Note: read “Two Heads Are Sweater Than One” first. From this point on, it will be assumed that you are keeping up with Ugly Sweater Guy’s misadventures.
As I pull up outside the Federation, I find one of the doctors standing outside, watching me arrive.
I don’t think it’s the Igor. He looks human. Kinda chubby, dark brown hair, balding a bit, brown eyes and glasses, a lab coat over a lilac uniform, some kind of device on his wrist.
And he’s got a fucking X in an octagon badge on his lapel, so I can guess why he’s waiting there.
Not five seconds after I park and get out to open the passenger door, he walks over to me.
“Guten Morgen. My name is Dr. Erwin Stahlberg, and I’m in charge here at this Foundation branch. A mutual friend told me that you were coming, sir.”
German accent, not very strong, I was expecting more Vs and Zs. Must have been living in America for a long time.
He reaches into his lab coat pocket, and pulls out an amulet on a chain, offering it to me.
“Put this on, please.”
I don’t take it, keeping my hand on the door handle.
“What is that?”
“The Foundation is warded to keep anyone with hostile intent towards fluffies from entering the building. This amulet will allow you to bypass those wards, in case they attempt to repel you. We don’t give these out to a lot of people, but you are a special case, and you-know-who asked me to do this for you. For the record, you aren’t keeping the amulet. You will be expected to turn it in when you leave.”
The place is warded?
Oh, right, this city is crawling with fucking wizards too. Got its own goddamn magical neighborhood.
We don’t really have a lot of wizards in Detroit. Apparently, it’s not “an environment conductive to magical research” or something.
I’ve been meaning to take a look at the… what’s it called… the Magical Quarter.
But as my new friend said, things keep getting in the way.
scratch scratch
So I take the amulet, putting it on and tucking it under my sweater, and open the car door.
“Thanks. You guys must trust me a lot to let me in.”
This is going to be even more of an ordeal than the store was.
scratch scratch
Dr. Stahlberg chuckles.
“Oh, we have a little insurance, in case any old habits rear their ugly heads.”
He presses a button on that wrist device, and a window opens a few floors up.
A bunch of shiny somethings fly out of the window, down towards us, and they all start clicking together.
It takes me a few seconds to realize what’s being put together.
Then I gasp, as I see a suit of power armor, moving by itself, folding its arms, every movement accompanied by whirring sounds.
It’s white, with a symbol on the chest plate: an omega symbol, with a red X over it.
And the eyes are glowing pink. Why pink?
Dr. Stahlberg gestures at the armor.
“This is my Omega Buster, currently being remotely piloted by Minerva, the resident AI at this branch of the Faucheuse Foundation.”
The armor waves at me, speaking in a female electronic voice.
“Hi there. If the name didn’t clue you in, this armor was designed to subdue an Omega Class, so it can definitely subdue you. Do keep that in mind.”
I speak slowly and carefully, trying not to let my voice go too high.
“Yeah, that’s incentive enough to behave, I think.”
The doctor beams, spreading his arms wide.
“Wunderbar! Alright then, let’s get inside so I can take a look at… what’s your fluffy’s name, sir?”
I grab the carrier, lifting it out.
“I’m still workshopping names.”
When they see how dirty the mare is, the doctor and the armor are both stricken silent for a few seconds, looking at at each other.
“That is one filthy fluffy.”
“At least she’s not covered in dinosaur feces, Doctor…”
Hold up. Dinosaur feces?
Never mind, don’t wanna know.
scratch scratch
I give the mare a look.
“Sure you don’t wanna back out of this?”
She shrugs.
“We shuk awn it, wite?”
“I guess we did. Alright then, let’s roll.”
Hefting up the carrier, I grin at the doctor and his metal enforcer.
“Shall we?”
So I follow the two of them inside, feeling a tingly sensation all over when we pass through the boundary of the wards.
I can’t help but feel like the wards know I shouldn’t be here.
Like the building itself is silently judging me.
scratch scratch
As we enter the lobby, I look around. It’s painted in soft colors, a couple of people waiting with their fluffies in carriers.
The walls must be soundproofed or something, because I can’t hear as many fluffies as I thought I would hear.
There’s a robot working behind the counter, a lady robot, talking to a blonde woman. The woman’s wearing that lilac uniform, and the robot’s torso is lilac too, her eyes glowing pink like the armor’s.
The armor waves at the robot, and the robot waves back.
For some reason, the blonde finds this very funny, and starts laughing.
As we pass them, walking into a hallway, I turn to the doctor.
“Who were those two?”
“Gilda, and also Minerva.”
“I’m very good at multitasking.”
Oh, that’s why the blonde started laughing.
And that’s why pink.
“So you just waved at yourself?”
“It usually gets some laughs. Didn’t you see Gilda?”
“I bet it’s a laugh a minute around here. Is this supposed to be a shelter or a comedy club?”
scratch scratch
"We try to have fun here. They do say that laughter is the best medicine."
