The Story of Aperture

Aperture struggled to his hooves, dazed. His head was throbbing and he stumbled uneasily to the corridor entrance. Unlike the roughly formed cave he’d just come from, the corridor was worn smooth, and well lit. Aperture began to walk down towards the control room. His legs were stiff. “No surprise” he thought. He’d just done a sprint and not cooled down at the end, or even filled the oxygen debt. He had a lactic acid build up in his muscles, and it caused them to burn. He had done his fair share of laps round the castles training ground, and he’d learned the basics of most physical activities, but he’d always preferred running. He didn’t consider himself athletic, and nor did anyone else for that matter, but you couldn’t deny he was quick on his hooves. He was only 3 seconds slower than the required lap time for a royal guard, and considering the time and effort they put in, not to mention physique, Aperture  was more than happy with this. His drifting thoughts were dispersed quickly as he walked right into Kestrel. The two tumbled to the ground in a heap of legs and feathers. “Whoa there dreamer, watch out for us folks who can’t get off the ground” grumbled Kestrel. He stood, straightened out his mane, then reached out a hoof to help Aperture up. “That’s the problem with you Unicorns.” Continued Kestrel, in a friendlier way “Always using that brain of yours rather than your body”. Aperture chuckled at the irony of his thought train, and turned to get through the large door to the control room. Suddenly the well-built Pegasus guard from earlier stepped from the shadows and pushed Kestrel back to the floor. “If you value you’re body how it is, stop loitering near my door!” he barked.

“Leave him” said Aperture, dismissively. The Pegasus turned, and smacked him in the face with a hoof. Aperture fell, reeling from the blow. To Aperture’s surprise, Kestrel jumped back up, all friendliness gone. “Why should I!?” He yelled at the guard “This is as much my base as yours!. You can’t just bully the ponies here and get away with it! ” The guard lunged for a blow to his face, but Kestrel was quicker. He dodged the blow with ease, and stepped back. The guard lunged again, this time he unclipped his stun stick from his belt. It armed with a painful bolt of electricity. He ran, but Kestrel turned, kicked him hard in the stomach and dropped him, then kicked his head again, into the stone wall. The guard slumped and sat by the wall, blood trickled from his nose, and one of his eyes was black, barely conscious. Kestrel walked slowly towards him, stepping on the fallen stun sticks handle and snapping it down the centre.

“Oh look, you slipped and fell you clumsy hunk of lard.” said Kestrel, his voice layered and deep. ”And if you EVER touch me or my friends again, I’ll break more than your crappy stun stick.” He turned and set off into the control room.

Aperture followed, awe struck. He knew Kestrel was tough, but he’d seemed too light hearted to do something like that. Kestrel sensed this and explained. “Yes, it was harsh, but he deserved it. It’ll teach him a lesson in morals, and it’ll be a while before he picks on anypony again”

“Kestrel…”

“Yeah?”

“When you said “my friends”, did you mean me?”

“’Cause I did.” Said Kestrel. “You’re a part of the team. I haven’t known you long, but I know we are going to get along dandy”.

“Thanks” said Aperture. He’d never experienced true friendship before, and he certainly hadn’t had anyone stand up for him like that. It was a nice feeling. He suddenly envied his counterpart, Twilight, who had got to study this friendship thing properly. He might read her dissertation on it, if he ever got out of this alive. He shuddered. The thought of potential death is enough to put anypony off their thoughts.

The two walked back into the control room, now a writhing hub of activity. Aperture saw Commander Bowdler in his raised control stage in the centre of the room. However, all the holographic displays were shut down and Bowdler looked in a sorry state. Aperture had forgotten his feat on the way in, but clearly the same could not be said for the commander. His wings were bandaged to his sides, he had huge bruise on one side of his face. Despite this however, he was brushing away the nurses running to his aid.

“You need to rest Bowdler!” shouted one. “You can stand up here and look like a wounded hero, but it’s going to make things more difficult later on!”

“Why are you wasting time on me?” retorted Bowdler. “I thought I asked all medics to attend to Twilight and Dasher”. Lightning wobbled out of the shadows, getting back to his feet was no easy task.

“Listen to her Bowdler” He barked “Get some rest, you are putting all of us in danger by being here. You are putting Twilight in danger by being here”

“Twilight?” asked Aperture “Twilight Sparkle?”

Bowdler turned about to face the two. “How do you know Twilight?” he asked, with a slight steely edge. “She was Celestia’s protégé at the castle. You could say my counterpart. I hoped to meet her someday”.

“Well she was one of the mares we rescued from the station” Explained Bowdler. “She’s up in Canterlot to run an errand for the princess”.

Lightning span Bowdler back round. “I hold the same rank as you. Consider it a standing order to rest and recuperate for one day”. Bowdler opened his mouth, stopped and collapsed to the floor. Behind him was Nurse Hope, holding a hypodermic syringe with her magic. The other ponies ran over to Bowdler and carried him away. “He must have collapsed from exhaustion” Said one of the nurses as they carried him out.

“No he didn’t, Nurse Hope just…” Aperture trailed off as he realised that she must have snuck away without him noticing. It wasn’t important anyway.

“Aperture, come see this!” shouted a voice from across the room. Aperture and Kestrel ran to the source of the noise, closely followed by Lightning, who was still a little shaky. They stopped at Matrix’s computer terminal. He tapped a few keys and a large semi-solid hologram projected from a piece of apparatus. It showed many clusters of moving coloured dots, and white translucent passages.

“This is the result of my latest tests” Presented Matrix proudly. “I’ve used ultrasound resonators to create a virtual map of the area. We are here, in the control room” he gestured to one spot on the map with a large cluster of yellow dots, and a few coloured ones. “I’ve pinned you down for my computer as individuals, but on the portable ones it’s vastly simplified.” Everypony looked confused. “What’s that?” Asked Kestrel. “Who’s that” corrected Matrix. “Princess Luna”.

Aperture’s heart skipped a beat. Luna. His mentor. The one he felt strongest about in the entire world. He realised the most terrifying part of his experience had been being away from her. He knew that there was nothing he would rather do than see Luna again, and nopony could stand in his way.

“This part of the cave network has been abandoned for 1000 years.” continued Matrix. “It was something regarding Princess Luna, her own personal project of some sort. If it’s worth protecting at this time, we need to know about it. With Luna on our side we can gain an upper hand on the sanctum. I’ve constructed a data pad for each of you, which receives information from my computer. They can be used to communicate, or view each other’s positions, as well as that of the sanctum. Allied targets will appear yellow, Enemies in red”

Lighting stepped forward “As the highest ranked here, I shall lead the mission. Matrix, as normal, stay and maintain technical support. Dasher is out for the count, so Kestrel, pick one of your troops to accompany us. Aperture, if you’re up to it we could use a unicorn on board.

“Nothing could keep me from it”. And Aperture truly believed it.

“There is another thing. This is the tracer.” Said Matrix, gesturing to an image on screen of a squat piece of technology with three legs, coated in antenna “it is in that cave network, and is trying to jam my signal. That’s what is causing the power drain and shielding this part of the image.”

“What would it take to destroy it? It looks pretty big?” asked Kestrel

“Not much, maybe one well-placed grenade…”

“Now you’re talking!” Kestrel beamed. He slipped a data pad onto his wrist and started walking. “Meet me at the armoury” he called back. “And bring some saddle bags”

“Pff, insubordinate” muttered Lightning as he grabbed a data pad and went to get ready.

Aperture mused over what the armoury could contain, and more importantly, what he wanted it to. He was practiced in all the weapons the guards used, but something told him this wasn’t going to be a longsword and bow type fight.