Dash's Redemption: A Stuffy's Tale and Diaper Dimension Story (Chapter 15 - Complete)

[LostBBoyBear]

As with my previous stories, this one contains several elements inherent to the pre-established 'Diaper Dimension.' These include, but are not limited to:

• Diapers and their usage for their intended purpose
• Breastfeeding
• Non-consensual mental regression through various means (Including possible drugs, hypnosis, and/or surgery)
• References to surgery to achieve various nefarious goals
• Humiliation
• Giants, aka, Amazons or Bigs
• Predominantly female domination (some male)
• Babying of adults (perceived or otherwise)
• Experimentation on humans
• Kidnapping
• Coerced or manipulated actions through possible means of white lies, gas lighting, or incentives
• Mild language or use of explitives
• Depictions of death, illness, or handicaps
• Graphic imagery associated with any of these warnings

This story has not been labeled as mature, due to a lack of specific references to anything overtly sexual, but this warning serves as a 'turn back' point for any readers who do not wish to read about the previous warnings.

Lastly, this list is subject to change during the course of writing this story. While most of the plot is ironed out, more warnings may be added if needed.

For those readers interested or do not care about the warnings listed, please enjoy the following story or for the previous story (to which this is a soft sequel to), go to the following link: 

https://www.dailydiapers.com/board/index.php?/topic/86107-a-stuffys-tale-one-bunnys-journey-in-the-diaper-dimension-chapter-17-complete/

 

Hey everyone! Oh boy, did Con drop hit me this year, but writing this story and a few others since I got back has certainly helped. I’m not sure how often I will post this particular story, but I know that it will likely be one of the shorter ones that I have written in a while, so I’m thinking that it will likely be done before the end of this month.

Also with this story, I just want to mention that I have purposely written Dash as a bit of an enemy in this first chapter. I know that this could hurt people caring about him like they should usually do for the main character, but I also wanted to start him as lower than the dirt and then to redeem him throughout this story, hence the title. I know that while good guys can be redeemed in their own ways as well, I always find that misguided villains have much better arcs in the long run.

Lastly, I think I liked the whole concept of you all choosing the next story, but I think I want to have the concept run a bit longer this time. As such, I will likely post the ideas for the next story sooner than I did with my last story so that everyone has a chance to pitch their idea before the last chapter. So, be on the lookout for when that happens.

Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys this first chapter of my next story here!

Chapter 1: The Bottom of the Pole

The smell of burning, busted batteries and once fresh cotton and other such stuffing materials filled the air. Fluff and even electrical components lay strewn about the yard in tatters and heaps from the trajectories they had sought in their own escapes from the teeth in the heavy-set jaws still gripping onto my body. I thought I was dying.

Well, at least to the point of dying one could be being a stuffed animal or toy that is, but still. I thought I was about to slip into that mysterious nether world where all of us toys go, and it just felt wrong. I was a supreme toy for all Littles after all, ready to usher in a new age of regression and compliance, but I guess in the end I was still just a toy, and my fate would be the same as any other ratty hide of any other toy off the shelf. It was almost laughable to be on the same level as those poor excuses, but all this… all my current pain and decimation was all thanks to one single long-eared stuffy and my own poor escape attempt after I lost my duel with him and his friends. All that seemed very far away now though as I felt death cling to my feet and its icy fingers clasp around my shoulders, ready to pull me down into the awaiting and unknowing abyss, but then, I saw a shadow approach.

“Marie!” the approaching figure shouted. “It happened again! Fetch my tool kit. We’ve got another one to fix. Looks like a doozy!” The figure then approached and crouched down to wretch me away from the mangy mutt’s mouth. It was not lost on me that another dog was ripping my own dog form apart right then.

The man then surveyed me closely in both of his hands. From my limited vision, I could already see bits of my previously pristine fur nibbled and folded over in ways it clearly was not meant to. My apparent savior before me could use a shave and a new pair of glasses from this decade at least, but I also saw that his eyes were studious and kind. His touch was soft and delicate over my broken body, but I had little time to take comfort in his tender ministrations.

“Oh dear, Paul,” a woman said upon seeing my form as she rushed out of the house with a small metallic box in one hand. She then looked around the yard in disbelief as if she was viewing some bloody crime scene unfolding just beyond her own back deck. “Whadd’ya think happened to this one? Looks more resilient than the others we’ve found, but still the same outcome though. You think you can make a go at the poor fella?”

Paul sighed deeply and studied my body even more closely than he had before. “Probably one of those advertised super toys, but I guess just another one of those poor mentally regressed Littles must’ve tossed their toy in here by accident, and Buster got hold of them again.”

I felt my back paws and tail being lifted gingerly with one of his wrinkled and well-worn hands. “Hmmm… might be a bit tricky with some of these components I’m seein’, darlin’, but I think I should be able to make a go of him. The daycare could always use another one of their fluffy companions back. Might be a bit rough, but you know some of those Littles… they would hug a stuffed sock if it gave them comfort.”

‘Damn…’ I had just escaped from the daycare after my duel and it was certainly the last place I wanted to go now, but I knew I was in rough shape. If Paul could help me, even a little bit, I knew my chances would be better down the line. After all, as it stands now, walking a single block back towards some kind of safety would probably cause me to lose all my remaining fluff.

*              *              *

That butcher! Five intermittent days of torture on his workbench while I watched helplessly as my guts were taken out and retooled back in. Three outside consults over how to patch up my electronics and fur, and all he could do was just fix me up in the best way he could. I should be grateful but pardon my seeming lack of gratitude when I’m now covered in stitches and other bits of cloth and fur that doesn’t even match my original covering. Heck, even Victor, the daycare gorilla outcast, looks prettier than me now.

Now, it’s my third day at this dumpy daycare and I’ve already been rejected by three Littles because I clearly wasn’t ‘Dash, the fastest dog alive’ anymore. I knew I was internally at least, but those empty-headed droolers only cared about my appearance in comparison to the cartoon they were continually fixed to in the Canopy Room. Maybe I wasn’t the shiniest toy off the shelves anymore, but I was still Dash. Still, sensing that the room of recently acquired Littles or even unregressed Littles might have been too taxing for my current appearance, I moved on down to the Meadows Room.

Between the forest, the rolling hills, and barn in the back corner, the Littles here seemed much more my speed. I had met my first owner, Charley, when he was in this room after all, and considering I last left him in the younger Burrows room after my regression techniques, I felt I could achieve my purpose once more. There was just one big problem though.

The current toys, and especially the stuffy’s, in this daycare all hated me.

At first, I felt I could just push past all of them without worry, but I was continually being blocked as much as they could without revealing their true nature to any non-toy in the room. As such, on my third day here, I had yet to interact with a single Little for more than five minutes at a time. A knocked over book or broom would cause the room to erupt in chaos nearby and the Little I had in my sway would run about and then quickly forget about me, likely finding some brighter or shinier toy. So, finally, I decided a little change in the totem pole hierarchy around here was in order.

