Reaper Tales

by aapur

[Side Chapter]Rainfall

Part 1 - Raine
It had been raining for days now. Not the heavy kind of rain, but a light drizzle, which was enough to annoy anyone.
Pilot Sky sighed and looked outside. He was bored out of his mind by this. There was nothing to do, which left him inside, just staring at a wall. The bat pony sighed and headed into the garage, where Diamond Hooves was in the process of recharging his storage of flight crystals.
"Confound this weather." Pilot sighed.
Diamond nodded. "No weather to be out in, sadly. I want to have an adventure again."
Pilot nodded. "Same. It's just that nothing have been happening lately."
Diamond stopped working and fetched a scroll. "Well Derpy just dropped by with a scroll here. It's for you."
Pilot opened it and started reading. He then stopped. "You remember the ones who you were with back in Cherrywood?"
Diamond nodded.
"Apparently have one of them gone missing. The rest of his crew is looking for him now, and at the same time have there been reports of creatures appearing out of nowhere." Pilot read the scroll again. "Looks like all the reapers are now caught up in defending Equestria, so Celestia is actually asking us to see if we can locate the source of the problem."
Diamond Hooves finished charging the last crystal, and then packed them all into a box. "We better get going. I'm just done recharging out fuel too."
They both headed out of the cottage in the forest and headed back it, to where the airship was docked. It was a fairly large airship. The hull was made of steel, slim and long, with a wooden deck and a large balloon suspended over it. There were also two rear thrusters that were powered by the energy from the crystals. The ship was painted so it would be hard to see.
Diamond quickly filled the crystal storage tank with the recharged crystals, while Pilot prepared other things. They were about to power up the engines when the sound of hooves walking through the puddles, and somepony humming. As normal as this could have been, was it scary.
Diamond looked around. "What's going on."
Pilot listened. "Sounds like somepony's humming Rain, Rain, Go away…" he closed his eyes, using his ears. "And it's getting closer."
They looked around, looking for some signs of life. There were none. Just the bitter cold rain, the humming and the sound of hooves. The two headed into the forest, following the sound. They stopped just before a clearing.
There was something there. It was a zebra. He was grey, with light grey stripes over his back, around his ears and around his hooves. He had a white mane with a slightly cyan-green shine, and the inner part of his tail was wrapped in some kind of cloth. His cutiemark was some kind of tribal rain mark. The odd thing was that it looked like he had a chain chained to some sort of metal plate that was on his chest, and the chain was broken. He stopped as soon as he heard them.
Pilot was the first to come out. "I'm sorry if we interrupted you, but it's rare to see anypony else around here except Derpy or the reapers when they come by for a visit."
The zebra looked at him. "Are you here to make fun of me too?"
Pilot looked at the zebra. "Make fun of you? What do you mean? We don't even know you."
"Singing the song, just to chase me away." The zebra looked away.
Pilot sky tilted his head, confused. "I'm still confused, but." He reached out his hoof. "I'm Pilot Sky. And you are?"
The zebra used several minutes just to look at him, before he slowly lifted his hoof too. "Call me Raine. Now leave me alone…"
Pilot looked at him a bit more. "You appear to be troubled. We can help if you want." Behind him was Diamond coming out.
"In fact." Raine followed Diamond with his eyes. "Can you help me return to being a ghost?"
"A ghost?" Pilot tilted hid head.
"Yes." Raine sighed. "I could run away whenever someone started singing that song at me. I could vanish. But then a week ago were I suddenly not able to run. I was trapped in something that feels like a mortal body."
Pilot stopped. "A week ago?" he opened the scroll and started reading. "I don't know if there is any connection, but the monsters started appearing about a week ago, and Horror vanished a week ago too." He looked at Raine. "We can try to help, but there is a catch. We need extra help onboard our airship. Somepony to stay by the wheel. Can you do that?"
Raine thought for a minute. "Fine. Just don't sing if I start humming again."
Pilot and Diamond both nodded. "Then we have a deal."
The three then headed back for the ship, but they didn't speak. They headed onboard the ship, and then Pilot fired up the engine and closed the side-hatch in the hull. The airship took flight and they were off.

