Heavy Rain

by fatescanner

Ponyville, 8:37 p.m.

Berry Punch was having a well and truly awful night.

First, the owner of the tavern she had just been in had kicked her out, saying that she’d had enough, and then, after she had reasonably insisted otherwise (she had totally not yelled at him or called him a flea-bitten old prick or anything like that), he out-and-out told her she was drunk, and if she did not leave, he would force her to. The memory of it still rankled her. The nerve of that guy, telling her she was drunk. Fucking dick. She wasn’t drunk! Sure, a bit tipsy, perhaps, but certainly not drunk! She’d only had, like, what, thirteen drinks? …Or was it sixteen? Twenty? The memory was a bit hazy at the moment, but that didn’t matter. She knew she was still well within her limit. Heh, drunk, the very notion made her want to laugh out loud. And so she did, boisterously laughing into the murky, rainy night as she walked down Cherry Street, the street adjacent to the one her house lay on.

And then-in no possible way caused by her hooves being in any way unsteady, mind you!-Berry gave a surprised cry as her left forehoof slipped from under her which, in turn, led to her unceremoniously tumbling to an area of the street where, as fate would have it, a very sizable puddle had formed.

Raising her head up off the ground and blinking water out of her eyes while also spitting it out of her mouth, Berry groaned in pain before loudly rattling off a string of colorfully profane curses that would give even the most salty of sailors a run for their money. Having sufficiently vented her anger, Berry then struggled for a moment to get her hooves underneath her-and again, in no possible way was this made difficult by her being drunk or anything!-before finally managing it and getting to a standing position. Glancing back at her left side, Berry distastefully regarded the splotches of mud now marring her coat. Great, now she was dirty in addition to being completely drenched.

That led to the second thing that was currently pissing her off: this Celestiadamned rain! Less than a minute after she had left the tavern, she had been completely soaked through. And here she was without an umbrella or cloak. Why hadn’t she taken the time to go home and get her cloak before she headed to the tavern after work? She was now mentally kicking herself to no end for that particular slip-up.

I’m definitely gonna need a hot bath when I get home, she thought wearily as she rounded the corner onto Sunshine Lane. The rain was definitely getting to her; she could feel the coldness of it soaking through to her bones; even the warmth given her by the alcohol in her gut had subsided by this point. With that sole appealing thought in her mind, Berry trudged along down the empty street, until finally she was in front of the door of her house.

Home sweet fucking home, she mentally grumbled as she turned the handle on the door, only to be momentarily surprised when it didn’t budge. Oh, right, she groaned inwardly, Key.

Taking a few steps back, Berry then looked up to regard the wooden beam at the top of the door frame. O-kay, here we go… she prepared mentally before rising up on her hind legs in order to reach up onto the beam, which was where she kept the key to her house.

However, instead of reaching forward like she wanted-and once more, this was not due to her being unsteady on her hooves in any way!-Berry instead wound up falling backwards off her hooves onto her back proper, landing hard on the street outside her door.

“Oww…” she groaned in considerable pain, blinking away the rain that was now falling directly onto her eyes. Rolling over slowly, wincing at the pain, Berry again mumbled a series of choice curses as she once again got to her hooves. Turning around, Berry then fixed the top wooden beam with a venomous glare. “Shtupid key on the shtupid beam above the shtupid door. Really great idea, Berry, deshiding to hide your key for your house atop your door, really shwell fucking idea…” she muttered as she walked over to the door to give another try.

This time, she laid her left hoof on the door handle to steady her as she raised up to search for the key with her other hoof. Slowly feeling about towards the right side and not feeling anything, Berry muttered irritably, “C’mon, where are you, you shtupid key…” before a search in the opposite direction finally proved fruitful. “Aha!” she cried triumphantly as her hoof came in contact with a small metal object atop the beam. Using her hoof to sweep it off, Berry then bent down to carefully grab the key in her teeth, arranging it so it faced towards the door, and after a few unsuccessful attempts to fit it in the keyhole, she finally managed to get it in.

However, just as she was about to turn the key to unlock the door, Berry was suddenly interrupted by a voice calling from directly behind her.

“Excuse me? Miss?”

Caught off guard, a surprised gasp escaped Berry’s lips as she whipped her head around towards the source of the voice. She was greeted by the sight of a cloaked unicorn stallion standing directly in the middle of the street, no more than ten feet directly opposite her.

