Cruelty by Gardel

Cruelty

By Gardel

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This story happens only a year after the industrial accident that got breeding fluffy units escaping into the wild and reproducing outside Hasbio’s control.

It only took that year for the price of a fluffy to crash from a small fortune to that of a regular pet, although in the future it would go down even further.

This made no difference to Snowflake, a dark blue pegasus stallion with a white mane. His owner Fred was a 40-something confirmed bachelor who wanted to relive the days of his teens when he was a brony and dreamed about living in the magical land of equestria with the cast of the show. However these real cartoon “ponies” made by a subsidiary of Hasbro turned out to be nothing like what Fred had pictured IRL MLP ponies would be in his youth.

They were stupid, smelly, and although adorable at first the novelty wore out far quicker than anyone would have expected. They were also high-maintenance pets and expensive to keep. Fred was able to withstand Snowflake’s many flaws caused by being a beta version rushed into production, but the nail in the coffin was when the Georgia incident that got fluffies into the wild went from being minor news to a major event.

Fred always thought that if he finally got tired of living with a biotoy he could get the $14,000 loan he got to pay for Snowflake back if he simply decided to sell the stallion, getting rid of it and maybe even making a profit from someone who couldn’t stand Hasbio’s long waiting list to finally get a fluffy. Lots of people were scalping fluffies back then, some had pre-ordered only to do this. The EULA said nothing against reselling your fluffy.

But the incident changed everything: all over the web you could see posts from illegal breeders selling unlicensed foals that still had the Hasbio logo printed in their hoofs because their DNA was enconded with those. However there was no laser-etched serial code in their flank as they weren’t born in a hasbio facility. While the prices in the low 4 figures were ridiculous in our age of $0.50 foals, for the time the discount was simply massive at only a fraction of Hasbio’s inflated MSRP.

Fred had been disappointed at Snowflake but now he simply hated him for having wasted so much money. In a fit of fury he kicked the stallion out.

HUUUUUU! NU! DADDEH PWEASE! -yelled the stallion as it stomped its soft hoofs on the door while producing no noticeable noise.


Art by Juniper

Only months before it could have walked into any house and receive a warm welcome.

But now even better colored fluffies than Snowflake were having trouble being bought and stayed longer than usual at stores while being discounted over and over.

As prices went further down more people was able to buy fluffies, both official and unnoficial ones, and so even more were throwing the biotoys out once they grew tired of them. Fluffy shelters weren’t a thing yet, animal shelters refused to take fluffies. People weren’t sure if products of genetic engineering were even truly alive and thus deserving of compassion. Some just wanted to get rid of them quick.

That’s when the very first stray fluffies were beggining to show up.

And with them the first abusers.

As it walked through a sidewalk at night Snowflake saw a red mare on the other side of the street trying to reach a trashcan.

Then a man in his late 20s walked out of the alley…

“Well look at you…”

Huh? mistah am fwend?

“Sure! I’ll be your friend! wanna come with me?”

Uh, Staw am waiting fo’ mummah, mummah weft foweba ago bu’ Staw am gud an’ wait fo’ mummah!

“Well I know your mummah and I can take you to her!”

Weawwy? -said the mare as its tail swirled around

“You bet! and I’m sure she’ll give you…err…what was it again–spaghetti!”

“Sketti?! weawwy? fank you mistah!”

Snowflake saw the guy grabbing the mare which was already on the huggies pose. Then the man walked back into the alley and the stallion could hear as a door closed.

The homeless fluffy wasted no time and crossed the deserted street and went into the alleyway. Even when it was dark and filthy Snowflake kept walking to find the door and ask the nice mistah if he could help him go back home, maybe convince his daddeh Fred from taking him back.

Or maybe, just maybe, be his new daddeh.

After all the man was helping the mare, maybe he could help him too?

Huu, wewe am dowwsie? Snowfwake nu can see…oof! huuuuu! huwties! wha–DEWE!