Part 2 – Rainy
The airship had been flying over the clouds for several days now. They had to do this to be able to navigate using the stars. Their target was a town named Summerhoof, located far south and east in Equestria. This town was known for it's sunny weather and friendly faces, and it was the only town, which wasn't covered by Reapers, as there were none in that region.
"We should be able to see it if we descend now." Pilot looked at the sky, and then at a technical chart. Diamond Hooves was sleeping now, and Raine was behind the wheel, as always. He looked up at the moon. "May Luna protect us from whatever we may meet…" He turned to Raine. "Prepare to descend."
Raine nodded and lowered a lever. The airship started descending, soon hitting the clouds and passing through. The rain started falling instantly, soaking the airship, the crew and everything else that wasn't protected. The wind picked up, nearly tossing the airship helplessly around. The sound and shaking tossed Diamond out of his bed, also knocking things around inside. Then they broke the bottom of the cloud layer and everything calmed down. This included the engines, and about everything else.
Diamond galloped out. "What the heck was that!"
Pilot got to his feet. "I don't know. Something creating a lot of turbulence as far as I know." He looked at the control panels of the ship. "Some form of energy as it blew the controls and killed the engine." He sighed as the ship now started descending helplessly, and fast. Raine started fighting the controls, but that didn't help a lot. It was Game Over for the ship.

A young mare was trotting through the ruins of a town. She was looking for survivors, without much luck. The rain had put out the fires, but smoke was still rising from the ruined houses, showing that this was fresh. She had found one already, but she wanted to find everyone. She hoped that she would find everyone. She sighed. This was hopeless.
She was about to return home when it happened. It came straight for her. The ground shook as it hit, tearing up the pavement as it kept moving. She closed her eyes.
The sound faded away.
She opened here eyes. It had stopped just before her, barely nudging the stones she was standing on. She was staring at a metal bow of an airship. It was damaged. She then looked up, spotting the heads of two ponies poking their heads over the railing. A unicorn and a bat pony.
"Hey. You okay down there?" The bat pony spoke first.
She didn't reply.
He tilted his head. "There is no need to be scared. We got some technical issues with our airship. I just hope nobody was hurt."
She tilted her head too.
"Oh just wait there, m'kay?" the bat pony vanished, and so did the unicorn. Then the sound of several locks was heard and the side hatch just fell out and hit the ground with a loud "BOING!" sound. Three ponies left the ship. The third was a zebra.
"Who are you." She asked them, still scared.
"Oh. I'm Pilot Sky." The bat pony grinned. "And this is unicorn here Diamond Hooves, and the zebra is called Raine." He nodded. "And who are you?"
"I'm Rainy Days." She glared at them. "But you all should learn to fly. It's a shame, really. What if someone was…"
Pilot placed a hoof on her lips. "The controls stopped responding, but that doesn't matter now. Where are we and what happened here?"
She wasn't exactly pleased, but she chose to calm down. "Welcome to Summerhoof, or what's left of it at least. We were attacked a few hours ago, by monsters and changelings. The guards sent by Celestia didn't stand a chance, but one did survive. They were sent when weird things started to happen over at the Rainfall Rift."
Diamond noted down the details.
Pilot nodded. "May we see this guard?"
She sighed. "Fine. Just don't wreck my library. It took some work to keep it safe."
Throughout the conversation was Raine just standing in the background, watching and observing the others.

