Siblings

by Undermine

Chapter 10

Siblings

Chapter 10

Winter Storm woke up to the smell of hard liquor brushing against his nose. His eyes were blindfolded and he could taste the familiar trace of chloroform in his mouth. The back of his head was throbbing and he felt dried blood on his upper lip. His body was upright in an uncomfortable position in a wooden chair. A voice spoke up; "He's awake, boss. Shall I remove the blindfold?" After a moment of silence, the blindfold loosened and Winter looked upon his captor.

"Hello Winter. Now that you are awake, I believe it is time that you would care to explain your actions," said Nimbo. Winter stared at the mob head, an elderly Griffon who still had good body structure and was very well groomed. He spoke in a low and elegant accent forged from his homeland. He sat behind a massive mahogany desk with a fountain pen and stationary on the top.

"S-sir. If I may ask, what do I need to explain? W-hy did you tell the guys to beat me?" said Winter.

"Well, as you may know, or not know, depending on how much damage my boys did to your head, you blatantly assaulted one of your fellow guards on the basis that he was being rude to the inmates." Nimbo pulled from a drawer a fat cigar. "To answer the latter question, I felt it was necessary to remind you that there are certain repercussions when one deviates from the set rules. To answer the former, I need you to explain in detail why you felt it was necessary to hit Thunder Hail in the snout." He popped the cigar in his beak and snapped his fingers. A small flame appeared under the cigar as Nimbo inhaled and let out the smoke in a long sigh.

Winter shifted nervously. "S-sir, why would you need to know that?"

"I feel that it is paramount to know the reasoning for an action such as this."

"W-well sir, I don't really know how to put this in a more detailed form that what you had said. Thunder was being an asshole to the kids and he needed to be stopped.

Nimbo twiddled the cigar in his claw. "Is it as simple as that?"

Winter nodded. "Yes sir. It is."

"So, you were protecting the children, were you not?"

"Sir?"

"I asked if that was your intent? To protect the children?"

"Y-yes sir. H-how does that change my explanation?"

"Because," Nimbo slapped his hand hard on the desk, "that confirms my initial hypothesis that you have broken my most important policy!" Nimbo pushed forward a piece of paper to the front of the desk. "Could read the line on top, Winter?" Winter looked at the document in front of him. He read the first line:

Under no circumstance should any individual working under the establishment of Nimbo may involve themselves in any platonic or sexual interactions with any of the inmates, as it may disrupt the integrity of the workforce.

Nimbo took the document back from Winter and placed it back inside his desk. "Now, you may remember from way back that I informed you, as well with every guard under my employment, what my motto is. Can you remember it? Please say it to me."

Winter responded hesitantly, "L-leave everything to chance."

"Precisely. To you, based on your job, the definition of this statement probably goes something around the lines of 'anything can happen to the prisoners'. To me, based on my job, the definition is much more broad; 'anything can happen to anyone'." Nimbo inhaled and exhaled on the cigar again. "The reason being for me having a much broader perspective of chance is that I made the mistake of thinking like you. Thinking that anything can happen only to the prisoners. But, at that time I didn't realize that anything could happen to the guards, as well.

"Five years ago, I had employed a unicorn guard, much like yourself, to be stationed here. For about several months he showed no signs of disloyalty. He was then assigned to perform a simple duty: to patrol the prisoner corridors at two hour intervals. For the first day he kept to his word and followed his orders quite well. The next day, his two hour intervals were somehow shortened by an hour. The next day, they were reduced by a half hour. The third day, he was patrolling the halls every fifteen minutes. Multiple guards had noticed this and it was finally brought to my attention. However, it was too late when he had finally broken the prisoners out their cells. At the end of that day, I had lost two hundred thousand bits, and both the prisoners and the troublesome guard were nowhere to be found."

A small collection of sweat had formed on Winter's brow. He had heard of this story many times before, but only in segments and fragments from the other guards.

"So, I guess to every story there comes a moral at the end." Nimbo chuckled, "I guess the moral is to learn from your mistakes." His smile faded as he stared at Winter. "With that, it is in my power to say that your services are no longer needed."

