Desk Duty
*~~~*~~~*~~~*...Maple...*~~~*~~~*~~~*
I rummaged through the freezer, plucking up a few ice cubes and stuffing them into a bag before sealing it up and wrapping them in a sheet of cloth I had at the ready. I flinched as I picked up the makeshift icepack and lined it up with the throbbing pain on my head, taking care to set it down as gently as possible to reduce the pain to a still aching minimum.
After a bit of positioning, I trudged away from the freezer and kicked it shut with a hind hoof as I made my way for the door. I was greeted by the familiar look of a dull room: gray wallpaper, closed blinds, an unused yet still beat up sofa at the side of the room.
I groaned, taking my seat in a chair sat behind a wooden desk that was built into the wall. It looked like the kind of desk you see a secretary sit at, and frankly, that's what it felt like to sit behind it.
"I still don't get why I have to take desk duty." I mumbled, earning a groan from the mare beside me.
She was the one who usually sat here alone, but it seemed like she got some extra company doing nothing after her old partner got passed along to another place that she refused to tell me.
"Maybe cause you got your butt kicked in by a vampire? Or maybe it wasn't that, but the fact your brother brought you in to HQ unconscious saying that you got your butt kicked in by a vampire. His words tend to carry since he is the captain you know."
She was what some might call a smart ass, but, she did sit behind this desk every day reading nothing but the same newspaper over and over and drinking a cup of coffee that seemed to never run dry, so I guess she earned that right. Still, she didn't have to be so blunt with her assholery; the least she could do was be creative with it.
I took a moment to curse my brother under my breath before responding to her,
"But it's so boring here." I whined.
She took her time in folding up her newspaper and tossing it forwards onto the desk that was filled with nothing but a stack of yellow papers that had a thin layer of dust covering the top of them.
"Well, considering that we are a group that is supposed to not be known by anyone but a select few that are either wealthy enough to just call the main head quarters to get some professionals out there or are rich enough to solve their little 'pest' issue on their own with other sources, I suppose it would be a bit boring to work a desk job in a hardly known and noticeable building like this one." She said simply, making a lot of sense.
"Don't get me wrong," She continued, "I hate this job just as much as you, the fact that I've had enough time here to fill out literally all those papers so that the only place left to sign is for whoever happens to walk through that door should be enough evidence of that." She said, making lazy gestures with her hooves.
"But I wasn't trained to be a secretary." I whined again.
"You think I was?" She asked with a raised brow and an equally smug smirk.
I did nothing but relax back into the desk chair I had been given and sigh. Had I known this would have been the punishment I got for trying to help that gray mare in the forest, I would have ran out of the camp screaming. The days were long and the office was cold as ice, the only source of heat being the coffee pot and the coffee that was served strictly black.
My mind settled on one thing.
"Does anyone ever come in?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"That's what I ask myself everyday, and I've come to the conclusion that the answer is simple: No one walks through that door except me, and now you." She sighed, seeming sad at the fact herself.
Hours passed with idle chat and the occasional burst of creativity as I scribbled away on a piece of paper that I had found, and with a pen that I took from a plastic cup near the edge of the desk. I even learned her that her name was Rose, but she refused to give me any more than that. She even gave me some occasional entertainment by using her horn and flicking a ball of paper at my head, my job being to try and dodge it with out falling out of the chair. We gave up on that after the sixth time I fell out because of fear for my head and for fear of her suffocating from laughter. I had just begun drawing a small and sloppy sketch of a pegasus flying in a circle, my tongue sticking out of my mouth in concentration, when the most unexpected thing of the day occurred.
The door opened.
Everything dropped. My pencil flew back into the cup and my paper was immediately balled up and tossed at the trashcan, missing it by a few feet, while I tried desperately to present myself in a professional and secretary like manner. The mare beside me was just as shocked, but she only chocked on her coffee mid-swig and tossed her paper under the desk before following my lead in getting into a secretary like posture.
The figure that walked in was cloaked for some reason, making this generally sketchy situation even sketchier. He was slow, calm, and confident with his movements; striding up to the desk with a posture that suggested wealth, until he came to a stop and waited in silence, apparently waiting for us to take the initiative.
