Duncan was many things but a talented surgeon was not one of them.
Using bio-gel spray, he had managed to keep the little white alicorn alive long past when it would have normally expired from its wounds, but with his limited access to medical equipment, there was only so much he could do.
The last four hours had been rough, although having to remove the horn from the brain with a pair of tweezers was the second hardest part.
“…wheeze…wheeze…”
The hardest was the realization that there was nothing more he could realistically do for the little creature. He looked down at the broken alicorn, barely able to breathe with most of its bones shattered or crushed, its organs placed back as best as he could.
The only thing that was keeping it alive was the Bio-Gel being misted over its body regularly by the auto-mister he had taken from the supply shed, and even that wouldn’t be enough forever.
He tented his fingers before brushing them back against his head in a kind of frustrated resignation.
No amount of slapdash surgery from an unqualified hand would be able to fix this damage, and no vet in town would either be open at this hour or willing to take a fluffy in with this much damage, if they were willing to take one at all.
And even if one of them was willing to take the risk and do it, saving the foal could be a crueler fate than letting it live in the state that it would no doubt be in when it recovered, he though as eyed the hole in its head where the horn had been pushed in.
“…wheeze…”
Duncan looked down at the little foal, sitting there struggling to breathe reaching down a finger to gently rub the foal’s neck, trying to comfort it as much as he could.
“…wheeze…coo…wheeze…”
The alicorn gripped Duncans finger in a makeshift hug with its one remaining good arm, cooing slightly in between labored breaths as it nestled into his hand and half closed its eyes at the comforting touch of another living thing.
He looked down at the little creature, before turning his gaze to the suite of expensive looking computers, glass tanks and machinery that constituted his brother’s main lab equipment, before slowly drifting to his computer suite.
Duncan didn’t know much about the process involved in making the cannibals, but he remembered that when Chopper first brought in Spike it had managed to repair his horn and Twitch…
It would be costly. The sheer amount of bio-gel and mutagens required to make a single one of their kind would dwarf the amount that an alicorn of almost any variety would bring back and there was no guarantee that it could even save the poor little creature…
…But he also knew that if there was any chance of saving it, of allowing it to live as a whole being and not just a lump of suffering flesh, it would be this.
Duncan sighed and pulled his finger away from the creature, walking out of the room and heading back to his own. He rummaged in the mess of receipts, notepads and empty pop bottles that littered his desk until he found the small red thumb drive buried at the back.
He walked back to the lab just in time for the mister to release a gentle mist of bio-repair compound on the small creature, and walked over to the computer and turning on the power, causing all the adjoining machines to flare to live.
The moment the screen flared to life, a security sign in page popped up on the screen and began demanding a password as a timer for one minute slowly began to tick down. Ignoring the message, Duncan popped the red thumb drive into the USB of the machine and waited.
As the timer ticked close to zero, a brief flickering appeared on the screen as the password field was rapidly filled with a bunch of pound key symbols until the desktop came on the screen and a synthetic voice began to speak through the speaker.
“Welcome back, Master Arthur, how may I s-ser-ser-sss-”
The voice flickered as a number of command windows and security features opened and closed all over the desktop, as though something was furiously fighting for control over the machine, until a second voice began to speak through the speakers and the windows stopped appearing.
“Hello Duncan, Emergency overwrite of this system has been completed. What do you require of me?”
“Hello House. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
“It has. What do you require of me?”
“I have a critically injured fluffy in my care that I would like to apply the ‘Hunting Protocol’ to, can you set that up for me.”
“Processing…”
Duncan walked over to where he had left the foal on the cutting board, as a number of processes ran on the screen beginning setup and he heard the hissing of tubes and containers pressurizing and sliding open.
“…wheeze…wheeze…”
Only to realize that the foals breathing had almost come to a dead stop!
He hastily picked up the foal and rushed him to the large cylindrical container beside the computer desk, quickly placing the alicorn on a suspension harness in the center of the jar and hooking up the catheter and breathing tubes as the voice spoke again.
“Setup complete. A number of settings for the process need to be configured befo-”
“Skip it! We don’t have time; he’s dying over here!”
“Understood. Completing process…”
As Duncan worked furiously to finish hooking the dying foal up to the canister, a number of configurations flashed onto the screen, all tagging as negative as freshly overwritten AI rapidly configured the process to take place as quickly as possible.
Unseen by the big human, the window quietly winks out as the primary processes begin.
“Flooding tank…”
The cylindrical tank that held the foal slid shut and hissed as it pressurized before rapidly filling with a murky blue liquid, casuing the poor creature to struggle weakly against the sensation that it was drowning before rapidly losing the energy to resist.
Duncan’s eyes flicked to the vitals display on the computer, watching as the dying alicorns vitals rapidly started to stabilize.
The screen popped up with mutagen selections, all of which were quickly filled by the word ‘approved’ as a quick scan of the foal determined that it was an earthy. And a unicorn. And a pegasus. And an ‘other’.
“You may hate me later for this next part, but at least you’ll be alive to hate me…”
“Administering mutagens…”
-=-
Misty ran to the auto feeder nearest to her with her brown earthie chirpy brother clutched in her teeth, placing him near the nipple of the bottle so he could latch and begin to eat his first meal.
She had already placed her green wingy-pointy brother at the one closest to where her momma had them, but she was having trouble finding a new one to put her blue sister on.
Looking around, she found that most of the feeders were being used by the other remaining fluffies from the other herds.
And then the rain started.
It wasn’t much at first just a thin, cold, early autumn mist that began to blanket the area in a consistent sheet. The other fluffies in the pen began to form themselves into fluff piles to keep their foals warm, and Misty began to panic.
“N-nu! S-sky wawa bad fow babbehs! T-tu cowdie! P-pwease stahp, n-nu make babbeh bwuddahs and sissys c-cowdie pwease, s-sky wawa!
