Chapter 1
It was early morning when Halo stood on in front of his safe house. It was a normal house in the Phillydelphia suburbs surrounded by other normal houses. Very inconspicuous, which suited Halo perfectly.
He entered the house, hung up his coat, and said: “Hey i'm home”. A disinterested hello came from an adjoining room, that Halo was all too familiar with. It meant that Joy had been brilliant and was busy implementing said brilliance. He stuck his head into the room and saw Joy bent over her work desk with some welding tools. Joy Sparks was a yellow unicorn with an even brighter yellow bubbly mane and a long tail that matched the mane. Her cutie mark was a crossed wrench and screwdriver, and she was wearing her usual big, dark, welding glasses.
“Is Cloud home yet?” Halo asked.
“Not as far as I know” Joy replied without looking up.
“Good, he's still on stakeout” Halo thought to himself. “It had been two years since I encountered and recruited Cloud Chaser, and the blue pegasus has really proven useful,” Halo thought to himself, “sure he had a tendency to be a little rash, but I hadn't really expected anything else from a first year dropout of the royal pegasus guard”. His stomach made a loud growl, and he snapped back into the real world.
“You hungry?” Halo asked, on his way to the kitchen.
“Yes I could eat” came a reply from the busy unicorn. “But could you make something without daffodils in it?”
“Why?” came a surprised question from Halo.
“Well I know the vamponies are allergic to the stuff but you put it in everything, and after all this time I'm just kinda tired of it”
Halo thought about it for minute, before he started looking through the cupboards.
“Let's see here” he said to himself. “Daffodil for sandwiches, daffodil souffle, daffodil cereal, daffodil juice, daffodil jelly... Aha here's somethi - no wait with added daffodil.”He let out a sigh and started making a daffodil sandwich.
“We don't have anything without daffodil” he yelled.
He heard a silent thump that he assumed was Joy facehoffing.
“Fine, then could you make a sandwich?” Joy said with exasperation.
“I'll ask the Pages if they won't get something without daffodil for tomorrow” Halo said as he delivered Joy's breakfast. “By the way are they still home?” he asked. The Pages were an elderly couple of earth pony librarians, that had offered to give the otherwise homeless traveling trio a place to sleep after Halo had rescued their daughters life.
“No they both left already” Joy said. She then said a quick thank you and returned to her work.
Halo headed upstairs, ate his breakfast/dinner and went to bed for a good days sleep.
He woke up almost exactly six hours later. He looked over at the other bed in his room and saw a blue pegasus stallion that he recognized as Cloud. He was fast asleep, so Halo went down to the kitchen. He made himself some food to go, wrote a note about where he went, put on his coat and went out to replace Cloud before the sun went down.
Halo made his way through the Phillydelphian suburbs and arrived at the house he was keeping under observation. He went to their hideout that was a building for sale across the street, that they had managed to “borrow” by convincing the owners that they were fixing the plumbing. There was still some time before sundown, and any vampony action, so Halo spent his time cleaning his equipment and eating his breakfast in the attic. Joy and Cloud joined him during the twilight.
“So whats the plan boss?” Cloud asked, brimming with self confidence as usual. He was a young handsome sky blue pegasus with a gray, spiky, blown back mane and a cutie mark resembling a thunder cloud, with two lightning bolts going out from underneath it.
“We watch the house and when the vamponies come out, we jump them” Halo replied,
“Alright, my favorite kind of plan” Cloud said, while taking to the air in excitement.
“Yes simple plans do seem to suit you best” Joy replied while telekinetically arming her homemade crossbow, attached to her front leg.
Halo shushed them as he looked out the window. “Suns down” he said. “How many did you see last night?” he asked Cloud.
“Well, five came out and six went in” Cloud said, and added: “But I don't think the last one was a vampony. At the time anyway”.
“Okay stay put, we'll see what happens” Halo said.
The two others nodded in agreement and sat down. Hours passed by uneventfully filled with the idle conversation between Cloud and Joy. Halo remained focused on the job. Around midnight something happened. The door to the house opened and two ponies stepped out, a mare and a stallion. Both had a darker complexion than most other ponies, and Halo instantly recognized this as a vampony characteristic and turned around to the two others.
“Two just went out”, he said as Cloud and Joy looked out the window. “They're headed up the street, probably towards downtown, can you two handle them?”
“I could take those two by myself” Cloud said with a little to much smugness. “But I suppose a little backup wouldn't be unwelcome”.
“As if I'm your backup” Joy replied, “I was killing these things while you where still in fliers school”.
“Vamponies getting away” Halo said impatiently, breaking up the friendly little dispute before it wasted anymore time.
“Right” they both said, almost at once. They then went out of the hideout and after the vamponies. Halo sighed and went back to watching the house. He hadn't seen this many vamponies in one town before. He had dusted two last night, and three the night before that. In fact there had been unusually many for over a month now, and since it didn't seem to let up, Halo was determined to get to the bottom of it. “This many vamponies in one town can only mean one thing” he thought to himself, “something big is gonna go down”. He figured the best way to find out was to find the largest nest he could and check it out for clues. His thoughts were interrupted when three vamponies went out of the house, and went the opposite direction of the two others. Halo hesitated, one vampony was a cinch, two he could handle, but three was taking a risk. He decided against going after them and instead he opted to go check out their house.
