Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf.
It was early afternoon and the sun was giving everyone 100% visibility as the Grand Reich faced off against the never-ending hordes of Bolshevik T-34s. People might have mistaken the cracking sounds as thunder, had the smell of gunpowder, smoke and petrol not filled the air for miles around.
Tanks burned fuel to flank their enemies and if not, then burnt up as their enemies blew their turrets off and scorched the crews inside.
For the honourable German commanders it was a sight vastly different from the opening war years that they’d enjoyed. When they had faced off against Polish and French forces they had numbers, supply and the enemies poor tactics on their side.
Now with the war dragging on, the losses sustained on every front and with the possibility of a landing in Western Europe, resources were getting scarce and nations were getting their acts together.
Today however was the day that the war on the Eastern Front was turned around, and for Tank Commander Klaus Winter and his crew of three, he would ensure that they put a shell in every enemy tank hull they came up against.
They had been together since the beginning, from when they commanded light tanks, advancing over the French hills and farms in Blitzkrieg and had since then been posted everywhere. They’d even spent a short few months in the Afrika Corp before being transferred to the Eastern Front once more.
They hated this war and the damned communists that had plotted it from the beginning, along with of course every other enemy that was natural to Germany. Mainly the world at this stage, but nothing could deter them from battle! Especially now equipped with their new toy, a Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf, they were going to be unstoppable.
Klaus was the oldest of them all, being a young boy in the First World War he had angular features and no hair, though plenty of scruff covered his face. Razors being harder and harder to come by these days meant he forewent shaving generally. They’d offered him a monocle but he’d declined, saying that he was not dastardly enough for one.
The Loader was a sprightly kid named Hans, a boy with all the Aryan characteristics that fit the bill of the Reich’s grand plan. He had turned 18 when the war began and was honoured to have been one of the first across the Polish border in 39’.
He could still remember the day that he’d been ordered to cram into the small metal coffin and reload from the 80 or so highly explosive shells they kept in there with them. He had pretty much pissed himself during the entire campaign, but that was an initiation the others had explained and was to be expected.
Felix, the driver, was just younger than Klaus and had been a career soldier since he was 18. He had brown hair and a nasty scar on his face that he’d received when he was set upon by ‘Evil Bolsheviks’ during the Weimar years.
He’d had a wife but she’d died in childbirth in 32’. After he’d devoted all his time to the army and was a great admirer of the rearmament programs that had taken place since the Furher had risen to power.
Finally, the Gunner, a man of about 30 called Friedrich was by far the one with the most to lose. He had been conscripted early in the war and had done his duty patriotically. Although her had the typical blond hair and blue eyes, he was not a great admirer of the Furher.
Though he’d never complained about the war, he hoped that it would soon be over so that he could go home to his three young children and wife and live happily ever after.
They were atop a hill, only just entering the battle. They were refitted with enough fuel, ammo and snacks to last a full 45 minutes of constant battle with the enemy and they intended to spend it all.
“Radio check” Klaus spoke, the throat mic he was wearing picking up his voice and sending it to the headphones of the rest of the crew.
“Check” everyone chorused as Klaus popped the hatch above and picked up some binoculars, scanning the horizon.
He saw intense battle raging to the west and a small retreat to the east as the Luftwaffe tried desperately to shoot down the communist planes. They were failing under the harsh numbers and the loss of the ground forces below didn’t help.
“Commandant” Felix spoke over the radio suddenly.
Klaus coughed, annoyed and asked “What is it Felix? You do realise we’re miles from anything at this stage.”
Felix didn’t respond for a moment before he continued “It might just be the sunlight reflecting something but if I am not to be mistaken then there is something shimmering directly ahead of us. Should I change course?”
Klaus rested his binoculars around his neck and looked in front of him. He was shocked at the sight of what appeared to be some bright white light that shimmered and waved a few hundred metres ahead.
“By der Furher’s face” he mumbled and then ordered “Alter course Lieutenant, we’ll go around for a better look.”
Suddenly and not at all expectedly however, the tank seemed to lock into place and there was a sound of grunting over the radio as it shook violently.
“What the schnitzel!?” Hans exclaimed as Felix wrestled with the gear system that had locked with the steering wheel.
