A/N: Hello! Here's the first chapter of my new story. I think it's my best one yet, but you tell me.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harvest Moon, but I sure wish I did.

The day I met him, the air smelled like shit.

And our first encounter was shit, too.

It wasn't even because of the smell in the air that our first encounter was shit. Being a farmer, that was expected for the places in which my animals thrived. My pasture was right behind my house, along with a livestock mother-load. You heard it; manure is always plentiful. Our first encounter was shit because the guy tried to rob me.

You'd think that I would have been scared. Terrified even. But that wasn't the case. I had seen zombie cows for, goodness' sake! Oh, the horrors I had seen in that mine… So when I saw his warning note pasted on my door, I already knew what was going down.

Expect a missing chicken in the morning.
~Phantom Skye

My first thought was: Hell no, not Fluffy. Naturally, he'd take my prizewinner. And who steals chickens anyway!? I do own some valuables in my house: charms, jewelry, and other various treasures from the mine stored right in my unlocked farmhouse. Nobody would be stupid enough to steal from me.

…Or so I thought.

Most villagers knew there was something different about me, or at least suspected it. And they were right. I'm no ordinary farmer; I'm a farm hero who saved the Harvest Goddess, and her minions. Of course, I get my share of magic knick-knacks to play with. I even have a sword which I call Doom-Bringer for the zombie animals in the mine… and to shoo off door-to-door salesmen.

So that morning as I was tending to my livestock and crops, and after seeing the cheeky note, I decided to do something about the situation. And by doing something, I mean complete overkill, because I don't have time for risks when my precious angels.

I went straight to the Witch Princess, hammering my fists on her door. Five minutes of brutal knocking later, the door creaked open an inch, revealing the Witch Princess' darkened red-purple eyes.

"Jill, what is it now?" She grumbled, not at all ready for the day. She looked dead. Dead tired.

"Some asshole wants to steal Fluffy." And I'm not letting it happen.

"The Harvest Goddess?"

"She'd just flat out rob me. This guy left a note."

"True…" The Witch Princess agreed, swinging the creaky door back for me to enter her lair.

I followed her to her cauldron, skimming her disorganized notes with my eyes. She's an interesting individual; a mastermind.

What may look like a room in need of hasty cleanup is actually a complicated, but genius plan for something completely immoral. Her writing is dainty, but blotched ink scribbles, written in an incoherent style. I've never bothered to read a full sentence of her notes. The words I have managed to make out have been things like 'magic wart removal' and 'manservant'.

"Got plans for the Harvest Goddess again?"

"Of course," she smirked, stirring her purple concoction.

"Hmm, well, you wouldn't mind one upping her by helping me, would you? It's not like she helps me out."

Please don't blast me, Harvest Goddess, if you're hearing this. Though, I do doubt that you are…

Our few encounters were more of a 'hi, bye!' meeting. Not much of a conversation. Although I had saved her, she didn't often help me out personally. Her minions helped me, but it wasn't even under her orders.

I wish it was under her orders, because her minions slack… a lot. They're supposed to be Harvest Sprites, but are they really? Sure, they know stuff. But the number of times they've ditched me in the fields is ridiculous. One time, I even tried to pick the lock on the Sprite tree door just to give them a piece of my flaring mind. It's their fault that I beat them at poker seven times. They need to pay up.

The Witch Princess, on the other hand, had been with me since the start. I admit she didn't shovel manure with me, but I was able to at least have a conversation with her without being told 'bye' seconds later. If reasoned with, the Witch Princess could help me out in her own way.

"Well… if you put it that way, I guess I could give you a hand," she settled, raising a finger slyly to her lips. "…But not a word to the villagers. I'm only doing this because it's you."

It was the Witch Princess' fault the Harvest Goddess had been turned to stone. She despised the Harvest Goddess, but she hadn't meant to lose her rivalry. To the Witch Princess, it was entertainment. In the end, she had wanted me to rescue the Harvest Goddess.

"Understood."

The Witch Princess stepped down from her cauldron's ladder, moving along her shelf and browsing for a book.

"Do you know anything about the thief?"

"He calls himself Phantom Skye, and he warns his victims before he steals their belongings."

"I think I know how to help." she said, slipping a weathered book off her packed tight bookshelf, before walking over to me, skillfully half reading the book as she walked.

I have no clue how she managed to do that without face planting over her book piles…

"Thank you."

"No problem. After all, I do owe you one."

"So, what's the plan?" I asked, curious to know what scheme she had cooked up.

"I'll give you some potion to give to your chicken." she concluded, making me cringe.

That doesn't sound good… What the hell does she want to do to my baby? Kill it?

"Oh, don't worry, it won't harm the chicken. Did you really think I'd kill it? I've been kind to you thus far…" she laughed, pleased with her reputation. "But then again, I do have a streak, don't I?"

"Oh…ha ha…No, I don't think you'd do that to me. Maybe to someone else, to bother the Harvest Goddess, but we're friends."

"I only do this for friends," she said, throwing the book aside, and scooping ingredients from a table.

"Ah, we're partners in crime sometimes, aren't we?"

I had once accidentally submitted a poisonous mushroom to the Harvest Festival. Nobody died; they only got a bad case of diarrhea. That didn't mean I didn't feel bad about it. I cracked and confessed to my good buddy the Witch Princess, who only laughed and patted me on the back. Now that I think about it, she probably wasn't the best person to confess to…

"Yeah, my partner in crime…" she agreed, stirring up her brew at the cauldron, "The potion should be ready in a few hours and will need some work. I like talking to you, but…"

"I understand. I'll be back in the evening."

"Okay… bye."

"See you later!"