After knocking its head against something hard and looking up it was able to see the metal door he heard before.

Mi-mistah? nice mistah? fwuffy nee hewp, nee–

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

The stallion was stunned, it had never heard another fluffy screaming, not like that.

Had it been able to recognize that weird sound he would know it was powerdrill.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

“Ha, hahaahhh! I love this! LOVE IT!”

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

REEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Snowflake couldn’t see what was happening. It couldn’t see the tip of the drill destroying the fragile bones of the mare’s legs, each being perforated as the abuser tried to extend the life of his new punchtoy since stray’s weren’t that common yet and this mare was the first he could find in over a week. And while fluffies were cheaper than before they were still too expensive to just be used as stress balls.

Fluffies might be dumb, but not that dumb. Snowflake was able to connect the dots and realize the nice mistah was actually a mean munstah.

Huuuuu! nee wun 'way!

Snowflake waddled as fast as his genetically engineered stumpy legs allowed it. It didn’t care much for directions, just to get out of there.

And so it accidentally ended up in the city park.

There he stumbled into a group of fluffies who had formed a herd, the first of many that would eventually be in every city in north america.

Snowflake was too agitated, it could barely breath after the long marathon of 4 city blocks.

An orange mare began waddling towards him.

Fwuffy am otay? mawe am Lauwie! wive in pawk with odda fwuffies!

The stallion looked around: there were a few stallions and other mares around. They were all former domestics, their growth hadn’t been stunted by the subpar diet of living eating rotten garbage and grass full of pesticides. Their coats were only mildly stained but you can tell they had enjoyed baths and haircuts until recently. Their hoofs weren’t broken, their teeth practically intact from only eating soft grade-A kibble and canned hasbio-branded sketti.

Some still had the shadow of a collar in their neck fluff, removed by its owners before they discarded them.

While Snowflake being a fluffy sold by Hasbio was completely sterile these other fluffies were the product of illegal breeders that didn’t care about fixing them and just wanted to sell the foals before hasbio’s copyright lawyers could find them.

Thus these fluffies were as fertile as the escaped breeding units that birthed them.

And because of that there were foals too, lots actually.

Bu-babbehs?

Snowflake had never seen other foals since itself had been one in a hasbio nursery before being shipped to an official store. There Fred who had been on the waiting list since day one took the pegasus foal before employees could even move it from the special padded shipping box to its designated hasbio pen.

These foals in front of him were among the first ferals, the first generation of foals born in the streets rather than in a hasbio installation, a garage breeder’s pens or a safe room inside a warm house. Most would never know the joys of a home, the love of an owner or the comforts of a brand-new hasbio nestie but would still retain the engineered need for a ‘daddeh’ or ‘mummah’ forever.

Fwuffy hab namsie? am Coopah! -said a grey unicorn stallion

Am-fwuffy am s-snowfwake…

Coopah am weadew of dis hewd

Weadew?

Yus, am smawtie fwuffy! hewp aww fwuffies wive in pawk! snowfwake wan join hewd? evewy fwuffy am wewcome!

Not seeing many options around Snowflake decided to take the offer.

At least he wasn’t lonely anymore.

A few ‘fowebas’ later in fluffy time morning came and for Snowflake the park didn’t look nearly as scary as it did during nightime.

In fact it looked really nice. There was plenty of grass and pretty plants around, the bwight-ball in the sky was shinning and the stallion felt the warmth in its poorly-insulated coat optimized for looks and nothing else.

Snowflake saw a few humans walking nearby, it suddenly felt the need to waddle to them and beg for a new home. But then something clicked inside as it remembered the man in the alley and the horribly screams of Star the red mare.

But before its brain could process it the stallion saw a few fluffies and older foals waddling towards the humans to greet them.

…and nothing bad happened to the fluffies.

