Alpha watched as Beta dragged the corpse of Echo away, there was a small pit they’d found nearby and they’d used it to get rid of their dead. He was perturbed by the sudden and violent his former Toughie had endured, none of the other Fluffies saw or heard anything until Echo’s head simply blew up.
He’d gotten Yankee to clean up the blood, not that he wanted to but Alpha made it clear that there was no negotiating.
Hearing a noise behind him, Alpha turned to see one of his nummie-finders, Papa rushing towards him.
“Smawty.” Papa wheezes out from the long run – for a Fluffy – he just finished. “Fwuffies find sumfing, come wook.”
Alpha followed the two Fluffies into one of the many wheat fields nearby, he had humans call these tall brown grass things by many names, wheat, barley, rye, etc. He couldn’t tell the difference but he didn’t need to know, all he knew was that the tall grass made for good nummies.
And until very recently he thought his herd was safe to enjoy them.
Eventually they found another one of the nummie-finders, Quebec, standing in front of something, it was a small but wide cylindrical object, with one of its end badly burnt to the point of the whole thing almost being completely black, with the exception of a small portion of white on the other end with some writing.
“Wha Smawty fink dis is?” Quebec asked, he’d been staring at the object for a while now and he couldn’t shake a strange, unnerving feeling about it.
Alpha looked at the object closer, he didn’t know what the hell it was, but he knew what burn marks were and recognised them here.
“Smawty nu suwe, but fink dis make bwight-wight wast dawk-time, nu am nat-a-wul, dis hoomin twick.”
Papa and Quebec looked at each other, both shocked by what Alpha was suggesting. Eventually Papa spoke for the pair of them. “Bu wai hoomin make bwight-wight?”
“Distwaction. Wan Fluffies wooking up, nu see meanies hoomins attak.”
Alpha looked down at his two foragers, his one good eye as serious as they’d ever seen it.
“Fwuffy fwiend was muwdewed.”
Floating above the herd, unaware of Alpha’s discovery of the spent flare, Jonathan’s drone surveyed the aftermath of last night, he could make out some remnants of scardie-poopies as well as the orange and red corpse being dragged away by Beta.
“I’d say that’s a confirmed kill on Echo, mark him off.”
Herman scored a red X onto the Echo’s picture on the board, their first confirmed kill. Satisfied with this batch of recon, Jonathan brought the drone back to the farmhouse and set it down on the roof, once it was safe he got up from the computer and returned to his comrades.
“One down, fuck loads more to go.”
“Well you’re not short on tools.” Josef said with just a hint of worry in his voice. “There’s enough armanents here to take on a small army, let alone a herd.”
“You can’t be too careful Joey, besides, variety is the spice of life and I like to keep things interested.”
“But what even is half this stuff?” Josef looked over a few boxes near the staircase, one had several vials of a clear liquid inside and a big yellow skull and crossbones label on the front, the other had four ‘enfie-toys’, all designed with a strange extension in their stomach, they almost looked pregnant but not quite right. Josef went to pick one of the toys up only for Jonathan to quickly grab his hands.
“I wouldn’t touch that Joey, it’s got a little surprise hidden inside, not a good one either.”
Josef looked down at the little toy, and backed away slowly. Jonathan smirked at his brother’s freaked-out reaction.
“Most of this stuff is recon Joey, brought a few drones for backup in case anything happens, plus batteries and computer logistics. The only guns I brought are the sniper, a couple shotguns and my own personal side-arm, Uncle HAM’s got his harvesting tools that we…”
“You have a gun?” Josef broke the conversation in shock of his brother’s blasé admission.
“Yeah, little something I picked up from a guy a few years back. I mean come on Joey, I was a economic terrorist on the run, I needed something to defend myself.”
Herman snorted. “What, your bombs not good enough?”
“My bombs were the best Uncle HAM, I’ve got a masters degree in Chemical Engineering, I could make a bomb out of what you have in your kitchen and build it with my eyes closed.”
“Yeah? Then why the pistol?”
“Peace of mind, felt safer having it on me, less likely to blow myself up if things took a turn. I’m not afraid to do the time HAM, but I’d like to avoid it as much as possible.”
Herman looked over his nephew, seeing right though him, but he knew it wasn’t worth getting into, not with the herd still alive.
“You tell yourself that Jonathan, in the meantime figured out what to do about these Fluffy Fucks on my farm.”
