Note: this story takes place shortly before the Abuse Syndicate Saga.
One night in Blueberry’s Forest, a dozen men creep through the dark woods.
All of them are dressed in black, with black balaclavas and gloves.
And all of them are armed with various weapons.
The apparent leader of this group speaks up in a hushed tone.
“Alright, boys. According to our intel, the targets aren’t much further away. We get in, we do the job, we get out.”
Another man speaks up, just as hushed.
“But Faucheuse’s cabin is near the place. What if he catches us?”
“He won’t. According to our source, he’s currently occupied elsewhere. He won’t know we were here until it’s too late.”
A third man speaks up next, his hushed voice sounding worried.
“But I’ve heard rumors… the smarty, he’s got some kind of special weapon… he was fighting in the city too, I’ve heard…”
“Even if that’s true, he probably needs a human to help him operate it.”
The leader grins.
“I mean, come on. How smart can a shitrat be?”
Meanwhile, in the laboratory under Pierre’s cabin, several screens display the video from drones, invisibly observing the men.
A female, electronic voice speaks from speakers around the lab.
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
A small, round drone on one table takes flight.
The men creep towards their destination, completely unaware that they are being watched.
The leader whispers to the others.
“Remember: we kill the adults first. Save the foals for last. Adults without foals can run away and make more foals, but foals without adults are completely helpless.”
Another man quietly sniggers.
“When you get right down to it, all shitrats are helpless without anyone protecting them. What about the hippie family, Boss?”
“They’re out too. But even if they were here, they wouldn’t be able to stop us. Only one of 'em’s got powers, and all he’s got is true sight and healing hands. And that hippie freak can’t resurrect the dead. Freaks, the lot of them. All those ChaotiX.”
The leader sneers, feeling so much venom rise up inside him that it’s becoming rather hard to keep his voice down.
“They think they can make us stop doing what we do, just because they have powers. Well, our boss has the real power: more money than God.”
“So does Faucheuse.”
“So what? He’s just an old fool, wasting his time protecting shitrats, just like Korkea. Honestly, I’d do this even if we weren’t being paid for it. Fuck the shitrats, fuck the ChaotiX, and fuck Korkea. Everyone loves him, but when our boss is done with him, he’ll be the most hated person on the planet.”
A third man looks at the leader.
“Have you heard the gossip? That there’s an alternate Korkea in the inner circle? You think it’s for real?”
The leader shrugs.
“No idea. None of us rank and file know for sure who is in the inner circle, and that’s how they like it. All we know is that the guy in charge of the Syndicate has a grudge against Faucheuse and Korkea.”
A fourth man softly snickers.
“Or girl in charge. I once heard that Faucheuse divorced a real bitch. Vanessa Valentine. Wouldn’t it be really funny if she turned out to be in charge? You know what they say, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…”
A fifth man raises an eyebrow.
“Hold on, back up for a moment. What’s true sight?”
The leader rolls his eyes.
“You know, the hippie can see through illusions, and he can see invisible people, shit like that.”
“Can he see through walls? Like Faucheuse’s drones?”
“No, I don’t think he can–”
The leader stops in his tracks, the others bumping into him.
“Drones. Fuck. Fuck! We forgot about the drones! Shit, abort! Abort! We gotta get out of here before they spot us–”
blip
“Suw-pwize, mummahfukkahs.”
As Blueberry appears in the Blaukörper, his own custom Stahlkörper 2.0, the men freeze, looking up at him, feeling more intimidated than they expected when they see the look on his face.
“Oh, shit…”
“Fuck, the rumors were true…”
“Okay, someone has clearly played way too much Mega Man X!”
One of the men throws his hammer at the transparent dome on the Blaukörper, but it just bounces off.
“…That’s not regular glass, is it?”
Blueberry looks and sounds deceptively calm, but the twitching of his eye betrays his fury.
“Nu, it nu am gwass. Su, wut wuz da pwan hewe? Yu kiww da Caw-tew an wun bee-fowe aneewun catch yu? How wong wuz yu pwan-in dis? Fibe, ten min-its? Hu am puttin yu up tu dis?”