Back in those days people would feed breadcrumps to fluffies at the park and pet them as they were still amused by the idea of living plush toys walking around, their broken speech still funny rather than annoying. Kids would still play with stray fluffies at the time because they didn’t look as bad as strays and ferals of the future which had been broken by an environment they weren’t designed to live in, each generation more damaged than the previous one.

Despite this the stallion decided to go back to the nest instead. The mares there were busy tending to young foals, many of them still ‘chirpies’ that were born only a couple days before.

While Snowflake was able to have speshul huggies it wasn’t able to sire any foals. Still he enjoyed playing with the foals of other fluffies which were more than willing to let it help around. It even helped name a brown earthie filly, now known as Chocky because its coat reminded him of the chocolate nummies his daddeh liked.

Hehe! wuv namsie! wuv Snowfwake!

Wuv Chocky tu!

The times were good for the herd, Cooper would keep order and go with Snowflake and the other stallions to look for food, most of the time just trashy-nummies. The mares would feed on this and the grass to make the miwkies their foals needed to grow, albeit without the proper artificial nutrition of specially formulated kibble the foals wouldn’t grow as well as their parents did. After all fluffies weren’t mean to live outside eating trash and plants. The consequences of this malnutrition would only be more evident generations from now when stray and feral fluffies would look very different from properly breed ones.

But for now things were good, the fluffies were even enjoying their freedom at the city park.

However this was not meant to last and a couple weeks later one of the scout stallions, a green unicorn named Ricky, got mauled by a pitbull that got away from its owner to chase the herd of weirdly shaped tiny pseudohorses living near the trees.

REEEEEEEEEEE! HEWD! HEWP!

The other fluffies ran to help Ricky but they didn’t know what to do. The Hasbio User Manual specifically said on page 6 that fluffies shouldn’t be left alone with dogs, and here was a particularly vicious and dangerous breed of dog destroying their friend.

Huuuhuu, pwease doggy-munstah wet fwend gu!

Several fluffies began pleading the dog to release their friend. The dog, a 200-year old breed made specifically for blood sports wouldn’t flinch when attacking a human infant, why would it care about this thing?

EEEEEEEEEEE! PWASE! STAWP!

“Rock? Rock! come here dumbass!” said the dog’s owner

The pitbull heard its owner and let Ricky fall down into the grass, but it was too late for the scout stallion as it was broken beyond repair. Not even a certified fluffy technician would be able to stitch him together, and being the product of an illegal fluffy breeder he was not covered by the warranty either.

Nuuuu! daddeh! -cried Chocky. The filly used to sleep with its father in the fluffpile and of all the foals in its litter it was the one that was most attached to the stallion.

kafba-babbehkafWi-cky wuvskaf

That was the last thing Ricky ever said, the blood loss was too much for hasbio’s quick-cloth technology to handle.

As Chocky tried to hug its father back to life the other fluffies didn’t know what to do with the body. If it was an official hasbio fluffy its owner was supposed to store the body and if possible freeze it until a hasbio employee could retrieve it and then if covered by the warranty ship a brand-new weaned foal to him. Owners of unlicensed fluffies would simply bury them in their backyard like a regular pet.

In the near future dead fluffies would just be throwed into red bins…by the ton.

One of the mares decided to grab some leaves to cover the body so the ‘booboo-juice’ wouldn’t look so scary. The other fluffies thought it was a good idea and eventually Ricky’s remains were covered by a small pile of leaves.

The first fluffy tomb? who knows.

A day later the herd was back to normal. Is not that fluffies were insensitive to what happened but their creators put so much emphasis on the speech and ‘cute’ behavior patterns that there wasn’t much left for things like memory in the tiny brains. So not only were their attention-spans incredibly short but so was their short-term memory. One of the many side-effects is that fluffies were able to overcome trauma very quickly

But many owners being ignorant of this fact thought fluffies were despicable creatures for acting like this.

Abusers on the other hand would come to love this bug in fluffies’ brains and rejoice on being able to bring fluffies back from absolute despair only to torture them and repeat the process again and again until they were finally too mentally and physically broken.

