Hello FC. I teased this one a while back and had been hoping to have the first chapter up by Halloween, but it got a bit long. It’s almost 2.5x my usual chapter length already! So I’m splitting it into two parts.
This story is going to be a single case file among many investigated by an MIB-style government agency called the “Anomalous Fluffy Research and Utilitarian Development” which is definitely not a clunky way to force a bad joke into the core of this series at all.
I intend to use this series as a way of laying a lot of the groundwork for the various headcanons I have regarding the fluffy universe(s) that will appear throughout my stories. You might even see some characters from other stories sprinkled throughout.
Oddly enough this comes hot on the heels of new community standards for what is acceptable as fluffy art/stories and I’m hoping that this is indeed acceptable.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy. As always, I appreciate constructive crit in the comments!
Case File 000093-SF
Edith Cromme had just completed her training for the Anomalous Fluffy Research and Utilitarian Development task force, had only just secured a temporary fluffy engineering license by the skin of her teeth, legally allowing her to take part in the procurement, research, storage and/or disposal of “strange, unusual, or dangerous fluffies” which was… admittedly pretty vague.
The task force was new, nearing two years old. Fluffies themselves hadn’t been around too long themselves, though. No one had really seen a need to have a task for devoted to dangerous fluffies. As far as most people were concerned there were no dangerous fluffies. And they were mostly right.
Today Edith was going to be dealing with one of the exceptions. She and her partner Richard Poore were responding to reports of a fluffy infestation on the southwest side of town, an area that was now frequently host to fluffy mills in the many abandoned warehouses one could find there. A fluffy infestation of any size was not unusual in the neighborhood, but this particular infestation was a bit different.
Among the standard earthie, pegasus, and unicorn fluffies you might find, there had also been reports of various uncommon subspecies of fluffy. One of their sources had reported stepping on a fist-sized spider fluffy. Edith and Richard had been sent by their organization to locate the fluffy mill or mills producing spider fluffies, take samples, and gauge the potential for danger to the public from the fluffies or the operation.
Funding for Edith’s task force had been scarce, the people in charge of determining that were staunchly refusing to acknowledge that fluffies could become a threat to humans, even after Cleveland. Edith’s own partner told her he didn’t believe fluffies posed a threat to humans. The two had already had more than one argument about it. “Why else would anyone have even approved this task force? On some level, there’s gotta be a threat.” Edith reasoned.
Though, when she opened the door and nearly crushed a pink blob of fluff underfoot, she was hard pressed to think of a way fluffies might hurt a human. Edith shooed the fluffy pony away with the toe of her boot, and tried her best not to notice the creature mourn a few of her foals who had been crushed beneath the tires of the rusty hatchback “generously” provided to the agents. Or the swathe of death carved though a dense population of fluffies around the abandoned warehouse. Their intel about this being a mill was spot on, for sure.
“Poore, you’re a dick.” Edith snapped at him. She felt there was little reason to cause these unfortunate things any more suffering than necessary. Life generally shit on these fluffy ponies hard enough.
The tall, gaunt man gave only a dismissive grunt in reply. Thin, callused fingers withdrew a steel cigarette case, then quickly pulled out and lit a cigarette. He started forward, not bothering to check for fluffies underfoot. Every step became an increasing crescendo of snapping bones, and fluffy wails of pain and despair.
Edith followed in his wake, glad her work boots shielded her from the majority of the gore and explosive bouts of scared and/or sorry diarrhea sprayed their way. Some of her pity evaporated with every breath of putrid air she took in. She and Richard were both already grabbing at and donning the company issued “Haz-bio respiratory mask” by the time they reached the conspicuously open front door.
Richard clicked on the headlight attached to his mask, and flicked open his extendable sorry-baton, illuminating a hallway full of fluffies and webs before the fluffies fled, screeching and soiling themselves in fear. Edith quickly followed suit. With the flashlight, not soiling herself.
Even through the worst respiratory masks money could thrift, the smell of waste and rot easily reached Edith. The smell got stronger the closer she got to the door, which led into an unlit hall.
Two beams of light pierced the darkness, showing several rainbows worth of fluffies, eating, shitting, crying, fucking and dead or dying. As Richard stepped into the building he readied his sorry baton arm, and began to swing indiscriminately.
The task was proving to be taxing on her sense of hearing as well as smell now, Edith snapped.
“Jesus, Dick. Now they’re fucking screaming!”
“Easy enough to fix” Mr. Poore retorted, and started swinging his baton more selectively, crushing windpipes and breaking skulls and necks with a practiced ease.
