Prologue
Q&A Session
The monitor displayed a black and white image in the back corner of a little room. A pair of floodlights positioned over a panel of distorted glass lit the small concrete space. In front of the glass stood a set of thick iron bars framed into the concrete. A heavy metal door with no visible handle interrupted the smooth wall next to the glass. In the center of the room sat a sturdy metal chair bolted to the floor, it’s current occupant sat completely still.
The display changed to the feed of a camera set in a front corner of the room and zoomed into the rooms sole occupant. A young saraph woman sat in the chair, her limbs held down with metal loops to the arms and legs of the chair, while a thick leather strap held her head upright against the back of it's frame. Her wings, no restraints attached to them, were folded to her sides. The hair on her head that reached just past her neck and hung over her left eye was frayed and unkempt. Her only visible eye flicked back and forth nervously searching the part of the room in front of her. The seraph’s thin muscular form was clothed in torn khaki pants and a tight sports bra. The veins in her arms and legs bulged as she strained against her arm restraints, her abdominals tightening with effort.
A voice, deep and distorted by magic spoke from everywhere in the room at once.
“We know what you are Raindrops.”
Raindrops narrowed her eyes and bared her teeth in a sneer, revealing four long and very sharp canines.
“Really? I’m happy for you.” the seraph spoke with a deep, smooth voice; dramatic, broad, and pleasant to the ear, though it dripped now with sarcasm.
“Don’t get smart with us, nightwalker!”
As the voice angrily reprimanded the saraph the floodlights grew far brighter, concealing the inside of the room from the camera in blinding light. The chained seraph let out a piercing scream, continuing until the lights dimmed back to their normal state. Raindrops sat in the chair with smoke rising weakly from her, flesh now covered in horrible burns. The charred tissue quickly began to slough off with new, healthy skin replacing it.
“If you don't cooperate with us this will be very unpleasant. Answer our questions..work with us.”
Raindrops turned her eyes to the glass pane and the two silhouettes that were now behind it while slightly spreading her wings.
“Okay...I’ll talk. Here’s what you have to do. You go down to the nearest pharmacy... ask for somethin’ called Viagra...AND IT'LL HELP YA GO FUCK YOURSELF!”
The lights immediately brightened again leaving Raindrops to scream for several seconds longer than the last time as she was punished. When the lights dimmed she was once again burned as if she had rolled around in a bonfire.
“Fuck...alright, I give. Shit, don’t do that again.” She said in a now raspy voice
“Whether that happens again is up to you Ms. Raindrops. Now let’s start at the beginning. How did you get involved with the butcher? What was your part in his work...your relationship to him?”
The camera zoomed in on Raindrops healing face, watching as she clenched her teeth in rage and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Fine...” Raindrops voice was back to normal now but showed how tired she had become. “It started on a Friday near the end of April, must have been...what, three years ago? I was living in Ponyville with my parents and little brother at the time working as a weather mare under Rainbow Dash. Me, Candy Mane and Minuette had gone to a club for a girls night out...”
A night to remember
The music provided by DJ PON-3 blared definingly through the club, forcing the three of us to shout at each other to be heard.
“C'mon Drops, don’t be like that. We came out to have fun!”
I turned my cyan eyes up from the glass of spiced rum in front of me to look at the magus woman. Minuette was a short curvy woman with blue and white striped hair. She sported a sharp two inch horn from her forehead and angular facial features surrounding wide blue eyes. Magi always looked a bit off to me personally, with those pointy ears, horns, and large eyes. I figured it was just me though seeing as she was always very popular among the guys.
We had all dressed up a bit for tonight. I was wearing a tight pair of jeans with a black tank top that showed off some of my bronzed skin. I wasn’t one for dolling up, but I had gone so far as to brush my cyan hair and put it in a ponytail. Minuette, always the overachiever and my polar opposite had gotten completely dolled up. Wearing a sleek black dress that hugged her from and showed some breast. Her blue eyeshadow matched the blue and white striped hair.
“I am having fun Minuette. Just because I’m not throwing myself at a guy doesn't mean I’m not having a good time.” I was tired of this conversation. So I wasn't all that approachable. Didn’t mean I wouldn't find someone on my own time.