However the herd’s true ordeal what just about to begin…

The ‘cowd times’ are coming.

But meanwhile things were still good, specially for Snowflake who had finally found a speshul fwend: a dark yellow mare without a name but who still loved the stallion despite being unable to give it babbehs.

Nu wowies Snowfwake! fwuffy stiww wuv ou!

Fank you speshul fwend!

Other fluffies kept playing around, eating whatever they could find and popping new foals out. Colts and fillies wasted no time in having speshul huggies as soon as they became sexually active.

Leaves turned brown and slowly fell from branches, but there was still enough grass and plenty of people still came to the part so trashcans had enough contents for fluffies to still find food on them.

None of the fluffies in the herd had ever gone through autumn and winter while living outside. Those old enough to have seen winter used to be domestics living indoors and the younger ones born in the wild were a few months old at best, some just days.

So things went as normal for a while longer, fluffies still played and laughed while enjoying what the park had to give them. It wasn’t an ideal life but they would make do.

Then the air became really cold, trees were now completely bare, sunlight began to wane, the sky turned grey.

And one day it began snowing…

Wha am dis?

Cowd wawa?

Teehee! babbeh wuv white sky fwuff!

The fluffies were happy playing in the snow at first but then came the night…

Huuuu!

Su cowd!

NEE WAWMIES!

NU! ONWY BABBEHS CAN BE INSIDIES OF FWUFF PIWE! -said the smarty who knew foals had to be protected from the cold weather or else they would quickly die.

Unfortunately that morning the herd realized all the fluffies on the outside rim of the fluff-pile had died from hypothermia.

Whu-why fwend nu move nu mowe?

Huuuu! pwase mummah wakies!

Nuuuu…foweba sweepies? huhuuu…

The herd didn’t know what to do, how would they survive? the snow was still all around them.

But then an older colt stumbled on a hole: it was the entrance to an abandoned rabbit den.

Whu? is that wamsies? -it said feeling the slightly warmer air coming out from the hole.

Bu am dawkies, scary!

It took a while for the colt to muster the courage to venture inside and when it did the big foal realized it had found the solution to the herd’s problems.

Smawty! smawty! com quiwk!

Whu? am big babbeh huwt?

Nu! cowt found new nestie fo’ hewd!

The herd was happy again, they had found a nice warm place to stay during the winter.

That night no fluffies died due to the cold, they formed a long fluff-pile along the main tunnel to share their heat, foals once again on the very middle to stay as warm as possible.

But it took them another day to realize there was an even bigger problem: there was no food inside, or outside…

Hungy! babbeh nee miwkies! nee miwkies!!

Huuu su sowwy babbeh, mummah nu hab nummies to make miwkies…

Fwuffy su hungy, tummeh huwties!

Snowflake could remember how Fred would give him more food than he could eat, how back home there was as much kibble, sketties and treats as he wanted.

While the stallion had seen winter before it only did so from the safety of Fred’s big house with automatic climate-control. Fred wouldn’t take the fluffy outside being afraid that any damage could lower its value. And so as far as the stallion knew winter wasn’t even cold, how could it know there would be no food either?

A group of stallions ventured outside to find nummies for the herd, Snowflake standing right behind Cooper.

Whu? wewe am aww da gwassies?!

All the fluffies could see was endless cold white stuff. As they walked around those behind could see the grass patches on the hoof prints of the fluffies ahead of them.

Wook! gwassies am undah da white cowd fwuff!

The fluffies wasted no time and began digging the snow away with their hoofs. But under that was nothing but brown dead grass.

Yuckies! nu taste gud!

Huuu! su hungies!

Fwuffy hab saddies…

Cooper could see the morale of the herd being destroyed by the horrible situation they were in. After all there were no nummies, even the trashie boxies were empty.

The smartie knew something had to be done…

Then he saw a hoomin on a sidewalk near their new nest. He was wearing a big winter jacket and a black wool hat.