“Let’s just get this over with. I don’t feel comfortable around so many fluffies.”
The doctor gives me a reassuring smile.
“Believe me, sir, Gilda started off not much better than you. And now, she’s one of my most trusted employees. What matters is that you recognize that you have a problem, and are trying to make a difference. If you don’t believe that you can change, talk to her. Or her ex-husband.”
“Doc, be real with me: if I ask you who her ex-husband is, am I going to like the answer? Because I have an unsettling suspicion that the answer is another of you ChaotiX guys.”
scratch scratch
“Yu nu weawwy am a fan of dem, huh.”
“Girl, you have no idea. So is Gilda’s ex-husband another ChaotiX member or not?”
“He is, in fact. And Cal’s eldest brother.”
“Oh, he has a brother too. I’m an only child. I always wanted a brother growing up, but my parents had apparently decided in advance that they only wanted one kid.”
And to be sure, my dad got snipped after I was born.
“Cal and Scott weren’t always on the best terms, sir. And neither were Cal and Gilda. They used to date, before Gilda married Scott.”
“Did Korkea date her before or after he tripped and landed in a gigantic pile of superpowers?”
“They broke up about a year or so before he crossed Threshold X. You’ll have to ask Cal for more, it is personal.”
Wow, that must have sucked for her. It’s like breaking up with someone right before they win the lottery.
That actually happened to me once.
scratch scratch
“I would rather not talk to Korkea if I can avoid it, I don’t need to know about his love life.”
As we pass another doctor who appears to be a dwarf, Erwin waves at him.
That dwarf’s probably a him. We don’t have a lot of dwarves in Detroit either, I don’t know how to tell the difference between boy dwarves and girl dwarves.
They’ve both got beards.
“Cal understands your apprehension towards the ChaotiX, sir. We have been having a bit of fun at your expense, that’s true, but rest assured: if you behave, no serious harm will come to you on our watch.”
That’s not very reassuring.
It’s only because Chaos has dibs on me, I bet.
If I lose this game, my ass is his. I go off to his domain, and he inflicts whatever twisted punishments occur to him upon me.
scratch scratch
Everything he’s doing to me now is probably the bare minimum of what he can do. Just a warning of what’s to come if I fail.
Whatever he does to me then, it’ll probably involve copious amounts of hot chocolate.
We stop outside a door, and Erwin opens it.
“Ah, my trusty examination room. After you, sir.”
So we walk into the examination room, the armor standing guard.
I place the carrier on a table and open it.
“Okay, so you should probably know that I adopted this mare from the street, so I know literally nothing about her medical history.”
“Dis am fwuffy fiwst time at da doc-tow. Su faw, it nu am su bad.”
The doctor gestures at a device on another table. It looks like it has a digital scale somewhere in its ancestry, with a big square metal plate, a lightbulb, currently off, and a screen, also currently off.
“Just put her on the Stahlskanner, and we’ll see everything we need to know.”
“Stahlskanner? As in Stahlberg?”
“Ja, I invented it myself. Initially for humans, but it was easy to repurpose it for my patients here, and my friends in the Nerd Squad helped me improve it.”
“Nerd Squad?”
scratch scratch
He points at his badge.
“It’s another ChaotiX squad. Essentially our scientific division, operating in Faucheuse Tower. Many of the devices we’ve used while fighting the forces of evil were invented there, by the Nerd Squad.”
“So you’re not just a doctor of medicine.”
“Das stimmt. I’m also skilled at mechanics. Perhaps you two would like to take a ride in my Stahlkörper 2.0 some time? My own fluffies always enjoy the ride, and I occasionally take it through the McDonald’s drive-thru.”
“I’d have to see that thing before I make a decision.”
“Well, let’s just do what we’re here for. The mare, please.”
So I place my new friend on the scanner.
bzzz
The light glows red, and the screen displays all kinds of diagnostic information which I don’t understand at all.
Seems to make perfect sense to the doctor, though.
“Ah. Nothing serious, just a minor case of diarrhea. Other than that, she’s in surprisingly good health, considering her background. And she’s not chipped, so I think you can officially adopt her without much trouble. We can chip her for you at no cost after her bath, and registering your information won’t be hard.”
“I thought she might have fleas or something.”
“Actually, fluffy blood is notoriously unpalatable to fleas and other such parasites. One taste and it’s auf wiedersehen, flauschige! Fluffy blood tastes fine to vampires, though. Henry says it’s rather sweet, but of course, most vampires have stopped feeding on fluffies, the Morris Clan included.”
“Henry?”
“Mowwis Cwan?”
The doctor chuckles again.
“Henry Morris is with the Monster Party, another ChaotiX squad. He’s a very friendly fellow, a loving husband and father, and works as a lifeguard in his day job–”
“A vampire lifeguard?”
“Fwuffy nu git wut am su stwange abowt dat.”
