Warning: spoilers for the Hatred Saga.
A week and a half after the attack of the Cunning Man, on a cloudy morning, Dr. Erwin Stahlberg arrives at the Faucheuse Foundation, for another day of treating sick and injured fluffies.
Argyrum’s at home this time, hanging out with Kirk, Asimov and Hershey.
By now, you should be familiar with the Foundation, so let’s get right to the good stuff.
If you aren’t familiar with the Foundation, you have a lot of catching up to do.
After passing through the lobby, and the hallways, Erwin reaches his trusty examination room.
The first thing he does is check the regeneration room. At the moment, most of the vats are occupied.
When the Cunning Man drove every ordinary human in the city into a frenzy against everyone else, a lot of fluffies were attacked by their owners, who were deeply remorseful when they snapped out of it later.
These are just a few of the survivors. Sadly, a number of fluffies were killed by their owners before the Cunning Man was stopped.
So things have been a bit somber in the city lately, and even the sky seems to reflect that. But this city is home to some damn good psychologists, so hopefully, the horrific events that occurred recently will be just another bad memory one day.
Naturally, most non-normal people don’t hold it against the humans. The Cunning Man is well known among wizards, undead, and various other groups. They know what he’s capable of, and this time, he had power he had never seen before on his side.
Of course, those fluffies in the vats will need some time to forgive their owners. And they’ll need a lengthy explanation, but again, hopefully they’ll understand that their owners didn’t hurt them willingly.
By this point, the true perpetrators behind that horror show are known. The normos have been told all the facts.
If people couldn’t forgive each other for the things that were said and done under the Cunning Man’s influence…
Well, then the Cunning Man would still win in the end.
Because poison goes where poison’s welcome.
He may have tried to turn the ordinary humans against everyone else…
But perhaps he’s only succeeded in bringing everyone closer together.
Karma’s a bitch, huh?
Not the fluffy.
She’s a sweetheart.
Not long after Erwin finishes checking the vats, Calvin and Marley bring his first patient of the day in.
Calvin’s carrying a basket of foals, only a few days old and still blind, the mare’s mother following them in.
“Am babbehs gunna be otay, mistah Bestest Hoomin?”
“That’s what my friend Erwin here is gonna tell us.”
As Calvin places the basket on a table, he smiles humorlessly at Erwin.
“Found some prick who decided to have fun with some alley fluffs. He’d already killed the stallion when we showed up, and he’d bruised the mare when she tried to stop him from killing the foals.”
Marley nods.
“Dat am wen we stept in.”
“Idiot pretended that he was still under the Cunning Man’s control, but I didn’t need Niv’s sussy baka sense to see through his act. His eyes weren’t even glowing red.”
“Su we webbed da bas-tuwd tu da waww fow da poh-poh.”
Calvin gestures at the mare.
“Fortunately, I could just heal this girl’s wounds by myself.”
The mare nods too, looking deeply impressed.
“Da stowies am twoo. Da Bestest Hoomin can make owwies gu away.”
“Yup. You can thank Tommy for that. Alright, Erwin, do your thing.”
As Erwin puts the foals on the Stahlskanner one by one, Calvin picks the mare up, putting her on the table so she can watch, and explains what Erwin is doing.
“This machine will basically tell us if your foals are healthy or not. After that, we’ll give all of you a bath, and get you to a nice saferoom. You’ll be safe here, uh… yeah, we’re gonna have to think up a name for you.”
Every foal elicits a ping! from the Stahlskanner, indicating that they’re all healthy, but when Erwin scans the last one…
“Hmm? Cal, do you see this?”
Calvin looks at the screen, displaying the words “PHENOMENON X DETECTED”.
The foal on the scanner, a little red and yellow unicorn colt, lets out an adorably tiny sneeze.
'tchoo
fw’sh
And sneezes out a tiny jet of fire.
Fortunately, his siblings are all in the basket, so they and their mother are out of range.
It does leave a tiny scorch mark on the Stahlskanner, however.
Calvin and Erwin look at each other.
“Huh. I haven’t seen a lot of fluffies cross Threshold X that young, Erwin. I mean, yeah, our Quin sneezed fire the week we brought him home from the hospital, but he’s not a fluffy.”
“Do you have a dampening bracelet in this size, Cal?”
“I think we’ll have to ask Val to slap one together. Maybe she can make one that grows with the foal.”
The mare looks up at Calvin, obviously concerned.
“Am sumfin wong wif wed babbeh, mistah Bestest Hoomin?”
“Not exactly wrong, sweetheart. The little tyke’s got powers. Have you, uh… noticed him sneezing fire before?”
“Snee-zin buwnies? Nu.”
Calvin carefully picks up the pyrokinetic foal with one hand.