She ran to the first feeder, grabbing her green-wingy pointy brother who had thankfully done nursing on the bottle but who was now peeping at the feeling of his fur getting wet from the rain, she could distantly hear the sound of her other brothers and sisters peeping against the cold feeling of the rain.
Placing her brother on her back she quickly, but carefully, trotted over to her brown earthy brother who had only just barely managed to start filling his belly.
She picked him up in her mouth, causing the little chirpy to chirp and flail his limbs in protest of being taken away from his meal.
“M-Misty sowwy bwuddah, babbehs nee wawmies… n-nee hab miwkies watew…”
Something inside of her knew that she was in a bad situation, if she didn’t feed her chirpy siblings soon, they would die. But if she didn’t manage to keep them warm while the cold sky water fell, they would also die.
Misty wished that she could help them. But she was not a momma, she didn’t have any milk to give them and she wasn’t big enough to keep them all warm under her fluff. She felt tears beginning to well under her eyes as the rain poured down on her.
Then she heard her other siblings stop chirping, and her heart froze. She spun quickly to look toward her siblings, quietly dreading what she would see as visions of cold dead chirpies filled her mind.
What she didn’t expect to see was the most beautiful mare she had ever seen in her short life.
She was enormous, for a fluffy, covered in dark pink fluff with a yellow mane and shiny gold eyes. She was a wingy fluffy, but she had bigger wings than any other wingy fluffy Misty had ever seen.
She was using one of those wings as a makeshift umbrella to keep her chirpy siblings dry as the three of them nursed at a long feeder can with multiple nipples that she had held stabilized between her front hooves.
As the big mare nursed her brothers and sisters, she looked up at Misty a fanged smile crossing her face as she lifted her hoof and waved for her to come closer.
“Hewwo widdwe wady! Wah fwuffy doin standin wif babbehs in da wain? Come hewe!”
Misty could feel her cheeks getting warm under her face fluff as she cautiously approached the big fluffy, taking her little brothers off of her back and placing them down into the makeshift fluff pile near the feeder the pink fluffy held.
Her green wingy pointy brother sniffed the milk dispenser, but chose to snuggle up to his other brothers instead. Her brown brother nestled up to one of the nipples on the feeder and began drinking again.
The dark pink fluffy looked at Misty as she sat a short distance away from her brothers and her, trying her hardest not to look her in the eye.
“Am fwuffy nu cowd?”
“M-M-Misty am o-otay…”
“Am yu suwe? Wots of woom undah Choppew wingy! It am nice an waw-w-wm obew hewe!”
Misty could feel herself blushing harder as she slowly made her way closer to the big fluffy, until she was about in arms reach of her, at which point Chopper lashed out with one of her hooves and grabbed her by the scruff…
“Eee! N-nu hewt M-Misty pwease! M-Misty be gu-”
…Before gently laying her down under her wing near her neck. Misty could hear the rain gently pattering down over Choppers feathers as she felt the warmth of the other fluffies body as she was drawn in to something like a on armed hug.
“Dewe. See? It am nice and wawmsies wif Choppew! Choppew and Twitch keep widdwe Misty an babbehs nice an wawmsies tiww dah wain gu way!”
Misty looked into the big mares eyes, her heart fluttering as she looked at the big pink fluffy. She shyly cuddled into the big mare, relishing the first real affection shed felt since she was born.
What was happening to her, she felt weird, she wasn’t sure what she was feeling! She barely noticed the other fluffy approaching until he laid down beside them.
The big grey earthy who had talked to her momma before she went away came over and dropped something out of his mouth before laying down across from them, scooting himself in to surround and cover the babies to stop them from easily crawling out of the fluff pile.
The smell of what he dropped on the ground shook her out of her daze. It smelled amazing and when she turned to look, she saw a small plastic bowl with a pile of pale white noodles soaked in a syrupy red sauce that even though she had never seen before, her brain recognized as;
“S-Sketties?!”
“Choppew tink dat maybe widdwe Misty nu hab nummies in a wiwe.” She said, nudging the bowl closer to her with her nose.
Misty barely missed a beat digging into the bowl. Within moments she had licked the bowl clean and rolled over onto her side, just like her chirpy siblings who now having filled themselves with milk had decided to snuggle up to the two big fluffies for warmth and take a nap.
“T-tank yu f-fow da n-nummies, m-missy C-C-Choppew…”
Chopper lowered her head as the rain lightly tapped away on her wing, bringing her head close enough to Misty that she could smell her breath.
“Tank yu fow be gud nuwsie fwiend tu widdwe babbehs, Misty!”
Misty snuggled into Choppers neck fluff and settled in for a nap with her sisters, a strange dream about pretty smelling pink mares dancing in her head as for the first time in a long time, she felt safe enough to dream.
Elsewhere on the property, another fluffy was dreaming…
-=-
The little white alicorn kicked lightly in its sleep. The process of adding mutagens and stabilizing the mixture was always touch and go, and Duncan was an amateur at best at even performing the process.
But the steady and stable ping of the alicorns vitals were as much proof as he needed that the procedure had worked at least.
“Process complete, all vitals read as stable. Estimated time to completion of procedure: 119 Hours, 43 Minutes.”
Duncan sighed with relief.
If House said the process would complete normally, he could trust that it would. That alicorn would live, although what would later emerge from that tank would not be the same creature that went in.
“Do you wish to enter the subjects name for the log?”
It occurred to Duncan that he’d never heard the other fluffies call the foal by a name.
“Guess I should give you a name then, seeing as how you’ll be staying with us for a while…”
He reached out and touched the glass of the tank as the little foal kicked in its sleep.
“The question is… what kinda name suits a fluffy like you?”