"H-hello sir." I stammered, getting a glare from the other mare and even a tiny chuckle from her as well. The frame of the cloaked figure was that of a stallion, so I assumed it was in fact a he.
"Hello sir, how may we help you today?" The other mare said, her greeting much more confident and practiced than my own.
"I understand that you deal with...'certain issues?'" He said, the sound of his voice confirming both my gender suspicion and my origin suspicion. His accent was Canterlot, and heavy at that.
The mare nodded, sliding forward one of the signed sheets of paper she had been so proud of and cleaning off the dust. Next, she pulled out one of the pencils and put it on top of the paper.
"Just read over the paper and fill in the blanks accordingly." She said as we waited patiently for the stallion to finish, and when he did, he did nothing more that turn away and walk out of the building just as quickly and silently as he had walked in.
The mare and I were slightly offended by his lack of any form of 'goodbye', but we worked past it and took a look at the papers. She was first, skimming them over with hard eyes until they landed on something near the center of the page that changed that look completely, sending it into something resembling panic.
She got up, left the room wordlessly and, judging from the sounds, went into a back room and begun to rummage around through one of the closets. I decided to take that time to hop playfully into her seat and skim over the paper myself to see what it was that had unnerved her so. Everything seemed pretty normal to me, of course this was my first day, so I tried to inquire on what it was that had panicked her.
"Why her..." She muttered to no one but herself, "Oh this is going to get complicated."
A thought popped into my mind and I re-skimmed the paper looking for the only name that I thought could be 'her.' It was the name place under the 'target' section, which also happened to be near the center of page, so I went out on a limb and asked her about it.
"Rose, who is..." I took a second to go back to make sure I had the name right,
"Who is Vinyl Scratch?"
By that time she had stopped her rummaging and came back out, a telephone floating behind her and landing heavily on the desk with a groan. She let out a sigh and turned to me, finally giving me an answer.
"Someone who the hunters shouldn't involve themselves with."
She turned back to the phone and punched in a number, placed the phone up to her ear, and waited for the call to go through. I could hear the faint sound of ringing disappear and replace with the sound of another pony's voice; a mare to be exact, so I assumed it was another secretary.
"This is Rose Bush, can you connect me with one of the commanders?" Her voice was clam, yet I could tell she was shaking on the inside.
The voice on the other end of the line muttered something back, sounding a bit confused and agitated.
"It's involving a contract that was just placed: it involves the mare..." She hesitated, "Vinyl Scratch."
The other end of the line went silent before a different voice picked up, this one masculine and much more confident in tone. They went into a deep conversation that I only payed attention to for about ten minutes. After they had finished that, Rose put the phone down and rubbed her temples tiredly.
"Why her?" She asked to no one.
"Are you ever going to tell me what's going on?" I asked with a raised brow.
She let out a long, shaky, sigh and placed her head down in her hooves for a moment, resting her head as if she was getting a head ache. She finally lifted up, her eyes much more hard and crisp than I had seen throughout that day.
"All that you need to know is that when that name comes up anywhere inside of the order, it means trouble. And if someone has placed a hit on her, then all that means is trouble," She put her newspaper down to reveal her conflicted look,
"and whatever trouble she managed to start is only the beginning of what is to come." She said sharply, reaching under the desk and picking the paper back out, unfolding it and going back to reading.
*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*
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Well, this is now complete. Time to read it, this may take a while.
Shameless sequel setup.
I like you.
~Crystalline Electrostatic~
5320820
Thank you!
You are officially my favourite author. like Forever. The simple fact that this is getting a sequel made my week.
Superb story! loved it all the way to the end.
A sequel...
GO ON
mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw3340-1330489306356.gif
Yay sequel
also awesome job on this first story, was great 
I count this as my Black Friday deal, new story in the works! YAY!