“I invoke the right of dominance here!” I announced as soon as the last daycare attendant had left later that night. The room, normally awash with conversations about the problems or highlights of that particular toy’s day, became eerily silent.

Each stared at me until a creak from nearby could be heard. Every toy’s head snapped back toward the rear of the room and then all parted down the middle to form an aisle of sorts directly to me. There, at the end of this new aisle, a stuffy lioness I knew was named Nadia, stepped forward. “You challenge me, Dash? Are you sure about that in your… present condition?”

I looked down and saw my stitched seems and grimaced at the notion that I could be weaker than I once was. She, amongst others, had helped Hop in his duel against me. I probably would have won if it hadn’t been for all the help that he got, but in this instance, the right of dominance for us toys was strictly a solo venture. No outside help could be offered or accepted, or the challenge would be forfeited. “I doubt you’ll have the same reservations about my condition when I defeat you. One on one, Nadia. This time, it will actually be a fair fight.”

Some of the other toys ‘oohed’ over my accusation. They had all seen the fight that day and knew what I was referring to. They had also seen my defeat, but I knew a victory tonight in this manner would assure a change in leadership and therefore policy around here. I would be the ultimate leader toy and all Littles entering the daycare doors would be regressed, just as things were intended in this world.

Nadia nodded in her usual calm ways, but these didn’t last once the challenge was initiated. In no time at all, she bared her teeth and swished her tail as she began to threateningly crouch as if she was on the hunt back in the African savannah or some such. She growled and then spoke in a low and hushed tone. “Very well, Dash. Be it on your head then…”

I followed her crouch, and we began to circle each other as the two animals we were meant to be. Her tail was longer than mine and could present a challenge if she used it properly, but I was still a super toy. My claws, teeth, and tactics were still intact at the very least. All I had to do was pop them out, and then I would clearly have the upper hand against the aged toy before me. For now, though, each of us just waited for the other to strike first.

After a minute though of just continually circling each other without any further result, my impatience was getting the better of me. I was known as Dash for a valid reason after all. Lightning moves were my style, and I knew that the elderly toy could be using this time to only improve herself and her position against me. I knew it was likely going to be now or never if I won this particular duel, so, I paused for a quick second to crouch lower, and then I flung my entire outstretched body right into her.

Mid-flight, I could see the terror in her eyes. She knew about my hidden features, seeing the damage I had done to Sgt. Luvman previously, and I suddenly felt victory was at hand. My speed was dominant over hers and I was going to now have a higher ground over her. If her reflexes were at all slow, I would win. As I neared her though, I tried to extend my teeth to sink into her neck. To my utter horror, they didn’t.

Panicking and my giant leap now grounded, I wrestled around her still-crouched form. My speed was useful, and I was able to trip her up to take the moment and try and extend my claws. Unfortunately, once again, my hidden components failed to execute.  

I could see Nadia nearly smile right then as she knew she was right, and I was wrong; I was no longer the fierce super toy I had once been. Still, I had my speed gratefully and I managed to doge several of her blows, but I couldn’t strike her back with any lasting damage that could end this fight with me as the victor. What’s more… we both knew it now.  

As such, once again, with my passing meager glances off her hide, Nadia was given time. It was time enough for her to plan and analyze. For me, I tried to get my teeth or claws to work in her stunned moments after my attacks, but all my efforts fell short. So, Nadia must have seen her chance, and this time, went on the offensive.

In seconds I had been battered to the side and lay gasping at the serious force behind her one single hit with her sturdy head right onto my flank. I knew I couldn’t endure too many more of those, but I just tried to stay confident and keep up my speed once I had gotten back up after she broke off to regain the ground that she would need in order to strike again. My few seconds of rest didn’t seem to matter though.

In mere moments, Nadia used the tactics she had clearly been thinking about, encircled me, and then used her tail as a whip of sorts to knock me over while I was still off-kilter. The duel between us was fierce, but ultimately, her previous hits had weakened my stance considerably. I was still formidable, but Nadia had the upper hand now. So, one more flick of her tail sent me sprawling to the ground and in seconds, I could feel a single paw pressing up against my back. “Give up yet?” Nadia asked, half taunting me and half clearly legitimately trying to get me to surrender. She was fierce and the victor, but she had a compassionate side about as equal endemic to her being as speed was to my own.  

Given a second to breathe for once, I weighed my options. By now, all the toys at Little Friends Daycare had gathered around us. From my time with Hop here, I knew that Nadia was the well-respected leader of everyone here. She was never officially granted the role of dominance, but it didn’t seem to matter. I also marveled at how only a few weeks ago, most of these toys were my loyal friends and fans. Now, it seemed I was the odd man out in this scenario. My mauling of Sgt. Luvman probably didn’t help matters, nor did my severe regression of the beloved Charley or my duel with Hop. If this had been any other time, I might have backed down. I would have shown a streak of dominance and strength still by even challenging her and keeping up in the first place, but now, it felt too late for that. So, I managed to wrestle myself free and then quickly lunged at Nadia once again.

This time though, she was ready for me. Without my finishing moves of teeth or claws, I could only use my speed against her. It was my only advantage, but Nadia’s advantages were far more present now in the later stages of our duel. Her patient moves and her longer tail quickly struck and sideswiped me. I missed the first, the second, and even the third of her tries this time, but the fourth… it came too swiftly for me to dodge.

It caught me off balance and unhinged two of my paws from the ground. In a second, I could see Nadia knew her victory was at hand, smiled, and then swiped at me once with her own front paw. Unbalanced already, the force of her paw sent me crumpling into the ground. Before my own mauling, I might have recovered, but this round, Nadia was on top of me in seconds and didn’t let up. I could already feel the weight of her whole form bearing down on me. “Yield, Dash. Yield now or there won’t be bits of you large enough to sew back,” she growled from above me.

I winced as I felt one of her paws press down on my chest and the other on my neck even deeper to drive her point. I knew I was defeated, and worse, everyone could see it. I had no excuses left, and blinking back at the shame I was feeling, I nodded my head. “I yield…”

Nadia quickly relented and backed away. “Good…” She then sat on her hind paws as the true leader everyone knew her to be. “I shall not exile you as is our tradition after such a challenge, but I want you to think about your new life instead. You have changed and you best get used to it, Dash. If you don’t, I have no doubt that you will soon end up on your way to the landfill. This will be your only warning…”

After her final cautioning, the rest of the toys soon departed and left my heaving mass on the floor still. I could feel my disjointed parts lock together and groan under the strain I had put them under. Functionally, I was still intact, but my fight with Nadia only showed the broken toy that I was now.

