Blake lived on the outskirts of a valley town. It was a nice, quiet place and even better, the house he lived in was his own. One of many things he’d inherited from his late father. The most important of which was the large chunk of land surrounding the house.
The only thing he disliked about his set up was the lack of company. His closest neighbor lived a few miles down the road and most of his friends had their own responsibilities that made visits difficult, though they still did meet up for the occasional round of poker, and the yearly trip to Vegas.
Blake loved games and especially the kinds where some gambling was involved. He’d probably be destitute by now if not for some pre-emptive budgeting. It also helped that he and his friends went for “low stakes” when they did meet up for the occasional poker night. Though even those were less frequent now. He’d been at a loss for what to do.
Of course, that was only until “they” had shown up. It had been a few years since the incident at Hasbio and in that time Blake had spent many hours watching videos and reading up on the company’s little abominations. “Toys that could talk back.” The way they infested city, rural town, and forest alike was fascinating. Terrible at living, but great at propagating. It showed a certain… moxie?
Blake’s town had banned the creatures soon after their appearance. So had several of the areas nearby. This only delayed the inevitable. Vicious purge after vicious purge had failed to fully exterminate them and every year their territory encroached further into unclaimed territory.
It was for this reason that Blake was once again walking his property’s edge. He examined it for the telltale markings of technicolored fur and the corpses that tended to appear near any minor hazard. Finally, he saw it: hair caught on bark. Bright yellow. He smiled. Seemed he wouldn’t be bored for the foreseeable future.
He started inward and before long he could pick up the babbling he’d only heard through his computer speakers. He eventually reached his target. The herd was small, only 10 adults or so with a few foals clinging to a number of them.
He walked closer not even attempting to hid his presence. “Afternoon fluffies. Welcome to my forest.” He tried to sound as warm and welcoming as he could. Some of the creatures looked overjoyed but they were quickly cut off by a red colt puffing out his cheeks and strutting toward Blake.
“Dis am nu dummeh hoomin wand, dis fwawe’s wand!” Blake smirked as he watched the herd’s mood turn over fully to fear and discomfort. He’d seen this dozens of times by abusers. Didn’t matter what he did, if this smarty continued to breathe he would have a rough time with the rest of them.
Of course that didn’t matter in this case. He couldn’t do anything with them and this was mostly just to test the waters anyway. He decided to have a little fun.
“Oh I’m so sorry, I had no idea! But, it must be very hard to see all your “wand” from down there.” He crouched down and the smarty tripped stopping its advance. “So let me help you out.”
He lifted Flare into the air making sure his rear was aimed away from both himself and the herd. It wouldn’t do to have them more panicked than they were already about to get. Turned out to be a good call. The creature did end up crapping itself. Blake had a strong tolerance for smells but this managed to elicit a gag from him.
“Bad upsies, wet Fwawe down now!” He ignored its protests and set it in a tree branch about 6 feet off the ground. The base of the branch was wide and formed a decent cradle for the smarty.
“There you go buddy, now you’ll have no problem seeing exactly what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
Blake stepped back allowing the fluffies to gather at the base of the tree. The smarty nervously gripped the tree. “Nu wan upsies, wet Fwawe down!”
Blake ignored him, sitting on a nearby rock content to see how things played out. Most of the fluffies gathered under their leader offering words of encouragement. A few wandered over to Blake.
“Pwease hewp smawtie fwawe nice mistuh.” He didn’t respond but looked down, A light green pegasus waddled up to him. The creature hugged his leg. He shook it off lightly making sure not to hurt it.
“Get smawtie down now!” A larger purple earthie fluffy with a red mane yelled at him before turning around. Blake recognized the posture. The creature was attempting to shit on him. He brought his foot up and pinned the creature to the ground before it could finished the rotation. He pushed down and the excrement shot out harmlessly to the side.
“Nu! nu hawt fwuffy!” When it seemed to be empty he gave it another light squish just to be sure. “Skreeee!” It yelled loudly but nothing came out. Blake took his foot off the creature.
The Smarty slipped and Blake chuckled. “Hey Flare, wanna play a game?”
Several fluffy heads turned to look at Blake and Flare responded. “Fwawe wub ga-“ It’s foot slipped and it clingged to the tree again. “Skreeee- wet Fwawe go tu gwawndie pwace!”
“How high can you count?”
The fluffy glared at him wordlessly. Blake waited a moment and eventually he answered. “Fwawe am bewwy smawt, can coun’ one highuh dan foh!”
“So five?”
“Wut dat?”
Blake got up walking closer to the fluffy. “Okay then, let’s stick to three for simplicity. I’m gonna hold up one, two, or three fingers behind my back.” He made the gestures with his fingers as he said the numbers. “One…two…three, like that. If you guess right, i’ll let you down but if you guess wrong…” Blake picked up a fist sized rock. “I’m gonna throw this at you.”
“Nu! nu wan wockie, wockie am bad fo fwuffie!” The creature shut its eyes. “Wet fwuffie down!”
Blake furrowed his brow. “What? Are you too stupid to play a “dummeh” counting game!? I guess you aren’t really all that smart huh?” Blake knew the accusation was unwarranted, but he figured the Smarty wouldn’t know that.
“Nu, am bestest smawtie, am easy!” Bingo.
“Okay then.” He turned around to find the toughie who’d tried to shit on him. Apparently the thing had approached behind him. He bent down and the creature backed away. “Not gunna hurt you, just need you to help me with this game.”
“Hoomin wan pway wid toughie?” it asked apprehensively.
“You wanna help your “smawtie fwend” right?” The creature nodded. “How many fingers is this?” Blake held up all three.
The creature wracked it’s brain. “wun… too… twee!” It said excitedly.
