As fluffy ponies proliferated and became agricultural pests and nuisance animals, Dr. Laura Tremaine observed the process. She watched as fluffy abuse became more and more common, socially-acceptable, and sadistic.
While she understands that sometimes a feral herd must be exterminated to protect the human food supply, and that overpopulation of anything is a disaster, particularly something that was never meant to exist, she hates to see cruelty. Shoot them if you must, she says, but there’s no call to skin them alive.
Further, as a survivor of some truly horrific child abuse, Dr. Tremaine has a soft spot for the helpless, hapless fluffy foal. Seeing how people use their trusting nature to do the most horrible things to them and their mothers has driven her just a little bit crazy. After several violent alleyway altercations, Dr. Tremaine decided to work smarter, not harder, and put her degree to use.
While not on the team that created the original Hasbio Fluffy Pony™, Dr. Tremaine does work in the same field. In fact, they used some of her research on chimeraism. So, creating the Foal Mimic was a painstaking labor of love, but far from impossible.
The Foal Mimic is essentially a fluffy subspecies. It’s the size of a “talkie babbeh” as an adult, always apparently a unicorn with good colors, and has six legs rather than four, which it instinctively keeps tucked unobtrusively up against its belly. Out of combat mode, that’s the only obvious visual difference. Most fluffies don’t notice, and many humans don’t at first glance, either.
The most important differences are invisible. The Foal Mimic has the power-to-weight ratio of a real animal or better, fast, strong, graceful, and durable in a way fluffies are not, with incredibly strong and flexible bones. And mentally, the Foal Mimic is vastly different. It has to be smarter, of course, to conceal itself within feral herds, but Dr. Tremaine also instilled a ferocious resilience, and a hardcoded set of instincts:
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Find Mummah. Upon reaching adulthood and/or being released from the lab by Dr. Tremaine, the Foal Mimic will immediately seek out a fertile mare and try to get itself adopted.
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Huggies And Wub. Dr. Tremaine was very careful to keep the congeniality of the original fluffy pony. As long as you don’t do anything really cruel to a defenseless creature in front of them, these little guys make good pets. They like humans just fine, and have been adopted when feral families are taken in. With no reason to fight, they’re just six-legged foals that never reach full size, and ferals are born with all kinds of weird shit.
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Protect The Herd. The whole point of being a Foal Mimic. Along with the enhanced durability and strength, the Mimic’s horn is actually sharp and made of bone, and it can deploy venomous spikes, sharp claws that allow it to climb like a cat, and viciously sharp teeth in a widened jaw. The Foal Mimic will fight natural predators if forced to, but isn’t great at it, and will always prefer to herd its fellows away so it can keep pretending to be a normal fluffy.
Dr. Tremaine designed them to be fully vulnerable to humane traps, being shot, and other normal methods of culling. The idea was for the Mimic to only be a danger to humans who take pleasure in tormenting baby fluffies, exploding in their faces like a hidden bomb. (Let us remind you: Dr. Tremaine’s stepfather was a very, very bad person. She is currently in therapy, but healing is non-linear.)
- Babbehs. The Foal Mimic reproduces seasonally in the wild, finding each other via pheromones on the wind and as territorial markings. Couples den up and become reclusive as the mare lays her clutch of leather-shelled eggs, (Dr. Tremaine reckons that it has something to do with the platypus DNA she used for the venom) and they raise their litter to adulthood, a very quick process.
That done, everyone’s Find Mummah instincts kick back in, and they disperse to guard the fluffy herds once more. Foal Mimics recognize their relatives when they encounter them, and are very affectionate.