The group walked through the streets. Ashes drifted from the burnt houses, just to be caught by the light drizzle and returning to street level, making the streets muddy and dirty. The four ponies walked for several minutes before the reached it. The library. It was a stone building, but most of it was damaged, except for one section.
"I guess you study health and such." Pilot looked at the sign, which said HEALTH in large letters. Inside was the books still neatly placed, and there were several beds there. A guard who was patched up occupied one. He was awake.
Rainy walked over to him and spoke with him. Then she nodded, letting the group come close.
The guard looked at them. "So you are the ponies that Celestia sent."
Pilot nodded. "Yes sir."
The guard coughed up blood. "Well it's too late now. The attack last night indicates that it's soon over."
"What?" Pilot looked concerned.
"The Rainfall Rift." He had a hard time speaking. "The changelings have been tampering with it, and it's now growing, cracking the very fabric of space here in our Equestria."
Pilot sighed. "What if we stop them?"
"Not possible. There are too many of them guarding it." The guard cringed in pain.
"But…" Pilot was about to protest.
"Go home!" The guard growled.
Pilot backed up. He didn't say anything else.
The guard turned to Rainy. "Thanks for caring for me, Rainy." He was now shoeing clear signs of pain. "But please. Go with them. My time is over. You did your best, and for that am I grateful." He closed his eyes and went silent.
Rainy looked at him.
Pilot sighed. "You did your best. You should be proud." He smiled. "He also had a spark in his eyes, which may give him a choice not many ponies get."
She just hugged him, as he was the nearest one, holding close and crying.
Meanwhile had Diamond taken out a crystal, and had now stored every book of the library section in it. He looked at them. "We better get going."
Pilot nodded. "We should go. It's not safe here anymore."
Rainy dried her tears. "Y… Yes."
Pilot looked at Raine. "Are you willing to stick with us?"
Raine sighed. "What else is there to do? According to him are we all going to vanish soon anyways."
Pilot hissed. "Stop sounding so negative. There is always a way. Always!"
"So naïve." Raine sighed. "We can't get to the rift, and therefore can't we stop it. Our chances are gone, and we might as well ask them to kindly kill us all."
Diamond shook his head. "Raine's right. Our chances are gone. Not even the best doctor in the world could save us if we tried to breach their barrier."
Pilot was about to reply when the silence outside was disturbed by a weird pulsing sound. Then it became silent.
A stallion came through the front door. He was slight brown, had brown hair and a hourglass as a cutiemark. He also had a red bow tie. "Did someone call for a Doctor?"