“She’s locked up Commander, breaks non responsive!” Felix yelled, panic coming as the white light came nearer and nearer to the tank.
“ALTER COURSE!” Klaus yelled again but to no avail the tank seemed to speed up to 50 km, a record for this model as it trundled straight into the bright light and they watched through their visors as it dissipated around them.
Klaus just had time to fall back into the compartment and shut the hatch as in a flash of rainbows, the tank and her entire four man crew, disappeared from the hilltop…
Hans screamed like a woman and Friedrich began to mumble some catholic prayer as Felix wrestled with the controls, finding them stiffer than a Leningrad corpse. Klaus seemed dazed, having banged his head on the hatch as the light had engulfed the tank and he wondered if this was some new communist weapon they’d encountered.
Suddenly they all felt like they were free falling and with a tremendous crash that would have wrecked the suspension on an ordinary vehicle they landed. They all felt sore as the force of the drop dazed them, Hans having relived the invasion of 39’ in his pants and Friedrich having almost become an atheist.
“Everyone alive?” Klaus moaned and received four other whimpers of pain. “Lieutenant, give me a visual” Klaus grunted, adjusting his position and cradling his arm, having sprained in the entire ordeal.
Felix took a look outside the flap and blinked, speechless.
Everyone was recovering now and begun to resume their battle mentality as Klaus asked again “Lieutenant report! Can I pop the hatch?”
Felix remained stock still and rubbed his eyes, disbelief and fear on his face as the Commander lost his patience and demanded “REPORT!”
Felix snapped his head around and swallowed, shaking as he stuttered “T-There i-i-is hor-horses outside sir… pink a-and purple and green a-and we’re i-i-in a city.”
Klaus blinked before his face became enraged and he spat “YOU DAMNED IDIOT! This is no time for GUT DAMNED JOKES! WHERE ARE WE!!!!!??!!!!!!”
Friedrich leaned over his chair and took a look out his own visor and his eyes widened. “He’s correct sir. We swear that there are small horses outside, they’re… God they’re coming towards the Panzer!”
Hans shook his head and began to mutter a chant of some kind as Klaus looked at his driver and gunner as if they’d gone mad. “I’m popping the hatch” he stated and with his good arm he turned the handle and lifted the hatch up, standing up only to have his mouth drop.
A huge city was all around them. Large and rustic buildings akin to those of Paris stood tall around them. Cobbled streets painted the floors that this was a charming and artistic city and in the distance was a castle, outlined by the mountain it was built in. Standing proudly looking over the city.
The horror was of course that there were hundreds of horses, no they were too small to be horses, they barely would come up to their shoulders if they stood side by side. “Ponies” Klaus breathed as he watched therm all, staring at him. Some in clothes and wearing monocles.
Hans pulled him back down and shut the hatch, begging “Gun the engine, get us out of here!”
Felix almost complied but Klaus held a hand up and barked “NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! NEIN!”
The crew looked around at their commander and wondered if he had eaten too much substitute beef this week before Klaus explained “We are equipped with a loudspeaker. We may be hallucinating. They could be German citizens. God could have blessed us? Or maybe we are under gas attack?”
The others blinked but they began to nod, realising he had a point. They’d seen what powerful drugs could do in Africa, people could ingest snake venom and certain roots and apparently touch the face of God with the juice of a Cactus. They also knew that people who had been exposed to gas chemicals could do weird things. Go blind or mad or both. Even the Furher had been hit by gas once in the First World War and he denounced it as a ‘shameful weapon.’
The crew calmed down as Klaus powered up the radio and switched it to Output, before plugging his mic in and clearing his throat.
“Grüße . Mein Name ist Kommandant Klaus Winter der 25. Panzerdivision . Zu wem spreche ich ?”
Felix stared intently at the crowd of ponies that had gathered. All of them looking wide eyes at the tank and wondering what they had said before a tall white one appeared before them, right in front of the turret barrel.
Klaus put his face to the targeting system, gazing at the long horselike face and the flowing rainbow mane as the pony creature said “Are you trying to communicate…” IN ENGLISH!!!!!!!
