The little yellow and pink maned stallion was having the worst day of his short little life, strapped to a wooden table stained with every bodily fluid a fluffy could have and it stank of fear and death. Three of his leggies had been nailed to said table and his muzzle taped shut so tight a trickle of blood swelled and dried around it but the plug stretching out his ass was the worst yet. He trembled as a set of leather gloved hands held his last free leg, his front left, in place with a large nail between the fingers and the other drove a hammer down on it and into the table. His muffled screams were in vain as he tried to free his leg from the nail through it but was stuck like the rest as he looked up at his tormentor with pleading eyes.
“Three fucking years for an arson conviction!? What kind of a fucking dumb shit judge are you? We had him dead to rights!” Yelled Carol through a full face splash guard splattered with blood. “Whew… Better than drinking.” She paused her torment to answer her phone, peeling off one glove.
It was the office needing an update for next weeks court cases and she just got out of the office a few hours ago. Barely enough time to relax and blow off steam from the day and here they were bothering her on the phone again. She rattled off dates over the speaker phone while peeling off her plastic apron and splash guard she left her torture room to head to her kitchen. She put her favorite coffee mug full of water in the microwave and went to the cabinet for a tea-bag, what she found set off a wave of profanities that almost got her fired from her boss on the phone. The cabinet was crawling with micro-fluffs, they had gotten in through a hole they had rotted through with their shit and were now getting into her food. Crawling through her tea box, crackers and chips, leaving tiny dots of shit over everything they stepped on or crawled over. Swinging open another cabinet her dishes were now covered in shit prints and hamster sized wads of squeaking, yammering fluff.
“Dan, I have to call you back, my apartment is infested with micro-fluffs.”
Well one angry phone call to the building’s super he was quickly talked into calling the good folks at SkettiLand E&C and have them come down and clean up this mess. This of course made it an easy excuse for Earl to swing by with Jake and Shannon, Jake wanting to keep a close eye on his cousin and his creation Goblin, who he was weary of. And Carol got to meet the infamous Goblin that her boyfriend had been talking about so much and showing off videos to her. It certainly intrigued her on Earl’s sudden change in attitude on even entertaining the idea of keeping a hunter friend let alone make one.
Jake was lugging the industrial sized fluff-busters up the flight of stairs while Shannon brought up the snake cams taking one and threading it through the hole in the cabinet. It was teeming with mircos in there, that seemed to be coming from above. Getting out their miter-saws they each cut a hole near the ceiling and started sucking the micros out the wall and soon cleared the area but could still hear them in the walls. More holes were cut through the wall and more then a few micros and the hoses went in sucking up more by the dozen but they still could be heard when the motors were off. So they even cut holes down by the floor and started aiming their hoses up clearing out each section but their numbers were annoyingly, worryingly high. Now aiming the hoses downward to the first floor while Earl sawed another hole in the adjoining wall and they practically poured out.
“This is getting ridiculous. Earl, see if you can’t find that damned nest.” Jake ordered.
“Goblin, you follow Odin’s lead. Odin! C’mere boy!” Earl whistled.
The dog came running from the hall where he had been sniffing at the walls in the hallway and when the command was given her ran to the kitchen to get a good sniff with Goblin hot on his heels. He jumped up on the counter standing up and pawing at the cabinet ledge, getting his face in close and followed it over the sink and to the far left corner of the wall with the hallway on the other side. After a few frustrated minutes of barking at the ceiling he hopped back down and ran into the hall and up the stairs to the third floor. Earl them followed with the building’s superintendent right by him and by the time they had caught up Goblin was already knocking on the first door on the left and the tenant had answered.
“Hello? What the hell?”
-SkettieWand pest contwow. Wady got tiny fwuffies in you wawws.-
Thankfully the super and Earl had caught up and after a quick explanation the tenant let them in to sniff around. Odin Kept to the floor sniffing along the side where the hallway was but came up empty other than finding micros crawling around under the counters and cabinets. Leaving the apartment Odin darted to the next and last door on the left and started scratching at the door and barked a few times, this time the super knocked. No answer. The super knocked again and this time there was a muffled voice telling them to wait a moment as a lock could be heard unlatching.
-Boss, fwuffy smeww stwongest hewe.-
The door creaked open slowly and a chunky looking fellow opened the door enough to show half his face as he eyeballed Earl while greeting the super.
“Sir, y’know the building’s walls are crawling with micro fluffs, right?” Earl asked raising a suspicious eye to the nervous looking man.
“Micros? W-what? (Oh,shit)… Ummm…How bad is it?”
“The building may have to be fumigated.” Earl stated plainly crossing his arms. “Look buddy I can smell the shit from here. You gotta micro tank in there or something?”
Hanging his head in defeat the tenant stepped back and let his door swing open and right next to the wall was a ten foot long homemade micro tank. He had made it out of three large fish tanks and had joined the pieces together with caulking and planks of cheap particle board. His apartment’s dining room and kitchen had been set up like a micro processing factory, pillowing them and stuffing them into enfie sleeves to be sold off as knock off enfie babbeh toys. From the looks of it he was in the middle of possessing a batch to ship out in a large aerated box.
“Well there’s your problem.” Earl sighed. “Man, you are an idiot. No wonder your micros escaped, look at yer fuckin tank man. Particle board? Seriously? The moisture from the nutri-gel alone is enough to turn that garbage into mush.”
Earl proved his point by taking his right finger and pressing it into the corner of the tank, it caved in like soggy bread and even crumbled a bit. Next to the long table it sat on were several small drums of nutri-gel for setting up a new tank and even more empties littered about. Odin was sniffing and pawing under the table where it met the wall and Earl called for Jake who came up and managed to move the table just enough to peak behind. As soon as the tank was far enough away from the wall a micro-fluff fell to the floor and Odin snatched it up giving it a good shake crushing its body. They had dug through the pulpy wood and soaked drywall into the wall and climbing up and down the old pink fiberglass insulation.