“Face it Drops, you need to get laid. Might help get that stick out of your ass and put a smile on your face for a bit.” Minuette gave me a playful wink, smug grin on her face...it was really ruffling my feathers..
“Well maybe if you took things slower you’d get a guy who was still there in the morning!” I knew that was a sore spot for her and normally wouldn't bring it up, but well...like I said, she pissed me off. Minuette’s face turned red as she fumed over my words. Just as she opened her mouth to retort though, Candy Mane broke into the conversation with a scolding, almost motherly tone.
“Girls let’s not do this tonight. Raindrops, if Minuette wants to have some casual fun theres nothing wrong with that. And Minuette, you know Raindrops isn’t like that and theres no reason to go teasing her about it.”
Candy Mane had always been the voice of reason in our little group. Practical and a bit on the naive side, the human woman was good at keeping me and Minuette in check. Don’t get me wrong, Minuette was a great friend. It’s just that we had very different views on how we wanted to live our lives. She was impulsive, taking an opportunity as it came. While I was a bit more slow to act, taking my time to really look at things and get my head strait. Side effect of always having to keep my anger in check was stopping to think about my actions.
Standing about a foot taller than me, Candy had come dressed in a simple yellow floral print dress that hung loose around her long legs and left her strong arms bared. The dress was cinched with a white cloth belt around her thick straight waist. While her two toned short pink hair Framed the right side of her round face. Her magenta eyes glared at the two of us making Minuette and I turn our eyes back to our drinks in embarrassment. That girl’s stare could make a full grown human man squirm like a guilty child when she wanted to. Breaking out of her stern expression she cracked a wide grin.
“Now let’s quit arguing and go dance!”
Candy jumped from her seat and, grabbing me and Minuette by our arms dragged us all out to the dance floor. Minuette was quickly surrounded by guys as we danced. Candy and even me had a few of our own to dance with but they lost interest in me once they found me...unreceptive. My friends figured it was because I intimidated them with my strength and standoffish attitude. Truth is I was just too shy to really get into talking to most guys so I tended to fall into quick answers and avoiding eye contact. Not the best way to get a guy to think you're interested.
Making eye contact with Minuette while she danced with four human men at once, I gave her a smile and rolled my eyes. She responded with a smile of her own as she stuck her tongue out at me, grinding against one of the men that towered over her four foot frame. I grinned as I could tell this was going to be a long night.
It was a little past one in the morning as I flew toward home from the club. Candy had agreed to walk Minuette home since she had too much to drink and since I had really only had one or two drinks myself I just left on my own.
As I flew over the empty streets of Ponyville something caught my eye. Deep in an alley were five men. I landed on a roof overlooking the alley and took in the scene below me. Four men, three humans and one magus surrounded a fifth man. The assailants were all wearing brown trench coats, gloves, and heavy leather boots. The humans were great hulking men with short military style hair, they each had a short sword gripped in their hands pointed at their captive. The magus was a squat little blond haired man with small circular lensed glasses, dressed in a black formal suit. He was saying something to the captive human man while pointing a tec-9 at him. Standing calmly while trapped between them was a familiar human. Lean and lanky, with spiky brown hair and light blue eyes was Dr. Whooves. I didn't know the Doctor personally as he was pretty much a hermit, only seen out every now and then late at night. He was currently grinning like an idiot while wearing brown slacks with a blue shirt and a brown trenchcoat.
Any buzz I may have had going was obliterated at the sobering sight beneath me. There was no telling how long before these ass holes killed the guy. I decided that the element of surprise was my only shot if this was gonna work; five armed men versus me wasn’t good odds in a straight-up brawl. Taking back to the air and hovering over the alley I took position behind the magus, and when I got in place, I dove right for him. I flipped my feet in front of me at the last moment, slamming him chest first into the street with a satisfying crack. Not giving the others time to realize what just happened, I rolled between the backs of two of the giants and sprang to my feet, giving the man on my right a kick to the back of his knee. While he recovered I swung behind the man to my left using my movement with a hand on his shoulder to face him in the direction of his angry comrade. The oaf I kicked had just been rearing his fist back to throw me a punch that now landed square in the jaw of the giant I had taken refuge behind. With one of the oafs out cold from his buddy’s fist I turned my attention back to the one doing the punching. His dull brown eyes widened in shock from hitting one of his own, he threw an uncoordinated punch at my chest. Weaving to the right, I let his fist pass between my torso and my outstretched arm.