Also, calling that as Octavia's dad, just saying...
well it is obvious that the hit was placed on her by a vampire stallion but who this stallion could be is a mystery. and since the hunters are now "probably" going to go after vinyl, that means Octavia will do anything she can to protect her. now a nice twist would be if somepony decided put a hit out on octavia as well only it is the vampires that receive the notice. a good reason for a hit on her would be for her to retain some of the abilities she temporarily gained during the fight at the castle making her a threat to someponies. so vinyl and octavia will be caught between two underworlds fighting for their lives all while they tyring to keep their secrets safe from the outside world
You...Magnificent Bastard! This has become one of my favourite stories by far. Now to wait as you write the sequel... I'm gonna die!!!
Ah calm down ya pussy! This won't kill ya.
Says you, the Immortal Sheogorath, master of Chaos and Insanity!
Flattery will get you everywhere. Here's a wheel of cheese!
Gimme!!!
-Meanwhile, with Discord-
Why did I feel a Chaotic event? That doesn't involve me!
Oh hush, Amateur! I was simply giving an extremely chaotic mouse some cheese!
Ohhh, who's life is he messing up now?
Ehhh, some punk Dinosaur that traumatized him as a kid. Goes by the name of 'Barney'.
About time someone tortured that abomination.
Coming from a Chimera?
Hush you!
5320418 I started and finished this in less than 8 hours.
5322967
Yeah, I put a notice in the author section and description of the story about that, but I definitely plan on fixing it when I can.
Wow. Great job, I enjoyed the story since I first discovered it when you started. Great work over all for your first story.
Good luck on the sequel planning.
5331506
5324492
Thank you.
5333601
Thank you!
a sequel?...
Buck yeah! That makes me so happy :3
Thank you for everything sapphic.
if i had to guess how this was going to happen minor tradgedy with dark adveture for good measure along with further romance tags were vinyl and octavia head to ponyville to live happily everafter
well that and hopefully octavia learns to control her powers as a sorta vampire to vinyl's venom or better yet i hope she learns how to be a vampire hunter from shakes why because the venom super power could just be an way to give her faster reflex's and slows the world down for her
I really want to read this, but your grammar may need some more revision, if you get the chance.
-Chessie
Awesome story Can't wait for the sequel
Need to change that coverart, bro. I gave you the tools, but you need to fix it.
Just finished reading this... What a treat to read. Before I do a small fangasm, lets start with the bad stuff. Throughout the entire fiction there are quite a few errors, mostly from what I can tell is the spellchecker not guessing at the correct word. Things like 'I went out and told the party leader "Sorry, I can help you today"' when you really meant 'I went outside and told the party leader "Sorry, I can't help you today"' or things similar in nature.
The good news is that I don't let things like that bother me for a fantastic story. A sequel was mentioned, I really hope it comes sooner rather than later.
By luna's moonlight, I just got hip to this site. And the first story I read is a straight out of the ballpark hitter. I can't wait to see more from you. Read the whole story over my free time at work. Get called a way I'm like " damn u I was reading great story !!!!!!!" to my coworkers <no joke>
5392168
Thank you!
by the way don't forget to inculde a link to your next story why because it is simply genius id want read it as soon as possible
5407008
That's honestly how I felt after reading it over myself, which is one of the reasons I started the whole revisions in the first place. I'll take your advise and poke around in hopes of finding an editor or two to help me out with straightening out story development.
I've just finished this story and I'm really looking forward to the sequel. The quality of you fiction went astronomically up. You managed to write one of my most beloved stories on this site. And it has everything I like: Taviscratch, epic fights, vampires, romance (Even though I wouldn't mind if you add more Taviscratch moments. Just saying.) . It's just perfect. You did magnificent job and I hope you had as much fun writing it as I had reading it.
I'm just a little confused be the ending. Is Tavi vampire now or is she still changing and was changed by Vinyl or by that maniac?
Regards
Really a great story, but what nags me is the open ending because now i have to wait for your, hopefully soon, coming sequel( maybe you could give a vage date for the first chapter to be coming) . Just a theory of mine but is the cloaked stallion at the end tavi's father?
This story has just been annoying to read so far. I think what I'll do is mark it read later, but I wish you luck in your revisions.
