Earl was in his workshop working away on a side project that might be necessary other plans of his fell through. He had an old VW frame up on his lift and he was under it welding another set of wheel mounts between the front and back set. Every so often looking away to a nearby monitor to check on the squad or the chicks nearby in their nursing basket. He had the boys playing a game launching weighted nerf darts through a motorized target hoop sliding back and forth between two trees, while running in tandem to chase the target. Carol walked in with his phone in hand holding it out to him so he could see the screen with Jake’s face on it and the number of missed calls from him.
“You left this in the kitchen. You’ve missed several calls and texts from both Jake AND your therapist. Your court. Ordered. Therapist. That MY connections got you off the hook and are in violation of your probation if you miss.” The anger in her voice obvious despite her calm demeanor.
“Ooh, crap. Was that today?” Making an exaggerated wince.
“YESTERDAY!”
“Yikes! Okay, Okay, I’ll call and set up an emergency appointment.” More afraid of her wrath than the law’s.
He reached for the phone and jerked to a stop then looked to his left hand and pulled again even harder but didn’t budge.
“What are you doing?”
“…I welded my hand to the frame.” Hanging his head in embarrassment.
“That’s what happens when you do too much at once. How many projects you doing right now?”
“Ehhh… Four or five… -ish?”
“Call your therapist before your probation officer calls you.” Staying out from under the car on the lift.
Earl’s arm detached and he walked out from under the car grabbing his phone dialing up his doctor then set it on the table and grabbed his everyday use arm and locked it in place. Picking his phone back up he put it to his ear all under Carol’s watchful eye.
Goblin and his new crew of little brothers were having a blast playing the new “game” Earl had set up. Taking turns running side by side, one just ahead of the other with nerf darts aimed and ready as they tried to throw them through the moving hoop. The hardest part for them was learning to lead the target when shooting, the idea of the target running into the dart’s path was a little hard to grasp for them, but they were catching on. Goblin was still trying to figure out how to be a leader so far deciding who paired up with who each turn seemed like a good start so far. Their playing was interrupted by Earl walking through on his way to the van, still on his phone with the nursing basket under one arm.
"I know you don’t want “animals” in your office but if I don’t feed these chicks every few hours they’ll starve to death. “Yeah I did what you said and then some, I adopted six in fact and these two chicks. Hold on a sec, Doc. Goblin, Mark and Jr. are coming by to build a bigger corral for you guys. Stay in the yard where Carol can see you and no hunting ferals, if they come here then have fun. Alright, Doc, as I was saying…”
Earl walked off still chatting away with his therapist, climbed into his van and drove off. Goblin trotted over to the corral to check on Nugget and Lemon, Nugget was napping in one of the dog beds basking in the midday sun. Lemon was watching the boys train and seemed to be showing special interest in cheering Gremlin on, her hooves pressed against the chicken-wire fence. Looks like she made her choice, but he wondered about his other brothers and if they would ever find a special friend or not. He could still recall all those mares that treated him so badly and tried to hurt him even, he didn’t want to give them forever sleepies but they left him little choice. But enough of that, he had to get back to the game and they were doing so good after a week of practice he thought it might be time to try the next level of the game. Running on both side of the hoop and shooting a dart through it without hitting whoever was on the other side, well time to give it a shot. Predictably the first few dozen tries ended up with them hitting each other with the soft foam suction cup toys, sometime one sticking to the ends of their noses. Carol sometimes watched from the window of her garage office looking up from her desk or occasionally peeking over between call to the office and sips of tea.
They had been playing for so long they hadn’t noticed how hungry they were getting until a collective tummy growl told them it was time for lunch. When they stopped to head back to the corral for a meal of mid priced kibble and water they saw them half way half way to the corral coming from the fields. A large herd of fluffies thirty strong and a big blue earthy leading them all, they marched right up to the boys and surrounded them. They four couldn’t help but give each other smirking glances as they dwarfed them in size but the smarty was confidant his numbers gave him the edge. The smarty was big for sure but more fat big while the rest of the herd seemed on the leaner side, all with angry glares locked onto the boys.
-Dis am Smawty’s wand nao! Munstahs weave ow get foweva sweepies!- The smarty shouted puffing himself up to look even bigger.
The boys exploded into a fit of laughter almost in tears from the smarty’s threats. Well the smarty didn’t like that and on his order the herd charged. To say the ensuing battle was grand and epic would be a lie, no… it was a massacre. When the smarty stuck out his tongue to mock their laughter it stretched out like it was being pulled on as his head jerked involuntarily side to side then straight up as his hooves lifted from the ground. He was dropped just as quickly as the rushing herd slammed into Goblin breaking his concentration. The boys were getting hit from all sides by dozens of soft hoofies and bodies slamming against theirs trying to take them down, it tickled, that is until one got a lucky shot in Gremlin’s balls. He collapsed clutching his wounded pride while the invading herd continued to try and stomp him down and when he looked up he saw a yellow tail lift up and blast him in the face with sorry poopies. Blinded from the stinging filth in his eyes he shrieked and let out a psychic blast that sent the offending fluffy and several others flying.
Carol had noticed the screams outside and stepped out picking up a carbon fiber training golf club for beginners and temperamental players and now fluffy abuse enthusiasts. Kicking off her shoes she strode casually towards the battle, club slung over one shoulder and as soon as a fluffy got within striking distance she cocked back and yelled.
“FOOORRRRRRRRRRRE!!”
THWACK!
