“Daddeh why am housie suuu hawt?” Nick scowled at the scarred grey fluffy panting next to him, hooves on his leg. “Well, houses have to be warm. You don’t want a cold house do you?” Before the unicorn could react, Nick had pushed the fluffies feet off of him and swiftly left, having already finished the daily chore of feeding and watering the fluffies. Nick had not accounted for the smell that would arise from heating the room of a fluffy, their usual barnyard odor amped up by a factor of ten. Merely being in the room made his eyes water.
Over the course of a week, Nick had been slowly ramping up the temperature of the space heater in the room. If the cheap thermometer he had bought from Harold was anything to go by, it was about 98 degrees in the room, well above the 72 recommended by Hasbio. And unlike outside, there was nowhere to escape the heat. The foals seemed to be suffering the worst, and cried constantly although that may have been because Nick told them their mother hated them and left without them.
Nick was almost ready to begin the true experiment. There was no doubt in his mind there was more to the derping process than just heat he’d been trying so far. He’d thrown enough fluffies into furnaces to know that. No, it was most definitely something to do with the ‘wan die’ loop. What Nick now needed to know was firstly, the minimum amount of heat necessary to induce derping, and secondly, if there was any other way to induce derping besides the application of heat. He wasn’t sure if the heat itself was what caused derping or if it was the resultant brain damage. Either way, the first step was clear.
Nick walked downstairs, able to hear the huuhuuing of the shorn pegasus the moment the basement door was opened. “Gowdwick nu wike dawk huuhuu… Why munstah take Gowdwick pwetty fwuff…” Nick crept up behind the blanket covered cage. “It’s because I hate you shitrat.” The fluffy screeched hoarsely in terror, and had it not been massively dehydrated it would doubtless have pissed itself in fear. Nick pulled the heated blanket off the cage to see the fluffy pushing itself as far into the corner as it was able to. The week had given the fluffy some time to regrow a bit of fluff, but it only made it look worse. In Nick’s eyes it still looked like a ball sack, but now covered in a sparse layer of blue fuzz, its fatty flesh pushing through the bars.
“And now you’ve made bad poopies, well fucking done!” Nick spat harshly. “Buh’ dewe nu wittahbo-“ Nick cut the fluffy off with a harsh kick to the cage. “I didn’t ask for an excuse shit head. Now I have to punish you.” Grabbing the cage, Nick opened the door and dumped the fluffy face first into the floor, the fluffies scream cut off as it impacted the ground with a crack. Nick felt his heart begin to drop before “SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
Nick breathed a sigh of relief, crouching down to examine the fluffy. Unfortunately for him, he had landed front leg first, shattering the bone like glass, shards extending from his leg in more places than Nick thought possible. “Ah, what a shame.” Nick gave the screaming pegasus a few hard slaps on the back. “Don’t worry buddy, I can make your leg stop hurting.” The fluffies dry throat began to trail off as he looked at Nick with hope, then abject terror as the teenage retrieved a large knife from the wall. Feeling its blunt edge, Nick frowned. “Give me a second.” He smiled at the fluffy. “Don’t go anywhere!”
Walking to the end of the garage containing most of his power tools, Nick turned on his bench grinder, the wheels spinning up with a menacing hum. The fluffy began to whimper as Nick ground a new edge on the old carving knife, sparks flying from the edge. Nick usually used a scalpel for the ‘delegification’ process, but considering the circumstances the carving knife would work wonders.
The new edge finished, Nick turned to see the fluffy attempting to escape, having somehow hauled himself up to the third step of the basement stairs. “Fwuffy gotta get’ way. Nee’ wawn odda fwuffies abou’ munstah daddeh.” Nick silently stared at the fluffy, quietly taking a seat atop the cage as the fluffy dragged itself up another step, crying in pain as a bone shard caught the edge of the step. Nick didn’t exactly time it, but was sure it took it at least fifteen minutes to reach the door.
Nick had to stifle a giggle as the fluffy strained to push the door open, blood dripping slowly from its broken leg. He openly began laughing as the fluffy began to plead with the door. “Pwease open doow, pwease!” Nick walked up the ten steps quickly, grabbing the fluffy by its scruff and hauling it towards the workbench, carving knife in hand. Plopping the fluffy down on the table, Nick smiled.
“I was just going to take your one leggie, but then you tried to run.” The fluffy began to openly sob tearlessly as Nick’s smile grew larger. “But, daddy is a REALLY nice guy, so even after you tried to run from me I’ll let you choose ONE leggie to keep. So choose, my little friend, which leggie do you want to keep?” Godrick stifled a sob. “Nu wan wose weggies, Gowdwick nu can choose.” Nick’s smile grew even larger than before, spreading across his entire face. “Don’t worry little buddy, I’ll help you choose!”
Reaching behind Godrick, Nick retrieved a large deadblow hammer, swiftly bringing it down on the ponies good front leg with a sickening crunch, eliciting a hoarse scream from the pegasus. Nick gave the fluffy about five minutes to collect itself before asking again. “So, do you want to keep one of your front leggies or one of your back leggies?” “Back weggies,” the fluffy managed to choke out between sobs. Nick nodded. “Alright little buddy, which back leggie do you want?”
The fluffy was silent for a moment before Nick suddenly smashed its left hindleg with the deadblow hammer, the fluffy attempting to scream. Unfortunately, his voice had finally given out at this point, the only noise being a low, raspy hiss. “Damn, youre right. Making decisions is thirsty work. Let me go fix the two of us something to drink.”