“Vampires burn to ash in the sun! How can he be a lifeguard? What, does he take the, ha, graveyard shift? Can’t be much fun, guarding a beach at night.”
“He’s got a Sun Pearl. It protects a vampire from, well, the sun. With that and a steady supply of NuBlood, a vampire can unlive a relatively normal unlife.”
“Oh goody, if some Twilight wannabe bites my neck and turns me into a whiny, sparkly loser, at least I know I can go outside without burning to cinders.”
“Actually, vampires don’t sparkle, and most of them hate those books, it’s like wizards and Harry Potter. Anyway, all your new fluffy little compatriot needs is some diarrhea medicine, a very long bath, more fiber in her diet, and lots of love.”
“Love is a strong word. I just met her.”
“You’ve been treating fluffies well since your arrival in our city, sir. I think she’s in good hands. Oh, by the way, have you ever bathed a fluffy before?”
I used to hose my guests off, but I don’t think that counts.
“No, not yet. We were going to drive back to the hotel to do that, and then I’ve gotta drive back this way for my afternoon shift at Starbucks.”
scratch scratch
He smiles amusedly.
“Yes, you’re the reason the line is so long at Starbucks now. You know people are going there just to see you? It seems that you’ve become famous.”
“I think the word is infamous.”
People aren’t really seeing me, are they? They’re seeing the sweater.
I think it helps that I’ve got kind of an average, forgettable face.
I’ve always had a knack for blending in, but this sweater’s my goddamn kryptonite. It’s so ugly, it can’t not draw attention.
But, again, it’s not my face they’re paying attention to.
If I spent a few points on SFT, I could probably commit all kinds of crimes, and then, once SFT is over, walk right past the cops looking for the perpetrator. How smart can the police in these parts be?
Never run past a cop when you’re leaving the crime scene, they’re like terriers, they will chase you.
But I don’t think that Chaos would allow it, I don’t know what the consequences for trying are, and I don’t want to find out.
It could possibly involve dunking.
Or a gigantic can of whipped cream.
“Sorry about that, Doc. I wasn’t trying to get a rep.”
“It’s alright, you’ve got a good rep. How about I have Mark show you to the bathing room, so he can demonstrate how to bathe a fluffy?”
“I don’t think I could do that on my own. Fluffies don’t like water, do they? Bathing them is an ordeal, judging by what I’ve see-- by what I’ve heard.”
“Fwuffy can put up wif wawas fow a bit. It am wowf it tu git cwean.”
“Huh. You just sort of roll with everything, don’t you?”
Erwin nods.
“See? If a fluffy is sufficiently dirty, their instinctive desire to be clean can override their instinctive fear of water. It doesn’t have to be an ordeal, sir.”
“Alright, let’s meet this Mark guy.”
He can’t be that bad, right?
“Goddamnit. God-fucking-damnit.”
scratch scratch
Now I’m walking down a hallway with Mark, who is pushing a cart, my nameless mare riding on it, the armor still following me around.
Erwin generously offered to clean the carrier for me while we bathe the mare, since he sterilizes everything the patient touched between every patient anyway.
He said something about mechanical arms, and now I wish I wasn’t missing that.
Because here’s the thing about Mark. He looks like an average guy from the neck up.
And like a beefcake from the neck down.
But he’s got a badge on his uniform, and can you guess what the badge is?
That’s right, a fucking X in a fucking octagon!
Yippeeeeeeeeee!
“So you’re ChaotiX too, huh?”
Clearly, the same logic as Flufftopia applies: with how hugboxy the Korkea Fun Club is, it’s a given that a few of his pals would be working here.
Mark nods.
“So are Alex and Sasha, and I’m also a registered Hunter Association member. And I used to work at Flufftopia before I worked here. Did you know that I sold Marley to Cal? And Piccolo, later the same afternoon–”
“Wait. Hunter Association? I’ve heard of that. They hunt vampires, right?”
scratch scratch
“That’s right. And werebeasts, zombies, dark wizards, demons…”
“But you’re in the ChaotiX too, and so is that Henry guy. You… hunt vampires. He is a vampire. Am I the only one who sees the issue there?”
“The Association doesn’t hunt anyone who isn’t hurting innocents. We try to be reasonable about it. You know, many vampires, like Henry, didn’t want to be vampires, and would rather not be vampires, but there’s no cure for vampirism. You don’t have a lot of vampires where you’re from, do you?”
Nope, don’t gotta lotta those in Detroit either.
“Maybe the blood of Detroiters just tastes like shit to them. You got a better explanation?”
scratch scratch
“Not really. Here we are.”
We walk into the bathing room, and the armor starts guarding the door.
There’s a bunch of bathing stations, and shelves with bottles of fluffy shampoo, from Flufftopia. There’s a box full of fluffy bath toys against one wall. And speakers on the walls.
I saw speakers like that across the building. Dunno what they’re for yet, probably announcements or something.
At one station, a Latina woman is bathing a fluffy couple.
