The smarty and his crew marched through the back alleys of the city with their heads held high. They were about to partake in the ultimate delicacy, skettis! As they plodded along to their destination the foals asked the black mare about this wonder they had never indulged in.
“Am skettis bettah den fwuitie-nummies?”
“Yus, dey am bestest!”
“Am skettis bettah den candy-nummies?”
“Yus, skettis am bettah den AWW candy-nummies!”
“Am skettis bettah den miwkies?!”
“Yus, skettis am bestest nummies EVAH!”
All of the foals were stunned, skettis were better than milk!?!? How could that be? Even the trio with new teeth still sometimes missed drinking milk, so to learn that skettis far surpassed the drink set the foals salivating. All except for the little brown foal on berry’s back who began to cry and flail around, “Babbeh wan skeetis bu’ nu hab teethies! Nu can num skettis! Dis wowstest bwight-time evah! HuuHuu…”
The black mare walked alongside berry and nuzzled the filly with her snout, “Nu make saddie-wawas babbeh, mummah wiww num wots of skettis an’ make sketti-miwkies fo’ wittwe babbeh!”
The filly soon stopped sniffling and gave a happy chirp as the prospect of sketti flavored milk was too enticing to stay upset. The remainder of the trip was spent with the fluffies giddily telling each other about how excited they were for skettis. Just as Tulip and the tan mare had reported, a ferocious stray cat guarded the treasure. The bravado paled from the foals and mares, however the smarty stayed confident as he swaggered up to the beast alone.
“Hewwo meowie-munstah, smawty hewd nee’ nummies fo’ cowd-times an’ meowie-munstah hab bestest nummies evah! Smawty gon take skettis tu hewd, cause smawty am bestest smawty an’ nummies hewp hewd mostest!”
The Smarty diligently waited for a reply from the cat, which was met with a blank stare as the cat stood its ground. Seeing how he was being ignored the smarty walked closer and decided to try asserting dominance. He spaced his legs out, squatted down slightly, and defiantly puffed out his cheeks as much as he possibly could. While the stance was lost on the confused cat the distance was not, the cat arched its back in its own display of displeasure which frighted the congregation of fluffies watching from behind the smarty.
“Gu away meowie-munstah! Dese am hewd nummies naow!”
The standoff continued for half a minute until the cat finally let out a hiss to show its annoyance. The foals shrieked and the mares jumped at the powerful display, but the smarty stood his ground. The cat continued to hiss a few more times with the same results each time, finally the cat became fed up with the situation and began to very slowly lift its paw in preparation to strike. The smarty’s eyes dilated and his ears immediately shot up as he was one of the few fluffies that understood the warning signs of an imminent cat attack. So as quick as he could he turned 180 degrees on the spot, lifted his tail, and shouted something the foals had never heard of.
“HAB SOWWY-POOPIES MEOWIE-MUNSTAH!”
The second those words were uttered a runny brown stream made its way from the smarty’s behind to the now very surprised cat. The smell and surprise of the attack caused the cat to freak out and run off further into the alley. The mares cheered for the victorious smarty while the foals sat in shock from the impossible event that had just transpired in front of them. It was one thing to talk about defeating monsters, but to actually do it!
“How poopies gib meowie-munstah scawdies?”
“Sowwy-poopies gib aww sowts of munstahs scawdies!”
“Weawwy!? Spike wan weawn how du sowwy-poopies tuu!”
“Smawty wiww wet smawty-babbeh an’ toughie-babbeh weawn da awt of sowwy-poopies! Dis why smawty bwing babbehs, tu show powew of sowwy-poopies!”
The smarty held his head high and basked in the compliments from the fluffy procession for a short while before helping tulip and the tan mare collect the container containing sketti from the dumpster. The container was fairly large and there was a decent amount of skettis left, probably enough for the whole herd to have a bite. With reward in hand the merry band of fluffies made their way back home, barely able to hold in their excitement to see the joy on the herd’s face when they returned.
It was time, every entry/exit point out of the building on the ground floor had been boarded up except for one. Simon and the others were outfitted in basic chemical protection gear, and were each equipped with a mist sprayer using a special chemical. Angela was the first to ask about the chemical, “Hey boss, why are we using this new chemical? I don’t even know what it is.”
“It’s a fairly new chemical developed by Hasbio specifically for dealing with fluffies, It’s called crepundicide. As for why we’re using this as opposed to our regular fare, simply because it is incredibly cheap.”
