From Highest Peak
Valor stood over the monster’s corpse, gasping for breath. It was shocking how big of a difference this strange creature had presented compared to the other monsters he’d fought. It seemed…almost as strong as him. But that was impossible! He was always the strongest! Nothing could compare to him!
He pummeled the corpse for a while, venting his uncertainty and anger as the remains became gradually less recognizable. Eventually, once he’d finally relaxed, he stopped. Everything was alright. The monster was gone, and the fluffies were all sa…
The babbeh! The one the monster had dropped! He’d completely forgotten about it in the fight, and in the mental turmoil afterward. He had to save it! But…he knew it was already too late. He’d spent too long beating the corpse, and the babbeh was already long gone. Still, maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t lingered here too long.
He launched himself into the air, zipping towards where the foal had been dropped, desperately seeking for a bright color contrasted against the sky. But as he moved closer, he saw something else. Down on the ground below, he saw a cluster of fluffies, surrounding something. His stomach lurched as he saw the pitiful pile of fluff, and the soil damp with blood.
Nu…nu…Vawow sabe aww da fwuffies! Vawow am hewo! Nu wet babbehs gu fowebah-sweepies!
But he had let the babbeh die. Maybe there had been no way to save the foal, or maybe he’d simply lingered too long. Maybe this was his fault. He quivered with horror and self-loathing at the thought of the foal plummeting to earth, crying out in terror, expecting any moment for him to be there, to be saved. Only for that hope to die out as the ground grew closer.
He slowed, then drifted to earth. Against all the emotions screaming inside him, he forced himself to walk to the ring of mourning fluffies. He would see what he’d let happen. He wasn’t going to be a coward. And he would let the fluffies see the one who’d let their beloved babbeh die.
“Wai? Wai Vawow wet babbeh gu fowebah-sweepies?” a weeping fluffy cried out as he approached.
It cut deep. Of course, he’d seen fluffies die, he’d seen what happened when he failed to save them. But that had been different. In his head he could justify those as him simply being unable to save them, despite doing his best. Here, however, it struck differently. Here, he’d been too busy venting hatred to even try.
“Vawow am sowwy…”
He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He never could. This was the worst part of being a hero, the only part he would throw away entirely if he could. Admitting to those he’d failed that, in spite of all he could do, he’d let them suffer such a loss. Seeing the tears and the pain, and trying his best to offer what comfort he could.
“Sowwy nu bwing babbeh baek!”
“Vawow twy hewp babbeh…”
“Nu twy 'nuff!”
He didn’t have a response to that. Any other time he’d have been able to keep his cool, to understand that it was just grief talking, but this time…she was right. He hadn’t tried enough, and now, like every other time in his life, someone else had to bear the consequences. Tears blurred his vision, but were whipped away by the wind as he fled, seeking somewhere he could think in solitude.
Munstah wewe wight. Vawow nebah hab huwties, nebah wewe scawed…Vawow awways act wike dis am a gaem.
“Bu’…Vawow am a hewo…”
…
Valor woke up to coldness and the sounds and smells of terror. He opened his eyes, but his vision was so blurry he could barely make out the far wall, only a few meters distant. He should have been able to make out individual particles making up the concrete at this distance, so why was it so blurry and indistinct?
His hearing felt muffled, as if his ears had been filled with fluff. He couldn’t even hear his own heartbeat. Smells were distant and vague, as if whatever the smell of terror came from was long gone, but the noises were still here. What was going on?
He struggled to his hooves, feeling horribly weak and sluggish. His legs trembled as he slowly rose, with none of the grace and alacrity that were normal in his movements. After a moment on his hooves he collapsed, the horrible exhaustion too much to fight. He felt as if the entire weight of the world was resting on his back.
He began to panic. What was going on? This didn’t make any sense! He was stronger than this! What was this nightmare? His breathing quickened as he became more and more frightened, and he fought his way to his feet once more, swaying under the unspeakable burden.
He looked around again, squinting to try to see through whatever fog blurred his vision. He was in some kind of small cage, a fine mesh surrounding him on all sides, empty except for a pair of small bowls and a silver button, with a red light shining above it. The button at least seemed familiar; he used a similar button to open the door to the special prison where the monsters were kept. But there were thin metal bars between him and the button, so he wasn’t able to investigate further.
More than anything, the cage confused him. How was this supposed to contain him? The thin mesh had no hope of stopping even a halfhearted effort to break it, and those metal bars would easily succumb to a few moments in his heat vision. It was as if whoever or whatever had imprisoned him here thought he was completely helpless.
Although the cage annoyed him, mostly because it was insulting in how feeble the design was, he stayed put for the time being. Until he felt better he wasn’t terribly interested in a fight, so for now he’d just keep watching his surroundings. A bit more sleep, and he’d be fit to deal with whatever problems faced him now. After all, he was a hero.
