It is a week after the experiment began, and the results seem promising. The cage itself no longer frightens the smarties, but your approach has them all quivering. This is not the intended effect, but as long as they behave during today’s experiment, you won’t complain. After setting your coffee down, you check on your favorite test subject.
A-13 dangles limply in his harness, red-ringed eyes darting from image to image; his ‘entertainment’ is video of a GoPro’d smarty stomping a mare’s foals into mush, then smearing the paste on her. Some time around Thursday he stopped making any noise at all, not even able to chirp any more. You address the others, “Good news, everyone! Today we’ll see if you’re good fluffies.”
They don’t have a lot of enthusiasm left, but you still get the token response. They waddle from the darkness at the back of their cages, bleating about how they’re good fluffies who don’t need the sorry gun any more. So far, A-1 has been the most promising; if any smarty was going to get a lick of positivity from you, it’d be him. He looks down, deep bags under his green eyes, “W-wawtew… Wawtew gud nao. Nu wan hewd. Jus wan sickies tu stawp.”
You decide to start with him. Retrieving the test supplies from beneath the exam table, you give them a looking over. A Fluffcker doll, its Junior counterpart, estrus spray, and another bottle marked ‘runt scent.’ The purpose is obvious, especially with the models in question: the full sized is pretty much the image of a healthy mare, and the junior is a dull, muddy brown.
A-1 only trembles as you extract him from his confines, and set him down in the pen. You spray the runt scent on the smaller doll, and set it down a few paces from him. “Alright, A-1. This is a runt, a ‘poopy’ or ‘dummy baby.’”
Walter’s unsure of what he’s supposed to do after a week of nothing but chemically induced misery and the ol’ ultra-violence, but he toddles towards the chirping simulacrum. With a sniff, A-1’s face turns from uncertainty to disgust, “Nu smeww pwetty… gif poopeh babbeh wowstest owwies!”
He raises his hoof, and for a moment, and it looks like you’ll have to put him back in the harness. Inwardly you sigh in relief as A-1’s expression twists to into a grimace of pain. “Tummy huwties… bad babbeh!” he groans as his stomach fills with drunk bees. Eventually, he just lowers to his haunches, swallowing what must be a mouthful of vomit. “Babbeh… Wawter can nu huwt babbeh… g-gud fwuffy?” he pleads at you, eyes watery as his stomach slowly settles back. You say nothing, scribbling notes on his response to the runt spray before you collect the first doll, and spray the estrus pheromones onto the Fluffcker.
This is one you’re particularly worried about; while a fluffy can be conditioned to not stomp a runt’s head in, the drive to breed is much more potent. During your testing days, one of the quickest ways to turn a dam into a chirping puddle of goo was to spray her newborn foals with the stuff and loose a stallion on them. It was for science, of course.
A-1’s reaction is immediate once you put it down in the pen; tail perked up, pupils wide open, and fluffy erection swelling. He waddles up to the “mare”, and looks ready to mount when the retching begins. “Nuuu… nuuu! Wawter wan speshaw huggies! Nee’ gud feews,” he whines between audible, cat-like gags, before depositing a sticky wad of bile onto the toy. The toy squeaks “I wuv 'ou! Bestest speshaw huggies!”
“Huuu huu huuuu! Wawtew am no smawty… Wawtew am wowstest fwuffy… can nuu gib speshew huggies, nuu good feels… wan’ die…!”
You reach down, the fluffy recoiling from your touch, but you gently run your hand down his spine, “No, you’re a good fluffy now. You can’t be a bad fluffy if you don’t hurt babies or give bad special hugs.” To cement this, you hold a treat under his mouth; sullenly, he takes what’s effectively a chewy off-brand Combo.
Even after being told he’s a good fluffy, A-1 sulks in his cage, crying softly. In the long run, you know he doesn’t matter and even if these tests are successful, he’s likely going to end up in the bio-hazard dumpster. You move on, taking out A-2.
He’s not nearly as well behaved; you have a number of lab coat stains with his name on them. With a bit of will power, you resist the urge to spike his stupid, yellow-maned head into the floor. He squirms in your grip, “Nu! Smawty nu wan sowwy gun! Gif 'ou poopies!” he threatens. Your discipline slips: you smack his belly over the trash can, unleashing a pained yelp and a torrent of black, syrupy shit.
It would seem the [REDACTED] is causing ulcers, judging from the tarry stool. On the minus, you’ll have to report this to your boss, and it may mean you get shuffled off to another project. On the plus side, you’ll be able to snuff this rude little shit-machine yourself.