The lantern the stallion was levitating allowed Berry to make out some of his facial features. His coat was a slate gray in color, the edges of a dark brown mane barely visible from beneath his hood. His eyes were a deep sea-blue in color. The appearance of the stallion seemed to give off an impression of significant age, if the weariness around his eyes was anything to guess by. Certainly not old-geezer level old, though, by Berry’s estimate. If she had to wager a guess, this guy was probably in his mid-to-late forties.

“Oh, I’m sorry! Didn’t mean to startle you,” the stallion exclaimed, giving an apologizing smile.

Regarding the stallion for a second longer, Berry gave a small huff and said, “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

Sighing, the stallion said, “I seem to have gotten things off to a bad start. I apologize again for frightening you, Miss..?”

“Berry Punch,” the magenta mare provided gruffly.

“Well, Ms. Punch, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Winter Star, and I was wondering if you might be able to assist me in an important matter,” the now-named Winter Star asked cordially.

“What matter?” Berry asked back, raising an eyebrow questioningly, a tad suspicious of the strange stallion’s abrupt forwardness, not to mention his sudden appearance.

“Well, you see, I just recently came into town from Manehattan, on a return trip to my hometown of Canterlot. I was wondering if you could tell me of any places in town in which I might spend the night. It has been a taxing journey for me, and I fear the weather will not allow me to continue any farther this night,” Winter Star explained, glancing forlornly up at the sky just as a bolt of lightning flashed across it.

“Try near the shenter of town, then. That’s where all the inns are,” Berry answered curtly over the thunder before pointedly turning around and making to resume the task of unlocking her door.

“Er, but Miss?”

Heaving an irritated sigh, Berry turned around again, glaring at the stallion. “What?”

Rubbing a hoof across the back of his hood, Winter Star gave an embarrassed-looking grin as he said, “I must confess, I do not rightly know my way around this town. I was hoping that you might deign to assist me in that regard.”

“Didn’t you shay you’re returning to Canterlot from Manehattan? Wouldn’t you have passhed through here when you were heading to Manehattan?”

“Alas, my initial trip to Manehattan took me along an alternate route. I didn’t have the fortune of passing through your town that time. This is my first visit to Ponyville proper,” Winter Star lamented sadly. “So, could I possibly hope to endear your help in showing me the way around your fine town?” he then asked with a hopeful smile.

“Piss off,” snapped Berry as she once again made to turn around.

“But Miss…!”

“Look, buddy,” Berry shouted as she whipped around and stalked toward the stallion, finally fed up. “I’ve been having a really shitty night, okay? I was kicked out of the bar I was enjoying myshelf in, I am drenched in rain, covered in mud, I am cold and sore as fuck, and now, thanks to you, I am getting a fucking headache! All I want to do now is go in my house, take a nice, long, hot bath, and then go to bed, not eshcort your fucking plot around town! So, jusht in case I haven’t made my meaning clear, I’ll shay in nice and shlow for ya: Fuck. Off!”

Rather than backing away, however, Winter Star remained eerily still, even as Berry Punch’s angry face came to within inches of his own. He merely regarded her with those deep-blue eyes of his, which, up close, seemed to contain an unnervingly piercing quality that Berry hadn’t noticed initially, and beneath that, Berry thought she could catch glimpses of something much, much darker lurking in the stallion’s gaze that sent an involuntary chill racing down her spine. And yet they seemed to hold her in place with their intensity, no matter how much Berry desired to look away, she could not bring herself to break the stallion’s gaze, the incessant pattering of the rain on the street seeming to grow in volume in her ears as the silence stretched between them.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, but was really only close to a minute, Winter Star blinked once, and then spoke. All traces of cordial friendliness in the unicorn’s tone had vanished, replaced by an eerie calmness that once again sent a shiver down Berry’s spine. “I truly am sorry for your unfortunate series of events so far this night, Ms. Punch, but…”

And then, suddenly, from out of the murky gloom behind Winter Star, two more cloaked ponies appeared, one on either side of the unicorn. They remained far enough out of the lantern’s light that Berry couldn’t make out either of their faces, but their mere appearance alone was enough to grip the mare in cold fear. She took a few slow, stuttering steps backwards, her face twisted in terror, yet unable to find the will to scream or yell out, as Winter Star finished speaking, in a voice as cold as the grave:

“…I’m afraid I must insist that you come with me.”