Still, I needed to fulfill my purpose. For a toy, it was what drove them, and some even suspected gave us this half life with the rest of the world. Most of us never questioned it, but to defy one’s purpose could be the end of a toy. At this point, whether I willed it or not, I had to get back out there and regress a Little.

So, the next night, I challenged another toy to a duel. She was just a meek tabby cat, and not even experienced in fighting, so I thought my odds were pretty good. This time though, I didn’t even have a chance to try and activate my teeth or claws a second time. She was simply too fast for even the likes of me and had scurried through my limbs and brought me down by tripping me up with my own limbs. So, just as before, I was once again defeated. She neither gloated nor scolded me, but just simply walked away. That loss stung, but I still felt determined. If I could lead a pack around here, I could work myself back up and then use my new posse to defeat Nadia as Hop had done with me. Then, I would be able to achieve my purpose.

So, the next night, I tried again. This time, I fought against a lamb. Small, gentle, and even known to be weak, so I thought it was a sure thing of victory. After all, I was the mighty super toy and dog, Dash. My scars didn’t take that away at least. To my ultimate shame though, the past two nights of fighting had left me weakened and desperate. The lamb, smaller and even more nimble than my own now creaking body, was able to scurry about and just let me tire myself out. Even in less time than with the tabby cat the night before, this lamb devastatingly defeated me as well. No one was watching tonight, as there were few stakes to this one, but it was pure humiliation for my own fragile ego, and I quickly slunk off into the night. Now more than ever, I felt I was the pariah of the group, the shamed… the defeated.  

It was hard to imagine it now, but when I first arrived here, I was the terror or the pride of all the toys that gathered around me. Most were either one of my followers or feared me enough to just stay out of my way. Now, even a lamb was no longer frightened of me. I could even hear the snickers and the looks of pity tossed my way as I curled up under a crib and fell asleep.

My pride stung for sure that night, but part of me was also a realist. If the fights were any indication whatsoever, I knew that I was no longer the same as I had been before Buster’s destruction to my body and old man Paul’s subsequent attempts to fix me. At the same time though, I was also a toy, so my internal drive to eventually regress a little won out and the next day I tried again to achieve this goal.

This time, however, keeping in mind the blockages that I had experienced previously in trying to connect with a Little, I found the strength within me to use my patience in order to find my subject carefully. It took time, but finally, during snack time, I saw that several of the other toys were thoroughly distracted. I had been eyeing a Little all day and I knew that now was my time to strike.

The Little in question was a timid loner and obviously in the early days of their regression process. While for some this could pose a problem, for me, I felt pretty confident in the notion that they at least wouldn’t fight back. Despite not being regressed, they almost seemed broken in their current state. I guessed they were likely a portal Little here on vacation and had gotten separated from their family. They almost always made good targets if they were already this shy and not fighting back, so they felt perfect with this new path I was on. I then crept closer and made sure not to be spotted by any of the others, Little, Big, or toy.

Just as I got close though, a new girl entered the fray and thrashed about wildly in the tightly woven arms of a daycare worker. “No! No! You can’t do this to me! I want my panties back, you stupid cow!” she cursed at Miss Mindy, who just continued to drag her out of the room.

From her clothing and lack of bulge around her pelvic region, I knew she was likely at an early stage in the regression process. Her jeans weren’t soaked so it wasn’t hard to guess that she was likely just another candidate for regression and was on a schedule rather than an incident-based regression process. I liked the incident-based regressions better as the Little would often eventually feel that diapers or whatever childish item being implemented was necessary to help them out. You don’t want wet pants? Try a diaper… That being said, I also knew that the scheduled regressions seemed to be more popular lately. After all, Bigs hated to be told what or when they could do something. Scheduled regressions were on their timetables, better for the Littles or not.

“Tsk, tsk…,” Miss Mindy chided the fighting girl still wrapped in her arms. I was frankly surprised she wasn’t getting another volunteer to help her out, but I knew from the past that Miss Mindy was strong, resilient, and independent in her work with Littles like these. “Such a shame. You were such a good girl for us since you started coming to daycare, little miss. I guess we were giving you just too much slack in the Canopy room. No worries… we know just how to handle your type…”

The girl continued to fling herself wildly about, but Miss Mindy kept up her iron grip over the flailing Little in her arms. “I want out now!” the Little continued to wail. “Wait until Nancy hears about this! She’ll have your job! Get off me know you stupid bi…!”

That was the last I heard of the violent woman as Miss Mindy finally exited the Meadows Room. That woman Little was a prime example of why my task was so important here, even beyond the need to fulfill my internal drive. Littles deserved to be regressed in order to be controlled and therefore be happy. It was in their nature to fight the system and break the rules, but that only led to punishments and cruelty from others trying to get them in line. Littles just couldn’t help themselves and with my methods, I was able to provide the path that could lead them to happier lives under the guardianship of the Bigs.

So, with my added boost in confidence in what I had to do, I turned back to the Little before me. They had briefly looked up during the incident with the thrashing about woman, but once again using my speed to my advantage, I dove out of his sight lines to maintain my toy cover. ‘Perfect… just look away for a second… come on little buddy… that’s it…’ He finally did and I took my chance. In a second, I was right by his side like I had always been there. I was very much counting on his lethargic state to not question my newly discovered presence.

“Huh?” he questioned as he looked back and saw my body perching right next to him. His chubby fingers glided along my fur and played with a few of my more obvious stitches. “You’re kinda ugly lookin’, but you wanna be my friend?” As I predicted, he neither cared nor questioned my sudden appearance by his side. He just wanted a friend above all else.

I could then feel his fingers quickly adjust themselves over my head and nod it for me. ‘Perfect… get comfortable with me. Be my friend and relax… just relax…’ In a moment when he seemed most content with my presence in his life, I turned on my subtle messaging. It wasn’t anything permanent or devastating, but it was just enough to lull the defenseless Little into complacency. Soon, the Little slacked up a bit and leaned back against the wall, half-dazed and clearly content from the little upturned corners I saw from his mouth.

‘Good… Now, just listen to my sounds…’ I turned on my pulse, just the moderate one though. If I turned on anything higher, I knew that every Little within 20 feet would likely be drooling and then messing themselves within twenty minutes for even the strongest willed of them. Using my moderate pulse would just affect my new Little and maybe the nearby one doodling in their massive coloring book.

Regardless, everything was going well. I could see the Little’s eyes gloss over and a dumb even more present smile creep over his face. My plan was working perfectly, and I felt satisfied in my work.

It then continued like that for five minutes, but in a quick turn of events, I noticed his eyes changed. Fearful in a way, but that wasn’t a problem in all honesty from my standpoint. Fear was useful and even suspected occasionally if the Little ever realized what was happening to them. It was rare but it did happen. What I didn’t count on however, was the look of revulsion in his eyes as well.