…
“Rise and shine, Valor!”
The voice jarred him awake, and he jolted to his hooves. Or tried to, but collapsed immediately when the unspeakable fatigue that ate at his strength returned, as strong as before. He looked around the room wildly, confused. Standing there, was…
Another creature like mummah and daddeh? But…there weren’t any more of those. They’d told him that they were the only two left, that the world was for fluffies now! How could another one be standing here? None of this made sense!
The figure began to laugh, and there was a note to the voice that made Valor intensely uncomfortable. Something that he’d never heard in mummah or daddeh’s voices. Something…cruel.
“Looks like you’re still struggling to understand what’s going on. Not surprising, all things considered. I mean, you’ve lived a lie your entire life, so the truth won’t make sense to you. Not yet.”
Living a lie? What was that supposed to mean? The…(human, something buried in his DNA whispered to him) human was spouting nonsense. Obviously the entire world couldn’t be a lie, so whatever the human was saying had to be lies. It made more sense, after all.
“Nu…wie…tu…Va…wow…” Valor choked out, realizing that the ghastly lethargy had also infected his voice somehow, making it unreasonably difficult to form words.
“Lie? What would I get out of lying to you?”
“Twy…in…maek…Va…wow…scawed…”
The human sighed and lifted something to his face, speaking into it. “Cassy, can we get a bit of stimulant in him? I want him to be at least able to talk and move a little.”
With a jolt, energy poured into Valor, and he rose to his feet once more, swaying but defiantly remaining upright. Yes, this was it! A little longer and he’d have recovered enough to fight his way out of here! He’d find out what was going on and bring those responsible to justice!
“I didn’t mean that much, but I guess it’s fine. Should wear off before the first test anyway. Thanks.” The human once again directed his attention to Valor. “I really don’t have any reason to lie to you, Valor.”
“Vawow nu bewiebe wies!”
“See, that’s the problem. You do believe lies. You still do. Right now you’re clinging to lies while seeing the truth.”
“Wet Vawow gu!”
“Go where?”
“Nee’ gu baek! Nee’ kee’ fwuffies saef!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. Nothing’s going to happen to them.”
“Wut?”
“Well, it’s not like anything could happen to them. The simulation isn’t running right now.”
Valor just stared in confusion.
“You remember what that monster said? How everything was just a game to you?”
“Munstah am wiew!”
"No. Grace wasn’t lying to you. That entire world really was just a game. None of it was real.
Valor began shaking. He knew it was all lies, but somehow it made sense, somewhere far below his conscious mind. Hadn’t he felt that things were…somehow off? Wasn’t it strange how things only seemed to happen when he was around? Hadn’t he often wondered why all the monsters looked exactly the same?
NO! That wasn’t possible! There was no way everything was fake. Everything he’d done couldn’t be a lie!
“I see you’re beginning to realize. Good, that’ll make things a little easier. You’re quicker on the uptake than most. For all the good that’ll do you.”
“Wut munstah wan’?”
“Oh, you’ll find out soon. For now, I just want you to rest, regain some of your strength.” With that, the human turned and walked out, leaving Valor alone once more, except for distance sounds and smells of terror and suffering.
…
His strength slowly returned, but only to a point. His attempts to break the fragile mesh were woefully unsuccessful, and the impact jarred his bones and sent waves of pain through him. He tried to fly, to get enough speed to punch through the mesh, but he couldn’t leave the ground, only tumbling off his feet when he tried.
Something that was hard for him to adapt to was having to eat. Before, hunger had been an alien concept to him; he understood that normal fluffies had to eat to survive, but that’d never applied to him. Now, it seemed he needed to eat to soothe the growling, gnawing monster in his belly. Food, however, was not something he usually enjoyed. He’d never really tasted anything before, not having any need to, but he quickly came to understand that there were good tastes and bad tastes. And the slop he was given definitely had a bad taste.
Still, he continued to eat whatever he was given, attempting to regain enough strength to…do what, exactly? Even if he broke out it wasn’t like there was anywhere to go. The few times he’d been taken out of his cage and shown the outside world confirmed that. His world, all the fluffies he’d saved…it was all fake. He really didn’t have anything he could do if he escaped. Right now, he felt as if his life’s purpose had been torn away from him.
That wasn’t to say everything was bad here. While the food he was usually given was anything but appetizing, he’d been given some kind of food that was simply divine. “Sketties,” they were called. Right now, those small and infrequent bowls of the ambrosia were all he lived for.
So he regained his strength, mostly for the sake of not feeling so weak. Slowly, his thoughts of the past, of how he used to be became dimmer. Maybe this life wasn’t so bad right now. True, he didn’t have a purpose right now, but after this last failure back on his world…back on the game, he was content to have nobody expecting anything of him.