Lightning split the sky at that moment, casting the scene in stark whiteness. In that same brief moment, Berry was caught off guard as a burlap sack was thrown over her head and tightened, throwing her world into complete darkness. She only a brief moment to let out a muffled scream and kick out wildly once with her back hooves before she felt a hard, solid object hit her forcefully on the back of the head, and then she knew no more.
…

Applejack and Rainbow Dash galloped full-force down Cherry Street, their cloaks fluttering out behind them and their hooves sending up small cascades of water as they galloped heedlessly through the numerous puddles formed in the streets. Their hoods had long since blown off their heads due to their considerable speed, leaving their faces and manes exposed to the full force of the elements, but neither complained. Not that they even could, considering Applejack was carrying the lit lantern she had brought in between her teeth, while Rainbow had her mouth clamped around an edge of Applejack’s hat, which too had inevitably blown off soon after they had begun their run through town, leading to a quick stop as Rainbow doubled back for it, knowing how much the hat meant to her friend.

Nothing except the sound of panting escaped the two mares’ mouths as they galloped onwards down the street, their eyes narrowed partly in an attempt to shield them from the driving rain, and partly in plain focused determination. From what the inn owner had told them, they were just about reach the street Berry Punch’s house was supposed to be on.

However, as they were nearing the corner, the sight of another lantern’s light coming their way from around the corner found themselves hurriedly skidding to a halt, Rainbow giving a muffled exclamation of shock around Applejack’s hat. Casting her head about quickly, Rainbow’s eyes were immediately drawn to the alley running behind the houses of Sunshine Lane. Thinking quickly, Dash nudged Applejack to get her attention, gestured pointedly to the alley, and dashed over into it, Applejack right behind her. Once they had done so, Dash wasted no time in spitting Applejack’s hat onto the ground before reaching over to the lantern in Applejack’s grip, and ignoring the cowpony’s muffled protests, opened the top of the lantern and blew out the wick, casting the two into darkness. Dash then raised a hoof against Applejack’s lips, her eyes dead serious. Dash then cast her head towards the alley’s entrance, ears straining for hoofsteps over the falling rain. Bending down to pick up her friend’s hat, Rainbow then made a small motion with her head down the alley before heading down it at a quiet trot, Applejack following behind.

They had only gone a few feet before Dash stopped and turned around to face the way they had entered. Laying the hat down on the ground once again, and at the same time bringing her hood back up over her face, Dash then whispered to her friend, loud enough to be heard over the rain, “C’mon, get up against my side. Stay down and stay quiet.”

Obeying her friend’s instructions, reasoning that Dash knew what she was doing, Applejack came up against her friend’s left side, then following her as she slowly laid down on her belly, her forehooves underneath her. They then focused their collective gazes on the alleyway entrance. They didn’t have to wait long as the light from the lantern they had espied coming around the street corner soon into view, both ponies tensing as the light came closer.

A procession of five cloaked ponies came into view, headed by a unicorn levitating a lantern. Because of the angle of view and the cloaks they were wearing, Dash and Applejack couldn’t make out any identifying features of any of the ponies, besides the previous labeling of the lead pony as a unicorn. But the sight that sent a chill down Applejack’s spine was the trussed up unconscious form of Berry Punch, with what appeared to be a burlap sack over her head, being carried along on the backs between two of the rearmost ponies. It took every ounce of her will and the restraining hoof of Rainbow Dash on her shoulder to keep her from rushing headlong into the group to save Berry Punch.

As the procession ventured out of view, Dash and Applejack both quickly got to their hooves, Applejack scooping up her hat as she did so and placing it back on her head, and cantered briskly to the end of the alley, taking care to make sure their hoof falls didn’t cause too much noise. They both edged up against the wall of the alley, peeking out around the corner to watch the group of cloaked ponies as they continued on their path down Cherry Street.

Bringing their heads back around the corner, Dash said in more that worried voice, “Oh, man, what are we gonna do now, A.J.? They’ve got Berry Punch!”

“Ah reckon the only way we’re gonna free her is through force,” Applejack said grimly, her eyes hard.

“How are we gonna do that?! There’s only two of us and five of them!” Rainbow pointed out. Even her considerable hoof-to-hoof skills couldn’t fend off that many attackers at once, even with the added assistance of the weapon she had concealed in one of the inside pockets of her cloak.

Applejack racked her brain trying to come up with a plan. After a few tense moments, Applejack said, “Ah reckon we’re gonna have to split up. Ah’ll stick with them varmints and follow them to wherever they’re going, and you fly off and find help.”