Part 3 – Rainfall
Diamond looked around. He was really confused. In all the time he had been in Equestria had he never seen anything as odd as this. He was inside a large circular room, almost like a dome. The walls were all brassy with small half-spheres on each panel. Several beams that were curved supported the whole structure's walls. In the center was there a platform with several control panels, all filled with random buttons and levers. There was also a screen. The center was made of a glass cylinder with several tubes inside. He turned and looked at Pilot, who was just as confused. The two others were confused too, but Raine wasn't really showing it.
The stallion grinned. "What did I tell you? It's bigger on the inside."
Pilot tilted his head. "So who are you?"
The stallion smirked. "I'm the Doctor."
"Doctor who?" Pilot was unsure.
"Just the Doctor." The Doctor laughed. "But people call me Doctor Whooves."
Diamond pushed Pilot away. "So where are we?"
Whooves smirked again. "Welcome onboard the TARDIS. It stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space."
"And what does it to?" Diamond asked. He also noticed that Raine had settled down on one of the platforms, just staring at the central cylinder.
"It travels in time, and space. It can take us anywhere at any time." Whooves chuckled.
Rainy took over for Diamond. "Then why don't we head back in time and prevent this from happening?"
Whooves stopped. "You can't. This event is a fixed happening. Changing it will get negative consequences."
Pilot nodded. "Makes sense. Can you get us inside their barrier then? To stop the events now?"
Whooves grinned and hit a switch. "Why didn't you ask earlier?" the TARDIS started making the sound it had been making when it arrived, the tubes in the central cylinder moving up and down, like they were opening and closing. The whole thing started shaking and almost tilting, and sparks flew everywhere.
"Is this supposed to happen?" Pilot was unsure.
Whooves laughed. He was having a great time. "Why yes. She can be a bit unstable, but she is safe, so don't worry."
After a minute settled the TARDIS and everything returned to normal.
"Here we are. Inside the barrier." Whooves opened the door, and they were by the foot of a hill. On the top was it clear that something was affecting the Rainfall Rift. It was dark, and the rain was heavy. The five ponies headed out.
Pilot stopped. "One thing, Whooves. Can you travel into other dimensions or planes through the rifts? A friend of mine vanished into one and I want him to return here."
Whooves though for a moment. "Will do. Where do you want him?"
Pilot smiled. "Just place him near Ponyville, and say that I sent you."
"Will do." Whooves nodded. "I'll return here when I'm done." He entered the TARDIS and it faded away along with the now familiar sound.
Pilot was about to head to the others when it returned.
Whooves poked his head out. "And done. It's just that time was flowing differently on the other side. He had been stuck there for years, looking for a way home. He's grateful."
Pilot nodded. "Then I guess you'll be joining us."
Whooves smiled. "Always ready for an adventure."
The five ponies now headed up the hill. They could soon see what the cause was. In the distance was there a changeling, and it was feeding on energy from the rift. This process was opening the rift, causing it to expand and crack and becoming a hazard.
The five headed closer. As they did was the rain falling more and more, all until they faced the changeling. It opened its eyes and looked at them.
"So… Somepony managed to breach our barrier and get in here. That's a surprise." It hissed. "But you are all too late. I'm too powerful to be stopped now, and I shall use this power to server my queen."
Diamond growled. "We'll see about that…" he prepared to attack.
The changeling hissed more, and Diamond collapsed, several wounds forming.
Pilot narrowed his eyes. "You monster!"
"I'm not a monster." The changeling glared at the bat pony. "I'm a mutated changeling. Instead of love will I feed on rift energy, and thanks to this rift have I become more powerful than any of you can imagine.
"How fascinating!" Whooves stepped forward, inspecting the changeling closely. "Indeed. You must have been subjected to Rift energy when you still were young. It must have changed you."
The changeling charged up an attack. "Well whatever happened doesn't concern any of you, because you'll all be dead."
Whooves took out a long metallic object with a button and something that looked like a light at the end. "You appear to be forgetting one thing. Using the supersonic screwdriver can I manipulate this type of rift energy."
The changeling stopped. "What!"
Whooves grinned. "I don't know what it'll do, but it's worth a try." He pressed the button. As soon as he did was the "Light" lighted up and the device made a high-pitched sound. The changeling screamed in pain as the energy burst out, burning it up from the inside. The barrier fell.
Pilot just stared. "What the…"
Whooves shrugged. "Now that was unexpected." He pointed it up and activated it. "Now the rift should mend itself, fixing all the damages."
Diamond cheered. "That's great news!"
Pilot stopped. "What about Raine."
They all turned to face Raine. He had already started fading away. He looked at them. "Thanks for your help. I may now return to what I was. My punishment may continue."
Pilot approached him. "Stop this! We can save you!"
"Save me?" Raine growled. "I was punished for a reason. Don't try to change that!"
Pilot was going to object, but he was too late. Raine had vanished, leaving behind wet hoof prints in the grass.
Whooves sighed. "I guess we could have saved him with the TARDIS, but it's too late now." He was about to say something more when the sound of changelings was heard.
Pilot turned. "Well this can't be good…"
The rest turned, watching as a huge swarm of changelings was heading for them, lead by Queen Chrysalis. Whooves sighed. "There is just one thing to do now…"
"Fight?" Diamond prepared a spell
Whooves turned. "RUN!"
The others didn't even object. They all started running for the TARDIS as fast as they could, the changelings not far behind. They didn't stop before they all were inside the TARDIS and the door was closed and locked.
Pilot shook his head. "Remind me to never accept quests from Celestia again, ever."
Whooves fired up the TARDIS and they were soon gone. He laughed a bit. "Next stop, Summerhoof!"
The TARDIS stopped and the doors opened. Summerhoof was once again basking in the sunlight, but it was also a ruin. Pilot quickly checked the airship. "Yep. It won't take me long to fix this." He headed inside.
Whooves looked at the rest. "So what are you all going to do now?"
Diamond grinned. "I'll be sticking with Pilot over there. He's just amazing."
"Me too." Rainy smiled, and blushed a bit.
Whooves nodded. "Alright. Then I guess I'll be off."
"I'll see you later then, Doctor." Diamond grinned.
"We will." Whooves headed back into the TARDIS and powered it up. It faded away, leaving behind a gust of wind and silence.
Then the silence was broken by the sound of airship engines.
Diamond cheered. "Aright. Looks like the airship is working again now."
She giggled. "What are we waiting for?"
Diamond just nodded and the both galloped onboard. The side hatch closed behind them and the airship took flight. It was later named Airship Raine, and later was it also made official that Pilot Sky and Rainy days got married. That was done during a summer night at Canterlot, and many ponies attended. But this was not the end of the story. There were yet many adventures to come, both for the reapers and the airship crew.