…
“So, Valor, do you still think you’re a hero?”
Valor was surprised by the question. Normally the human didn’t talk to him when he was being fed, only filling the bowl and leaving in silence, ignoring anything Valor said or did. This was unusual.
The problem was that he really didn’t know the answer. Did everything he’d done in the game mean anything if it wasn’t real? Was he any more a hero than a foal pretending to fight off monsters? He wasn’t sure, and the uncertainty hurt him. More than anything, he desperately clung to the idea of being a hero, of being something more than the same-ness of his current life.
“Vawow…wan be hewo…” It was the only answer he could come up with.
“But aren’t you always saying you are a hero?”
“Vawow…nu nyo nu mowe…”
“Why not?”
“Nuffin Vawow du wewe weal.”
“Is a hero what you do, or is it what you are?”
“Nu nyo.”
“So, what does a hero do?”
This was something he could answer. “Sabe fwuffies!” he shouted.
“So if you want to be a hero, all you have to do is save fluffies.”
“Bu’…hao?”
“Oh, that’s easy. You just need to save them from me.”
“Wut?” but Valor’s question was ignored as the human walked out of the room, coming back with a cheeping box. A box that reeked of fear. He set the box down, and Valor could see dozens of chirpy foals within, crawling around blindly and calling out in terror and hunger.
As Valor stared, paralyzed by the sudden shattering of his mundane existence, the human walked over to one wall, pushing a button. Walls slide up, revealing caged fluffies on all sides, and immediately a cacophony rang out, wailing and crying. Fluffies fought to get out of their cages, to get to the box of foals on the floor.
“See, Valor, I’m a monster.”
The words shook Valor with dread. What was going on? How could a human be a monster? His confusion and horror only intensified as the human pressed another button and the caged fluffies fell silent, writhing on the floors of their cages.
“So, I’m going to let you be a hero. I’m going to let you save these foals…if you can. But first, let me show you what will happen if you don’t.”
The human, no, the monster scooped up a foal, and brought it over to Valor’s cage, opening the top on the other sides of the bars. With a firm hand, he pressed the foal against the button that Valor had never been able to reach.
“SCREEEEEEEE! PEEEEP! CHEEEEEP! SCREEEEEEEEE!”
The sound and the sudden reek of burning flesh hit Valor like a battering ram, bringing him shaking to the floor of his cage. Against his will, he felt his bowls release themselves as the dread metamorphosed into raw terror and absolute horror. He quivered there, unable to move, as the wails and flailing of the foal slowly faded away, leaving only the sizzle of burning meat.
The monster pulled the foal out once more, and casually tossed it into a box in the middle of the floor. The box where he’d always put Valor’s waste and dirtied litter. Nu…babbeh nu am fow huwties an’ fowebah-sweepies… Valor’s thoughts were almost drowned out by terror.
“Cassy, can you un-paralyze foal one’s parents?”
Barely had the words been formed before there was a howl from one of the cages. “NUUUUUUU! PWEASE! NU HUWT BABBEH! NU GIB FOWEBAH-SWEEPIES!”
“Huhuhu! Wai huwt babbeh? Babbeh nu am fow owwies!”
“Well, Valor? Don’t you want to save the rest of the babbehs?”
Valor just lay there trembling, trying to cover his ears and drown out the sounds.
“No? Guess I’ll just cook up another one then.” The human scooped up another foal, which squirmed and chirped desperately, the sounds and smells driving it deeper into panic.
“VAWOW WIWW SABE BABBEHS!”
“Perfect. Cassy, shut those idiots up.”
The human waited for silence to resume. “Now, Valor, all you need to do is press the button until the light goes green and I’ll let the babbeh and its parents go. Of course, if you fail the babbeh gets burnie-hurties and forever-sleepies.”
“Su Vawow pwess button tiww wight gu gween?”
“That’s right.”
“Bu’ button gib babbeh buwnie-owwies.”
“I didn’t say it would be easy. If you don’t want to I can just give all the babbehs forever-sleepies instead…”
“NU! VAWOW WIWW SABE BABBEHS!”
“Alright then. Cassy, raise the bars.”
The bars raised themselves silently, and Valor forced himself to walk unsteadily towards the button. He stood for a moment, steeling his resolve. Jus’ nee’ sabe babbehs…jus’ nee’ pwess button… He froze, trying to force himself to move.
“Hurry up.”
Valor pushed his hoof into the button, feeling it slide back a bit before the sensation of burning hit him. For a moment, a gruesome sizzling was the only sound.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEE!” Valor wailed, the unbearable pain biting into him. It was worse than the pain he’d suffered when fighting the monster, worse than anything he could’ve imagined. Wheezing for air between shrieks of agony, he pushed into the button, forcing himself to endure the pain and not let the button go. After what seemed like forever, the light turned green, and Valor slumped to the floor, sobbing and gasping.
