The Story of Aperture

After Aperture had told his marvellous story to his audience, Bowdler straightened to a more formal pose and indicated his intention to speak by clearing his throat loudly.

“Now we’re all introduced, can I call your attention to the task in hoof?” Bowdler asked.

“We have a group of civilians besieged in the station above, you’re going to get up there, bring them down here, with as little confrontation as possible”. He put vast emphasis on the last part of the sentence, glaring meaningfully at Kestrel. Aperture could see some sort of underlying resent between the two.

“Lightning’s not gonna be happy” countered Kestrel, clearly keeping Lightning happy was not his reasoning behind the statement, but it offered him some leeway on his thoughts. “You know how much he likes to be in the centre of a good confrontation”.

“You know what?” replied Bowdler as he turned to go “Screw Lightning, and screw you. For once, this mission is run on MY terms. You have your orders. It would do you well to follow, not question them, Sergeant” The last remark was said with a steely edge that nopony in the room could have argued with. After a moment of morose contemplation, Kestrel brightened up to his usual self.

“Squad form up!” he called.

“I think you’ll find I am the one giving the orders, sergeant” Butted in Dasher.

“We go in two parties. Kestrel, you’re with me, we’ll meet when we get out there.” It was clear that Dasher was not a fan of Lightning’s escapades and apparent idolisation from the other ponies. “Aperture you stay on the right flank. You can provide covering fire for the civilians as we go”

“Errm, Lt Dasher, sir. I don’t know any ‘shooting spells’” Aperture added, careful not to arouse Dasher’s quick temper.

His statement was met by a sharp smack to the face. Dasher had thrown a book at him. The page it was open at showed a crudely drawn three step plan on how to launch a bolt of pure magic.

“You’d better learn quickly then, hadn’t you?”

Sighing and rubbing his sore nose, Aperture picked up the book, dropping it into his newly acquired saddlebags, and followed Kestrel and Dasher out into a tiny circular anti-chamber, tiny in length and With, but very tall, with a steel circle in the floor. He assumed that this was some kind of elevator, and he wasn’t wrong. Once the three of them were all in, the panel rose up past the door, and into the darkness above. Fortunately, there were a few motion activated lights and Aperture produced a bright glow from his horn, impressing Kestrel enormously.

“I always wondered what it would be like to be a unicorn, It must be awesome to use magic” He started “but I think if I was, I’d miss my wings.”

“But you could have both if you were a princess.” Aperture replied “They’re alicorns”

“Not just the princesses” replied kestrel.

“Nope, just them” Aperture stated, as if educating a troublesome pupil. “There are only two known alicorns in Equestria. Granted, I heard about a few living in the afterlife, but that doesn’t count.”

“So you don’t know?” said Kestrel. “I’m sure he’ll tell you eventually”…

“Sorry to interrupt your little heart to heart, but I should remind you that we are on a mission here” Ordered Dasher “The lift is slowing, when it stops, we have to dig up into the station.”

“Dig up?” asked Aperture, despite himself.

“The lift shaft was never completed before the sanctum attacked. We knew that an attack had been coming for a while, so we started to build this place, as a sort of last resort, to fall back on the off chance that we couldn’t hold the line”

“And here we are” murmured Aperture, but it seemed Dasher still heard, and glared, daring him to make another comment.

After a few minutes of digging with shovels, the three hit solid slabs of stone, which they lifted up, silently and precisely. They were in a train station, but not how it was when Kestrel had travelled there. Most walls were collapsed; the ground was strewn with rubble, and pot-marked with burns of blasts of stray bolts of magic. In the background, the sounds of battle raged on. In one corner of the room, was a crumpled train, de-railed and on its side, a column of smoke rising from the cab, and the odd lick of flames. Aperture noticed that there were a few ponies crouched behind it, a small, teal filly with a blond mane, a purple mare with a darker purple mane, A light blue stallion with a dark brown mane, and a yellow mare with an orange mane who was holding her front leg at a strange angle, obviously in pain. Aperture opened his mouth to call dasher over, but instead caught kestrel’s hoof in it.

“SHHHS!” he hissed “We’re like ninjas. Not seen, not heard, but still there looking badass.”

“Ok” Aperture mumbled with a mouth full of hoof.

The trio hurried over, the train was blocking the way and the refugees couldn’t get through. On dasher’s command, Kestrel closed his eyes, and held his front hooves close together, and the air began to shimmer like a heat haze, a little at first, but increasingly more, until it flared up into a little ball of fire, which Kestrel used like a blow torch, melting the metal and plastic around a panel close to the floor, so Aperture could kick it though, and pulled all four of the refugees through. As they set off for the tunnel they had just come through, however, a blast of magic whistled past Kestrel’s ear, shattering the paving slabs covering their escape route, and dropping a lot of the station into the tunnels below.

“Run for the mountain side” yelled Dasher, dropping any attempt to remain quiet, “I think there’s another way into the caves round there”.

Obediently, Kestrel kicked off, and flew alongside the civilians, Dasher flew on the other side and Aperture ran out ahead, fending off the blasts of green arcing past them as they ran. One Pegasus was feeling lucky, and dropped from above toward the teal filly, letting out a piercing shriek as he did so, only to be caught by Kestrels hoof at the last second.

“Listen bro, that’s no way to treat a lady” Kestrel shouted at the sanctum member, before flying up past a lamp post, and holding out the unfortunate victims head. The head hit the metal bar with a sickening crack. Kestrel dropped the body and returned to his post flying alongside the running civilians.

“You didn’t have to do that.” Spat Aperture at Kestrel as he flew past. “You could have dealt with it differently”

“He did what he had to; as you should learn to if you want to live” retorted Dasher.

Aperture glanced furtively at the book nestled in his saddlebags, and decided that he would also have to learn to live in this strange new world in which he was constantly harassed, and always in danger.

Kestrel called out, the entrance to the cave was just ahead. Suddenly the ground before them was torn apart by three simultaneous explosions as bolts of magic hit the earth before them. Aperture was knocked onto his back, his left cheek, seared by the explosion, was starting to bleed. Kestrel fell heavily on one wing, not damaging it, but crumpling his feathers out of shape. Dasher was closest to the explosion threw himself in front of the civilians, providing a living shield. He fell down heavily on his side, His chest blackened and scorched, his legs scratched by shrapnel. His usually neatly cut military mane was smouldering lightly.

Kestrel staggered to his side, and felt for a pulse. He looked panicked for a moment, then breathed deeply. Dasher was hurt, but alive.

Aperture sat upright and clasped a hoof over his wound. He took a quick look at the surroundings, and wasn’t pleased. The trio was surrounded by hordes of sanctum members, each unique but still with some striking similarities. All the unicorns had red eyes, the pegasi green, and no set colour for earth. Each had a predominantly black body, whether from birth or by tattooing, and each had sharpened teeth, and Aperture didn’t doubt for a minute that they would use them on him and his comrades. They were in a ring, slowly getting closer. This was both to make sure that their prey couldn’t escape and to add a psychological horror to their demise. Aperture realised with horror that the Seventh sanctum were cleverer than they looked. He closed in closer to dasher’s moaning limp form, and Kestrel did likewise. Kestrel couldn’t fly, so it looked like a fight to the death, and because they were so massively outgunned, Aperture and Kestrel knew that the death would be their own. Turning grimly, Kestrel extended his hoof, and Aperture met it with his own, bloodied from the cut on his face.

Brothers ‘till the end.

They turned, ready to begin the fight.