I tried to figure out what was wrong, but then I smelled something. Not fetid, sour, or even acidic like one could expect in this type of babyish environment, but almost like burning plastic. Before I could locate the source, the Little almost seemed to be snapping out of their trance. ‘Not good…’

“Oh! Woah!” Miss Tully shouted from nearby. She was a new worker and often switched between the Meadows and Burrows room, apparently in an effort to ‘ease the transition of Littles as they regressed downward.’ Her running over to us clearly panicked was a problem though.

Before I had a chance to slightly move out of the way of her hands though, I felt myself immediately being hoisted up. My Little’s trance was quickly broken as I took off my pulse and they then began to freak out almost instantly.

“Oh shoot!” Miss Tully exclaimed as I was lifted high above all the ensuing chaos. Curiously, looking back down, the area around my Little almost seemed a little foggy. “Patty! Come over here quick. We’ve got a bad toy here. Can you calm down Tyson here? I think this toy frightened him a bit.”

Mrs. Gillies nodded and ran over to comfort my previously ensnared Little. It was all so confusing, but my view quickly changed to a nearby restroom. They were few and far between here, but there were some for those Littles who still clung onto their foolish hope of maintaining their potty training. Bigs and the occasional Middle had their own, but the one facility here for them had a key to prevent Littles from using it themselves. Based off the low squatting potties and the cartoon faces emblazoned on many of the potties or sinks here, along with a few cute reminder posters, however, all let me know right away which of the restrooms we were now in. Miss Tully then set me on the countertop.

“Oh my, Dash,” she said as she inspected my rear. “Looks like you might be wearing out… makes one miss the old just fluffy toys…” I was still very confused until I quickly glanced in the mirror while Miss Tully was briefly looking away to cough. There, right before me, I could see that my back half was slightly smoking.

I wasn’t on fire or anything, but it was readily apparent to me that my electronics must have malfunctioned and started to emit the smoke. It was another notch on my devastation that occurred after my mauling. My one purpose in this life was to regress Littles. Sure, it was to love them as well, but that really only came afterward, and it was engrained in me to only resort to that protocol to get closer to my Little. Now, without the apparent ability to enact my regression software, I was feeling lost and almost without purpose. Still, a tiny part of me just hoped that it was just a onetime fluke.

Miss Tully looked back over me and waved around my rear and midsection to clear the remaining smoke. “Hmmm… seems to be all gone, but I think I better move you to a new room. Tyson and the other Littles are just a bunch of little tinkerers and can be a little handsy and push buttons they’re not supposed to. Let’s try out the Burrows room for a little bit and see if you do better there.”

‘Damn…’ I was not a fan of the Burrows room only in the fact that most of the Littles there were already regressed. My function there would be limited to finishing Littles off or just… cuddling. I shuddered to think of such a fate, but Miss Mindy was in charge of my direction for now, so I just went along with it. Soon, I entered the dimly lit, quiet, and almost serene room. I still found the whole concept of being underground here to be highly disturbing, almost like being buried alive, but I guess it worked for the brainless Littles currently occupying the several cribs already in here amongst the glowing roots and rock-like furniture.

Miss Mindy placed me on the floor and then just simply walked away. Being a little hesitant about my current state, I decided to inspect myself first and just continue on my quest tomorrow. A malfunctioning toy in here would likely only be a one-way ticket to the dump, so I wanted to check myself first for anything that I could possibly fix in case today wasn’t just a fluke.  

So, satisfied with my inspection, the next day, I tried again. The same thing happened, and while I managed to clear the smoke before a Big was alerted, I ended up spending the rest of the day cuddled tightly up against a Little with an ever-expanding diaper. Hoping today was just a case of pushing myself too far too quickly, I tried again the next day as well.

Failure. Utter failure and if I hadn’t been quicker this time, I would have likely even set off the smoke alarm in here. Fortunately, my Little was too far gone at that point to really say anything about my quick actions right in front of them. Unfortunately, instead, they just stuck my ear in their mouth as they cuddled into me like my previous Little had yesterday. If there was a personal hell for each of us toys, I was pretty sure this was going to be mine.

Today though, as opposed to my entire with one Little, I managed to sneak away and try one last ditch effort to redeem myself. It was just after naptime, and I found my next prey. He was clearly regressed in his massive one-piece footed sleeper, but he also seemed lonely in this dark room. He was probably a recent arrival and therefore a perfect subject for my regression methods and pulses. To even further my cause and confidence, I noticed that his sleeper also sported the logo from the cartoon show from which I hailed. It was the best scenario I felt I was ever going to get in this daycare, so gathering up about as much courage as I could, I ventured closer.

Being just after naptime but before the post-naptime bottle though, he was nearly fully alert, if not maybe just a smidge sleepy still. Now, his previous regression was obvious to me, so I knew that even if I wasn’t successful, he likely wouldn’t even be believed in the first place, or maybe not even remember me. At the juncture he was at, most Littles minds were very fragile and prone to fanciful stories or spotty memories. Boosted in my confidence, I pawed my way over to him.

It didn’t take long for his sleepy eyes to spot my approaching form. Now, Paul had done a number on me, and while I was still recognizable as dash, I now looked like something out of a horror flick. Stitches adorned my body at least every few inches and some of my fur was now covered in patches of ill-matching fur or just fabric patches altogether. Not necessarily frightening to anyone else, but to a Little, I was basically an undead creature coming to claim their soul. So, about as soon as he saw me, terror struck into his little beady eyes.

“Monstah! Monstah!” he called out as he pointed in my direction. I tried using my subtle messaging to get him to calm down, but every time I managed to get closer to him, he would cower and look away like I was the monster in every one of his nightmares. Finally, on my fourth attempt to get closer, I guess he managed to muster all the courage he had, picked me up with his drool-coated hands, and then threw me across the crib.

Clearly defeated, I initiated my pulse as my method of escape. He was out in seconds and as if to signal my departure, he let out a massive wet fart as he settled down amongst the fresh smoke that I had emitted afterward from my still faulty circuits.

That’s how I, drool-covered, smelling of used diapers and burnt electronics, and utterly defeated, then found myself walking away from all the Littles in the Burrows room. I spotted one empty crib on the far side of the room and trudged over to it to find some peace. The ‘monster’ was now retreating, likely for good this time.

Resigned on my journey away from all the other Littles, I felt utterly defeated and disgusting as a toy. He should have been so simple… they all should have, but I failed with each and every one of them. Now, I couldn’t deny it any longer and I truly felt like the broken husk of the once proud and majestic super dog and toy that I used to be.

Old man Paul had given me a second life after his dog had nearly mauled me to pieces, but now I was a ruin and a shadow of my former self and glory. I felt then that no Little could ever care for me or even allow me to get close to them. Further, even if one miraculously did, it was now clear to me that I could no longer truly regress them to any extent without letting off a massive, smelly, and disruptive cloud of smoke. And, if I wasn’t the regression machine I was designed to be, I felt I was no one.