With his arm in place I clamped down on it and gave the strongest beat of my wings I could manage. While it was enough to get me into the air the human was much too heavy. Seeing as his arm was stuck between us and it really wasn’t meant to bend that way...with a snap from his arm I finished him off with a heel to the jaw, dropping him to the ground.
I heard a clang of metal against cobblestone behind me causing me to turn and look. The last human had tried to slam his sword down on the grinning doctor, only to have been sidestepped leaving the sword to hit the ground. The human assailant turned and made another swing at Whooves only for the doctor to nimbly jump backward out of the blades reach. That big bastard would find that turning his back on me was a mistake.
I lept over the the assailants side and grabbing his right arm that held the sword, pulled the arm outward while using my other hand to push down on his shoulder, slamming the crook of his arm into my raised knee making him drop his weapon. Pulling my hand off his shoulder and swinging a stony fist into the side of his jaw in one sharp move made me really appreciate the finer things about life, y’know? I may have only taken those iron fist lessons to help me learn self control, but I was never more glad to be a master than at that moment.
I took a moment to make sure none of the men were getting up and to kick the tec-9 down the alley away from the magus before checking on Whooves.
“Hey, are you alright?” I asked as I walked up to him. He didn’t seem to have a scratch on him so I was guessing all was well. Seemed to be right too, based on that shit eating grin he was still wearing.
“Oh I’m great! Never been better! Course these gentlemen would have liked it another way. I guess I have you to thank for ruining their evening Ms..?”
“I’m Raindrops. You’re Whooves right?”
“Right you are! Doctor Timekeeper Whooves, at your service my fine heroin.”
This guy was pretty annoying already. Seriously, who stands there after almost getting murdered in an alley then just acts all happy like theres nothing wrong in the world!
“Right...well doctor I think we should head to the police station as quick as we can. These guys will be down a while, but we need to let the police know what happened so they can come get them.”
Thats when things got weird. The doctor’s grin just got wider as his eyes took on what i can only describe as a sinister gleam.
“Oh that won't be necessary. Police just get in the way of the fun. Weeel sometimes they can be fun too, but this time it’s best to keep them out.”
I took a step back as I ruffled my feather nervously. He was seriously giving me the creeps right then.
“What the hell are you talking-”
“Now as for you miss Raindrops, you deserve a reward! No one has ever defended me before, let alone with such skill. Yes I think we are going to have great fun together!”
I got into a defensive posture as he began to walk toward me, carefully stepping over the body of one of the humans.
“Look Whooves, I don’t know what you’re talking about and I really don’t-”
The Doctors grin disappeared and looking into his eyes I suddenly felt like an ant in front of Celestia, cowering under her gold heel.
“Help me get these men inside. My basement door is right over there. Guess they thought to catch me with my hand in the cookie jar as it were.”
I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what. I would just have to think about it later since right now I needed to help Whooves get these men inside...why did I need to do that? Oh right because he asked me to, gah Raindrops you can be so dense sometimes. What’s that Doctor? Okay I’ll just leave this one here in the corner then. Take a nap? But I should really be getting home. Oh alright, I guess it would be rude to turn down your hospitality...I’ll just lay down here...the floors not bad...good night Doctor.”
The room was silent for a moment as Raindrops looked at the silhouette in the glass.
“You defended him?”
“Ya well, I didn’t know what he was at the time”
“Yes...and why did you help him afterwards?”
Raindrops opened and closed her mouth several times, searching for the right words. Finally she spoke settling with “He could be...very convincing...with those eyes of his”
“...alright, so you admit to helping him?”
“You assholes already know why I helped him! What the fuck is this for?! Why are you asking me this you cock sucke-”
She screamed as light blinded the camera once again.
“We ask the questions nightwalker! ...Now tell us what happened in his basement. Tell us about the butcher!”
Smoke drifting lazily off her bare shoulders, Raindrops took a deep shuddering breath and opened her eyes. “He kept me asleep for awhile. I didn't know it when I woke up, but when he woke me up it was saturday night...and I was held down in a chair, with a screaming human on a table in front of me.”