He went to house and opened the picket fence, it was rusty, hadn't seen proper care in too long. He walked slowly towards the house and pushed the door. The door opened with an audible creak, and he went inside cursing the vamponies for their poor maintenance of doors, which without a doubt had resulted in any vampony in the house now being aware of his presence. The house was a regular model, that reminded of the Page's home, most houses in the suburbs where built on the same designs. The difference was that this house was dark and didn't have any lamps. It felt like nopony had lived here for a long time, and it smelled dusty and slightly moldy. He slowly, carefully and quietly searched the bottom floor for anything that would give him a clue, but there was practically nothing except for the furniture. He couldn't find any living beings in there, but then again, he wasn't looking for any living beings. He went up to the second floor, and when he came to the top of stairs, he saw a coal black stallion with a saddlebag. The stallion started charging towards Halo, who took half second to weigh his options. Then right before the stallion hit him, Halo made a small hop to the side, and kicked the charging vampony's leg, causing him to trip and fall down the stairs. Halo stared at him as he got up, the vampony returned his stare for a second before hissing and running out the open door. Halo was right on his tail, and by the time he came down the stairs, the vampony was at the picket fence. He jumped it, landed, and ran up the street. Halo followed suit. The vampony ran as best he could but Halo was catching up to him, slowly but surely, his coat flailing in the wind. As the vampony rounded the street, he suddenly hesitated, as he saw a yellow unicorn mare, who promptly aimed her crossbow at him. Halo used this seconds hesitation, to make his move. He jumped in the air, readied his stake, and landed right on top of the vampony, stake piercing his cutie mark. He was dust before he hit the ground.
Joy put her hoof down, and folded her crossbow back, so it looked like a slightly tacky piece of jewelry. Cloud looked at Halo, clearly impressed.
“Nice move” he said.
Halo still had a serious expression: “Thanks. Joy take the saddlebag home and see if there's anything interesting in it”
With a chime in her voice she said,“You got it” as she picked up the saddlebag and started walking home.
“Cloud I need you to follow me, we have to check out the house, I still need to sweep the top floor, and I saw three vamponies leaving.”
“I'm right behind you boss” Cloud said.
The two stallions then walked back to the house and up the stairs. They entered and searched their respective rooms, but came up empty hoofed. Halo sent Cloud out to monitor the entrance as he checked the last room. The room was dark like the rest of the house, but it had a window facing the moon, that let a small strip of light fall in on the carpet. It looked like a baby's room, a few toys in a box in the corner and a crib in the other corner. Halo went in and found the characteristic subtle smell of death. He searched the room, and eventually came to the crib. It was completely empty, save for a tiny drop of blood on the linen. Halo clenched his teeth in disgust, over what he imagined had happened here. He had seen this kind of thing before. “Horrible creatures the vamponies”, he thought to himself. Satisfied that there was nothing useful in there he went out the room and shut the door behind him.
“Found anything?” Cloud asked him as soon as he got out the room.
“No, you?”
“Yhea I found some blood on the floor, but no corpse I think they turned someone into a vampony.”
“I know... I dusted him. But good catch keep it up.” Halo said, pleasantly surprised.
“Ohh... Thanks boss.” Cloud said with a surprised smile.
“Now lets setup a trap for the other three. Go get my daffodil juice, it's in the hideout attic.” Halo said while looking for a good spot to trap.
Cloud made a quick salute, and made a stern look, like he used to in the military, he then smiled jokingly and went to go get it.
Halo checked how sturdy the door frame was, and with a satisfied smile he began to set up the trap.
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The sun shone it's first few rays over the still sleeping city, and lighted the path of two stallions on their way home from an eventful night. Cloud had been hit pretty hard on his hind leg, and was limping slightly. Halo was fine and vigilant as ever, with only a little dust on his coat as evidence of the nights battles. Cloud came in the front door first and went straight for the couch. Joy ran down the stairs at the sound of the door and said:
“You're home! Good I was getting a little worried, are you okay? Is Cloud okay? Did you dust any vamponies?”
Before Halo managed to answer, he was interrupted by Joy.
“Wait, it doesn't matter right now and you look fine and we found something in the saddlebag!” she said while clapping her
hooves together.
“Alright what did you find?” Halo asked.
“A book!” she said with a big smile
“A book?”
“Yes, a book filled with letters, well it's not so much a book as it is more of a collection of correspondence. We think.”
Halo thought about what Joy just said and answered: “So you think you found a bunch of letters?” He said, his enthusiasm fading.
“Well it's written in code. But Mr. Page says he can crack it.”
“How soon?”
“I don't know, but I will go help him” Joy said triumphantly, turned around and went upstairs.
Halo looked befuddled and thought to himself: “I've killed four vamponies tonight, and this is the most tiring encounter I've had all month... I'm going to bed.” And so he did.