Winter was taken aback by this statement. Despite his boss's intense stare, the thought of having to be free from this terrible job brightened Winter up. If his jaw hadn't been in pain, he might have smiled right there. He planted his hind hooves on the ground. "Well, sir, I can assure you that I am-" Right as Winter was about to stand up from the chair, the hard pull of magic forced him back down. He had forgotten that he and the boss were not the only ones in the room.

"I don't remember saying that you could leave, Winter. All I said was that your services are no longer needed." Nimbo took one last draw from his cigar before flicking it into Winter's face, causing him to flinch. Winter felt his gut churn as he figured out what his boss really meant.

Nimbo produced a smile on his face. "Actually, I'll give you one more thing to look at." He opened up one of the drawers on his desk and pulled out a wooden contraption. It had an oddly curved handle with a string sticking out from side to side. "Do you know what this is?" Winter shook his head. "It's a new weapon called a crossbow. It actually makes me very happy to own one as it is made from my home country. You see, Winter, we Griffons have the special advantage of having fingers on the ends of our front limbs. It makes dexterous acts immensely easier for us, but it has also made us far more advanced in our weapon technology."

Nimbo reached into his desk again and pulled out a small arrow. Winter's heart rate quickened. He tried to move but the other unicorn in the room had a tight grip of magic around him. He tried to use his own magic, but instead a burst of sharp pain rippled from his horn to his head. He let out a short cry of pain.

"Silence him, will you Thunder?" Nimbo said. Winter couldn't react fast enough before having his mouth slammed shut. He knew who the other pony was in the room now, and it made his heart quicken even faster.

"What I love most about this weapon," Nimbo said, continuing his speach, "is that it is both incredibly accurate and incredibly easy to fire. It takes away the time of firing a regular bow and arrow by well over half. All you have to do is pull back the string, place an arrow," Nimbo performed the actions and held the weapon straight out, "and then take aim..." he eyed the crosshairs over Winter's chest. Winter was using all his strength to try to break out of Thunder's grip. To no avail, he looked back at his boss.

"...and pull the trigger."

---

Scootaloo slowly woke up from her sleep. She heard the sound of hoofsteps coming through the halls again. Please let it be him, she said to herself, please, this time. She looked up in hope.

What passed by instead was a bored looking pegasus guard with a piece of stale bread under his wing. He shoved it through the cell bars and passed along through the hallway without even looking at the fillies.

Scootaloo made no attempt to pick up the stale bread. She laid her head back down and closed her eyes. All the time she spent in the cell has been now filled with total apathy. She drifted into sleep once more.

---

I'm alive. I'm still alive. I can breath. Breath. Slowly. No, not like that. Don't move the arrow. If I can keep it still it won't rupture anything. Shit, this is painful. Breath in, breath out...

I'm still in the boss's room. Keep eyes shut. I still have a chance. They'll throw me in the dump. I still have a chance. Wait, he's talking. What's he saying? Damn! This is painful! What's he saying?

"That's right sir. They attacked us and now they're going inside the offices."

"Oh for goodness sake! You two are absolutely worthless! You want to end up like him?!"

"S-sir! We apologize greatly, but w-what do we do now?"

"There is only one thing you can do. Blow it up."

"Sir? But what about the guards inside-"

"I don't give a flying feather about the guards inside! If those ponies are working for Celestia, then the information they find inside will jeopardize this entire establishment!"

"Y-you really want me to-"

"Yes. Blow it up."

Comments

[brad70505]

First for this chapter!

[bahatumay]

"I don't remember saying that you could leave, Winter. All I said was that your services are no longer needed."
Chillingly appropriate line....
And if there are explosions, I like where this is going.

1251493
i.chzbgr.com/completestore/12/8/28/l1A4270xX020IxemosHcPA2.jpg

[happynoname56]

I wonder what explosive he'll use semtax, mabye classic C4, take a match and some gasoline... choices choices choices...

Hope to see the next chapter soon

[Justin Mershimer]

Like this story, are you going to continue it?

[Matthewthawes]

whens t do you think you'll have the next chapter reedy

[KiKo4]

Aw is it dead just when it was getting good

[Undermine]

7046099

7554382

7680185

Whistles nonchalantly

[Fluttershyisacutegal]

More? please?