Damn, she’s hot. I’m not usually into Latinas, but she’s got curves for days.
Possibly even weeks.
Mark waves at her.
“Hi, Rosa. Almost done with Cleo and Julius? Hi, guys.”
She glances at us.
“Yes, Mark-- ¡Dios mío, mira qué sucia está la pobre! That’s gonna take you a while.”
“Which is why we should get started pronto.”
As Mark leads me over to a station, still pushing the cart, he catches me checking Rosa out, and lowers his voice.
“Don’t bother. She’s dating Kyle, and things are getting serious.”
“She’s dating Kyle? You’re not talking about the stoner illusionist who works at Flufftopia? That Kyle?”
“Yup. Trust me, if they worked together, they’d be caught doing it in the workplace in no time.”
“TMI, Mark. Let’s just get started.”
“Sorry. Okay, gloves on.”
I look at my hands.
“I should probably wash my hands first.”
Mark, after snapping some latex gloves on, transports the mare onto the station, next to a big sink, which I’m already using to wash my hands.
I can’t find any hand soap, so I improvise with a small squirt of shampoo.
Mmm, lavender.
Mark pets the mare.
“How long has it been since your last bath, sweetheart?”
She raises an eyebrow.
“Wast baff?”
Mark stops petting her.
“Yikes.”
After drying my hands off with a fluffy-safe towel, I put some latex gloves on too.
“Yeah, I’m gonna start carrying hand sanitizer after this. Alright, partner, whaddya wanna smell like?”
“Fwuffy git tu choos wut fwuffy smeww wike? Otay, dis whowe baff fing nu seem su bad nao.”
“Hey, it’s your bath.”
I examine the bottles of shampoo.
“They’ve got lavender, orange, and… what the hell is firebloom?”
“It’s a kind of flower native to Primal Earth. It grants temporary pyrokinesis if you eat it.”
“…This shampoo isn’t going to give my fluffy fire powers, is it? Because it already blew my mind that Flufftopia sells fluffies with powers…”
“No, no, it just smells like fireblooms. Kinda spicy.”
I sniff the open bottle. Huh, it does smell spicy. And I think I detect a hint of burning wood, too.
“Oh, that’s good to know. If they start selling bottled superpowers, I give up. Also, do I want to know what Primal Earth is?”
“Well, uh, that depends…”
“On what?”
Mark grins at me.
“You wouldn’t happen to be a Jurassic Park fan, would you?”
As we lather up the mare, Mark tells me about Primal Earth.
Helping to bathe the mare is soothing my itching, so there’s no way I’m just gonna stand and watch. I need the hands-on experience anyway, pun definitely intended. And I can earn at least one point for it.
We’re using the lavender shampoo. I didn’t feel up to using the firebloom shampoo yet.
“Primal Earth is in a pocket universe, created about sixty-six million years ago. During the Chicxulub Impact. That impact created a duplicate of prehistoric Earth, where the dinosaurs live on.”
“How can an asteroid do that?”
“Sorry, but I can’t honestly answer that question.”
Mark nudges his badge with a soapy finger.
“If you want to see Primal Earth for yourself, there’s a portal in the alleyway behind Cal’s place. Fair warning, the first time through the portal is a bit disorientating. But a guard is keeping the portal open on the other side, and Ioka Village isn’t far from there. They’re very hospitable to visitors. You should be safe if you listen to the Iokans.”
I don’t think Chaos would let me go through those portals.
Not without charging me a hefty sum of points, at least.
I know he won’t let me use the Tele-Port. I saw the place and thought that I had found another loophole: take a portal to any place I want, come back here before I go to sleep. Wouldn’t need to spend points on expanding my area of movement anymore.
I can get halfway to the farms now, I go any further away from the city than that and I’ll wake up in my hotel room the next morning.
But I couldn’t even enter the place. The moment I crossed the threshold, the sweater froze solid, trapping me in place until I gave up and left.
I experimented, too. Spent ten points on SFT, dumped the sweater outside the Tele-Port, and then I could walk in just fine.
This game is starting to feel like one of those old point-and-click adventure games, where you can’t enter the Cave of Destiny without wearing the magical Tutu of Power you get by freeing the Pixie Princess from the Tower of Doom, only it has to be the purple Tutu of Power you get by collecting all of the Gumdrops of Whatever too, and the game never tells you any of this, other than a vague hint from the ogre ballerina guarding the cave that there’s a dress code.
Anyway, once I was in the Tele-Port, I chose a portal to Paris, France at random, to test it out.
Always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower.
However, instead of Paris, I just wound up back in this city’s Tele-Port, walking out of the portal to… I think it was called Grill City? Somewhere on Vajarsi.
Every portal I tried just lead to a random other portal in Korkeaopolis’ Tele-Port, and that only happened to me.
Then SFT ran out, and the sweater scurried in, lept back on me, and dragged me out of the building.
Message received. I’m not getting out of the city that way.
Speaking of portals, let’s get back on topic.