As much as you look forward to killing him, you should at least finish the experiment. As before, you set the simulated runt in front of the smarty friend, and his reaction is as irritating as everything else. Despite looking ready to puke himself inside out, the stallion practically jumps up and down on the thing’s head.
Once he gets to the simulated mare, it’s even worse. Fighting back vomit, A-2 looks up at you with all the malice those dumb little eyes can muster and humps the doll, belching up a dollop of bright red bile onto the Fluffcker. You scribble down some notes as he mutters, “Sicky wa-wa… nu s’posed tu be boo-boo joosies…”
You normally take to this sort of thing with a bit of grace, and even when seething, it remains under your skin. “Well, A-2… you’re a bad, sick little fluffy.”
“Fwuffy sick… daddeh gib huggies?” After all the shit he has quite literally thrown at you, he spreads his fuzzy little legs in the universal sign for hugs; maybe it’s coughing up bloody vomit or post-nut clarity.
One thing that’s always bugged you about some abusers, and even fellow testers back at HasBio: they always jump for the tools. A baton, a hacksaw, screwdrivers, and blowtorches… working with your hands can be just as satisfying. Popping your knuckles, you set the fluffy on the exam table after another thorough squeezing. “Smawty nu wike bad huggies! Gon gib dummeh munsta wowstest huwties!” he threatens, flailing his limbs until you can hold him firmly on his belly.
You apply a zip-tie to A-2’s snout, and take his rear leg in your hand. For a moment, you feel like it would be better to just snap his neck and be done with it, but a fearful little fart from your soon-to-be-former subject reminds you why you’re going to leave him a broken mess. With all the ease of pulling a drumstick off of a roasted turkey, you yank A-2’s rear leg from its socket. He screams, but your impromptu muzzle keeps it muffled. You continue, dislocating all of his legs at the shoulders and hips, breaking the wretched creature with simple leverage; joints forced the wrong way until they pop out of place, then snapping his delicate little shanks like dry twigs on the edge of the exam table.
None of this is quite enough to kill him. Eyes squeezed tight, you know that he’s already way past the point of chirping like a baby squirrel. The funny thing about fluffies is how weak much of their connective tissues are. Back when you worked for HasBio itself, the abstract explained it was to make sure that a fluffy pony would never be a threat to young children or other house pets. In this case, however, it makes your final move possible.
You flip the chirping, broken fluffy onto his back and get a solid grip on the ribcage. Bones and tissues pop or crunch as you compress the ribs vertically and with a wrenching pull, you snap the sternum without breaking the skin. Letting go, the ribs separate and form a grotesque tent over his vital organs. He’s not dead yet, and will be sorely regretting that fact for an hour or so.
Thankfully, the relative silence of A-2 mutilation hasn’t caused a panic, so you leave the mess on the exam table and pick up where you left off. As you continue down the line, the results are disappointing to say the least. The majority won’t stomp the runt, and you reason that the aversion therapy is just reinforcing an existing instinct to protect foals, but the mare test seems to be the more difficult to overcome. By the time you’ve finished with A-15, ‘she’ is caked in fluids you definitely aren’t going to handle without gloves on.
Finally, you take your side project out of his bonds. A-13 erects himself, staring blankly at the ‘runt.’ You spray it again to be sure, and push him closer with your boot. Devoid of any emotion, he reaches down, and begins chewing on the doll. You’re about to begin writing when A-13 begins convulsing. For a moment, you’re afraid that you’ll have to inform your bosses that [REDACTED] may cause seizures, when you hear him straining to vomit.
“Fwuff… feew… nu gud…” he manages to wheeze out before a sudden, violent action expels a torrent of bile. You watch dumbfounded as A-13 continues horking up fluids, swiftly including an ever-increasing amount of blood and strips of flesh. For a moment, the tortured little fluffy looks up at you. His muzzle dripping with blood and vomit, eyes dead and glassy, he looks as if he’s about to speak… when he quite literally pukes his guts up.
By some amazing feat of gastric power, you see a fleshy sack eject from A-13’s mouth, followed by a long pink tube you can only imagine are his intestines. Mind and body broken, A-13 shakily waddles to the pile of his own entrails; you swear you see him mouth the words “Skettis for fluffy” as he begins to eat himself.
Suffice to say, you take the rest of the day off with your friend Mr. Beam.