“Oh I’ve got some ideas Herman, just give me a sec to drain the lizard and I’ll share them with you.”
Sneering away, Jonathan took the stairs up to the toilet, leaving Josef and Herman alone to comprehend what they just saw.
“I’m sorry about your brother.” Herman spoke once he was sure Jonathan couldn’t hear him. “This attitude is sadly the norm for him now, seen it a few times whenever he stopped by here.”
“It’s a bit of a shock.” Josef admitted. “I keep telling myself that the last time I saw John was at Martha and Rolfy’s funeral, he’s changed a lot since then… but there are times I barely recognise him. Some of it’s good, he’s not the bigoted prick he was before, but other parts of him…”
“I know what you mean Josef, and you’re right, your brother has been through a lot, more than either of us that’s for certain. But I’ve been part of this family for 60 odd years, I can recognise fake bolster whenever a Mongola throws it in my face, and Jonathan’s got it in spades.”
“So what, you think John’s putting on an act, that’s he’s trying to fool us?”
“Not us, I think it’s for himself, and I think he’s not fooled by the performance anymore.”
At that moment the sound of toilet flushing was heard and the two men stopped talking, Jonathan returned with a strange smile on his face.
“Alright Uncle HAM, have you got any spaghetti?”
Back with the herd, things had calmed down significantly since Echo’s death, Alpha made the round to ensure everything was going smoothly. He stopped by the talkie-babbeh area first, making sure Zula was fitting in well, he approached them just as Whiskey was teaching her class.
“An gud-poopies gu in…?”
“Da poopie-box.” Several young foals chirped in reply.
“Dat wight, babbehs am su smawt. Nyo babbehs gu make gud-poopies an den pway-time.”
A chorus of cheers came from the foals as they all formed a line to make good-poopies in a nearby hole, Alpha noted it was starting to get close to full so he’d have someone dig a new one later.
“How poopie mawe du?” He asked Whiskey once the queue to the toilet was set in place.
“Poopie mawe du ok, nu knyo wat wittabox is, bu Fwuffies nu hab wittabox ousside. Mawe knyo bout gud-poopies doh, teach babbehs bout dat.”
Alpha had to silently remind himself of Whiskey’s former life as a house-fluffy, where litterboxes and Fluff-TV were a thing, Whiskey wasn’t ashamed of her former life, but she tried to avoid it where possible, too many reminders of her being abandoned for being unable to have her own children.
The two of them watched as Zulu nudged some of the more boisterous foals back into line, as she walked along the queue she came across her own green filly.
“Hewwo babbeh, mummah hab biggesh heawt happiest u see yu.”
“Babbeh nu wike it hewe mummah, big Fwuffies gib bruddas an sistahs fowebe sweepies. Wan gu.”
Zulu felt a pang of guilt in her chest, given that it was her choice to have her other foals killed to protect her from becoming an enfie-mare. “Nu can weave babbeh, famiwy pawt of hewd nyo, need stay fow safe-tee. Babbeh nu wike nyu fwiends.”
“Babbeh wike fwiend, bu wan bruddas an sistahs bak.”
Zulu frowned but knew there was little she could do right now, she gave her daughter a quick lick clean and moved on towards the other foals. Seeing the parental interaction, some of the other foals started getting antsy.
“Nu faiw, babbeh wan see mummah.” An angry little orange colt with a grey mane huffed.
Victor, the only male teacher in the herd, trotted up alongside the colt, surprisingly quick given he was missing his front right leg. “Babbeh nu see mummah yet, nu tiww nummie time, hab pay-cence.”
The colt puffed his cheeks. “NU! Nu wan wait, wan see mummah nyo, gib bestesh smawtie tu mummah ow git sowwy-hoofies.”
At the mention of ‘Smarty’, Whiskey and the third teacher X-Ray ran over to stop the commotion.
“Babbeh!” Whiskey cried out, knowing what would happen if she didn’t nip this Smartie thing in the bud right away. “Onwy wun smawtie in hewd, yu see mummah soon, Fwuffy pwomise.”
“Nu cawe, dummeh babbeh git see poopie mummah, wai nu bestesh babbeh?”
X-Ray kicked the little colt in the side, gentle but firm enough to knock him over. “Dummeh babbeh nu fink udda babbehs wan see mummahs? Yu nu speciaw, nu git tweated diffewent.”