And in one of his hands was a bag of cheetos.

NUMMIES! -screamed Cooper before waddling as fast as it could towards the human, Snowflake and other stallions following behind.

Mistah! mistah!

“Huh? fluffies? here?”

Gud mistah! can fwuffy hab sum nummies?

“What? the fuck are “nummies”?”

Some of the fluffies got scared at the bad wowdies but Cooper knew it had to insist.

Nummies, foodies, wike hoomin hab!

“Foodies? you mean this?” -said the guy while holding the bag in one gloved hand

Yus! mistah shawe wit fwuffy hewd?

“Nah, these are mine, go away faggot.”

Cooper began to shake, he didn’t expect an answer like that. So far all hoomins had been nice to fluffies at the park, why the sudden change? and in such dire times…

Pwease hoomin! pwease jus gib sum nummies to hewd! foals awe so hungy! goin tu hab foweba sweepies! huuuuu! - said the crying smarty

“I don’t care, fuck off you shit…you SHITRAT!” -the man said before walking away while the fluffies behind him began to cry tears that froze in their cheeks.

The group went back inside the tunnels, defeated.

Huuuu…su hungwy…

Snowflake couldn’t sleep, the pain on its tiny stomach was unbearable.

How the mighty had fallen, such an expensive pet finding itself starving inside a dirty frozen hole.

It wasn’t Snowball’s fault, it had been a model fluffy, as good as it gets. He was paying for the sins of the fluffies that dared escape the breeding facility thus making its pseudo-species worthless.

The herd had fattened on the food they got from the park for months, some were even too fat for a healthy fluffy. But no amount of reserve fat could keep them alive for so long, their body was already burning through it very fast just to keep up with the cold.

The first to die were the younger foals, the chirpies.

One by one they began mewling for miwkies that never came, then went to sleep never to wake up.

HUUUUUUU! WASTEST BABBEH! -cried a mare after its hot pink unicorn filly stopped breathing.

Stallions would take their dead foals and carry them outside the nestie to simply lay there. Tens of these foals were covered by the snow that fell during the night. Others were taken by scavengers.

One light blue earthie stallion named Bolt got desperate after seeing most of its foals die so it decided to venture outside yet again to look for food and save the ones that were still alive.

Bowt nee…fin…nummies…fo babbehs…fo famiwy…fo–SCREECH

EEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeee!

Unfortunately for it a big owl saw the famished fluffy and despite the odd coloration decided it was good enough to eat. It flew away with the thin stallion back to its nest.

Bolt’s foals died 2 days later, its speshul fwend a week after that, mostly from starvation but also due to the trauma of losing all of its young and even its speshul fwend.

Older foals followed, they were stronger than chirpies but not as strong as the adults.

One day a pink filly found some roots, it tried to chew them but it only broke its weak teeth that were engineered by Hasbio to avoid any legal risks from fluffies biting their owners

OWIES! WOWEST OWIES!

However the adult fluffies were able to chew these roots. They would still hurt their teeth and mouth but were at least able to eek some sustenance from those.

Huuuu-hic-uuuuu! mummah nao nummies to make miwkies, bu nuh babbehs nu mow…

The older foals still sucumbed to starvation. Snowflake cried for over a week after Choky died. It hugged the filly’s tiny cold body for days.

HUUUUUU! Y? huuuu…wan Chocky bak…pwease…huuuuhuu


Art by babbehteef

The filly had been the closest thing Snowflake ever had to a foal of its own, the closest thing to a real daughter.

The stallion was finally strong enough to let go and take Chocky outside. Instead of just letting the filly laying on the snow next to other dead frozen foals he brought the filly on its back all the way to an oak tree.

It was under that tree that Snowflake first met Chocky, where they used to play during the summer and autumn.

Huuuukafsu sowwy Chocky, Snowfwake nu can save u…wowest saddies.

It then made a hole in the snow with its tired skinny legs and placed chocky inside, then covered the filly with snow.