5493641
I'm sorry you found it annoying to read, might I ask what you found to be annoying so I can fix them in the revisions?
5493776 Actually, how about when I have time I take a chapter and edit it? I could copy the whole thing to a GDoc and make comments about stuff. It's been a while since I've had anything to edit, anyway. Any suggestions on which chapter?
It might take a while to get started, though. I'm quite busy.
5493786
That's fine by me, as for the chapter, pick whichever one you found to be the worst and put in anything you deem annoying. Once you finish, send it to me and I'll take a look at it and use that as a sort of master copy for the rest of the chapters and look for similar ( or even the same ) mistakes.
I'll probably fully rewrite a the first few chapters that were practically unbearable.
Thanks.
I just finished reading your book, two enjoyable days of reading
I didn't read so much in quite some time. You really got my attention with the story.
There are just two little things that would make it complete.
-I would have liked to see a little chapter that describes the lives of them after everything happened. But It looks like you're planing on a sequel so that's not a big problem.
-And it needs a cover. It's not necessary but it makes the story more appealing and easier to find(at least for me.)
sequel
5725955 starting this story at 2:50 am I have insomnia I will say something when I'm done
Urg... This story was kinda a pain to read. Not because of bad storytelling, but the myriad of spelling errors, grammar issues, and just general mistakes or bad practices. Had there been an editor or more time taken to proofread, this story might've been better, but I found myself just skipping the last three chapters to get it over with. The only thing that kept me reading was because I had gotten so far. It felt like at that point there was an error per line.
Nevertheless, I think I liked it...?
6263436 You're most welcome.
PS:Almost forgot about this story, need to get back to it.
Dude! You are one of/ if not my favourite writer!
Can't wait for your next project!
Also R.I.P Welcome to the Show
Please let me know when the sequel comes out, this is going to be too good to miss.
6424106
I just released it yesterday
6424297 would you be so kind as to send a link?
6424384
Here you go
Thank you!
Haven't read it for so long have to reread it was 26 chapters in and I get to experience the feels and love for it all over again sucks when u forget about your account after awhile
I realize this might be such a late comment, but Vinyl's eyes are supposed to be red. The animation team painted them red and the colour correction program all episodes run through changed them to purple. So as far as I'm concerned, they should remain red in fanon and canon.
6635373 we have the show assets and no other colours get modified like that so why do you claim vinyls eyes were?
6812032 That is entirely incorrect. A lot of colours get modified, starting with the eyes of multiple ponies, making them magenta, up to Luna's season 2 colour scheme. She's a lot more blue in the pre-colourcorrected version.
The screenwriters never intended for Vinyl to raise her sunglasses during the season 2 finale, that was entirely the decision of the animating team.
Follow this link to the CAC interview with the chief animator. He explains it in explicit detail."
6812251 we have the show assets, I personally have the leaked pre season 1 show assets from 2009 - april 2010! Where is this colour shift? I have most of Dash's original rig, its got magenta eyes. A single earlier image has her with cyan eyes. Its never any other colours but those.
https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/9/23/986132__safe_twilight+sparkle_rainbow+dash_pinkie+pie_fluttershy_rarity_applejack_scootaloo_sweetie+belle_mane+six.jpg
The cast circa 20th may 2009
https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/9/23/986139__safe_solo_rainbow+dash_firefly_concept+art_leak.png
Every image after that she has her real eye colour that was used in the show, even ones with the incorrect and original cutie mark. Where is this colour shift?
6812314
Now, this is only speculation, but I doubt they completely changed their colour correction program after one episode. Thus you won't find a shift in colour, there is none. You would need the footage and data from before it was sent to Hasbro and DJX for final review and processing, something I seriously doubt they can legally publish.
All I can tell you is to watch the video Iinterviewing the guy who actually did the animation and colouring, listen to what he says and then decide for yourself whether Canon should be determined by screenwriters and animators or a simple computer program.
If yyou'drratherhave her eyes being magenta, that's your opinion and you'reentitled to it. But I for one will stick with what was intended and what a majority of the fandom wanted.