So, finding an empty crib and therefore far away from any Little and the potential to set myself and everything around me on fire, I crawled underneath the piece of furniture and collapsed under my own weight of tremendous failure.

Resigned and defeated by all that I encountered, I was now that toy that hid under cribs for fear of what a Little or fellow toy may do to them. I was broken and bent in more ways than I ever could count. My thunderbolts, on either side of my hind legs, were even smashed through and only remained in place once they were stitched back together. At this point, they were now one of the few reminders that I had ever been ‘special.’

I had once taken my fanbase for granted, seeing them all as loyal followers or beings to be regressed under my special powers, but now, with the rejection of my latest Little, I feared that not even the staunchest of fans would flock to me anymore. I was once the king of all, a superhero even, but as that Little had so perfectly noted, I was now only just a ‘monster’ that all should flee from.

I could feel my practically forbidden emotions begin to surge in my chest as they never had before. After my defeat by Hop and his friends, I felt shame and it completely blotted out the pride and joy I had felt in regressing Charley before all that. Then, I felt defeat after Nadia had beaten me in my challenge for the right of domination in this daycare. Since I had first begun to smoke though, I felt a new feeling, one far more terrifying and shameful than all the others: fear.

It was peculiar to a toy like me. My character on the cartoon show was always shown to be fearless and brave, a true super dog for the ages. Even at the point of near death or defeat, that iteration of Dash still triumphed and maintained their dignity as a hero of the narrative. Now, seeing myself cowering under an empty crib, I felt I was a ruin of what I once was, and I feared for my inevitable future.

I looked over to the trash bin on the far side of the room near the changing tables. My fear was coupled with the unnerving notion that the bin I was now staring at was going to be my future home in a best-case scenario at this point. As my fears began to crawl and seep into my inner being, however, I knew it was much more likely that the dump and then the fiery furnace of doom afterward was much more likely to be my fate if I only waited long enough. I had once banished Hop to the same sticky end, and now, here I was on the precipice of sharing the same outcome. Unlike him though, I doubted I would ever return from such a grizzly destination for us toys.

It was now all blackness and sorrow for me. I had never coped with these emotions before and now, I had few defenses against them. I didn’t mean to let the thought seep in, but it did, and my mouth couldn’t help but utter those terrible words. “Maybe it would be easier for everyone if I just tossed myself to the dump now… save them the effort…”

“Easier maybe, but not a wise decision I assure you,” a voice suddenly said from behind me.

I quickly pivoted around and hunched down ready to strike whoever was behind me. To my shock though, I just saw it was the old parrot stuffed animal of the daycare, Pete. Knowing his typically pacifist nature, I eased up and looked away in shame over what he had heard me say. “What do you want?”

Pete stretched his fading but still brilliant multi-colored feathers out to stretch and blocked the dim lights of the room that managed to reach under the crib, before retracting them back in. “I’ve come to offer you a chance, Dash. Only a chance, but if you take it, you might just find what you’re looking for.”

I turned away from the aged bird and drooped my head down. I was defeated and now even Pete, my former enemy, was reaching out to me in some type of pity after hearing my self-loathing statement just now. In truth, I had never felt lower in my life. “I’m too far gone as a toy Pete. I’m more fire hazard now than anything…”

I heard Pete sigh, and I could hear him waddle up to me before placing his wing on my shoulder. “It’s never too late for a toy, Dash. Let me help you.” He then paused and gently patted my shoulder twice. “After all, hitting rock bottom is scary, but once you do, that’s when everything can truly change…”

[Guilend]

Omg that's a great start. The way you're showing how he's changing is great. And welcome back and I hope you enjoyed yourself. 

[LostBBoyBear]

Hey everyone! Welcome back to another chapter and I hope you all enjoyed the first one. As I mentioned previously, Dash is a bit rough at the beginning of this story, but every redemption requires at least a bit of a rocky start, otherwise, there would be no need for a redemption, right?

Regardless, moving on, right now this story stands at 14 chapters. It’s shorter than a few of my latest stories, but I really wanted to keep the plot concise and not draw it out more than it needed to be in order to tell this story. I have plenty of other stories in store for this year, so definitely don’t worry about a lack of storytelling coming from me.

Additionally, while this story is only a soft sequel to the previous ‘A Stuffy’s Tale: One Bunny’s Journey in the Diaper Dimension,’ I would encourage everyone to go back and reread at least the last chapter or two to get some clarity for this story. I’m going to try to write this in a way that won’t bore those of you that do, but also in a way that will at least explain some of what is going on without the need to go back and reread everything extensively. For those of you interested though, I have provided a link before the start of the first chapter.

Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys this next chapter!

Chapter 2: Turning Down or Around Completely

Pete. What could I say about Pete that hadn’t already been said a thousand times before? The parrot was rumored to be one of the oldest toys at the daycare and was a close ally of Nadia in the hierarchy of the toys here. He usually helped most of the new toys settle in and learn the rules and even find their own Littles here if they didn’t already have one. I guess I was the exception to that rule though… or I guess I was until tonight.

“That sounds like a line you give to everyone, Pete…” I said unconvinced over this new path as I turned around to face him. “Why should I even trust you? You swooped in and helped Hop out in defeating me with the others here. For all I know, I follow you and it’s a one-way path to the incinerator.”

Pete grimaced at my words. “A little harsh, but that’s fair… You were different back then though, Dash. You might still be the same distrusting and stuck-up toy you were back then, but your little incident with Buster next door has already changed you, willingly or not.” I looked at him questioningly. “Well, your personality is still about as smooth as sandpaper, but you would have never been defeated by Nadia or the others, and the Dash I knew would have never left a Little’s side until they had emptied their brains out into their diaper, smoke or not, let alone contemplate tossing themselves into the garbage to make things easier on others. It’s admittedly a darker version of you than I thought, but it’s still a change.”

His words were tough, but I couldn’t deny a single one of them. My old self would have probably outright dismissed me if they saw my current form or even demeanor. It was a tough pill to swallow, but I was even disgusted with myself now, so I knew my past self would have been even worse.

I then looked back at the kindly and awaiting Pete for me to say something back. “What would you even suggest, Pete? I can’t do anything with starting some electrical discharge, and I’ll go crazy if I can’t achieve my purpose. You know that about us toys Pete…”

Pete sighed. “I do. Blast your creators for giving you that burden to forcibly regress a Little instead of loving them, but for now, maybe just start small… work your way up and all that to see where your limits are. Are you willing to do that much at least?”

“Start small?” I asked skeptically. Small wasn’t something I did naturally. “I don’t know…”

“Well, do me a favor and before you go tossing yourself in the diaper pail, can you at least try to go small?” Pete asked, his desperation to save me now very evident. It was an odd stance coming from my possible former enemy, but at this point, I’m pretty sure we both knew that my options were pretty limited at this point.