Klaus didn’t wait for his heart to beat as in a swift motion he reached for the firing leaver and with a tremendous boom he launched an 80mm shell straight through the horrid creature’s face.
The shell didn’t explode. The speed that it travelled at basically imploded the tall pony’s face as it travelled into the building behind, blowing the side off of it and spraying the screaming crowd with rubble.
“TARGET THEM ALL! MG MG! THEY ARE BRITISH!” Klaus yelled as he plugged his mic back and cranked the turret around.
Felix roared the engine into life as Friedrich prayed to God and began to open fire, spraying bullets into the crowd ponies who’d only began to move, mowing them down.
“HANS MOVE YOUR ASS!” Klaus ordered.
Hans began to cry as he pulled a shell from the rack and began loading it into the breach as the tank rolled over the corpses of the ponies they’d killed.
“I WANT VISUALS AT ALL TIME!” Klaus called as Hans finished loading the next shell and he targeted a large cafe, shoving the leave down and feeling the force as the gun blew the shop interior to bits.
“SIR WE MUST GET OUT OF ZIS SQUARE! IT IS NOT SAFE!” Felix yelled and Klaus grit his teeth.
They kept yelling at each other before Friedrich yelled “There is a road leading to that castle! If we get higher ground we can defend bett-“ but was cut off when they heard something landed on the top of the hatch and they all shut up.
Klaus and the others stared, the tank stopping for a brief moment as they realised the beasts were up top and Klaus whispered “Pass the MP-40” motioning Hans to pull the sub-machine gun from next to the MG ammo boxes.
Klaus grasped the gun and after a few seconds he ordered “FORWARD!” Felix gunning the engine and the beast falling over as Klaus lifted the hatch and was confronted with the ugly sight.
One of the pony demons, an Orange one with wings and a blue one all dressed in some skin tight electric blue suits were staring at him and without waiting Klaus screamed and pulled the trigger.
He Unloaded a full magazine into the two figures as their limbs tangled over the turret and Klaus pulled the hatch back down, shuddering at their eyes.
“Get us up the hill” Klaus breathed, cooling down as he wiped pony blood from his head and resumed control of the turret, Friedrich letting up on the MG fire as they left the square, fires beginning to catch.
They didn’t speak. The past 10 minutes spoke for itself. They had no idea what they had just witnessed but they knew that they had to get back to their beloved Germany as soon as possible.
“The devil is testing us” Friedrich mumbled and Felix chastised him and told him to shut up.
The atmosphere in the tank was… stressed to say the least. They didn’t know if they were hallucinating or if they had just murdered a hundred magical horses, but they knew that there was nothing to do now but fight. To survive.
That was when what appeared to be fifty soldiers began marching towards them from up the street they were on. They were all clad in golden armour and all had white coats and blue manes. At their fore was some kind of shimmering, purple magical barrier, cast from the pony in front who was obviously the leader.
Klaus lined up the shot and put a shell right at the front of the barrier, only to be stunned as it deflected off it and into the building beside it, demolishing it.
“Armour piercing shells?” Hans questioned and Klaus nodded in agreement as they decided to switch rounds.
“It looks like some kind of magic Commander, what if it fails?” Felix asked but Klaus quietened him. They reloaded the gun and with another crack, the shell travelled forwards, right into the lead pony whose barrier burst and whose limbs were taken from under him as the shot mowed down a line of the ponies behind him.
The force was shattered in an instant and Klaus ordered Friedrich to “Mop up” the MG firing into life as the bullets tore the armour off the bodies of the guards and sent them spiralling into each other, the screams never to be forgotten by the survivors.
“Roll over the bodies” Klaus said, as if he’d done this plenty of times… which they all had. They heard the faint crushing of bones and the pop of a few skulls and armour as they advanced off the main street and were finally on the road to the castle.
“We’re almost there” Hans breathed, relief evident in his voice.
“We’re not out of the woods yet” Friedrich pointed as coming down from the castle was a dark presence. A creature of shadow and death that flew at breakneck speeds towards them.
“Demon” Friedrich said and Klaus tried vainly to put a shot into it, the beast easily dodging it as the crew began to panic.
“FRIEDRICH OPEN FIRE!”
Felix shook Friedrich and snapped him out of his little episode. The family man turning the MG upwards and unleashing a few hundred rounds a minute of demon killing lead.