“But-”

“We can’t waste any time talkin’ about this, Dash! Just do what ah said, go and find some help, any help, and then bring ‘em with you and come find me.”

“But how am I going to find you? It’s pitch black, and raining, in case you hadn't noticed!” Rainbow pointed out.

A few brief seconds of contemplation later, Applejack said, “Do ya have your hoofblade on ya?”

“What?” Dash asked back in confusion.

“Do ya have your hoofblade on ya, Dash?” Applejack asked again, in a serious tone.

“Y-yeah, I do,” Dash affirmed uncertainly.

“Then hoof it over here, quickly,” Applejack demanded, in a tone that brooked no argument.

Frowning uncertainly, Dash complied by reaching into the folds of her cloak and extracting her small personal hoofblade gauntlet from the pocket it was held in.

Despite being relatively small in size, the gauntlet was quite a wicked little tool. Made from synthetic leather, the top half of the device was styled much like a regular gauntlet, with synthetic leather straps along the underside that connected across the width of the gauntlet. The main difference between it and a regular gauntlet was a slightly raised portion lying in the middle that ran near the length of the gauntlet, with only a small unraised area near the rearmost portion. Meant to be fitted snugly over one of the front hooves, the gauntlet was designed to respond to the flexing of the muscles in the hoof; flexing them a certain way would trigger an incredibly complex mechanism located in the rearmost portion of the gauntlet, resulting in a five-inch long, inch wide double-sided blade sliding forward from its hidden position through a small opening located near the tip of the front portion of the gauntlet for use in combat. Another flexing of the hoof muscles would send it receding back into its compartment.

Dash had been gifted the weapon by her father before she had left to head off to Ponyville. He had kept it as a memento from his days of service in the Equestrian Army. “Maybe it’ll save your life one day,” he had joked at the time he had given it to her. Mostly Dash had just kept it stashed away in a drawer in her bedroom at home, never having much cause to use it, but ever since the disappearances had started occurring, Dash had taken to wearing it more and more when she went about her daily routines. Even she knew the value of keeping a weapon for self-defense, and her friends had understood her reasons for wearing it. The only reason why she hadn’t worn it that morning was because she didn’t want to risk damaging it or triggering it at an inopportune time with the labor Applejack had made them do. But when she had gone home for her cloak, she had made sure to conceal it in her cloak before heading back. At first she had considered wearing it openly, but then figured it could potentially dampen the mood and spoil the evening, and not wanting that, she had decided against it. But still, better safe than sorry, thus the decision to conceal it in her cloak.

Balancing the gauntlet on her right hoof, Dash asked, “You know how these things work?” to which she received a nod in the affirmative from Applejack. “Okay, here,” she then said, holding the weapon out towards Applejack.

Grabbing it in her mouth and then working the gauntlet over her right hoof, Applejack then brought the blade forward from its sheathe, and after examining the blade for the briefest of moment, Applejack then took a deep breath and then brought the blade down to her left hoof and drew the blade across it.

“Applejack, what are you doing?!” Dash exclaimed in shock as blood began to well from the cut on the earth pony’s leg.

“The best idea ah can think of to leave ya a trail,” Applejack explained, retracting the blade and sliding the gauntlet off her hoof. “Figure the smell of my blood will act as a trail that you can follow.”

“Are you gonna be alright?” Dash asked in concern.

“Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I’ve endured worse pain than a little cut like this,” Applejack said reassuredly, holding Dash’s gauntlet back out to her. As Dash took it and replaced it in her cloak, Applejack continued, “Now, get going! Fly as fast as ya can and get whatever help you can get, and then follow my trail from this point! Ya got that?”

“Y-yeah,” Dash began shakily, but then composed herself and repeated, more confidently this time, “Yeah, gotcha. I won’t let you down, A.J., promise.”

“Good to hear,” Applejack said with a small smile. Then, she turned to head out of the alley. Just before vanishing around the corner, Applejack glanced over her shoulder one more time at Rainbow and said, “We will save Berry Punch, Dash. You can count on it.” And then, she was gone, leaving Dash alone in the alley, the rain pouring down around her her only company.

Taking a moment to marvel at Applejack’s incredible strength of will, Dash then turned her mind to the matter at hand: who should she go to for help first? She racked her brain, quickly going through possibilities. She couldn’t go to just any random pony’s house and bang on their doors and ask them to help her; she was likely to just get the door slammed in her face. Most ponies wouldn’t even deign to go out on a night like this, regardless. And she doubted the Ponyville Watch would be of much help. Even if she could find one out and about on a night like this, most of the Watch were just regular Ponyville civilians, not trained soldiers on law enforcement officers. They wouldn’t be much use if a fight broke out, and Dash didn’t want to see any helpless innocent ponies get hurt.