Leaving the fluffy on the workbench Nick walked upstairs and fixed a drink for both of them, a tall glass of Sprite for Nick, and a bowl of ice water for the fluffy. As much as he wanted the fluffy to suffer, being able to communicate with it was paramount to the experiment. Walking downstairs, he set the bowl of water in front of the fluffy, taking a long swig of Sprite as he waited for the fluffy to drink. The pegasus simply stared at the bowl of water. “Drink.”
Reluctantly the fleshy pony began to lap up the water. Within a few minutes they had both finished their drinks. “So buddy, did you choose what leg you want to keep?” Godrick managed to produce tears this time as he sadly wiggled his right hind leg. “Godwick wan keep wastest weggie.” Nick faked a smile. “I understand buddy. Don’t worry, I’ll make this quick.” Reaching into a drawer, Nick retrieved a small bit of rubber hose. “Here, bite this.” The pegasus ignored Nick and stared sadly at the floor. “Fine. If you crack a tooth don’t come crying to me.”
Nick gripped the front leg of the fluffy tightly, ignoring the screams of “WOWSTES HUWTIES!” as he wrenched the leg back, dislocating the leg from its socket and quickly severing the leg roughly, tossing it to the side. “Unfortunately,” Nick began as he walked over to the cabinet marked flammable, “I’m all out of insta heal gel. But don’t worry, I have something else to stop the bleeding!” Retrieving a blowtorch, Nick fired it up. The instinctual fear of fire programmed by Hasbio as well as the newly ingrained fear of Nick was too much, the pegasus desperately attempting to stand, screaming in pain as its shattered legs buckled and collapsed beneath him, a pool of blood spreading outward.
“Fucking wuss.” Nick muttered as he walked up and directed the blowtorch towards the gaping wound on the fluff. “BURNIE HUWTIES!” screamed the fluffy as it flailed its remaining legs, desperately trying something, ANYTHING to stop the pain. Nick had often wondered how people online could eat fluffies, but as the smell of sweet roast pork filled the room he kind of understood. Flipping off the blowtorch, he surveyed the damage.
Where once was a leg was now a smoking, charred stump, blackened flesh, and burnt fluff. Luckily, the pegasus was still conscious and hadnt gone into shock yet, still screaming about burnie hurties. Nick smiled at the fluffy. “One down, two to go!”
It hadn’t taken Nick much longer to put the fluffy in the ‘wan die’ loop, the pony succumbing around halfway into the second leg. Nick had wrapped him in the electric blanket, starting a timer for thirty minutes. Stretching, he walked upstairs and outside to check on the filly in the pit.
Staring down at the mound of corpses, Nick scanned around for the filly. She had managed to clear out all of the sparse grasses and dandelions poking their way through the thick black sludge that coated the bottom of the pit. He wondered if she had somehow managed to escape before spotting her filthy fluff beneath the PVC pipe that carried the runoff water from the house gutters. The filly was straining desperately to reach the single glistening drop of water hanging from the plastic pipe, standing unsteadily on her back legs as she reached for it, ultimately falling backwards into the sludge, coating her back in the greasy substance. The filly stood, shaking, tears forming in the corner of her eyes. “Meanie wawa, why nu faww fo Stwawbewwy? Fwuffy am suuu thiwsty.”
Nick laughed as the drop finally fell, quickly soaking into the dry ground as the filly cried and stomped the ground in frustration. Nick tossed a light plastic ashtray from the former residents down into the pit, beaning the pink fluffy in the head. It yelped in pain, looking around for the source of the ashtray before seeing Nick standing at the edge of the pit. “Meanie Munstah, wet Stwawbewwy out of fwoeba sweepies pit!” the fluffy cried, half demanding, half pleading. Nick simply smiled and walked back inside the house, the filly full on pleading as he walked away.
Nick watched some sports for a few minutes before the timer went off, going downstairs to see Godrick still muttering ‘wan die’ to himself, lying on his side. Making a note in his log, Nick reset the timer and went back to catch the end of the football game. Results were the same at an hour. And an hour and a half, and at two, three, six. Around hour twelve Nick was beginning to consider simply pulling the plug on the experiment, but as he had nothing to lose from letting it go overnight, he simply shut off the basement lights and headed back upstairs, the chant of ‘wan die’ following him the entire way until the heavy oak door shut it out.
“RISE AND SHINE, SLEEPY HEADS, IT’S A BEEE YOOOTI FUL DAY IN THE COUNTY OF-“ Nick reached up to the radio alarm, slamming his fist down on the snooze button. Sitting up straight, he sat in bed for a few minutes, gathering strength for the coming day. Sliding out of bed he threw on a pair of gym shorts and headed downstairs to dispose of the corpse.
Except what greeted Nick wasn’t a corpse, but a perfectly happy, derped fluffy swaddled in a heated blanket. “Hebbo daddie!” Nick broke into a smile. “Hello friend!” Grabbing his notebook, Nick wrote down the procedure, as well as the rough time it took to finish cooking. With some tweaking this procedure would be a key concept of his research. Walking upstairs, Nick grabbed a craft beer from the bridge to celebrate, popping the cap with his Leatherman and taking a deep swig, immediately spitting it out after remembering he hated the taste of beer. Grabbing a can of Mountain Dew, he began to celebrate in earnest.