Another of the men flips Blueberry off.
“Your mom, shitrat–”
WHAM
A big blue metal fist punches him into a tree.
CRACK
And breaks his back.
“Oh God… I can’t feel m’legs!”
Blueberry grins at the crippled idiot, or at least he bares his teeth.
“Dat am wut yu git fow tawk-in shit abowt Bwuebewwy mummah. Bwuebewwy knu dat yu weggies can be fikst, but Bwuebewwy nu wud wek-oh-mend it. Cuz if Bwuebewwy heaw dat yu am wawk-in awound again, Bwuebewwy am gunna dwag yu tu Pwai-maw Uwf an wet a Tee-Wecks num yu. Dewe am a pow-taw neaw hewe. Su choos da wheew-chaiw, asshowe.”
As the crippled idiot whimpers, one of the other idiots looks up at Blueberry.
“The fuck is Primal Earth?”
Blueberry steers his fighting machine to carefully pick that idiot up, turning him upside down and shaking his pockets out.
“Du yu weawwy wan fine owt? Budee, yu dummehs am wucky dewe nu am anee beaws awound hewe nu mowe, ow yu wud aww awweady be nummies.”
The Blaukörper drops the idiot.
crack
And he breaks his ankle on the way down.
“Su, haf Bwuebewwy made Bwuebewwy point cweaw enuff yet, ow du Bwuebewwy gutta git see-wee-yus?”
The leader promptly wets himself in terror.
“You mean you aren’t being serious now?”
Blueberry shakes his head, steering his fighting machine to grab one of the leader’s arms, as he eyes a button labelled “THE CAREER-ENDER”.
He’s one of the few fluffies who can read.
“Nu. Yu wiww knu dat Bwuebewwy am bein see-wee-yus wen yu mummahfukkahs stawt guin foweba sweepies.”
“Goddamnit, just let us go! Please!”
“If dis wuz da udda way awound, wud yu wet Bwuebewwy gu?”
“…Um…”
Blueberry pushes the button with a marshmallow hoof.
And the big metal hand holding the leader’s arm squeezes it.
CRACK
“ARGH!!!”
“Dat am wut Bwuebewwy fowt.”
Fifteen minutes later, the group has been thoroughly trounced by Blueberry, and the fact that he’s a fluffy only adds insult to injury.
That he’s a fluffy in a big metal fighting machine doesn’t make it any better.
As the twelve-pack of idiots lie on the soft forest floor, staining it with their blood, all of them too injured to crawl away, let alone run, Blueberry looks up, seeing the round drone hovering in the air.
“Yu am gunna wan caww Piewwe, Aff-eee-nah.”
The drone replies in the female electronic voice of Athena, the AI in Pierre’s cabin.
“I already have, Blueberry. Dr. Faucheuse, Cal, and Tommy are en route, and John is with them. I suppose tonight’s meeting will be cut short.”
Blueberry dismissively looks down at the idiots. Half of them are unconscious by now.
“Bwuebewwy can gess wut dey wiww be tawk-in abowt in da next wun. Whewe did deez gais come fwom?”
“That’s what we hope to find out. Good work subduing them non-lethally, I must say.”
“Bwuebewwy stiww went a bitsie oba-boawd, foh. But dey wuz gunna kiww da Caw-tew, su Bwuebewwy nu am feew-in tuu sowwy fow dem wite nao. Dey shud be happeh dat dey am stiww awive.”
Blueberry stifles a yawn.
“It am tuu wate in da dawk time fow fwuffies tu be wunnin awound da fowest.”
“But you can’t go back to bed yet, Big Blue. We’re gonna need to know what happened.”
Blueberry turns his Blaukörper, seeing Calvin, Pierre, Tommy and John walk up.
“Am aww da dummehs awn da gwound nu gibin Caw a cwue wut jus happund?”
As Tommy moves towards the paralyzed idiot to heal his back, Blueberry shakes his head.