We were talking about a different kind of portal, and I’ve been meaning to ask something.
“Why does the portal need a guard, Mark?”
“Because, without an asteroid fragment, those portals to Primal Earth are one-way, and there are certain people on the other side who want to come here for very bad reasons. But not all dinotites are bad. If you meet Zhala Jr., you’ll be fine, he loves humans, and fluffies too. He even has his own fluffy.”
“And dinotites are…”
“Dinosaur people, basically. They evolved from T-Rexes.”
“T-Rexes–”
“You missed the time when they were really bad, back when ZJ’s dad was ruling them. A lot’s changed since then.”
The mare looks sincerely interested by this conversation, but is staying silent so she doesn’t get shampoo in her mouth.
I, on the other hand, am on the verge of another panic attack.
So there’s a world full of actual goddamn dinosaurs too? With dinosaur people? Okay, how many other worlds are there, and what do they have?
I remember the days when I thought that humans were alone in the universe. That everything beyond Earth was lifeless.
Then fluffies showed up, and ever since the Fall of Cleveland, things just kept getting weirder and weirder, and Earth started feeling smaller and smaller.
Now I have an idea of how insignificant Earth really is in the grand scheme of things.
I’m suddenly reminded of something someone said a few weeks ago.
“I think fluffies were the first sign that things were gonna get weird…”
Boy, no kidding.
You know, it was nice while it lasted. Comparing then with now… all of history before the creation of fluffies seems so… relaxed.
Like, the Civil War looks like a minor spat, compared to an alien invasion.
Of course, it was never really like that, was it?
All of those aliens and vampires and wizards and dwarves and trolls and goddamn dinosaur people were just hiding from us normal people.
It’s like one day, someone poured a big vat of those red pills from The Matrix into the world’s water supply.
But without the part where everyone wakes up in vats full of goo.
And for some reason, I can’t help but feel like fucking Korkea is the reason that things changed. That he was the one dumping red pills in the water supply. Everywhere he goes, chaos follows in his wake. Sometimes literally!
Maybe that’s what that whole “Harbinger of Chaos” thing is about.
If that’s the case, Korkea’s the reason I’m stuck with Chaos. He… he Harbinged Chaos here, and now I’m stuck playing this game for my life and sanity.
Like I didn’t have enough reasons to hate him.
“Man, this bath is taking a while, Mark.”
“This is her first bath, what did you expect? She looks at least a year or two old, so that’s about two years of grime. Don’t worry, Flufftopia’s Bestest Bath shampoo can break up that grime in no time.”
“Bestest Bath? Really?”
“FauCorp wanted to make a point: that Bestest brand products live up to their name.”
“Okay, fine. Honestly, I’m actually kinda excited to see what she looks like under all of this filth.”
Maybe I should have asked her, but it’s too late for that now.
We’ll find out when we rinse her off.
As Mark starts shampooing her mane, he pauses.
“Hmm.”
Instead, he starts gently feeling her forehead with his finger.
“Hey, uh, I think I feel a horn under all the suds and filth. It’s worn down a lot.”
“A horn? Crap. I was trying to not adopt a unicorn. No, the deal’s not off, I’m not gonna go back on it, relax, partner. Here, let me take over that, go back to lathering her body.”
I’m getting the hang of this.
“Okay, thanks, 'cause I’ve got a hunch…”
He starts touching the sides of her body, apparently looking for something, before he nods.
“I knew it, see, she’s got wings too. They were probably buried by all the caked-on filth.”
“You’re not seriously telling me that she’s actually an alicorn? Why didn’t that scanner thing pick that up? Or maybe it did, I couldn’t understand anything on the screen. Well, this explains a lot. Like her unusual intelligence for a street fluffy.”
“And it also explains why the horn was worn down: she was trying to pass as a pegasus. Or an earthie.”
The mare nods, which I assume is a confirmation of Mark’s theory.
“Can the horn be regrown, Mark?”
“Around here? Easily. I’ll give you a tube of regen gel, dab that on the stump every few minutes, her horn will be back to full length in an hour.”
“Thanks. Y’know, this probably also explains why she was alone. A lot of fluffies don’t like alicorns, do they?”
The mare nods again, confirming my theory.
Mark sighs sadly.
“Yeah, there’s still herds that will kick alicorns out, or kill them if they refuse to leave. But Blueberry’s herd isn’t like that, they’re very progressive in Blueberry’s Forest.”
I don’t know who Blueberry is, and right now, it’s not important.
Wait a minute. That town I ran to was near a blueberry for… est…
Why did they name a forest after a fluffy?
Y’know what, I’ll ask later.
I’ve got something more important to deal with right now.
“Jeez, this is my lucky day. Honestly, the only reason I didn’t want to get an alicorn at Flufftopia was because they’re so expensive, and I just got one for free. It almost feels…”
…
Too lucky.
Fuck, I knew it was too good to be true.
Now I’m starting to see why Chaos let me adopt this mare.