“Okay, Pete, I can try…” I relented. “Maybe just use my subtle messaging rather than the pulses? It’s not much, but it could push some Littles and maybe even satisfy my internal drive.”

“Hmmm… I can’t say I’m a big fan of you still trying to regress the Littles around here, but maybe it will be something to keep yourself from completely losing it.” Pete sighed. “I’ve seen that happen around here before, and it’s not pretty…”

“Well, I don’t see an alternative. Do you?” I asked a little too desperately for my own liking.

“Uh…” Pete fluttered his feathered semi-fingers together and seemed to be contemplating a great burden. It quickly made me nervous. “There is one way…” I gestured with my paw for him to just spill it already after he paused yet again. “Well… you could always do what everyone else does and find a Little to connect with…”

My system became rigid, and I nearly wanted to vomit over the notion. The past few days had practically been my hell, and most of that was because I was getting cuddled by the Littles in this room. It wasn’t a fate I would ever wish for myself, and to be blunt, right now, the diaper pail seemed a better alternative. “Absolutely not.”

Pete sighed again. “I was afraid you were going to say that, but just keep it in mind. I know that you know you aren’t the same toy anymore, but you’ve got a stubborn streak a mile long. If not my way, then just try it small and your way, but just know that I’ll always be here if you change your mind.”

And with that, Pete waddled back off to the Canopy room where he spent most of his time lately. I had seen two days ago that another Little had gotten very attached to him that had just joined the daycare. Obviously in the early stages of the program here, his new Little was the active type but seemed emotionally frail as well. Pete definitely had his work cut out for him if he was going to help him and not just regress him quickly like I would have.

Regardless, the next day I awoke from under the crib and maneuvered around the Burrows room. Several Littles stayed the night in here and there was always one daycare attendant who stayed nearby to watch out after them. While the Meadow and Canopy rooms were empty and toys could roam freely, the Burrows room required a little more caution at all hours of the day. A walking, talking dog prancing about the youngest Littles room was likely a scene that wouldn’t end well if a Big caught wind of it, let alone saw it themselves.

So, I maneuvered about and out of the room to check out the rest of the daycare in the early hours. A few Littles were already here, and most were likely prime candidates for being regressed. If they were here this early, it likely meant that they were already coming from households with possibly uncaring or time crunched Bigs. It wasn’t a guarantee, but that usually meant a more emotionally vulnerable Little.

As I was walking and slinking around the hallway, I heard a sudden squeal from nearby. “I won’t eat another bite! You can’t make me!”

I peered around the corner of the open door and found Miss Mindy and the same Little that I saw her haul out of the Meadows room the other day. It was truly a shocking sight but knowing the methods of these people and even myself, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised over the Little’s appearance now. The Little had formerly been so self-assured, undiapered, and even had a bit of a potty mouth if I recall. Now, all that seemed to be gone. The Little was perfectly perched in her highchair but had been strapped in at the waist and both her hands to the tray in front of her. Her skirtalls and white stockings covered her well, but the bulge around her pelvis left little to the imagination. The bib, now coated with food, and her floppy pigtails weren’t helping her image either.

“Oh?” Miss Mindy asked a little sarcastically. “Does the big girl think I can’t get her to eat her yummy num-nums? I guess a certain little miss doesn’t remember this little device, huh?” Miss Mindy quickly popped up a small remote control.

“No…” The Little’s eyes bugged out in pure fear. The defiance could still be seen, but it was quickly being shoved back and replaced by terror over whatever was in Miss Mindy’s hand now. Curious, I leaned in a little further. “Please, Miss Mindy. Please. I… I didn’t mean it… I… I’ll be g…good for you…”

Miss Mindy only stared back at her and sighed. “I’m sorry, honey, but rules are rules. You’ve been very naughty refusing to eat and making a mess, and there are consequences for not eating your breakfast, little girl.” Almost with resigned contempt for her job, Miss Mindy then clicked the button in the center of the device she was holding.

After, I swore I could hear almost a zapping of some sort, almost like the type one would hear with power lines or tasers, but I couldn’t be sure. What I was sure of was the complete look of pain plastered into the Little strapped helplessly into the highchair and the contorted and strained positions her body now took. It was kind of odd for me, but right then, I almost felt bad for the Little. ‘Just give in… for your own sake… just give in and comply… you’ll be much happier, I promise…’

It was always a wonder to me when a Little didn’t comply with the whole regression process. I suppose it was pride and the notion of once being an ‘adult’ messing with their heads, but if they just gave into the staff, other Bigs, or even my own pulses and messaging, a Little’s life became so much more bearable. Spankings and mouth soaping’s were replaced by toys, bubble baths, and sweets of all kinds. Being regressed was just for the best, so I just never understood why they always seemed to resist it at first.

Still, I had to find another Little I could manipulate this morning, so I moved on. To my strange discomfort, the last thing I heard was the girl tearfully pleading with Miss Mindy. “Please… please, no more. I’ll be a good girl… I’ll be a good Little. Just please… no more…”

It broke my own little heart to hear such pain, but I knew two things. First, hearing her break like that, she wouldn’t be in pain for too much longer, and second, I had to move on and focus elsewhere. Other Littles were here, and they had a chance to ease better into the Little life if I did my job correctly. So, after looking for a minute or two, I finally found my subject.

Unfortunately, my subtle messaging just wasn’t powerful enough with my new stitched together façade. The Little held her sway for a minute or two, but then quickly popped out and almost seemed horrified with me. I tried again, hoping to follow Pete’s words, but it was still no use.

Giving up, I felt that I could try and lower the intensity of my pulses. They would take longer, but the changed settings could be less of a burden on my system and therefore not begin smoking. So, I went searching again and found yet another Little to test my new theory out on.

They were a brown-haired Little that looked like they were already in the throws of regression. Pete had said to start small, and to my shock and thanks, I even saw him hold a few toys back when they tried to interfere with my interaction with the Little. Still, I had to be cautious in the usual toy manner, but the Little truly seemed more fascinated with his milo juice than anything else around him. Charley had the drink once, but he complained that it tasted too much like apples and raspberries. I think it was just that particular flavor, Charley hating raspberries and all and it not being the original and more popular flavor, but his caregiver, Monica, never tried to get him to drink the stuff again.

Pleased with my luck in finding an unobservant Little, I plopped myself right beside him and even gave him a nudge in his rear after he didn’t turn for a solid minute. His rear was padded, but still not Little thick yet. I surmised the padding was instead likely just a pull-up, which gave me even further confirmation that he was perfect. Stepping down to diapers would be a good first step for me. After all, if a Little was already in pull-ups, every toy and Big knew that it was just a matter of time before they were demoted to diapers. The only ones who seemed to maintain hope of staying in pull-ups or maturing back up to underwear even were the Littles themselves. One almost felt bad for them and their dreams of maturity.