The head of a blue unicorn went flying with a good sized chunk of spine still attached and before the body could even drop she swung again. She struck true hitting a green pegasus in the balls so hard they popped like grapes, the sound of hipbones breaking like eggshells was loud enough to hear as the body launched into the crowd. Ohhh, there was that serotonin rush she needed and with that she started swinging while yelling about every thing in her job currently pissing her off.
Imp was getting creative with his powers, using a tuffy as a club to repeated bash in the heads of the rest dropping it when the head turned to mush. Hob was keeping it more basic using his hooves to stomp and swat at any fluffy too stupid to run, knocking out teeth and popping eyes with each strike. Gremlin was getting up trying to wipe the shit from his eyes while still getting hit from all sides but now he mule kicked every so often when he felt somebody behind him. Vision hazy, a sudden shape of brown with a streak of yellow on top came running and started stomping away at the tuffies.
-Weave Gwemwin awone! Give wostest stompies to bad fwuffies!- Lemon shouted shattering a red tuffy’s jaw.
Goblin was distracted caving in the invading herds heads and lost track of the smarty, who took this chance to make his way to the open corral door. Nugget had been awoken by the noise and was hiding in the doghouse in fear of her tummy babbehs well being, then the smarty poked his head through the curtain door. Her screams alerted Goblin who blasted a path through the dwindling herd and bolted for the corral and got there in time to see the smarty’s ass disappear behind the curtain. His vision went red as he charged in.
“Hey, Hob!” Carol shouted. “Hold one up for me!”
A yellow fluffy lifted off he ground just over the other’s heads and Carol swung hitting him in the gut breaking him open like a pinata. They both laughed as blood sprayed everywhere showering down over the herd and soon Hob was launching fluffies into the air as Carol cracked them as hard as she could. The herd was thinning quickly but the thing that finally got them to break ranks was the screams coming from the corral stopping to look towards it.
Nugget was curled up in her bed in the doghouse with her hind end facing the smarty trying to keep her belly far from him. As soon as a single hoof touched he flank she screamed and kicked once, her hard bony hoof smashing in his snoot and knocking out all his front teeth. The surprisingly fast and sharp pulling on his lumps made him scream in even more pain as he was dragged out of the doghouse by them. Lifting into the air he was suspended upside down and was now face to face with a livid Goblin. With a hard yank the smarty hit the ground head first while his lumps still floated in the air. The smarty collapsed onto his back too dazed and stunned to cry or react to the pain, only wheezing and coughing up blood from his injuries then his lumps flew into mouth. He gagged and choked back to consciousness pawing at his throat trying to breath with Goblin looming over him with gritted teeth his eye glancing from the smarty to the chicken wire fence. Goblin grinned with a sinister idea and stomped the smarty in the gut making him spit out his lumps and he gasped in relief then he lifted into the air again. The smarty slammed face first into the chicken-wire and his body pressed into it hard and he screamed as it started to slice into his tender meat. Everyone stopped to look and watched the wire strike bone but Goblin kept pressing and soon cut through the brittle bones. The screams finally stopped when he was halfway through with one final hard push the rest of the body passed through and plopped into the grass.
The dozen or so fluffies left ran for their lives with Carol and the boys giving chase not giving them the chance to escape. Goblin on the other hand was more concerned with Nugget and ducked back inside the doghouse where she was still in her bed cowering and shaking.
-Nugget?- Reaching out and putting a hoof on her back.
She screamed again and kicked catching Goblin in the side of the face dropping him. He clutched the side of his head and groaned just as Nugget realized her mistake, turning around to comfort him.
-Speciaw fwend! Nugget am soo soooo sowwy. Nugget nu mean to give owwies to speciaw fwend. Gonna gove huggies an make aww bettew.-
A few hours later Earl had come back home, his van followed by a big red pick-up with Mark and Jr hauling building supplies for a bigger corral. Later in the evening after Gremlin got hosed off and the rest got cleaned up, along with the mess made in the yard, the boys were locking in the corral for the night. Goblin was worse for the wear, his scarred eye now blackened and swollen. Carol and Earl were in his shop going over the video feed of the days events, Carol excitedly pointing out her own handy work.
“Look at that swing! I love that club you bought me!”
“I’m glad my little play date I set up with you and the boys went well, told ya you’d get along with them. Later when they’re asleep can you help me get the remote cages out of the fields?”
“Sure thing. I’m gonna pull a rack of ribs from the freezer so we can grill 'em up for dinner.”
Once he was alone he set up a vid-link on his computer and soon a old grey haired black man on his screen.
“I was starting to think you were going to flake on me.” The man said dryly.
“After what I paid just to talk to you, let alone find you? HA! Seriously though, sorry bout that, some legal crap came up last second. So Dr. Cantor, you worked in the labs that developed the puffy-griffins all those years ago.”
“Of course, the project was supposed to be the direct competitor to fluffies and the higher ups wanted them to be… Aggressively competitive.”
“I’d say. One nearly ripped the leg off one of my geno-morph hunter.” He exaggerated.
“A fluffy based creation I assume?” Raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “So in the last two weeks of research I found little to nothing on the puffy-griffins but when I ran a few samples through my sequencer I found a lot of similarities to the fluffy base genome. Care to elaborate, Doc?”
“Well… When something as big, as it was back then, as the creation of fluffies and their competitors there may or may not have been some… greased palms here or there.”
“Think I could get some details of the alterations?”
“Of course, if the moneys right.”
“Yer breaking my balls here, Doc.”
“And I got grand-kids with their eyes set on Harvard.”