“Don’t worry, we can manage this. We’ll have him wearing a dampener until we can train him, so we’re gonna have to take this little tyke with us for now. You’ll see him again, I promise.”
Marley floats up onto the table.
“Gib him hewe, daddeh. Mawwey wiww take dat babbeh tu Dwake, he am at da Skoow.”
Calvin nods, placing the foal on Marley’s back, just as carefully.
Marley gives the mare a reassuring smile, salutes with a marshmallow hoof, and vanishes, taking the foal with him.
pop
Erwin fiddles with his COMP.
“Meanwhile, let’s go get you that bath.”
Mark wheels in a cart to transfer the mare and her other foals to the bathing room, and the mechanical arms pop out of the ceiling to sterilise everything they touched.
When the fluffies are out of earshot, Erwin looks at Calvin.
“So, making any progress with Project Zero Freaks?”
Calvin smirks his trademark audacious smirk.
“Well, we’ve discovered their contacts in Shanghai and the Netherlands, among other places, and after hearing about what happened to Jacob’s pals, most of those idiots are giving up without a fight. I’d say about 25% are stupid enough to take a swing anyway, so a quarter of them are dead now.”
“On the bright side, we’ve got about a hundred years to eliminate them, so hopefully, the next time the Cunning Man re-emerges, there won’t be someone like Jacob waiting to help him.”
“And I’ll be making sure that there’s someone like me, waiting to stop him.”
Calvin leaves, teleporting to the School to check in on that foal.
pop
He’ll be back to update the mare, after she and her other foals are done with their bath.
A few minutes later, Konba brings in his fluffy Bulma, for a regular checkup.
Konba’s in street clothes today, proudly wearing his pink shirt, and he’s got an odd smile on his face.
“I trust you can get this done quickly, Erwin. I have… ah… an appointment later.”
“Weawwy? Daddeh nu did teww Buwma abowt dat. Can Buwma tag awong?”
“…I’m sorry, Bulma, it’s a private matter.”
Erwin raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment.
“Let’s just get her on there, then.”
Konba picks Bulma up, and puts her on the Stahlskanner.
ping!
Erwin smiles.
“As healthy as ever, Konba. You must be taking good care of her. Have you moved back into the palace, by the way?”
Konba shakes his blond orange head.
“We’re still living in Master Karne’s cave atop Mount Bhubhu, and with Xan and Tro training under him as well now, it’s gotten a bit crowded.”
“Wut happund tu da ship, aneeway?”
“It was destroyed during Operation Rising Sun, Bulma. Remember? So was Tro’s ship.”
“Haven’t you two replaced those ships yet?”
“Stuff kept getting in the way. And we have portal guns, so we don’t need a spaceship. I’d better be off, V-- my appointment is waiting for me. Erwin, thank you as always.”
Erwin unwraps a skettie treat, furrowing his eyebrows in thought.
“It was a pleasure, Konba.”
Konba and Bulma leave, the latter happily numming the treat.
“um num num num num”
As the mechanical arms descend again, Erwin watches his patient leave.
“I wonder who he’s going to meet up with.”
He shrugs.
“Can’t be Venny. She’s still seeing Akira.”
Erwin’s next patient quickly arrives, but doesn’t stay for long.
A young woman brings her stallion in, who is suffering from a rather odd malady.
He’s swollen up to Dobsonian proportions, like a dam about to give birth, and is floating in the air. His owner has tied a string around one of his legs, and has tied the other end around her wrist, evidently to prevent him from floating away. Altogether, it looks like he’s become a fuzzy balloon.
He’s still alive, and the expression on his face is a discomforted one.
He pipes up, his voice sounding even higher than the average fluffy’s voice, like he inhaled helium.
“Dok-tow… can yu fix dis?”
Erwin pulls his thaumometer out of a drawer and turns it on, pointing it at the floating stallion.
The light on it glows green, and he tut-tuts.
“This is magic, you’ll have to go to Saint Alice’s.”
If you need a reminder, Saint Alice’s is a hospital in the Magical Quarter, the city’s magical neighborhood, specializing in treating magical maladies and mishaps.
It’s not as easy as just zapping the patient with an anti-magical ray, or sticking them in an anti-magical field. Sufficiently powerful magic can alter the body semi-permanently, or even fully permanently, and such changes can endure even anti-magic.
The metaphor Dr. Deston Faucheuse and many wizards use when teaching magic is that it’s like baking a pie: you can stick the pie in the freezer to make it cool off faster, but that won’t make the pie revert to its unbaked state.
That’s not entirely the truth, but it’s a lie their students can understand.
The woman looks relieved.
“Oh, good. I was worried I’d have to get a big needle.”
“May I ask how this happened?”
“I don’t know, I woke up this morning and he was bumping up against the saferoom ceiling. I’m just glad the window was closed.”