“Good, now I want you to watch my fingers, and after the smarty tells me how many he thinks are up, I want you to say how many I’m actually holding up. Got it?” To his surprised the creature nodded eagerly. He wasn’t sure he could trust it but in the worst case scenario, even if the other fluffies didn’t believe him he could just do what he wanted anyway.
Blake was a stickler for rules, even if these little bastards couldn’t appreciate it.
“Okay Flare.” He held up 2 fingers behind his back watching the toughie. Said toughie looked like he was about to speak and Blake shushed him. He turned back to the smarty. "How many fingers?”
“Twee!” It shouted smugly. Sure enough the creature had just repeated the last thing he’d heard. That was a little disappointing, Blake had hoped the thing would at least have some dumb line of logic he could unravel.
Blake was about to respond but the toughie beat him to it.
“Too!” it yelled, and the smarty shot it a glare. The creature seemed too excited to care. Blake revealed his fingers to the Smarty.
“Yup, it’s two, you guessed wrong.”
“Dat am wie, Fwawe am nu wong!” The fluffies looked confused. Many of them had peeked at Blake’s hand and were torn between their own understanding of what had happened and being loyal to their smarty. Luckily the Toughie seemed very convinced that it was right.
“How many fingers toughie?” Blake asked.
“Am too!” It said again.
“Am twee.” The smarty yelled back.
“Too!” the toughie yelled. The smarty seemed caught off guard by that. Not just him, the whole herd. Blake didn’t know the dynamics of this group well enough but usually fluffy pecking orders were rigid. Toughies could beat up a smarty, but often didn’t so long as they were sufficiently rewarded with food and mates. He wouldn’t have assumed bad blood given the Toughie’s reaction to its leader being left in the tree, but now it looked like he wanted to kick the crap out of him.
Flare regained his composure. He reared back to shout a response but leaned back a little too far. He plummeted much to the horror of the herd. Many of which were still under him.
He landed on a pink fluffy that had been carrying some foals on its back. The heap made a disgusting crunch.
“Skreeeee!” “Nu, hawt fwuffy!” “cheep cheep!” “Babehs!” Blake heard it all at once. The toughie was running over as well. “Speshaw fwiend!” He heard it shout. Bad luck.
Blake surveyed the damage. The smarty had broken both of his right legs, and blood was leaking out of it. Flare had landed on her hip. It seemed to have broken her back right leg, perhaps even the pelvic bone. Two of her foals had fallen off and appeared unharmed but were not happy with the disturbance. Her pink baby however was a bloody smear on the ground.
“huu huu peep” The smarty choked out. The mother tried to stand but stumbled when she tried to put weight on her messed up leg.
“skreee!” She cried out. “Why weggie gib wostest hawties! We- wewe babehs!?” She craned her head back spotting the two unharmed foals. She flopped over on her side and clutched her children close. However, her eyes eventually wandered to the dead foal. “Bestest babeh!” She let her other children down trying to scoop up what remained of the last. She only succeeded in covering her hooves in gore. “huu huu, bestest bebeh…” She wept.
Blake felt a pang of remorse but it quickly faded. If not him, something else probably. These things were destined for gruesome outcomes.
The toughy arrived at the scene in front of him. He hugged the mother weeping with her.
Blake was coming around to the little purple bastard. Fluffies could go rotten in an instant but so far this toughy had been loyal, honest, and now empathetic. Not bad for a fluffy. Blake saw this as an opportunity for a change in management.
“Wow, your “dummeh smawtie” just killed your babies. And it looks like he can’t even walk now. That makes him a “dummeh fwuffie.” You should probably give him “fowebah sweepies” so he doesn’t hurt the rest of the herd. I mean, the dummy can’t even count right.” Blake had tried tailoring it to strike every note a fluffy would appreciate. Mimicking the baby talk was pretty embarrassing, but he imagined it would show familiarity… or something.
The toughy looked at him confused.
“I think you’re much smarter. You… uh… count very well” Blake held up his two fingers like a peace sign. “You need to protect your herd from dummeh fwuffies.” He saw something light up in his eyes when he said the words “dummy fluffy.” It looked like fury. The creature turned from him and stood over Flare.
“Dummeh fwuffie get wostest stumpies!” Before Flare could respond the toughy laid into him rearing up on his hind legs before dropping down. A hoof caught the smarty square in the jaw first. The toughy had slammed down so hard it almost tumbled in the process. For its effort it had completely ruined the other fluffy’s jaw.
“Guuack… huuu” it managed to gurgle.
The Toughy reared up again this time landing on the already broken leg.
“Skreeeee!” The creature flailed and Blake could hear the mangled legs as bone rubbed on bone.
“Shu’ up!” The tough boomed as it again slammed on the Smarty’s face. It hadn’t crushed the skull and the creature continued to gurgle and cry.
“Too! too! too!” The toughy began yelling. “Why dummeh fwuffie nu undahstan!? Why Tougie onwy hab too gud babehs weft!” Blake quirked an eyebrow at that.
He watched as the Smarty’s legs stopped moving, the creature’s head caving in under the weight of the stomps. Still the toughy went on stomping it, shouting the number “too” repeatedly as he did so. Blake wondered if he’d just given the creature a complex. He wondered if it had the attention span to retain said complex. Well, he couldn’t really stick around to find out.
Blake figured it was as good a time as any to duck out and allow the new blood-soaked king to bask in his accomplishment unhindered.
No one even noticed that Blake had plucked a dark blue unicorn fluffy out from the crowd, covering its mouth. One he’d picked specifically because it had crapped itself in the confusion earlier and was less likely to have an accident on him. The fluffy bucked trying to get his hand off it, to no avail of course. And like that he skulked off leaving the herd to whatever fate awaited it.