Fluffies hadn’t been programmed to bury the dead, it just happens Snowflake had seen a funeral on TV then asked Fred who told him that’s what done when someone dies.

Buh y daddeh?

“Because its the right thing to do Snowflake, the right thing to do”

kafYus…daddeh…Snowfwake undawstans -said Snowflake in a raspy voice after finally realizing the meaning of Fred’s words.

After that the stallion didn’t care, he didn’t care when his speshul fwend died, when the rest of the herd died nor when Cooper finally died as well.

He didn’t realize it but he was now the last fluffy alive inside the den. His better genetics product of the strict quality control at Hasbio’s breeding facility combined with the top grade care he received during its foalhood meant that Snowflake was in a much better condition than any other strays or ferals, even other ex-domestics that came from unlicensed breeders since those guys would sell any foals no matter if they weren’t up to Hasbio’s standards or even defective. That combined with suboptimal food and care meant they were weaker than Snowflake.

One day rays of sunlight began to pour through the entrance to the den. Snowflake woke up as it felt the sudden warmth on its face.

Huh? wamsies?

It could barely walk anymore, its weggies were nothing but bone, skin and decolored fluff. It still managed to push itself outside.

GASP! THE BWIGHT-BAWW!

The stallion could see the sun, how the snow was now gone, and more importantly: the grass was finally back.

Snowflake ate the fresh grass, he finally had something in its stomach.

For a moment he was happier than ever…

Then tears came out. The stallion couldn’t help feeling sad for surviving while the rest of the herd starved to death.

It missed Chocky, his speshul fwend, his friend Cooper the noble smarty. Missed Ricky, Bolt and all the others.

The stallion just sat under a tree looking at the bright blue sky…

Then it heard a noise and saw a new herd of fluffies, all of them running towards him.

“Huuu*hic!*huuu! pwease be fwends wit fwuffy! pwease be gud!”

It didn’t know but that herd had managed to barely survive the winter by taking refuge inside an abandoned house next to another house from an old lady who felt sorry for the tiny colorful creatures and their babbies so she fed them some scraps and any expired food she had laying around. She essentially saved the herd from starving to death.

Then suddenly a young purple mare barely out of filly stage hugged Snowflake. It had been so long since the stallion felt the hug of a fluffy that wasn’t cold and dead. For an instant that lasted forever it believed things could go better, that this was a chance to start again.

And then the mare screamed, tears flowing out of its big teal eyes…

PWASE! PWEASE SAB FIWWY! HOOMIN MUNSTAHS KIWWIN’ HEWD!

Snowflake felt how the blood drained from its tiny face.

He looked up and he could see it: an animal control employee wearing a blue chemical suit. The feral population explosion in other more temperate regions and the ecological crisis that followed had put all other cities up north on high alert. Strays and ferals were no longer “a minor annoyance at worst”, they were now a threat to the environment and public health. The first cases of human parasites using fluffies as vectors and then infecting humans took a lot of people by surprise and started a panic.

So with spring already here the governor decided to stop the fluffy problem before it got out of control. Fluffy control was still years away from being created so animal control was quickly pressed into service to take out fluffies by whatever means possible. Because Hasbio had made fluffies resistant to most pesticides to avoid accidents at home (like an expensive fluffy huffing bug spray) they had to go old school.

Guns, CO2 rifles, clubs and even steel-toe boots to kick the biotoys to death. They had broken into the abandoned house after another neighbour reported the fluffy infestation there. The herd ran away into the park seeking refugee but the exterminators were faster than them.

Suddenly Snowflake felt something hit him on its left cheeck.

OWIES! huuu, why–GASP!

The stallion saw a green eye on the grass, then looked to the side and saw a burgundy mare with no head, chunks of bone, brains and a blood splatter surrounded its dead flaccid body. Neither Snowflake or the mare heard the CO2 pellet. 4 chirpie foals of different colors sat on its back fluff making scared peeps and chirps as if realizing something horrible had happened.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE–THUD!