I spent the rest of the afternoon organizing a mob, starting with Vesta, the other farmer owner of the valley. She didn't raise livestock, but she was headstrong enough to help me fuel a mob of angry villagers, trailing me as we marched down the streets, yelling and handing out pitchforks. Phantom Skye was apparently a common threat, so it didn't take long to have an angry mob gathered around the coop that housed Fluffy.

I, of course, had to part from the mob to slip off to the Witch Princess' house. Telling the villagers I had some last minute watering to do, I ran off before anyone got the chance to offer to help. Not that they would anyway. They came to capture/possibly mutilate a thief, not water my enormous garden.

My fists beat on the Witch Princess' door as I huffed, heartbeat not yet calmed. As per usual, it took a full five minutes for her to actually come to the door. This time, she didn't bother to peek her eye out, swinging the door straight open, as she was (I think) waiting for my arrival.

"Right on time," she smirked, holding out a vial of cranberry colored liquid. I would not admit that it looked a bit like blood. My dear Fluffy will not become a vampire chicken.

"So, I just give it to her? What will it do?"

"Yes. As for the affects, I'll leave it as a surprise. You'll be pleased with the results. It'll get him good… That, I'm sure of," she assured, admiring the vial proudly.

"Thanks for doing this," I replied, taking the vial as she handed it to me. I put it deep in my rucksack and gave it a reassuring pat.

"Like I said, no problem."

"Well, I'd best be on my way. I wouldn't want all your hard work to be for nothing."

"You'd better."

"Bye!" I cried taking off running, so as not to miss the thief.

"Bye. Make sure to tell me the results~"

"I will~"

And I made it, as usual, to the site of my upcoming attempted robbery. I refuse to think that he'll succeed.

As soon as I panted up the hill, cheeks flushed from the autumn air, Vesta grabbed my shoulders, enraged.

"He's here! He stole my vegetables a week ago, but he's not striking again!" She declared, giving me a slight shake, to emphasize the point.

"Please, calm down! We'll catch him," Celia begged from behind her. But she had a glint of determination in her eyes. She was also eager to catch the culprit.

"Yes, we will! He laid a hand on my precious crops. He ain't getting Fluffy, too!" Vesta cried, hefting her pitchfork, which she had rested on the ground.

"That's the spirit!" I half-cheered, not sure if I should encourage her behavior or not.

With that, Vesta stomped up to rally the mob, preparing to hunt him down throughout the farm area.

As for me, I had to give the vial to Fluffy, so I raced off to my coop, grabbing a wooden plank from the lumber shed on my way. Blasting through the coop door, causing a rain of feathers, I got straight to work at barricading the coop, harshly nailing the plank across the door, as if a zombie apocalypse was coming.

I then gently made Fluffy guzzle down her 'fruit punch,' and held her on my lap in the middle of the coop, sword at its hilt, ready for action.

The thief took his time, it being a full hour before he finally arrived to abduct Fluffy. For a while, I thought Vesta might have turned him into a shish-kabob with her pitch fork, howling a battle cry as the thief gazed up at her like a fish. But I also thought Vesta might have been delusional out of her rage, and flipped out over seeing one of my animal's shadows. To this day, I have no sweet clue how he got in. There was an angry mob scouring my farmland for him; not to mention I barricaded the door. He slunk out of the shadows like a cat, walking over to me smugly.

Looks like he didn't get skewered after all…

"Why, hello, fair maiden," he greeted, brushing a lock of long silver hair out of his eyes.

"How did you get in?" I demanded, clutching Fluffy to my chest. "You picked the wrong farm to try and rob…"

"That's a secret, fair maiden. Don't be so angry. You wouldn't want your beauty to fade," he came off as a bit of a creeper, speaking to me, flattering me, as if he wasn't trying to rob me. Never the less, I was still flattered to be spoken to like a princess. He was a smooth talker; a champion at it to be exact.

I admit to have blushed like a schoolgirl that day. It did put a damper on my badass, farmer pride.

"I'm serious, bro."

"Ah, well that's too bad. I would have enjoyed spending some time with such a lovely face."

"Yeah, too bad you want to rob me." And stop it with the creepy lines!

"Hmm… well, about that… CHICK-BEAM… FIRE!"

My favorite part about our first encounter was that he had said something so utterly ridiculous. I didn't like not being able to move my body, but I had to wrestle to stuff back the giggle I held in my throat over his silly spell.

He reached for Fluffy, about to snatch her from my paralyzed arms.

"Not Fluffy! Not my baby!" I cried, staring him straight in his ice blue eyes. I had worked too hard raising this chicken. It might be years before I'd be able to have Fluffy II.

"Very well then, I'll just get another one…" he settled, picking up a chicken named Georgia.

I wasn't about to tell him that Georgia was recently bought, and not at all one of my prizewinners. It sucked to have the chicken that I bought with my hard earned gold plucked out of my grasp, but it was better Georgia than Fluffy. Georgia, I barely even knew yet. Fluffy I had raised since birth. Yet I couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit sad that the bird would be going off with a thief. I didn't know at the time all that much about Phantom Skye.

"Well, it was nice spending time with a fair maiden such as you, but it's time for me to go now…"

And then he slunk into the shadows (no idea how he got out), and was off, fleeing the scene.

I looked down at Fluffy, smiling, as my movement soon returned. I squeezed her into a hug, not caring that my poor dear smelled like you guessed it… crap.

My smile faded when I saw that Fluffy's beady little chicken eyes had turned blood red, seemingly possessed.

"Oh, sweet Harvest Goddess."

As I ran around the coop, chased by my possessed chicken, I grew an immense dislike for the sly thief.

"Curse you!"

A/N: So, how was it? This story will have an ending. I swear on my soul. Reviews are love. :3