Being her Big Daddy was never easy. For one thing, where ever you walk you leave a trail of grinded potholes because of the drill that replaced your right foreleg. She hated all the scary noises you made when you weren't letting the splicers get her, but she still loves you and she lets you know it too. Even though you can't talk (except for the occasional groan or grunt of affection or warning) she still talks to you about your adventures together, but she tells it such a way that it's like a grand tale and only she is special enough to know the story. Yours and her favorite time together is when she rides on your back and you love listening to her giggle about the noticable wobble when you attempt a trot. All of that came into jeopardy on one harvest and it started with "Cuddles, don't let them get me."....
* * * * *
"All done Cuddles!" your little sister squeaks with joy as she pulls her syringe out of a corpse's chest.
You huff and shake your head while she giggles.
"Help me up Cuddles." she asks with her sweetest voice.
You grunt and lie down so she can hop up on your back. You grunt again as if to ask a question that only she can understand.
She slowly lifts her snout into the air and draws in a long breath. "Can you smell the angels?" her voice changes to sound a possessed sweet girl." They're this way." she points to a trail of ghostly smoke that only appears when shes looking for "angels". You follow the ghost trail as it winds and curves through various hallways.
"When we get the last one can we ride the 'Journey to the Surface' ?" she asks sweetly.
You had been wandering around almost blindly and completely forgot you were in Dionysus Park.
"Cuddles?"
You give her a reassuring grunt and she giggles.
The smoke trail leads you into the ride she wanted to go in. All the electricity in the place is almost completely shut down aside from the lighting. None of the rides work and neither do the sound effects. You climb the first hill on the track and see the angel lying in front of a surface farm house prop.
"See Cuddles? Isn't she beautiful?"
The fact that she honestly thinks she is beautiful has you enamored and also lends credence to the fact that she is the sweetest pony in this city because all you see is a deformed junkie who has no snout, tiny teeth, and a massive portruding gumline.
She hops off your back and sits by its side. "Another angel." she says as she stabs it and begins drawing Adam.... and singing so sweetly, to the tune of 'Frere Jacques'.
"Mr. Cuddles, Mr. Cuddles, are you there? Are you there? Come and give me lollies, come and bring me toffees. Teddy bears... teddy bears..." she sings with a voice that makes you sniff and your glass fogs a little.
"Don't cry Cuddles." she almost whispers.
You think to yourself in a series of 'grunts' and 'oomphs' that would've come out in the form of "I love you Applebloom." were you able to speak.
She finishes drawing Adam and trots over to you. You lie down so she can get up on your back, but she nuzzles you right under your eye glass and says, "I love you too daddy."
She hops up on your back again and just as you're about to stand you hear rustling from behind a pile of broken crates.
"Give us the girl Tin Daddy." says a female splicer as she crawls over the crates with a snake like slither.
"Cuddles, don't let them get me..." she begins to cry.
You take an offensive stance and spin up your drill. Small rocks fly in all directions and bounce off walls and splicers, that begin to show themselves, from the grinding of your drill.
"I see... well... let's start the show!" shouts the splicer as she swings at you with a hoof, embedded with nails.
You jerk your head back to miss the swing and as she loses her balance from the all out slug into nothing, you crack her skull with a violent headbutt. She falls to the wooden rollercoaster tracks and bleeding from the ears. As she looks up at you in sheer hatred and lust for your little sister, you raise your spinning drill over her and watch a twisted smile work it's way across her face.
"Goodbye..... Tin Daddy."
You, maintaining eye contact, ram your drill down into her chest and rev it up, letting her insides spew out in a blackend-red vortex that spatter the walls with insides and bone fragments while you only get small specs of the gory mess on your mask.
You suddenly remember she was not the only one immediately cut off your drill's power and it spins down. You lift the drill and expose a massive cavity in your most recent victim. The ammount of disgust you feel is only increased by the fact that no blood is pooling in the massive hole you bored out in her abdomen.
"Well then..." says another splicer.
You lift your head to see where it is.
"Is that going to happen to all of us, or are we going to have to do that to you?" he asks plainly as he lets his head fall to the side.
Applebloom starts crying again.
"Cuddles, behind you!"
Without thinking you rear up and buck whatever was making her scared and you feel you hit solidly. You had smashed, whoever's face it was, completely in on itself and their corpse now lay 20ft. behind you.
