The Story of Aperture

Aperture woke with a start. His room was on the east side of Canterlot Castle, and was normally peaceful and serene, but not now.  There was a rumbling and the ground in his room was rolling like a turbulent sea. It was like an earthquake was rolling out of the earth and through every fibre of his body. Suddenly a chunk of Aperture’s wall collapsed, revealing a drop of many thousands of feet to certain death on the rocks below. Huge uneven pieces of masonry crashed through the roof, narrowly missing the bewildered stallion in its midst. Dazed, he stumbled to the spiral staircase downstairs, only to be knocked off his hooves by another explosion of sound and vibration, destroying the stairs entirely, and disconnecting Aperture’s room from the rest of the castle. Aperture realised that this was no natural disaster; this was an attack on the castle by an unknown enemy.

He took a run up and leapt onto the remains of his doorway; as the room tumbled down to meet its fate on the sharp rocks thousands of feet below. As he ran through the burning castle, buffeted by the wind blasting through the shattered windows, he knew of only one place he wanted to be.

He ran past the guards, each trying to raise a magical or literal shield to seal the breach in the walls, whilst firing back at the unseen attackers, seemingly everywhere. Aperture ran to the top of the tallest tower where the princesses lived. He stopped for a moment to look through a smoldering hole in the wall of the tower, and saw the tiny shapes of pegasi guards fighting considerably smaller black shapes, but unmistakably ponies. Suddenly, there was a bright flash across the quickly darkening sky, and the atmosphere became noticeably heavier, the sky itself faded to a shade of deep purple. This, Aperture noted, was a clear sign that Celestia and Luna were both in Canterlot at the same time, and this meant that this cataclysm was even more serious than he had ever imagined.

Kicking down the door, Aperture found the room was in a terrible state of disrepair, and both Celestia and Luna were on the balcony, firing off bolts of magic at the swarming ponies around them, who simply laughed and returned fire, Giggling as the burning corpses of their fellows fell shrieking from the sky.

As he ran to assist, Luna turned and ran back into the room to meet him, quickly she explained to him what to do.

“There is a terrible threat to Equestria here Aperture”, she yelled over the noise of the explosions. “But you must live”. “We will hold them back for as long as we can, but the castle is lost.” “This book has the background on these old foes, maybe you can find a weakness we can exploi-“

She was cut off as a huge bolt of magic smashed into the castle, exploding with such heat and light as to blow the top part of Canterlot castle into tiny burning fragments, pebbles and ash. Somehow Aperture was blown clear of the explosion and soared through the air for a few moments, understanding the thrill seeking pegasi in their love for the thrill of flight, then crashed to the ground on his chest in what was once the castle gardens.

Rolling onto his burnt and bruised back, Aperture looked back at the castle, a few smoking towers and battlements still stood, but even as he watched, tears welling in his eyes, another turret collapsed into the burning ruins. He fought back the tears and hoped that Luna was ok, but he knew in his heart how unlikely this was. This was also the first time in his life Aperture had left the castle, he had of course seen the outside world from afar, but never had he dreamed of being out here, especially not alone.

His thoughts were cut short by a bright green pulse next to him, and a violent explosion that flung him many meters through the air. He turned to see a black green eyed Pegasus diving towards him, wings splayed, sharped fangs bared in a ghastly gleeful smile. Aperture staggered to his feet; he was bleeding and burnt, too weak to escape, but he struggled forwards, ignoring the pain. The evil pony cackled and shot down like a torpedo, the whine of the air around it steadily increasing. Just as it was about to hit him, a flash of purple light struck the creature from the sky, writhing in pain it fell to the floor. Aperture looked at his rescuer; it appeared to be a guard, in gleaming golden armour. Through this however could be seen a pair of massive muscular wings. Aperture quickly realised the implications of this. The magic couldn’t have come from him. The guard had seen his distress however, and ran forward to assist. Aperture’s vision began to blur, and swim before his eyes and suddenly everything sounded distant, as if underwater. Aperture felt his legs give way, and slowly closed his eyes.