The precision strikes did very little to actually quiet down the fluffies, as those who weren’t being struck at were now screaming about their newly un-alive friends.
“What I fucking MEANT was that we’re not exactly gonna be able to get the drop on our guy now. Since, y’know, every fucking person ever just heard these fluffy ponies screaming their heads off.”
Edith’s partner stared at her for a minute, then, in as condescending a tone as he can muster he says “Ed, they’re long gone. We only found out about this place because there’s no one here and the fluffies hot out. We aren’t here to catch anyone. We are here to get info on what they were doing, and if an investigation is worth our departments time and resources, okay?” He punctuated this with a particularly forceful swing, taking the lower jaw off of a pale pink fluffy unicorn that hadn’t run away in time.
They made their way through broken and crying, screaming fluffies. As Richard turned left to open the door to what looked like a makeshift office, he caught sight of a dimly glowing nightlight, and fluffies clamoring for the safety of being near it, and the evidence of the ones who had been unfortunate enough to be crushed underneath a stampede of technicolor ponies. It was a grim sight, but the nightlight clearly kept them away from the breeding set-up.
Two of the walls were lined with small cages made of what looks like chicken wire, most conspicuously empty. Litter boxes and food trays had been left unchanged for a day, maybe two at most, some fluffies had remained locked in their cages, hooves bloody from trying to dig through chicken wire, and food for them had largely run out. There was even evidence of some fluffy mothers having eaten their foals.
As the beam of light traveled across each caged fluffy they cried out “NYU DADDEH! PWEASE HEWP FWUFFY! AM STUCKIES! HOOVSIES HAB WOWST HUWTIES, TUMMEH HUWTIES TU!” and several similar variations of those phrases, quickly building into a cacophony of high pitch ponies whining and crying screaming and… Chewing?
Both Richard and Edith could hear the distinctive “NOM NOM NOM -SMACK SMACK SLURP- NOM NOM NOM” of a fluffy eating something. Something loud and wet.
“Ed, check that out would you?”
“Yeah, I’m on it.” Shat replied, flicking open her sorry baton and swinging the beam of her flashlight out the doorway, into the oppressive dark of the hall.
As soon as she stepped back out into the corridor, the noise grew louder. She made her way deeper into the building, the smacking and slurping noises increasing in volume. As she rounded the first corner, she heard a crunch beneath her boot.
As she lifted her foot to check, she saw an dirty orange earthy pony crushed beneath it. Sort of.
The pony she had involuntarily killed was strange. It had seven spindly furry legs, each with one joint too many. It had at least four front facing eyes, and two empty sockets on the back of it’s head. Strangest of all was it’s mouth, which contained two prominent fangs, and was beset by pedipalps, though Edith didn’t know that word and just thought ‘Spider mouth’.
As she scraped the remains of the creature from her shoe to bag and tag, she thought back. Many of the fluffies she had seen were a little… odd. Extra vestigial limbs, eyes, ears. She had seen them all upon arriving, and fluffy genetics, while a something of a crapshoot, were pretty stable with regards to unintentional mutation. Even barely passing her fluffy engineering course, she knew this.
She reached to her cell phone to call Richard, but found her self distracted.
“Hewwo nicie wady! Be nyu nummies fow Fwuffy? Am soon mummah! Nee’ gut nummies, pweeeease!” Came a cry from much further down the hall. Edith was surprised a fluffy could see her that far away in such darkness. She was also concerned that said fluffy had called her ‘nummies’. That was… not great.
Edit brandished her sorry baton, swinging at the air in front of her, a classic threat to any fluffy… and it worked.
-ScreeEEEEEEeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEE- “nu huwt soon mummah! Huwties nu gut fow tummeh babbehs. Am gut fwuffy! Gon be gut mummah! Sowwy stick bad fow gut mummah!!”
She pointed her flashlight at the source of the sound, and nearly threw up.
At the end of the hall was an electric blue fluffy not disimilar from the one she had scraped from her boot, but this one was even more spidery. 8 long, spindly legs attached to an engorged torso, slick and oily, and all covered in somewhat sparse, thick hairs. It’s two center eyes were the largest, and bulged visibly from her face, these were black as ink. It had several other, smaller eyes positioned around her head, these all varying shades of light blue.
The sight before her was unlike the previous deformed fluffies she had taken note of. This one really looked like a cross between a spider and a fluffy, and was the size of a dinner plate. It was perched in the center of a clumsily assembled web made of fat uneven strands, which just barely supported the pregnant creature, who was scrambling away from Edith as quickly as possible.