A pneumatic air burst from a rivet gun sounds off and Applebloom screams in either terror or pain. You act upon your first instinct and gallop away from the hoard as they all pour out of alleys after you and by dumb luck you exit through the rides entrance where you came in, but you keep going. You won't stop until she's safe.
"Cuddles?"
Or until she asks. Your hooves stop moving, but you slide 10ft. from the momentum. You huff to let her know you're listening.
"I don't feel good."
You lie down so she get off, but she slides off your back and onto the ground. She limps in front of you and you see a rivet in her hind leg right above her hock. You nuzzle her and let her sit for a while. She looks up at you with a pitiful smile and you scoop her up with your head and she slides down the back of your neck and on to your back.
You feel her shuffle around on your back and lie down. Once you think she's comfortable you begin you walk to wherever the hospital may be. You find yourself wandering through Pauper's Drop and you see the splicers running and hiding. You think in grunts and groans that would have come out "I guess a Big Daddy covered in blood, walking around without a care is scary?".
"Hey Daddy...." says a grungy.... something. Can't tell if it's a splicer or not.
You turn towards an alley and see a shadowy figure leaning against a wall. You huff at him.
"Your sister's hurt...."
"Were going to see a docter..." Applebloom squeaks quietly.
"That true Daddy?"
You grunt in agreement.
"Well... how bout I take her for you?"
"Cuddles...." she whimpers
"Give'er here!" he shouts as he rushes towards.
You duck to miss him, but he manages to get a grip on her injured leg and squeals in agony as she is pulled off and onto the ground. You move to stand directly over her and hope she crawls up your leg while the grungy pony who tried take her adjusts himself. He turns to face you and you feel Applebloom struggling to get up your leg so you crouch down to help her and she just barely pulls herself up onto your back.
"She's not your child!" the grungy tweaker shouts.
You half-whinnie half-grunt to her to let her know she needs to hold on tight. Some how or another she understood you perfectly and she wrapped her arms around your neck.
The tweaker growl-shouts at you and begins his own little charge at you and when he gets close enough to where he won't be able to stop his collision with you, you stand on your hind legs and tower over him. He attempts to turn around and run away, but the wet floor causes him to slide backwards in your direction and he bumps into you and falls over from the sudden stop. He looks up at you in terror as you begin to fall back to all-fours. As you plant yourself your hoof smashes his head against the wet pavement and pops it like an oversized roach. It crunches and splatters, leaving a spiderweb pattern of blood, skull, and brains in the street.
Upon looking up you spot a red cross in a white square over a doorway.
"Are we almost there Cuddles?"
You grunt hopefully, but unsure.
You lift your hoof up with a sickening slurping gurgle and expose the flat indiscernible mass of flesh and mush then walk towards the doorway. Once you get to the doorway you stop right outside and poke your head through the open door.
"Oh! You startled me big guy." you hear a friendly female out of view.
You quickly look left and see a pony dressed in a white lab coat smiling at you while she files papers.
"Are you hurt?" she asks.
You step in completely so he can see Applebloom.
"Oh umm...... NURSE!" her shout makes you jump a little.
Another labcoated pony runs into the room and sees Applebloom passed out on your back.
"Ah crap." he says as he walks up to you. "Listen uh.... Cuddles, we need to take her. Ok?"
You huff and turn to let him grab her.
"On second thought." he stops reaching for her and looks at you. "Come with me. You can stay with her in her room."
He leads you left and right through a series of hallways and into an operating room/ resting room.
"Wow, you're big." he says as he notices how small the door frame is around you. "Ok, let me set her on the table."
He gently picks her up and moves her to the operating table and gives her a small shot in the injured leg.
"Cuddles?" she asks for you.
You walk over to the opposite side of the table so she can see you. She smiles with a tear from the pain. You sit back on your haunches and rest your head on the table so she can nuzzle you while the docter does his work. He pulls out the steel rivet and drops it in a metal bowl and begins to stitch up the wound.
"All done." he says.
Applebloom looks a little relieved.
"Let's get you to bed." the docter picks her up and sets her in a bed on the other side of the room and tucks her in. "You can stay here Cuddles, just don't kill anybody that walks in." he jokes as he walks out.
You walk over to her side of the bed and sit back on your haunches again and huff to let her know you're not leaving anytime soon. She smiles as you rest your head next her and nuzzle her.
She kisses your snout, "I love you Cuddles. Night night."
FIN