The colt turned and glared at X-Ray. “Git smawty mummah nyo ow hab sowwy-poopies.”
Whiskey’s eyes went wide. “Nu babbeh nu du bad-poopies, nu gud fow…”
The colt ignored her and promptly squatted down and shat right there and then, the other foals jumped back in shock, how could someone make bad-poopies so blatently.
The colt pinched off his log and looked at Whiskey with ‘fuck you’ smile on his face, which prevented him from seeing X-Ray stomp her hoof onto his back and hold him to the ground.
“Eek, babbeh nu wan sowwy-hoofies, am gud-babbeh.”
“Gud babbehs nu make bad-poopies.” X-Ray sneered at the little shit. She looked up at Alpha, throughout the whole exchanged he had been silently watching it all happen, when X-Ray looked up he knew was she was after.
Conformation.
He nodded his head, slowly and deliberately. X-Ray grew a mean grin as she lifted her hoof off the colt’s back. And slammed it back down on his head, killing him instantly.
The sudden and violent death sent the other foals into panic mode, all of them crying, most of them shitting then crying even more about bad poopies. Whiskey, Victor and Zulu ran around trying to calm them all down, while Alpha joined X-Ray in looking at the dead colt.
“Yu knyo mummah?” X-Ray asked.
Alpha nodded, recognising the colours of Quebec and his special-friend Tango, Quebec would be upset but understand, it was Tango he was iffy about. She’d been the herd’s former poopie nummer until Quebec picked her as his special-friend, as a result she loved all foals, no matter what colour or type, to lose one of her own was going to hurt.
“Smawty teww dem, let pawents git angwy at Smawty. Take body tu gwave-pwace.”
X-Ray nodded and lifted the colt’s body off the floor, taking him away from the crying foals while Alpha went to tell the parents.
Elsewhere, Papa looked around the herd for his younger brother Oscar, he passed by the enfie-mares, who were as usual in use. The fat yellow bastard Romeo had taken his typical spot behind Juliet and looked to already have his bottom half stained with the blood of her unborn foals – likely Romeo’s own foals given how much he used her – while Lima cried in horror at seeing the dead babbehs, Juliet didn’t even seemed to notice what was going on around her, her thousand yard stare was in full effect.
The only one having fun was Kilo, who was currently having good-feels with one of the Toughies, Indigo. Papa had been around long enough to know that Kilo should’ve had her own babies by now with how often she was enfed – usually by Indigo who took a liking to her – but for some reason they just never came. Ironically that saved her the heartache of losing her young, something that Lima and Juliet never got any reprieve from.
Papa shook his head and walked on, finding it hard to understand why his herd-mates could think of enfing after one of their own just died. He continued onwards until he found Oscar with Mike by the food storage, with such a large herd and an abundance of nummies around them, Alpha had used a hollow-tree to keep the food close by and charged Mike with looking after it all since Mike was one of the very few Fluffies who could count to ten without an issue.
Mike swore he almost counted to 15 once, but no Fluffies believed numbers could go that high.
Papa approached them both. “Am brudda ok?”
Oscar rolled his eyes, he used to be a nummie-finder like his brother until a bad fall broke one of his legs, now he stayed quiet and helped Mike, not that Papa ever let him be. “Am fine, nu hab wowwies.”
“Yu wittew brudda, need tu wook afta yu. Fwuffies am in dangew nyo.”
Oscar scoffed. “Brudda be siwwy, yu ova-pwotect, wet Fwuffy du job.”
Papa relented, not wanting to piss Oscar off, not when there was a dangerous human about. He left Oscar and Mike alone and went to find somewhere to rest.
“Fwuffy nu shouwd be angwy at brudda.” Mike spoke up after a moment. “Brudda onwy wan Fuwffy tu be safe.”
“Fwuffy knyo, bu since weggie bweak Brudda be tuu mush, fink Fwuffy gun git huwt mowe. Am nu dummeh, tweat Fwuffy wike babbeh.”
“Owda bruddas du.”
A the two Fluffies got back to counting, they caught a faint whiff of something in the air, something sweet and delicious like…
Skettis.
Curious, the two Fluffies went to investigate, not bothering to tell anyone about the skettis to keep them all for themselves. As they left, Romeo caught sight of them and went to follow them, catching the smell of skettis himself.