Eager, I wanted to race in and blast my moderate pulse at my new Little, but I held back and waited with my growing skill of patience. Then, my waiting paid off and the Little set his drink down to the side and finally noticed me. “Oh… who are you little fella?” I quickly felt myself being picked up and I knew this Little’s fate was sealed as long as I didn’t start smoking again.

It took a little time for me to get my bearings straight and find just the right pulse, but eventually, I had lulled my new Little into a wonderful trance on a lower setting. The innocent lad didn’t even realize that everyone else had started to arrive and were busily scurrying all around him once I really started going. A few even tried poking him, but to my relief, Mrs. Gillies got them to leave him alone.

I felt so successful. Pete was right. Subtlety was now my new course of action. Thirty minutes in, nothing was going wrong, and I relaxed. It was wonderful, but then I heard a question that wouldn’t have worried me only a few weeks ago.

“What’s that smell?” one Little in a flowing pink tutu asked as she was playing with the doll, Cassie.

“Dunno…” another Little said as they articulated the arms of Sgt. Luvman into a more combat ready stance. “Did you have a messy accident again, Lilly?”

I saw the Little shift around on the carpeted floor, and while she seemed perplexed for a moment, she ultimate shook her head, sending her blonde braids flapping about her face.

Trying not to break my trance of my own Little, I sniffed as deftly as I could, but then I began to panic as well. With horror, I realized the smell was coming from me, and it only took a second for me to realize that I was smoking once again. ‘Shit!’

I panicked and immediately shut off my pulse. This also meant that my connection with my Little was also broken, and seeing this, I leapt off him and behind a bookcase to remain hidden in my failure once again.

I cursed myself and my new body, but hidden away, I still had hope. It wasn’t much, but I had only clocked my pulse down a tiny bit from the moderate one I had used before. My timing was much longer before anyone noticed my burning smell or smoke, but I knew I had to drive it down even further. So, I tried again.

Despite my hope and my realization that subtlety was now the way to go, each time I tried using my pulse, it was another failure. The times would lengthen between when I started and when I began to smoke, but it was still occurring. Unfortunately, each time I lowered my pulse, to get the same effect I had gotten before with the Littles, I had to also increase the amount of time I was using the pulse in the first place. I just knew there had to be a happy medium place where I could still use the pulse, but as the week wore on, my doubts only began to increase in that possibility.

It likely didn’t help that the other toys noticed my failure as well. I suppose it started before now, but after my clear failure in front of Cassie and Sgt. Luvman, two staunch allies of Hop and the rest of their gang, the jabs to me only became more prominent.

After my fight with Nadia, and then my subsequent losses to her, the tabby cat, and the lamb, I had heard the whispers from the darkened corners of the daycare. Now, I was hearing them much more directly. “Oh no. Here comes our fire starter!” “Hot pants!” “Man, I was thinking you could have worked for the fire department as a backup career, but I think half their calls would just be to put out the fires you started!” “Wee-woo! Wee-woo! Watch out, walking fire hazard approaching!” “Here come smokey, the hottest hot dog around!”

In truth, they didn’t bother me at first. I felt confident that I would prove them wrong, but after each failure and each smoking, smoldering incident, their jabs struck closer and closer to my inner being. It didn’t take long until even I began to think of myself as a legitimate fire hazard. It was only by a miracle and my quick reflexes that a Big or daycare worker hadn’t noticed yet, but my fate of becoming trash began to loom ever larger on my horizon.

Finally, I was nearly at my wits end. I had nearly tried to regress every Little here that hadn’t already been claimed by a stuffy. In truth, the Littles would believe they were the selectors, and while that did happen occasionally, most of the time, the toy chose the Little. If they didn’t, even the most organized Little would often find themselves ‘losing’ their toys.

Feeling the proverbial rope begin to tighten around my neck and my looming fate though, I tried one last ditch effort to interact with some of the toys and maybe try to find some followers to help me in my regression efforts. After a few failures though, I found Victor in the hopes of a better outcome.

Now, Victor was like me in the sense he was heavily stitched and scarred after a particularly nasty incident while trying to protect his Little. He certainly wasn’t pretty, and he was a close ally of Hop, but I knew he was at least a possibility of a companion or even follower with our similarities. “Hey Victor… how’s it goi…?”

“No,” he said bluntly as he was settling down for the night.

“What do you mean ‘no’? I haven’t even asked my full question to you,” I tried to defend myself. ‘Maybe this was going to much hard than I thought…’ Still, I knew I needed to make an effort to try and boost my image up around here. “I just want to make pleasant conversation, Victor. That’s all…”

Victor scoffed. “Right… and all I want is to jauntily dance around the daycare here in a tutu by myself.”

I didn’t know Victor well enough to know if he was joking or not. We were toys after all… Littles sometimes dressed us up how they saw fit. “I don’t know… I mean, do you?”

Victor glared right back at me. “See? That just shows how little you know about me. I’d rather do anything else, Dash. So, when I say ‘no,’ it means just that,” he said bluntly. “You want some pleasant conversation, but I also know you want something more. You want to blast these Little’s minds back into oblivion. It’s your programming, sure, but it’s also your choice. This daycare might use FOY secretly to regress the Littles around here, but they do it humanely. If I were you, I would leave and find another daycare that better aligns with your… sadism.”

I was shocked, but I guess I shouldn’t have been over Victor’s reaction to me. I had tried to harm his friends several times by now and I knew that he loved Littles more than anything else in this world. His scars were testaments to just how far he would go in proving that.

Unfortunately, Victor just continued the pattern of my rejection in this daycare. Sometimes, I would find a toy to talk to, but they would always turn me away for one reason or another. Some loved Littles too much, some were too close with Hop, or some were even both, like Victor had been. I couldn’t find every toy, but after my fifteenth rejection in a row, I finally gave my renewed interactions up as merely a fool’s hope that I could ever be friends with them. So, resigned, I wandered off and pondered my current state of being.

I was now on my lowest setting for my pulses. After my third day of trying the more subtle approach, I realized that I would need to use naptimes predominantly to regress a Little given the time I needed to actually achieve any results whatsoever. It slowed my progress down considerably, possibly only testing out one Little a day now, but I knew that I needed a time longer than naptime for my lower pulse settings. Enter the Burrows room once again.

Here, my options were more limited on the Littles I could choose from for an overnight stay, the time I would need now to achieve any amount of regression at all, but they still presented me with an opportunity, no matter how slim. Of the seven Littles staying overnight today, five had already been claimed by a toy of some kind. Most Littles at this point, if they could, would likely have chosen a toy already. The two that hadn’t chosen though, only didn’t have a toy with them because they were so new to all this. It was the perfect opportunity and opening that I had been looking for.