Snowflake couldn’t even finish its scream as a sky-blue pegasus colt landed in front of it and the young mare that still hugged with all its strength.

The colt’s back weggies were on the opposite direction than the front ones: one of the exterminators had kicked its midsection so hard it had basically broken the grown foal in two with only its skin and fluff keeping it together.

Huuuukaf!-fwu-fwuffy cant bweathies…hewp - the colt said as blood streamed out of its tiny muzzle.

Now Snowflake could see how the exterminators were closing in: one clubbed a big earthie stallion so hard its neck broke like a twig, body falling to the ground and legs convulsing from the violent death.

PWEASE! MAWE AM GUD! JUS’ WAN NUMMIES AN WUV! PWESE NU FOWEBA SWEE-STOMP!

The mare begged for clemency while sitting in the huggies pose almost expecting for the exterminator to stop and give it 'upsies. But instead a boot came down on its head. The mare was too big so instead of exploding like foals had before she was horribly disfigured instead.

HURK! EEEEERGH! EEERRRRKK!

Its skull had been compressed, the top rendered flat. Half of its horn was broken and the other half was now embedded into its already badly damaged brain. Its lower jaw cracked and locked inside its upper jaw. Front weggies broken, its torax looked like an accordion with ribs poking through the skin. A pinkish foam came out its mouth and nose before the body fell to its side, blood pouring from its prolapsed anus.

But at least the mare finally died, its terrible suffering was over.

The man who did this had no malice, he didn’t stop to look at the mare to rejoice on his work, he simply went ahead and clubbed a group of foals waddling away to his left.

He was simply doing his job, nothing more, nothing less.

Meanwhile Snowflake, still hugging the young mare, was paralized. He was incredibly weak from the winter ordeal he just went through. He could have tried to escape, to run away, but he was too weak.

Too tired.

Its spirit too broken to keep fighting.

And besides what were the odds it could survive? the exterminators were more intelligent than any unicorn,able to outrun even the fastest pegasus and easily beat even the strongest earthie. For fluffies these men were a lovecraftian monstruosity, they had no hope of escaping.

As far as they knew they were at the mercy of uncaring elder gods.

And then one of these Old Ones was standing right in front of Snowflake, club in hand.

Huuuu-gubai fwends, Chocky…

“Huh? another one? alright…” -said the man while raising the club above his head to kill the scrawny stallion he just noticed.

As he was about to hit it Snowflake uttered its last words

Gubai daddeh…

Only then the exterminator stopped mere centimeters from smashing the stallion’s head into a pulp.

“Wait? “daddeh”? you have an owner?”

Huuuu-yus mistah, fwuffy had a daddeh with a big housie an-

“Yo ex-domestic here! need a scanner!”

“Here” -another exterminator handed him a small black device

“Let’s see” -he said as he waved the plastic box around the sides of Snowflake’s ears.

BLIP!

The scanner found the RFID tag inside the right ear. The employee began tapping and scrolling through the touchscreen.

“Let’s see, owner, address…oh shit! we got an original here!”

“Hasbio model? you know the rules: bag it as evidence”

Wu am ev-EEEP!

The employee quickly grabbed Snowflake by its nape and shoved it into a big ziploc bag, then closed it. They needed the stallion to be physically intact.

Nuuuu! pwease wet out! Snowfwake am–GASP!–CAN’T BWEATHIES! HEWP!*kaf!*HE-HEWP!

…just not alive.

No help ever came, he was left to slowly suffocate as the remaining stallions, mares and foals around him were systematically exterminated.

Snowball could see on the corner of its eye the young mare that hugged him crawling away.

A moment later he realized that only half of the little mare was crawling away, the other half layed flattened half a metre away.

Nee…wun…nu wan…sweepies…huuuuu - were the mare’s last words before it puked blood and collapsed on its side, its eyes locking with Snowflake’s.