“So what does it do exactly?”, Dylan butted into the conversation.
“Hasbio claims it causes two symptoms in fluffies: it lessens blood-flow to the brain, and causes the muscles in the throat to fully constrict. The two parts work in tandem with one another so that if used while the fluffy is sleeping he won’t wake up and will die peacefully in his sleep. Don’t ask me how it works cause I ain’t got a clue! Those scientists at Hasbio might as well be magicians for all I know!”
Simon began sweating at the sleeping comment, remembering the voices he heard coming from inside the building. Time went in slow motion for Simon as they approach the only remaining exit to the building and stepped inside. The first thing the team noticed was how clean the inside of the building was, usually areas taken over by a colony of fluffies were covered wall-to-wall in urine and feces. However as they moved from room to room making their way to the main sleeping room they kept encountering strange things: A stockpile of food, a specific area to be used as a bathroom, and a minimal presence of other animals in the area. All together this led the team to one conclusion: this wasn’t a colony of random fluffies, this was a herd.
Herd’s were rather rare as they only appeared with the presence of a smarty. There was the occasional fluffy that got a big head in childhood and claimed themselves to be a smarty, however when they created a herd the living conditions ended up the same as any other colony. An actual smarty was incredibly rare, unfortunately the group still had a job to do.
They reached the main room and were welcomed with chaos, silence, followed by greater chaos. When they first entered they witnessed a sea of colored ponies joyfully chatting about ‘skettis’, once the fluffies noticed the team the room grew silent with dozens of little eyes starring at the four, then the floodgates opened as a scream of “MUNSTAHS!” filled the room.
The fluffies scattered in all directions hoping to escape through one of the exit holes only to find them blocked off. Victor swore under his breath and instructed the others to begin spraying. A fine mist fell over the terrified crowd and the results were practically instantaneous. The fluffies began to wobble around and fall down one-by-one, then they all began clawing at their throats fruitlessly with their marshmallow hooves. The fear in their eyes was plain to see and they all hissed out screams from their shut throats as tears ran down their faces. After an agonizingly long amount of time the room fell silent, the job was done and Simon felt empty.
Victor didn’t wait a second before he began gathering the corpses and carrying them outside, “Are you all just gonna stand around or are you gonna help me clean up?”
Body after body was transported to special containers outside. Simon was carrying one of the last outside when Dylan stopped him, “Hey man let me take a look at that one… Whoa, that’s an alicorn! Aww man… those things are worth a fortune! If only we had gotten him out of there before the cleaning maybe he would have gotten a good home.”
Angela decided to join in the conversation, “Unlikely, the best selling alicorns are special colored foals. This one is green so he probably would have been bought up by a mill for breeding stock, and I wouldn’t wish that fate on anything.”
“What are you talking about?! How is breeding stock a bad fate? He’d get loads of mares and be treated like a king!”
“That’s not how fluffy mills operate… Fluffies are generally monogamous like humans so they tend not to want to mate with fluffies other than their ‘special-friend’. So fluffy mills have the practice of pumping the stallions full of drugs to increase the fluffy’s sex-drive until they can’t think or feel anything. It usually leads to injured mares and stallions that are a husk of their former selves.”
“How in the world is that legal!”
“No matter what you think, at the end of the day fluffies are outside animal protection laws. Which means people can do whatever they want to the puffballs and receive zero legal repercussions.”
The conversation swirled in Simon’s head as he dropped the lifeless body into the waste basket. It was building up to be another sleepless night.
The fluffy brigade was nearing home and babbling to themselves about how good the skettis would be when they saw four tall figures standing outside of the nest. As they approached the silhouettes a feeling of terror fell upon them and the group froze in their tracks. The fluffies didn’t know what these things were but they immediately recognized the bodies of their friends. One-by-one their dead friends and family were carried out of the nest by the creatures and dropped into colorful trash-bins. The fluffies quivered in fear as tears welled up in their eyes. Finally the green alicorn’s body was carried out and thrown away, the black mare cried out, “NUUUUU! Speciaw-fwend! Huuhuuhuuhuu!..”
The smarty shook and murmured under his breath "Bwuddah…” as tears and snot dribbled down his face. Before a minute had passed the smarty was up on his feet and walking away from the old nest. The rest of the fluffies followed in mourning away from their once secure home. As they walked Spike ran alongside the smarty and asked him, “Smawty… whewe am fwuffies gon gu?”
The smarty didn’t even glance at the foal as he answered, “Smawty nu knu naow…”