So that just left Dash’s friends to consider. She knew she could count on them to help her and Applejack once she’d explain the situation, but there was no way she’d be able to gather them all and bring them back here; the trail would most likely be cold by then, washed away in the rain. She would have to settle on going to get just one of them. And so she ran through just which one of her friends she should go to. Fluttershy was right out; she wasn’t exactly the most combat-willing pony, after all, and Dash didn’t think she could stand to see her childhood friend get hurt or injured. Rarity? While Dash knew she wasn’t above getting into a tussle on occasion, Dash didn’t really place much confidence in her fighting ability, especially if the bad ponies were armed themselves. And while Pinkie Pie could certainly come up with some bizarre fighting tactics, Dash wondered just how seriously the pink party pony would take a potential life-or-death battle with other ponies.

That left Twilight Sparkle, and the more Dash thought about it, the more convinced she became that Twilight should be the one she should go get. Besides being the essential leader of their group, Twilight also had a freaky amount of knowledge in magic and pretty much everything else under the Sun. No doubt she could apply all that knowledge to a battle; heck, she had proven that fact several times over in the past. And she would be able to come up with a good plan-of-attack for when they did confront the bad ponies. And there was no doubting Twilight’s courage; Dash knew that she could count on Twilight to stand her ground in the face of danger and guard both hers and Applejack’s backs. It was a clear choice to Rainbow.

Having settled on a plan of action, Dash brought her hood up over her head before spreading her wings out from under her cloak and taking to the air. Once she was above the rooftops, she paused for moment in the air to orient herself, trying to find the distinctive tree that was Twilight’s home. As if on cue, a flash of lightning lit the sky, clearly illuminating the library a little ways off in the distance to the northwest. Giving a small satisfied grin, Dash then flew off in the direction of the library with all speed, a wake of disturbed raindrops marking her passage.

Author's Note:

So here we are, Chapter 4. We get introduced to our villain and things really begin to pick up. Hope you liked it. :)

Oh, and I apologize for the rather long wait for this chapter. By no means was it my intention; I was well on my way to adding the finishing touches on it when all of a sudden, my laptop up and died on me. So, what with taking it out to Best Buy to have it checked, finding out it needed a new motherboard, deciding instead to just get a new laptop, setting the new laptop up, and paying to get my data off my old laptop (yeah, I know, I should've had it backed up, I'm stupid), needless to say it took a while to finally getting this chapter finished and published. Really wish it hadn't happened, but then, as the old saying goes, 'shit happens'. Oh well, I guess I learned a valuable lesson from all this: always make sure to back up your data however you can, or you might end up paying 120 dollars to get it back when your laptop dies. :/

So, once again, apologies to the handful of people who keep up with this story. Hopefully the wait was worth it, lol.

Comments

[lordofmyth]

a fic based on heavy rain..............
this is going to end with a lot murdered ponies, isn't it?

[fatescanner]

3797195

Actually, this fic is not based on Heavy Rain in any way. Like I said in a previous reply, I just adapted the name and atmosphere from it. This is a story with a completely different plot from the game. Although, I guess you can be forgiven for thinking that initially, lol.

[xTSGx]

A five inch long switchblade? Damn. Nice to see Equestria's got pretty lax weapons laws. They need it with all these cults running around and there not being any police to speak of.

[fatescanner]

3805651

Well, I did kinda model it after Assassin's Creed's hidden blade gauntlet, heheh. I'm not exactly sure how long the blade is for it, though, so I just did a rough estimate of how long I thought it would be, from photos of it and such.

And yes, the regular police force has been really unsuccessful in tracking down this cult. But they're one of those cults that covers up their tracks extremely well. Kidnapping cases are very hard for police in real life, if there are no witnesses to the kidnapping. All they can do is file a missing person's report and hope that they'll eventually catch a break somewhere. Considering that serial kidnappers are also often serial murderers, it makes it an especially gut-wrenching feeling, when people are going missing and then turning up dead, and all you can do is hope that the killer eventually slips up somehow, giving you a key piece of evidence you can use to track them down. And so far, this cult has done a very good job of covering their tracks and not leaving any evidence. And so, the police are stuck.