cooed gently. The Pony raised an eyebrow at his words.
“Wow, are you a space alien?” She blurted out. Kurt stopped and looked at his outfit. His outfit was odd even for humans. The gray suit consisted of seven pieces. His boots, gloves, and helmet were all made of a soft PVC known as Mipolan designed to keep the pilot safe in the event of a T-stoff leak. His flight suit was made from the same material, and covered him from ankles to neck. The only thing not made of Mipolan was a yellow armband used to distinguish him as a Luftwaffe pilot. He also had some goggles over his fa-
Then he realized the pony had spoken to him.
“You-you speak English?” He asked. Like every single pilot in the world, he knew English. Odds were, this encounter wasn’t why, but those English lessons did manage to pay off regardless.
“You mean Equestrian? Yeah, everyone speaks it here!” Kurt grunted Close enough. His military instincts began to kick in; he had landed a highly advanced aircraft in God knows where and wasn’t sure if the local military was friendly.
“Is there any chance I could go inside? I think everyone saw my plane go down and this place will be swarming with others.” “That’s right, everypony’s gonna want to see a space alien! Sure, you can come inside.” She turned and led him through the doorway.
“I’m not a space alien, I’m a human.” The pilot said. The mare turned around cocked her head, as if trying to process what he said.
“A human?" She paused, "Oh, I know what you mean! I know a pony who knows all about them. Well, I think she does, she talks about them a lot.”
Gut, there are humans here… Kurt thought. The two ended up in the kitchen.
“Can I get you a muffin or something? Humans eat muffins, right?” Considering the crappy rations he had eaten in the previous months, he jumped at the chance for decent food.
“Absolutely!” She opened up a cupboard. “What kind? I got blueberry, poppy seed, chocolate, chocolate chip…” “It doesn’t matter.” Kurt replied. He just wanted decent food. The Pegasus handed him a blueberry muffin.
“Danke, Miss…er…” He realized he had managed to go this long without knowing her name. He briefly wondered what kind of name a pony could have. “I’m Ditzy Doo, but a lot of ponies call me Derpy.” It wasn’t what he was expected, more akin to American race horses than any horse he knew in Germany. Granted, he didn’t know many horses, but still.
“Danke, Miss Doo.” As he began to enjoy the muffin, Ditzy began to speak. “So…What’s your name?” Kurt’s eye’s bulged, realizing that he wasn’t being that great of a guest. After all, he already crashed a plane into his host’s yard.
“Entschuldigung. My name is Kurt Paulus.” He took a bite out of the muffin. It was possibly the best thing he had ever tasted since he joined Jagdgeswader 400. As he enjoyed his muffin, Ditzy struck up a conversation. “So, what were you doing?”
“Huh?” He asked, his mouth full of chewed-up muffin. “Like, how’d you get here?” Kurt swallowed the muffin.
“I don’t know. I was supposed to intercept some bombers when my plane flipped. I blacked out for a moment, next thing I knew I was here.” “What’s a bomber?” she asked. It nice when the creature from another world asks an easy question.
“Well, a bomber is like what I came here in, but bigger and built to drop bombs.” "Oh, that makes sense! Bombers drop bombs.” Said Ditzy. Kurt had to admit, she wasn’t the brightest thing he met, but it did make her rather adorable. And there was something freakin’ mesmerizing about her eyes.
“Wait, what do you mean ‘intercept’ them?” Well, he knew this part would come up eventually.
“…Well…My country was at war. Those bombers were going to attack us. My job was to stop them.”
“Oh, did you get them?” She asked. “I ended up here before I even saw them” He replied. “Oh yeah. So, were you winning the war?” She seemed to take the idea of war pretty well, surprisingly.
“…Not exactly.” “Oh…” Her mood seemed to drop like a brick. Kurt decided it was best to change the subject.
“What do you do? You seem to have a nice house.” Her mood instantly improved.
“I’m the town’s mail-mare!” She declared proudly. “Really? for the whole town?”
“Well, sometimes I get some help,” she admitted, “But I do most of the work! I know where everyone lives. I always deliver on time…No matter what anypony says…” He felt he may have hit some nerve at that point. But before anything else could happen, biology interjected.
“Uh, Ditzy?” She snapped out of her stupor, “Huh?” “Do you have a bathroom I could use?” “Oh, yeah, up the stairs on the left.”
By all means, Kurt was not expecting for a fully furnished bathroom complete with a working toilet. He momentarily wondered how ponies used toilet paper before he splashed some water on his face.
Keep it together!He thought, I need to find a way home before I lose my mind! Believe it or not, going from a world torn apart by war (And being on the losing side) to a pony-filled technicolor paradise was a bit stressful. There came a knock at the door.
“Royal Guard! Open up!” Came a voice.
“Scheiße!” cursed Kurt as Ditzy obliviously answered the door. He could hear some of the guards come inside.
“Hello ma’am.” He said. “Heya!” she replied. The pilot facepalmed. As long as she kept quiet about him, he should be safe.
“Are you aware of a metal craft that crashed in your yard?” He gets right to the point, Noted Kurt.
“Yep. I saw it crash!” “Was there any,” He paused, ”You know, aliens on board?” The moment of truth!
“Nope, no aliens here.”
“Yes!” Kurt silently cheered.
“But there was a human! He’s upstairs in the bathroom.” Ditzy declared happily
“Oh, Ficken…” “Guards! Upstairs, now! We have our alien!” The lead guard bellowed. Kurt burst from the bathroom, searching for any way out of the house. He briefly caught sight of the lead guard. He was a somewhat large white stallion with a two-tone blue mane under his helmet and a horn on his head. “Unicorns, too?” Kurt dashed down the hallway before reaching a window.
“Halt, alien!” Yelled the guard. Naturally Kurt didn’t listen. No one ever does. He smashed the window at the end of the hallway and blindly jumped through it. Now, he flew for a living, but that was with the aid of a plane. He ungracefully tumbled out of the window and hit the ground with a dull thud. His landing sprained his ankle, but he scrambled to his feet. A few guards who had been inspecting Kurt’s Komet turned in shock at the human.
“After it!” The lead guard called from the window before vanishing in a flash. He suddenly appeared in the yard only a few feet away from the pilot. Kurt pulled out his Walther and tried to fire off a few shots. None of them hit anything, but it distracted the guards long enough to let Kurt escape into the nearby forest.
“Sir, should we pursue him?” One guard asked. “No. That’s the Everfree forest. He won’t last an hour in there.”
The hapless pilot watched from a bush as two guards lead Ditzy into a carriage. The Pegasus seemed oblivious to the fact that she was going to be questioned regarding Kurt. He made a note to try and bust her out, if he had the chance.
And that was a big “if”.
For now, he just needed to last the night in a forest before he could try sneaking into town and try to find out a way home.
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