Because this is a trap.
What is he expecting me to do with her? Is he expecting me to pillow her, and have her pump out alicorn foals for money?
I mean, her colors aren’t that great. I like them, but a lot of people prefer their fluffies eye-rapingly colorful.
But I’ve only seen her dirty. I haven’t seen her clean.
And right now, she’s covered in suds.
Is that the trap? We rinse her off, and see that her real colors are a lot more… profitable?
Is this a trap…
Or is it a test?
Or…
Is it both?
Welp, I’ll find out when it’s rinsing time.
We just need to work out the last bits of filth.
As I delicately shampoo the mare’s mane, I grin at her.
“You could have told me you’re an alicorn, you know. I don’t mind. And again, this doesn’t mean the deal is off.”
She just gives me a weary look.
“Sorry. I know you can’t reply right now. On the bright side, it won’t be so bad in the future. Yes, we’re going to do this more, I’m not letting you get that filthy again.”
She shrugs, begrudgingly accepting this.
Eventually, we near the moment of truth.
It’s time to rinse her off.
Mark holds up the nozzle.
“Do you want to do the honors?”
“You do it, I’ll watch.”
So Mark rinses her off, taking care not to spray her in the face.
At this point, I cover my eyes with my hands, dread filling me.
“Oh God, I can’t watch. Please don’t be the colors I think you are.”
I hear the rustling sounds of Mark towling her dry, and the whirr of a fluffy-safe hairdryer… fluffdryer?
I’ve seen those things at Flufftopia, they don’t get very hot.
Then I feel someone tapping my shoulder, and hear Mark’s voice beside me.
“I think you’re going to like this.”
I reluctantly lower my hands, and when I lay eyes on the mare, my jaw drops.
“No. No. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
She’s standing on the station, clean as a whistle, her fluff extra-poofy from the hairdryer, looking at me like she doesn’t understand what I’m so upset about. Which she doesn’t.
“Wut am da big deaw? Am dewe sumfin awn fwuffy face?”
The big deal is that she’s not yellow-brown and grey.
She’s…
She’s…
She’s fucking gold and silver!
She’s a fucking gold and silver alicorn!
Do you have any idea how rare that is?!?
Do you have any idea how valuable that makes her?!?
I just got a fluffy who could potentially be worth millions of dollars, and she practically fell into my lap!
Under different circumstances, I would be fucking jumping for joy right now! It’s like finding a winning lottery ticket in the gutter!
But not under these circumstances!
Not now that I’m playing this game with Chaos!
scratch scratch
He knew! He let me adopt her, because he fucking knew what colors she really was!
This is a trap!
The question is, what do I do now?
If I stick to the deal, take her home with me, and treat her as a pet instead of a walking money tree, I’ll be throwing millions of dollars away.
And I’ll have to keep working at Starbucks.
If I go back on the deal and tell her to get away from m-- to get lost, again, I’ll be missing out on a lot of money.
And I already told her that I’m not going back on the deal, so she’ll probably never trust a human again.
If I break, slip back into old habits, and make a breeding pillow out of her, I’ll become a millionaire.
I’d basically be Zuckerberging her: I get rich, she gets fucked. Literally, in this case.
Of course, I won’t be able to enjoy that money for very long.
Every foal she pops out and I sell would cost me points, so the richer I get, the closer I get to losing the game.
scratch scratch
If I wasn’t playing this game, I’d have already made my choice. I’d be running out of here with the mare to find a hacksaw and a horny stallion with good colors.
But if I wasn’t playing this game, I wouldn’t even have this choice to make. If I wasn’t playing this game, I wouldn’t have met this mare.
It’s like every part of me is at war. If you opened my head up right now, you’d see a lot of little mes, fighting over a big control panel.
They’d probably be wearing little ugly sweaters too.
Isn’t there a Disney movie like that?
Part of me is internally screaming at the thought of giving that much money up, especially when I remember how much Starbucks pays me. Or how little, in comparison.
There’s those abuser instincts I’m always battling with, the part of me that knows the sick pleasure of forcibly separating a mare from her foals. To that part of me, it’s not about the money, that’s just a bonus. Abuse was a hobby for me, not a job.
scratch scratch
The rational part of me knows that the smart thing to do is honoring the deal, and that no amount of money can buy my way out of whatever awaits me in Chaos’ domain.
I don’t know why he doesn’t just manifest money, but he doesn’t really need it.
The irrational part of me wants to scream obscenities at Chaos for putting me in this situation, preferably while hitting him.
The rational part of me has to remind the irrational part of me that I can’t win that fight.
And then there’s something else. Something unfamiliar.
A part of me that… doesn’t want the mare to suffer. Because… I don’t know why.
I mean… this isn’t her fault, right? She didn’t choose to be an alicorn, and she didn’t choose to be gold and silver.
Just like I didn’t choose to play this game.
Both of us are stuck in a shitty situation we didn’t choose.