“Well done! Cassy, let foal two’s parents out of their cage. I think they’re going to want to see their babbeh.”
“And Valor?”
“Yus…?”
“I’m going to give you a few minutes to think about if this is worth it before we continue.” The human turned to an unseen audience. “We’ll be right back after a few messages from our sponsors!”
…
“Last babbeh! Are you ready, Valor?”
Valor dragged himself towards the button, away from the now-empty food bowl. It’d been hours, or maybe eternity, but he’d been able to save the foals. Now, his fluff was missing, replaced with blistered flesh where he’d pressed his skin into the button, unable to rise onto his back legs any longer.
Jus’ wun mowe babbeh…jus’ wun mowe babbeh tu sabe… he thought, as the scraping of his blisters against the floor drew peeps and cheeps from him.
“Alright, "Valor. Save this last babbeh and you’ll be the bestest hero ever!”
“Peep!”
Valor forced himself to his feet, shaking and gasping both from the unspeakable agony this caused him and from the weakness and blood loss. With all of his remaining strength, he pressed himself onto the button, weeping stinging tears as the heat seared him again. This time, he couldn’t even scree, and only wheezed as the sizzling wormed its way into his ears.
He fought to stay up, to keep the button pressed until the light turned green. His teeth drew blood as they cut the sides of his cheeks, and the grisly stubs of what had once been his ears twitched frantically. Vawow…am…hewo… he repeated over and over to himself. He would save the last babbeh!
But his body had other ideas, and despite his determination he slumped, unable to stand any longer. The button clicked back into place, and somehow that sound was louder that the wail that erupted from Valor. He’d…failed. He’d let another babbeh die! He was the worst hero ever!
“Oooh, looks like our friend Valor just wasn’t strong enough. Too bad. Cassy, can you let number thirty’s parents tell us what they think of Valor here?”
Valor simply closed his eyes and tried to ignore the sounds of the foal’s death, the wailing of its parents. He dragged himself to his water bowl, drinking greedily, and fell into unconsiousness.
…
“Rise and shine, Valor!”
“NUUUUU!”
“We’ve got another entire box of babbehs for you to save! Better hurry up or they’ll all get cooked!”
“Pwease…nu…”
“Aww…does poor little Valor not want to be a hero anymore?”
“Vawow…wewe…nebah…hewo…”
“Don’t say that! Didn’t you save all the fluffies from the monsters?”
“Vawow…wan…gu…baek…”
“Even though it’s not real? You want to abandon these foals to die so you can play in a fake world?”
“Nu…can…sabe…babbehs…”
“Well, Valor, that’s just making me sad. Say, Valor, do you hate me?”
“HATCHU!”
“That hurts me. It really does. I didn’t think you’d actually hate me. Not a loving and heroic fluffy like you.”
“WAN GU BAEK!”
“I’ll make you a deal, Valor. Say you love me, and I’ll let you go back.”
“Vawow woud wathew gu fowebah-sweepies!”
“Aww…don’t be like that. How about if I let you go back and save the babbehs?”
Valor’s scraps of ears perked up at that. “Hao?”
“Simple…there’s just one little thing you need to do in the game for me…”
…
He was back! He could fly, but his body still ached from the agony he’d endured. He could feel that he wasn’t quite as fast, as strong as he’d once been, but after that hellish existence in the cage it was divine.
He looked over, and saw his target hovering over the endless fields. He just had to do one thing, and the babbehs would be safe. Just one thing.
…
Purity gasped from the impact. How had something managed to hurt her? She was a hero! She never got owwies!
“'Ou tink 'ou am a hewo? 'Ou nu am nuffin!” the deformed monster roared at her, and anger rose within her.
“PUWITY AM HEWO!”
“Nu am hewo. Nebah sabe nuffin. Dis am aww jus’ a gaem tu 'ou.”
They battled across the sky, the monster’s words seeking to destroy Purity’s will, but she held strong. She would keep her world safe!
“Pwease…” the monster wheezed as she pummeled it, its strength failing. “Vawow jus’ nee’ 'ou tu die…pwease!”
She reared up, preparing to bring her hooves down and end this threat to her home, to the fluffies she watched over.
“Vawow am wowstest fwuffy ebah…”
…
“Oh, sad day for Valor! Looks like he failed!” the show’s presenter spoke to the camera in mock sadness. “I guess none of these foals or their parents are getting out of here. Oh well.”
“On the upside, it looks like our reigning champion remains victorious for another season! What do you think about that, Noble?” He turned to a deformed mess of flesh that might once have been a fluffy.
“WAN DIE! WAN DIE! WAN DIE!”
“Insightful as always.”
The presenter turned once more to the camera. “Thank you all for watching, and I hope you join us for next season of Hero to Zero!”
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