“Oh man that’s the reason my nutri-gel supply was draining so fast. I was starting to loose money.”
“You’ll be lucky not to loose your lease!” Shouted the super. “How long have you been doing this?!”
“Couple months I guess…”
“And that wood was probably soaked through in inside two weeks.” Earl added.
“Alright c’mon we gotta tell the last tenant up here we’re fumigating the building.” The super let out a frustrated sigh.
They stepped out into the hall and just after knocking on the door Earl heard Odin letting out a low growl, frozen in the doorway to the hall head low and locked on the opposing door. The sudden twinge in Earl’s left knee and the dull throb it it became told him enough as he clutched his leg brace. Reaching for his revolver behind his back he extended his hidden blade in his arm and gave the super and Jake a good shock.
“Earl! What the hell are you doing?!”
“Goblin, you smell what Odin’s smelling?” Ignoring his cousin.
-Big stwange smewwing fwuffy in dewe. Odin scawed.- The alicorn stood next to Odin.
“Remember that smell. It’s the monster that took my arm. You got a key to this room right?” Looking to the super.
“Yeah, yeah just careful with that.” Going for his key ring.
“Hold the fucking phone! Sara’s in there?! Like hell we’re going in! She nearly killed us both last time.” Standing in the way.
“Well I’m ready for her now.” Flexing his metal fingers.
“Bullshit! We’d need a big ass bomb or a tank to take that thing on!”
“Work smarter not harder I got a trick literally up my sleeve. Now I’m going in there and I don’t want it going through you to get me.”
The door behind Jake swung open and Goblin trotted in while the two argued and shut it behind him bringing the fight to an and as Earl pushed past Jake to get to the alicorn. The door swung open again with Jake following his cousin in drawing his own gun as well with the super waiting outside wondering if he should call the cops. The apartment was dirty, cluttered with empty take bags and boxes of every kind, brushing off a pile of bags he found a small electronics workstation. Clearing some more he found notes that resembled the same notes he found in Sara’s hidden lab under the church.
“Goblin is she here?” Picking up one of many empty liquor bottles.
-No can teww. Stinky in hewe, smeww hoomans but gone wong time.- Sniffing his way to oneof the bedrooms. -Munstah nestie am hewe. Munstah no hewe fow mowe den thwee bwight times.- Sniffing at one of the mattresses in the room.
“Then I vote we get the fuck out of here before she comes back.” Jake practically growled through gritted teeth and a hand clamped hard onto Earl’s shoulder ready to drag him out.
With a reluctant, frustrated sigh he put away his weapons and dug out his phone while walking out the door to call his sister the sheriff to keep her rail gun at the ready and come to the building. Shannon was down on the second floor, she just left Carol’s apartment to complain about having to work alone and already having filled two of the three fluff-busters they brought. Earl blew past her without a word leaving Jake to explain while Earl informed his girlfriend about her upstairs neighbor and she couldn’t pack up fast enough. She grabbed her essentials and every file drawer in her office loaded them into Earl’s van and took off leaving Jake and Shannon to finish the job just as sheriff Brody arrived with a horde of deputies.
Watching from the rooftop Sara watched with bags of supplies and takeout cursing under her breath, this was one of her last few safe-houses, now there was only one left. She hated the idea of going back there but she seemed to be out of luck and options, with a sigh a defeat she fished a belly buster burger out and downed it in three bites. Gathering up the rest of her bags she leapt down to the alleyway side just as the deputies brought in their K-9 unit and was gone before the dogs could be turned loose.
Carol was obviously agitated at the idea of being run out of her home by a mutant fluffy but she had seen the videos of that meta’s vendetta against Earl and what it had done. The sting was lessened by Earl’s promise to convert his newly open garage space into a private office. They would get anything else she needed from home later with a heavily armed police escort but now she had to adjust to living with a fluffy she wasn’t allowed to hurt. Goblin was sent to his pen in the backyard where Nugget and Lemon played happily and babbled on about Nugget being a soon mummah soon. The birth control wearing off any day now it was only a matter of time and the next phase of Earl’s plans to begin. Carol tossed her suitcase on Earl’s bed and looked out the window down at the pen with the three fluffies playing happily.
“I never thought I’d see you make such progress.”
“I know right? Not bad after only five tries but Goblin certainly has been exceeding expectations.”
“Not him. You.” Turning to face Earl in the doorway. “A year ago if you told me you’d be keeping a fluffy as anything other than punching bag I’d say you were smoking something other than weed.”
“Yeah my therapist bout shit brick when I told him that.”
“How do you stand it? Don’t the little shits down there drive you nuts?”
“Nah, not after how I spliced em up. Moderately smarter and even tempered and with the right exaggerated truths more than cooperative. I even made it so they shit more like a dog than a fire-hose. Hell I spliced all of them like that Goblin’s just the furthest along since I started on him the the beginning. He’s actually pretty easy to get along with, you’d like him. C’mon, I wanna try something.”
She followed him downstairs and outside to the pen and knocked on the wooden frame of the chicken-wire door to get the fluffies attention.
“Hey, Goblin. C’mere.”
-What Boss want?- He asked walking up to the door.
“Well my special friend here don’t like fluffies just like you do and she’s worried she might not like you either so I thought you two could get to know one another better with a game.”
-Gobwin wike games, wanna pway an make new fwends!- Sounding excited and perking up.
“Good, how bout a few games of darts?”
-Yayyyyyy! wuv pwayin dawts!-
“Good. I’ll go fetch a smarty.”