And that we happened to meet… was it chance? Was it coincidence? Or did Chaos arrange our meeting? Was this planned from the very beginning?
It doesn’t matter.
I’ll do the job that’s in front of me. I’ll take it one step at a time.
I need to think about this, away from any fluffies.
“Mark, would you mind if I stepped outside for a bit?”
“Would you mind if Minerva follows you out? You’re still wearing the amulet, and we don’t want it to… go missing…”
“No, that’s alright. I just need to get some fresh air, and clear my head. Keep an eye on my meal ti-- my fluffy for me, won’t you?”
“Oh, sure, I need to brush her anyway. Look at all of those knots…”
I practically sprint out of the bathing room, the armor following me all the way out of the building.
Once I pass through the wards, I stumble into an alleyway across the street, wheezing.
“I’m… -haff- …not used to… -haff- …running so much…”
The armor puts a metal arm around me, supporting me, Minerva’s electronic voice sounding concerned as she speaks up.
“Your vital signs are spiking, sir. Should I contact emergency services?”
“I’m fine… -haff- …I’m not allowed to die, anyway… -haff- …I’m just having another panic attack… -haff- …not my first one of the day…”
Then a certain cheerful, flamboyant voice cuts in.
“Having a rough one, boyo?”
I turn, seeing Chaos in jester form, casually leaning against the wall, his arms folded.
“Could you give us some privacy, Minerva? I’ll keep an eye on him, and bring him back when I’m done with him.”
Done with me…?
“By all means. I’ll be waiting for you in the lobby, sir.”
As the armor walks away, I glare at Chaos.
“You set me up, you son of a bitch.”
He just chuckles.
“All I did was take the form of a hobo and point that feral mare in the direction of Flufftopia. They don’t mind giving away some free kibble to hungry ferals.”
I storm over to him.
“But you knew that I was there. You knew that she was… so valuable. And you knew exactly how I would react when I found out, didn’t you?”
“It’s all part of the game, boyo. Can’t make things too easy for you, can I? That’s not fun either. The occasional challenge makes it so much more interesting, don’t you think so?”
“You know what? No! I don’t think so! I think fuck this game! I’m not playing it anymore! And fuck you too, Chaos! You forced me to play this game, you keep making up rules–”
scratch scratch
“–and fuck this sweater too!”
Another chuckle.
“Listen, boyo, if you don’t want to play the game anymore, you can leave it whenever you want to.”
“What-- now you tell me?!?”
Chaos nods, pointing at the wall opposite from him, and a door appears.
“Walk through that door, and the game is over. No more helping fluffies, no more itching, and you’ll never see me again. You have my word.”
Well, alright! Fuck this shit, I’m going home!
As I run over to the door, I grab the doorknob, and take one last look at Chaos, folding his arms again, smiling his painted smile.
He’s…
He’s not stopping me.
Why isn’t he stopping me?
…
…
…
Trap. Trap!
Instead of throwing the door open and striding through it as I was going to, I open it slowly and carefully, and peek through it, seeing nothing but darkness.
Then I pull my head out, and turn to Chaos.
“Can I try something?”
He nods again, so I look around, and spot an empty beer can.
Delicately holding it with two fingers, thankful I didn’t take those latex gloves off, I stick my arm over the threshold, reluctantly look down, and let go.
It takes a whole minute before I finally hear a distant, echoing tink from below.
“That’s… that’s a long way down.”
I angrily slam the door shut, storming over to Chaos again.
“You were going to murder me, you bastard!”
He chuckles again, and now the chuckling is really pissing me off.
“Technically, it would have been suicide. I just said that if you go through the door, the game is over. I didn’t say that you’d still be alive, or that you’d go home. Haven’t you learned by now to watch what I say–”
At this point, I snap, and push him up against the wall.
Suddenly, he’s gone.
And I’m standing in the middle of a jungle, hearing somethings roaring off in the distance.
I turn around, seeing Chaos sitting on a log, wearing a caveman costume over his jester outfit.
“Welcome to Primal Earth, boyo! Don’t go running off, now.”
Oh, that’s what the somethings are.
Nope, not running anywhere.
“So are you done throwing a tantrum? Because you’ve been doing so well up until now, and I would hate it if you threw all your hard work away the first time things get really hard.”
I sit down on a large, mossy rock, after checking that it is a rock, and sigh.
“I… look, I’m just… I don’t think I can do this anymore. I’m fighting a losing battle here. I can’t keep my bad habits down forever.”
“Well, the good news is that you don’t have to keep them down forever. You just have to keep them down until you die.”
“That doesn’t really help. Can I ask you something, Chaos? And I’m going ahead and paying five points for the straight answer now.”
“Alright, done. What’s your question?”
“Is the point of this game just seeing how long it takes me to break?”
“No, it’s not just that.”
“So what else is it about?”
“You’ll have to pay more to get a further explanation, and you’re already down by five points.”
“And I only got one point for helping bath my fluffy.”