Edith closed her extendable sorry-baton, and took off the respirator. She had been instructed to take a live subject if possible, and she was pretty sure she could manipulate the cowering eight legged moron into getting in the hard plastic cat-carrier Edith had in the hatchback.
“What’s your name, little fluffy? I have some food in my bag here, I can share with you, since you’re going to be a momma soon.” She offered. The fluffy immediately stopped screaming. Edith was able to hear the distant sounds of a fluffy eating… something again. Every slurp and smack of fluffy lips unnerved her, but it was audible crack noises interspersed every so often that really twisted her gut into knots.
Ignoring the sounds, she turned her focus to the fluffy in front of her.
“Fwuffy namesie am… Sigs-Sebben-tuu-tuu-fowe.” She struggled with every syllable of her name, she clearly had trouble remembering it all, since it was a mouthful.
“Oh. Do you… Uh… Like that name?” Edith asked. It hadn’t occured to her the fluffies here wouldn’t have names, or even nicknames.
“NU! Hayt dummeh namesie! Am ugwe namesie fow stupie, nu smeww pwetty fwuffies!”
“If you come with me, I could give you a new name? Maybe some food, too!” And Edith quickly retrieved a reddish brown pellet from her purse.
67224 sniffed the air for a second. “AM DAT SKETTY NUMMIES?!” the blue spider fluffy practically screeched.
“FWUFFY NEBA HAB SKETTIES BEFO’! PWEASE NICIE WADY, GIFF SKETTIES TUU FWAFFY!” Said the spidery chimera. She began to shake violently with excitement, nearly falling from her web before she leapt forward, landing about four times the length of her body away from where she was once sat. Then again. And again. She was quickly clearing the distance between herself and Edith.
Seeing the rapidly advancing, dinner plate sized mess of legs, Edith flicked her sorry baton back open. Better safe than sorry.
“I’ll give it to you on one condition! You have to promise you will behave, and do everything I say. If you lie to me just to have this treat, I’ll have to punish you.” She lightly brought the baton down on the outside of her on thigh, to drive the point home.
The creature, both cowering and salivating, stared at the woman in front of her. She knew the deal wasn’t fair, but something deep, something primal called her to the spaghetti flavored pellet.
“Wiww nicie wady be nyu mummah? Gif wots of sketties tu fwuffy?” She inquired, tipping her head very slightly to the side, like an inquisitive puppy.
Though with how much closer the creature was, Edith could see how little it was suited to those cute mannerisms. It’s lower jaw was bifurcated, and each of it’s spindly, greasy arms was tipped in a cloven hoof, mimicking a spiders clawed foot. Three of it’s eight eyes were glassy, and it was probably missing vision in them.
“If I’m gonna be your new Momma, I’ll have to give you a new name, I guess” Edith said, grateful that the standard fluffy psychology seemed to apply even to this little monster.
The spider fluffy began to hop about in a circle, excitedly screaming. Getting spaghetti, a new owner, and a new name were more than she had ever dared to hope for. And it all came to her in the same day.
“Wub ou, nyu mummah. Yu am bestest mummah EBAH!” She danced around her savior, stopping only briefly to hug the woman’s work boot.
Edith was equally enamored and disgusted. She dropped the treat pellet to the ground, and followed it with three others. The spider fluffy quickly scrambled to the morsels of food, and noisily ate them.
Edith noted that the sounds the fluffy was making were eerily similar to the loud, wet, echoing sound of the other fluffy, who she could still hear smacking, chewing, and cracking away at whatever meal it had it’s nasty little legs on.
After the spider fluffy finished her snack she hopped around to do a 180°, facing Edith, her new owner.
“Fank ou fow yammy nummies, nyu mummah! Fwuffy wub ou, and wub nummies tu! Tummeh babbehs haf biggest heawt happies tu!” The creature cooed to her, and to her developing brood.
“Let’s go, little fluffy. I have to take you back to the car so I can take you home.”
“NYU HOUSIE, TUU!?” The electric blue fluffy screeched with excitement. This had to be the best day of her life.
“Wha boud fwuffies nyu namesie? Fank Yu fow giffin fwuffies housie and sketties, buh mummah say am gif nyu namesie tu fwuffy tu…” She said, awkwardly shuffling about on her eight legs.
The silence was punctuating with a very loud -crack-. Not the gut churning sound she had heard before, this echoed and reverberated throughout the hall. She decided to ignore it for now, focusing on what was in front of her.
“I was thinking I’d call you Arachne.”