“You haven’t perhaps antagonised a mage?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, I’ll contact Deston and inform him. He can probably get to the bottom of this.”
He gives the balloon fluffy a sympathetic look.
“Although, right now, I’d say getting you to the bottom of the room takes priority.”
Then an idea occurs to him.
“Before you go, let me make a quick call…”
Erwin calls Orville and Wilbur, who blip in to escort the balloon fluffy and his owner to Saint Alice’s.
For a long time, Orville and his fluffy Wilbur only had the power of flight, so they both got very good at flying.
As Victor has said in the past, flight is the soy sauce of superpowers: it’s only good if you’ve got something else to put it on.
But these days, they’ve got aerokinesis too. Calvin’s thinking about putting all of the ChaotiX’s aerokinetics on one squad.
Of course, for a fluffy, staying airborne for more than five seconds is an accomplishment by itself.
The point is, if the stallion accidentally gets loose and winds up floating up into the sky, those two can retrieve him with little fuss.
They’ve saved plenty of fluffies from falling to their doom. Saving a fluffy from floating to his doom is a nice change of pace.
Since the stallion didn’t touch anything, the mechanical arms aren’t needed, but Erwin feels like it’s best to be thorough, and summons them anyway.
Or rather, he’s about to do that when the room suddenly sterilises itself, and Chaos appears with a couple of fluffies.
Chaos is in jester form, and he’s holding a bulging shopping bag for some reason. The bag bears a logo that looks like Chaos’ jester head, and the words “CHAOS MART” in rainbow colors.
With his free hand, he waves at Erwin, speaking in his usual cheerful, flamboyant voice.
“Hello again, Erwin! Got another couple I need you to take a look at. I just saved them from a rather nasty man who was going to stuff and mount them. And they weren’t gonna be the first fluffies he did that to! Be glad you didn’t see his… urgh, trophy room.”
As Erwin lifts the couple onto the table one by one, he glances at the bag.
“Can I assume that whatever you did to him has something to do with that bag?”
Chaos nods happily.
“Why yes, you can assume that.”
By now, Erwin knows Chaos well, and he cracks a grin.
“Would I be correct?”
“Ha! Well done, Erwin! Yes, you would be correct. You know that I feel like the punishment should fit the crime, so, because he liked stuffing fluffies…”
Chaos dumps the bag out onto the floor, revealing its contents: at least a dozen plush toys. They’re all identical, looking like a rather unpleasant man with a scowl, a shaved head and a sleeveless denim vest, a wife beater, jeans and boots.
“…I decided to stuff him. By turning him into marketable plushies!”
Suddenly, the plush abusers are all back in the shopping bag.
“I think my domain’s gift shop needed a new product, anyway.”
Yes, Chaos’ domain has a gift shop. It’s there because he felt like having a gift shop.
Erwin pauses for a few seconds, and then he shrugs.
“Let’s get these two on the scanner. Who wants to go first?”
He puts the couple on the Stahlskanner, again, one by one. The stallion volunteered to go first, to make sure it’s safe for his special friend.
ping!
ping!
“They’re both healthy, Chaos. Oh, and expecting, too. Congratulations, you two. I’ll prescribe the Standard Package.”
That’s a meal, a bath, and lots of love.
“And I’ll also prescribe a diet of ÜberFluff Bestest Babbehs kibble.”
Chaos is relieved to hear the good news, and he strokes the couple gently.
“You two be good for the nice people here, okay?”
“Yus, mistah!”
“Fwuffies wiww be gud fow mistah dok-tow!”
“Oh yeah, you don’t have names.”
Erwin smiles reassuringly.
“We can take care of that, too.”
As Rosa wheels a cart in to ferry the fluffy couple out, Chaos vanishes, sterilising the room for Erwin again on his way out.
And after briefly checking up on the fluffies in the vats again, Erwin decides to take a coffee break.
As he enters the Foundation’s lobby, he sees Prometheus chatting to Minerva, who is womanning the counter because Gilda’s currently in the bathroom.
While passing through the lobby, Erwin overhears a snippet of the robots’ conversation.
“…I was gonna ask Madam Valerie to help with that, but she said she didn’t have time, she’s got an appointment soon…”
It’s not until Erwin has walked through the sliding doors that he fully processes what Prometheus said, and when he passes through the invisible boundary of the Foundation’s protective wards, he does a double take.
“An appointment? But that’s what Konba said… oh.”
Erwin blushes as he puts the puzzle pieces together.
“When did they get together?”
He’s a smart guy. As a member of the Nerd Squad, that’s sort of a prerequisite.
Erwin shrugs, and strolls off to Starbucks, muttering to himself.
“Ich nehme an, das ist nicht wirklich mein Anliegen…”