Are you keeping track?
“But why me, Chaos? Why did you pick me to play this game with?”
He gets up, walking over to me and patting my shoulder.
“I’ll give you that one for free, boyo: I picked you because you’re an experienced abuser, but not so bad that you’re irredeemably evil. That you’re feeling so conflicted right now is exactly why I chose you! You’ve started to think about your actions, like I told you to! Sure, you’re no goody two-shoes yet, but you’ve changed ever so slightly for the better since we started playing this game.”
“…I have, haven’t I?”
“Would you have seriously considered getting a fluffy as a pet before our first meeting?”
“No, I wouldn’t have.”
“See? That’s the thing about change, you can’t always feel it happening. Sometimes, you don’t notice how much you’ve changed until you really think about it. So how about I bring you back to the Foundation, and you get back to playing the game? You do have someone waiting for you there.”
“If I say no, are you gonna ditch me here?”
“Do you really want to find out?”
No. No, I don’t.
I get up, wiping moss off my jeans.
“Fuck it, let’s go.”
“Good, good. There is just one more itty-bitty thing I’d like to say before I bring you back.”
“Which is?”
He chuckles one more time.
And suddenly, he’s in a form that I can only describe as horrifying.
When he speaks, he doesn’t sound cheerful or flamboyant at all.
"̷I̷ ̸w̴i̷l̶l̷ ̸s̷a̵y̷ ̵t̴h̴i̵s̷ ̶o̸n̶l̶y̸ ̶o̶n̷c̴e̴.̴"̵
He sounds furious. His voice is echoing and reverberating in ways that make my skin crawl.
"̸D̵o̸n̸’̸t̴ ̶p̵u̸s̷h̵ ̴m̷e̷ ̷a̸g̷a̷i̸n̵.̷ ̶I̵ ̷w̵i̵l̷l̴ ̷n̵o̵t̷ ̸t̴o̵l̷e̷r̶a̵t̴e̶ ̴i̷t̸ ̷t̶w̸i̸c̶e̴.̴ ̴R̵e̷m̵e̶m̷b̸e̸r̷ ̴y̶o̵u̷r̵ ̴p̸l̷a̶c̶e̷.̴ ̷D̶e̸h̷a̷k̸ ̴c̶a̵n̵n̶o̷t̵ ̶h̴a̶r̷m̴ ̴m̶e̷,̷ ̸a̶n̷d̶ ̶y̶o̸u̵ ̵c̷e̵r̸t̸a̷i̸n̸l̶y̴ ̷c̶a̴n̷n̴o̸t̷ ̶h̵a̸r̷m̶ ̷m̵e̴.̵ ̷M̶a̶k̶e̴ ̵n̵o̵ ̷f̶u̸r̴t̷h̸e̴r̵ ̴a̸t̷t̸e̷m̵p̷t̴s̷ ̴t̸o̶ ̶d̴o̴ ̷s̵o̵.̶ ̶R̵e̵f̶u̴s̸e̶ ̷t̷o̷ ̸h̶e̴e̸d̶ ̶t̴h̵i̵s̵ ̷w̸a̷r̸n̷i̷n̴g̶,̵ ̵a̷n̴d̵ ̵y̵o̴u̶ ̷w̶i̸l̴l̷ ̶r̴e̴g̶r̸e̷t̵ ̷i̵t̷.̴"̷
And only now do I realize that I’ve never seen Chaos angry before.
I never want to see him angry again.
I’m so fucking terrified right now, I can’t even bring myself to ask who Dehak is.
Just as suddenly, Chaos is back in caveman jester form, sounding as cheerful and flamboyant as he usually does.
“Did you get that, boyo?”
I respond, my voice going really high like I just got kicked in the balls by a troll.
“Yes, Mr. Chaos.”
“Good! Looks like you won’t be getting a hot chocolate bath today!”
Then we appear back in the alleyway, the door gone, and as I walk back to the Foundation, Chaos tags along.
“Now, I’ve got some suggestions, if you can’t think up a name for your new fluffy.”
And he’s still wearing the caveman costume.
“Uh, aren’t you going to take that off?”
“Nah. I think I’ll wear it for the rest of the day. It makes me feel like going T-Rex hunting!”
“I’ll pass on that. I prefer to look at dinosaurs through a TV screen.”
“I wasn’t going to invite you, boyo, relax. Although, if you wanna find out what T-Rex tastes like, you’re free to help yourself to the spoils of the hunt. I can’t eat a whole T-Rex by myself. Well, I can, but think of my waistline.”
I manage a grin.
“Could you manifest a sandwich so big, even you can’t eat it?”
“Yup! And then I would eat it anyway.”
We walk into the lobby, seeing that Omega Busting thing waiting to escort me back to the bathing room.
“I gotta be honest, Chaos: if you’re not the biggest fish in the pond…”
I take a moment to shudder.
“I don’t want to think about how powerful the biggest fish is.”