As Oscar and Mike approached the smell, they found a small patch of ground with a human male sitting on a tree stump, holding two bowls of warm skettis.
Jonathan smiled at them both “Hello my friends, would you care to eat?”
“Skettis?” Mike was curious, part of him was iffy about this stranger, but his Fluffy brain told him to grab the skettis while he could.
“Of course friends, only the best food for the Fluffies I meet.”
Jonathan placed the two bowls down, Oscar raced forward towards the noodle goodness while Mike hung back a little before taking in the heavenly nummies himself, after his second bit he forgot to stay vigilant.
Both of them were too engorged to notice Romeo following them, Jonathan however did notice and he was happy to see the ugly rapist, he had plans to deal with him.
“Hello my friend, I’m afraid I have no more skettis to share with you, but I can offer you something even better.”
Jonathan reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his enfie-toys, setting it on the ground in front of Romeo, the yellow stallion cautiously approached the toy and sniffed it.
“Am mawe?”
“Better than a mare my friend, you can give as many enfies as you want to this little girl and she will never fight you, never saw no, and never bore you with babies.”
Despite having just finished fucking Juliet a few minutes ago, Romeo felt his no-no stick harden as he mounted the toy and started enfing away like his life depended on it. Jonathan smiled at the horny stallion, he’d carefully placed the two so Romeo was turned away from the other two, allowing Jonathan to focus on Oscar and Mike.
He approached Mike first, placing a small black collar on his neck. “This is a symbol of friendship, so that we may always have peace.”
“Fank yu fow pwetty collaw nyu Fwiend.” Mike felt his ego boosted by the new accessory.
Jonathan smiled and turned to Oscar, placing a hand under the Fluffies chin to scratch him.
“And for you, I give you this, as a reminder of the war we’re in.”
With his free hand, Jonathan pulled out a knife and in a flash pierced Oscar’s brain with it, sticking him to the ground. Mike immediately tried to run away only for Jonathan to grab him by the mouth.
“Shut the fuck up or you’re next.”
Mike fell silent, the only sound being the rhythmic grunting from Romeo. Jonathan looked Mike in the eye and grinned.
“You go back to your herd and tell them what happened here, you tell your leader that if he doesn’t leave this land, more bad things will happen to your herd. I am the one who killed your friend last night, and I will kill even more if I have to.”
Jonathan let go of Mike and motioned for him to run, Mike turned tail and fled, not thinking twice about leaving Romeo with the mad man.
In his ear, Jonathan heard his brother’s voice through the radio. “I hope you know what you’re doing John, cause I don’t want to hear the saccharine bullshit out of your mouth again.”
“You just wait for your signal Joey, I’ve got things sorted down here.”
Unaware of what had transpired, Alpha finished his rounds and returned to his stump-throne, on one side Charlie remained, still barely able to move, on the other Delta had placed herself, licking herself clean after a hard day of doing nothing. As Alpha approached she got up and smiled at him.
“Speciaw-fwiend, Fwuffy feew tummeh-babbehs, am soon-mummah gain.”
“Smawty su happy, wub speciaw-fwiend.”
The two of them nuzzled each other, only stopping when they heard Charlie crying behind them, Alpha sneered at the brown waste of space.
“Wai poopie-Fwuffy hab see-pwace wawas?”
“Smawty knyo wai, Smawty habben babbehs wiv…”
“Wiv Smawties speciaw-fwiend, nu poopies. Nu wan heaw yu cwying bout it nu mowe, yu nu can hab babbehs nyo, nu hab weggies fow enfies.”
“An dat Smawty fauwt.” Charlie whispered under his breath, sadly Alpha still heard him and smacked Charlie in the head.
“Yu fink yu Toughie? Yu wan twy wiv Smawty? Nu be dummeh…”
Alpha pushed down on one of Charlie’s front legs, the pressure reminding him how easily legs were broken.
“…Yu jus poopie Brudda.”
Before Charlie could retaliate, Mike came running back, the look of utter terror in his face made Alpha take notice. “Wha happen?”
Mike was out of breath from running so fast. “Meanie… hoomin… twick Fwuffies… gib brownie Brudda… foweba sweepies.”
In an instant, Papa ran off, hoping that Mike was lying, that Oscar was ok.