“Nu dat wun, Tommeh. He haf wost him weggie pwih-veh-wig-ess.”
Tommy shrugs, healing the leader’s mangled arm instead.
“Alright, Big Blue. Your call, dude.”
Calvin laughs.
“John, you gonna argue with Big Blue on this?”
Commissioner John Jackson shakes his head.
“Considering how many fluffies have had their leg privileges taken by arseholes like this lot? Nah, not really. But if the wanker wants to press charges–”
Upon seeing Blueberry do his best tyrannosaurus rex impression, the paralyzed idiot frantically shakes his head.
It wasn’t very good, but it got the point across nonetheless.
“Nope! I’m just happy to be alive, Officer! I didn’t like being able to walk anyway!”
Everyone present can smell the bullshit.
And they decide not to ask Blueberry what that was about.
At least, not tonight.
Several hours later, all but one of the idiots have been healed and hauled off to jail for questioning.
As they were healing the idiots, Calvin and Tommy noticed A.S. tattoos on their arms.
It’ll be a while until the ChaotiX learns what A.S. stands for.
The remaining idiot has been moved to a hospital, to recover from his injuries the slow way.
He told the doctors that he slipped on a fluffy turd and fell down some stairs, because that’s less embarrassing than the truth.
He’s worried that if he did tell them the truth, Blueberry would throw him down a flight of stairs.
Blueberry’s Blaukörper has been parked outside Pierre’s cabin, where Pierre is tending to it.
It doesn’t need any maintenance, but it needs to be cleaned.
It’s a bit bloodstained.
And as the sun rises, Blueberry, feeling like it was a very successful night, waddles into the Brownie Palace, the vast nest home to the Fluffy Cartel, under an old tree.
These days, the nest looks like a miniature dwarf city. It started off as an old rabbit warren, but the ChaotiX’s terrakinetics helped expand it with more rooms and tunnels as the herd grew into the largest one in the forest.
And the nest, like every nest in the forest, is illuminated by Herd-Lights. The spherical lights designed to be easy to use by fluffies, running on solar power. FauCorp has teams of people distributing them to feral nests across the planet, and teaching them how the Herd-Lights work.
You won’t find a lot of herds who turn Herd-Lights down.
As Blueberry waddles into the room designated as the… for lack of a better term, fluffpileroom, he sees his faithful soldiers waking up, and his family waking up too.
When the herd sees their smarty, they all feel a bit concerned.
They were all woken up by the drone flying in last night, so they have a rough idea of where he’s been.
Fluffies aren’t night owls by nature, and Blueberry is obviously in need of a long nap. His eyes are bleary, and he’s swaying a bit.
As he totters over, the rest of the herd, knowing what to do, gathers around him, forming another fluffpile.
He yawns with a smile, feeling grateful towards his people for showing such concern.
Muffin, Blueberry’s special friend, is right next to him, with Yakko, Dot, and Wakko, their children, and Yin-Yang, the head toughy, Captain of the Guard, and Blueberry’s best friend.
“Wuff dawk time, Bwuebewwy?”
As Blueberry feels his eyelids drooping, no intention of resisting it, he mumbles a reply.
“Muffin… yu hab nu… ai-dee-yuh… zzzzzzzzzz”
And Blueberry falls asleep.
Yin-Yang, who is usually acting smarty when Blueberry is indisposed or on business away from the forest, looks around at the rest of the herd.
“Yu aww gu, we gut dis.”
The rest of the herd clears out, plenty of tasks to carry out, leaving their smarty to slumber away, Yin-Yang, Muffin, Yakko, Dot and Wakko in a small fluffpile with him.
Unseen by their mortal eyes, the Death of Fluffies watches Blueberry sleep, a grin on his bony face.
He would join the fluffpile too, but the sudden chill would wake Blueberry up, and the Death of Fluffies thinks that his mortal friend has earned this rest.
He saw the whole thing, and is thinking intense pride for Blueberry.
If Blueberry hadn’t heeded Athena’s warning, the Death of Fluffies would have had a very big job on his hooves.
And he’s got enough to do as it is.