Snowflake wanted to scream but he couldn’t, his lungs had no air left and his body was succumbing to hypoxia.

After all the fluffies were killed and the cleaning began an employee lifted the transparent bag containing Snowflake, opened the back door of a van and threw it into a portable freezer.

Snowflake’s dead body landed on top of a small pile of similar bags with dead fluffies inside. They were all former domestics, but not any domestics: official Hasbio-branded ones. Much like Snowflake they had been thrown away not because of bad behavior of any kind but simply for losing their value and their owners being angry as them as if it were the fluffies’ fault prices had crashed.

Biotoys were after all a product, they had no rights.

These frozen bodies were being collected by the government to sue Hasbio for damages since these were certified original fluffies from the company and not unofficial units they weren’t liable for.

But before the lawsuit got any traction at court Hasbio went bankrupt. Its former CEO Steve McCormick told employees to destroy all information regarding the development of fluffies and their inner workings. Shortly after that he was assasinated by an unknown assailant on a parking lot. Any remaining assets including prototypes for future fluffy variants were auctioned off at very low prices and bought by other gene-tech companies.

And because it was no longer possible to sue for reparations Snowflake’s body was deemed useless and disposed of in a landfill along with tons of other former-domestics, strays and feral fluffies of all ages to rot away.

Snowflake had been a good fluffy, one of the best.

Its herd had been all good fluffies and yet they were denied a home, no owners to care about them.

They had been created with a purpose then disposed of because of the failures of others.

Hasbio might be gone now but their definition of fluffies as biotoys still persists.

And because of that fluffies are thrown away, just like old toys.

FIN

140 Likes

Nice to see you joined, Gardel. :100: :grinning:
I read your stories over and over when fluffybooru was up, never getting bored.
They were that good.

Hope to see more from you in the future.

12 Likes

Another welcome! Your stories really solidified the fluffy’s place in the universe for me.

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Glad to hear

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Same. Gardel is a primary writer for me in terms of perspective on fluffies.

9 Likes

Your stories are as good as stwumpo’s stories.

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This is quality. Why do I say this?

Because it’s the first fluffy-related story I actually read from beginning to end. Never done that, unless it was accompanied by images (in greater quantity than here).

2 Likes

Very good. Sad. And now I’m thinking of Blade Runner and the Replicants for some reason…

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Dont know the guy

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He posts on the Reddit fluffy Community. I like his stuff too

Good textposter from reddit

My God, This was thrilling. The hopelessness was delightful. Ah so much canon material. I Love stories like this the bleakness of it all. My word my heart is racing. I can’t hope to describe the feelings I’m having. Magnificent

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Really interesting. I wonder how different the og fluffies of timeline look from the feral ones far in the future.

so satisfying to see these things abandoned and dying… love it! wish these things were real i would have a field day out in my back yard where im sure those annoying little nuisances would somehow find their way into

There’s one thing that’s been bugging me about the early adopter loans (as described in this and the Tim story).

If someone took a loan of that size, I’d assume the fluffy was a collateral (purebred or rare pets may be apparently sometimes used as a collateral in some jurisdictions, and I’d imagine fluffies were in a similar situation early on) on that loan… and in that case, once the price tanks and the owner doesn’t want to do anything with his now essentially worthless fluffy, why not default on the loan and let the bank seize the fluffy?

I admit that I’m not from the US and as such my knowledge of these technicalities is rather hazy. Around here, trying to secure a loan with a collateral other than a real estate will get you laughed out.

While (in my HC) the first fluffies were super expensive they were still a product and not an investment, and people would take a loan using something as collateral. What happened is that while hasbio had a monopoly fluffies were so expensive and in short supply that some people considered them an investment.

Think for example how scalpers bought a ton of PS5 and GPUs during 2020-2021 and now have to sell them at a loss because those are not limited edition rolexs but mass produced electronics. Now imagine that but with a product that replicates itself and you got the fluffy situation.