Mike continued. “Towd Fwuffy… teww Smawty… weave wand… ow mowe Fwuffies die.”
Alpha sneered. “Dummeh hoomin am nu match fow hewd. Nu wisten, hewd gib sowwy-hoofies tu any hoomin dat twy and stop dem.”
Jonathan picked all of this up from the microphone he places inside Mike’s collar.
“Oh well, I tried.”
Jonathan set an app on his phone, and let nature take its course.
Mike felt his new collar starting to get tighter, and tighter, and tighter, until he couldn’t breathe at all.
“Hewp, HEWP! Fwuffy nu breathe, wowstesh neck huwties.”
As Mike flailed around trying to get the collar off of him, he heard an odd whirring noise very close to him and felt something sharp pierce his neck, the spool of razor wire in his collar was constricting and soft Fluffy flesh was no match for it.
There was a violent spurt of blood as Mike’s wound got wider and wider for the second, the rough wire slicing right through skin and muscle, the horrific display had several of the herd turned away in horror, only Alpha and Beta remained unshaken.
Mike looked up at Alpha, his fur more red than blue now, his eyes bloodshot and crying.
“Pwease.”
Finally the wire cut through the bone and decapitated Mike right in front of the herd, as his head fell his unicorn horn got stuck in the ground, keeping his pained face in full view of everyone.
The herd screeched in horror, everyone young and old ran around, screaming and shitting, Alpha and Beta approached Mike’s corpse, Beta looked over as his leader, seeing a slight twinge of fear in Alpha’s eyes for the first time.
“Fink hoomins gain?” Beta asked.
“Nu can be any-fing ewse, onwy hoomins use meanie fing wike dat.”
“Wha hewd du nyo?”
Alpha didn’t answer, for the first time in his life, he was unsure
“What in the hell was that?” Herman asked having watched the whole thing go down through the drone.
“Bolito, it’s a Mexican design, the cartel use them to send a message. I figured I’d do the same.”
“Hell of a message.” Josef added.
“Yeah, and it’s about to get even messier, your cues coming up.”
From his hiding spot in the wheat, Jonathan watched Papa approach the clearing, his little brown body shaking at the sight of his brother, dead and bloodied in front of him. Hopelessly he put his arms around Oscar’s corpse, trying to bring him back,
“Huu, am sowwy wittew Brudda. Fwuffy onwy wan yu tu be safe, nu wan Brudda gu foweba sweepies. Hab biggesh heawt huwties, miss yu su mush.”
Papa held his brother close, remembering all the good times they had growing up, then he remembered the last conversation they had and felt regret that that argument was the last thing him and Oscar ever said to each other.
‘Enf, enf, enf.’
The sound of grunting caught Papa’s ears, he opened his crying eyes to see Romeo still fucking the enfie-toy, seemingly unaware of Oscar’s dead body behind him.
Papa lost it. “WHA WONG WIV YU? FWUFFY BRUDDA GU FOWEBA SWEEPIES AN YU JUS HAB ENFIES?”
“Enf, enf, enf, enf.” Romeo either couldn’t hear him, or didn’t listen, he just kept fucking the toy.
“FWUFFY HATCHU, YU BIGGESH ENFIE DUMMEH, WAN SEE DUMMEH GU FOWEBA SWEEPIES, NU BRUDDA! HATCHU!”
Jonathan smirked as he saw Romeo getting faster and faster.
“ENFENFENFENF!”
“Get ready Joey, you’re almost up.”
“ENFENFENF… GUUUUUUDD…”
“NOW”
Click
BOOOOOMMMMM
Josef flicked the switch Jonathan had left for him, setting off the explosive charge in the enfie-toy. Romeo was blown to smithereens, cock first. The blast sent Papa flying backwards, landing roughly on his ass as bits and pieces of Romeo starting raining down around him, Papa quickly ran to the nearest tree and hoped that it would be enough to save him from the blood rain.
It was not.
The explosion rocked through the herd, already on edge from Mike’s violent death and now the loudest noise any of them had ever heard rocked through their home, sending even more of them into fits of crying and shitting.
Alpha and Beta looked over towards the plume of smoke rising in the distance, the stench of blood already filling the air.
“Toughie wan knyo wha hewd du nyo?” Alpha asked, his voice crackling with rage.
“Hewd teach dummeh hoomin dey fuk wiv wong Smawty.”