The beast flew around the bullets as clouds gathered and the sun was blotted out of the sky. When it was suddenly apparent that the creature would ram them and Klaus ordered “BRACE!” before a massive whoosh overtook them and they felt as their tank was flipped up into the air and sent careering down the road they’d been travelling up.
They all grit their teeth as they felt weightless for a second, before hitting their first building.
They were jostled and smacked and bumped around as their rank hit brick after brick of structures, the metal becoming dented and distorted in placed and the fuel tanks bursting as the destroyed seven blocks of buildings before coming to rest where they’d began, in the centre of town.
Hundreds had been killed on the way over and fires were raging all around as the tank rested on it’s destroyed tracks, fuel gushing out the back and into the compartment as the hatch hung limp and destroyed.
Inside the crew were covered in dust. All of them had broken something or other and they were all beyond dazed and confused.
Felix was dead of course. He’d smacked his head against the top rather hard and his skull had a huge wound in it that was probably the cause.
Friedrich was amazingly faring the best, having broken a few fingers and suffered minor damage besides.
Poor Hans had broken most his ribs and wheezed pitifully for his ‘mama’ in the corner of the turret.
Klaus’s head was resting on his legs, his right leg having fractured and twisted when the tank had been thrown into the air.
“It’s still *cough* coming” Friedrich moaned and Klaus barely had the tenacity to pull his Luger from his holster before the creature was atop the turret, pulling the hatch apart with it’s hooves and yanking Klaus up with what seemed to be levitation magic.
“WHAT ARE YOU!?” the beast demanded, the black fur and blue shimmery hair looking a lot like the creature they had first encountered.
Klaus attempted to move his Luger up to the beasts head but it was like he were moving through butter and before he could beg or swear at the pony, he felt as the horn it had, slowly began to pierce through his chest.
He began to shudder as he went into shock, his cap falling off as the creature whispered “Shhhh” a universally understood statement that meant ‘Die quietly.’
The Commander died slowly and very painfully as the dark pony dropped his corpse to the floor and went to hover over the hatch again, this time as Friedrich appeared, MP-40 in hand as he yelled for the Fatherland and shot into the dark mass.
The creature soaked up the bullets initially but began to grow weary and pulled Friedrich through the hatch and launched him through the air and onto the cobbled streets.
Friedrich cringed in pain as he rolled onto his back and awaited his fate before the evil demon.
The dark pony appeared to charge it’s horn with blue power and it cried “FOR MY SISTER!”
Just before it was about to discharge however, the tank exploded, Hans having used his last breath to jam the gun turret and blow the ammo stocks.
The tank exploded in a glorious burst of flame that sent Friedrich tumbling back even further and he watched as the flames eclipsed the pony of darkness and sent it straight to hell.
Friedrich sniffed and groaned. The battle was over. Half the city had been destroyed and the other half was on fire. Hundreds of ponies were dead and the tank that they had prided themselves on had been totalled in the battle.
He pulled himself up, realising he’d sprained his foot and broken his hand. He inhaled and exhaled and wondered if this was some test from God above. Had he passed?
That was when they began to come out of the woodwork. Hundreds of them. Pink, blue, yellow, rainbow. Hundreds of ponies of every race and they all looked mad.
Friedrich began to sob as he limped around and looked in the rubble and burning debris, finding the Captain’s Lugar and scrambling to pick it up.
“No. NO!” He yelled and ordered them to stay back as they encircled him. He fired a shot into the crowd and one went down. He aimed a few more but they just kept coming and before he ran out he put the pistol to his head and with one last Hail Mary he fired.
The world dissolved to black as the ponies stood around him and Friedrich exhaled, finally at peace and hoping he would see his family soon.
They had done their duty, even if they had died in the end. They had tried to survive over all, over all.
Whether they would be judged well in the next life was a story he would wait to find out as the sight of the burning tank became the last thing that he remembered.
Thus concludes the epic tale of a Panzer in Equestria. Now here’s some poetry to sound epic. If you want you can listen to some Linkin Park to make it sound even more Epic.
Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.
Life, to be sure,
Is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is,
And we were young.
A E Housman