Selecting between the two however, it became clear which I would have to select. The first I came upon was already way too regressed, this one both physically and mentally. Low amounts of hair even on their head, subtle surgery lines, blank and unfocused eyes, and massive newborn diapers poking up as clear as day through their sleeper. Knowing that stage, it was a safe bet that there was nothing left there to regress. ‘Poor Little… you were either very naughty or have at least one terrible caregiver. I’m not sure which is worse with the situation that you find yourself in now…’

Keeping my task in mind still, I then switched my focus to the other Little in the crib next to his. She was still heavily regressed, but I saw she could still hold a bottle, speak in more coherent sentences during the day when she was awake and I was observing them, and even seemed to recite her own little funny limericks to herself to pass the time when she was being fed, changed, or sleeping like she was now. In truth, seeing her like I did, I suspected she was really only in the Burrows room due to her physical, and not mental, regression.

So, tonight, I quietly crept into her crib while she was soundly snoring, an empty bottle laying right by her side and her diaper already quite heavily used. It meant that an attendant would be around here before long to change her, but in her sleepy state, I knew I could always pause my messaging and then just resume it when she had been returned to the crib at this new pulse’s setting.

Settling in, and with a hefty amount of hope, I began to use my pulse. It was nearly the lowest setting, and I quietly mourned what was essentially the loss of my other pulse settings. The highest would almost inevitably make the Little mess themselves within a minute, if that, and could have them drooling on themselves within a day. Now, I could barely notice any changes in my new Little even after a few minutes. Still, all seemed to be going well and I even drifted a little in my contentment.

Not long after though, I began to hear a shrieking coming from nearby. My eyes bolted open, but I still tried to maintain my control over my new Little just in case the shrieking Little was reacting to something other than me. So, diligent and ever watchful, I looked around to find the source of the problem. To my resignation and bottomless disappointment, I saw that they were looking directly at me. Soon, more Littles began to do the same.

Horrified at what was happening, like some nightmare I couldn’t escape, I fearfully looked back at my own body, and once again, I was smoking. It wasn’t as bad as the other times, but the acrid smell of burning electronics and the faint wisps of smoke began to dance right towards me unmistakably. My crushed soul knew… this was it… the final straw.

I was practically on my lowest pulse setting, and now, even it had failed, so therefore, I was a failure. It was total and complete now. Any lower of a pulse setting and it would take hours to achieve any kind of success at all. At that point, any disturbance would disrupt the flow and almost erase all my progress in one fell swoop. It was too much of a risk to take here at the daycare and I knew that the only time I would ever get access like that elsewhere is if another Little claimed me. By now, with all my scars and lack of abilities to sway them to love me, I felt that was a complete lost cause.

So, resigned and defeated, I thinned out my smoke, stopped my pulse, and retreated hastily from the Little’s crib. In minutes, she too was shrieking and bawling her lungs out, probably in response to my smoke, her dirty diaper, and the other Littles here, which is exactly when Miss Tully came charging in. I only just managed to slip back under the crib as she viewed the squalling Little above me.

“Oh, poor baby. Did something make you all cranky?” she cooed at her younger charge. I could then hear her sniffing about. “Hmmm… that’s an odd smell. Did someone make a stinky and their tummy just didn’t like their new mashed hot dogs, huh? I don’t know why though… those places always get their meat fresh…” She seemed to ponder the notion for a moment, but then just sighed. “Who knows? You Littles just have the most sensitive stomachs ever. No matter! Let’s just get miss cranky pants up and changed, shall we?”

I could hear Miss Tully bend over and begin to coo and shush my previous Little. Soon, her crying subsided and Miss Tully made her way over to the changing table. Sensing my open opportunity, I took it and ran out of the room, defeated and further humiliated in my complete failure as a toy.

Alone and in the dark, I wandered the hallways and thought back to just how I got here. I mean, I was a super toy after all. These types of things just didn’t happen to us, or if they did, we were often recalled, repaired, and sent back out to fulfill our purpose. For whatever reason, that just didn’t happen to me. Maybe Monica was so happy to get her precious Charley back and he was likely too content with Hop to notice my absence. I wasn’t sure, but in essence, I felt I had been erased… practically listed as already deceased in their world already…

Still though, I thought back to all my failures and even the mauling and my subsequent fixing up by old man Paul from next door… but that wasn’t right either where everything had gone wrong. Everything in my life had been going well and Charley was only days away from being a permanent and compliant Little in the Burrows room. All that was now gone though, as I had seen and yet actively avoided Charley and Hop when they still came here during some days in the week.

They were now stationed at the more permanent Oasis room down the hall for more long-term Littles here, rather than the regressing ones in the other three rooms, but I could clearly see that much of my progress had been overturned. Sure, he still clearly required diapers, was afraid of the dark, and clung onto his bunny stuffy friend Hop like he was practically a life preserver in a choppy storm, but he could toddle about and even speak without too much difficulty.

When I had last left him, he was just above the level of a newborn. Almost broken or permanently in that state with the intensity I had selected… perfect to some in this society even, but I guess not Monica or even most of the toys in here. All that, and I guess the fact that I had kind of tossed Hop out of a window and into the garbage to head to the dump, led to our duel. Sighing, I returned to the scene of the crime in the Meadows room where I finally remembered the moment where it had all gone wrong.

We were up here on the bookshelf and fighting. Nearby, to make it easier for cleanup purposes, was a direct shot to the incinerator. It required a button to open the chute down at the bottom, but for anyone with half a brain, it was only a matter of popping off the cover and pressing the button to activate the direct line to the incinerator below.

Now, I was a toy and not some highbrow scholar who knew all about psychology, purposes in life, the universe, what came next, or any such thing like that. All I knew was that I had two purposes in this life, and both were meant for regressing Littles. There was always the rumor that us toys had a natural affinity towards needing to comfort living beings as well and that was our true purpose above all else, but I had never bought into all that nonsense. Or, at least, I never yet felt the tingles other toys did toward another living being, no matter how much they cuddled, kissed, or hugged me.  

So, without purpose or drive now, I felt I was nothing but a damaged and washed-up toy. I had tried it Pete’s way and had gone slow, but all that had accomplished by now was in giving me new nicknames, scorn amongst the rest of the toys for trying to regress all the unclaimed Littles here, and just more smoke and hideous burning plastic smells. In other words, it had been a complete disaster, so for me, I felt I only had one option left.

I looked over the platform at the top of the small bookcase by the window where Dash and I had dueled, and all my plans had so quickly come undone. So, I was back here once again, finished and defeated. There was no use in denying it now, and I just felt like a waste of space. If rumors were any indication, I would go mad without fulfilling my purpose, so, dejected and seemingly an abysmal failure, I leaned over the pit below and reached out to hit the button. If my luck amounted to anything, it would all be over in seconds with a puff of smoke. I closed my eyes and touched the red button underneath its small safety enclosure.

“You know… I did say there was one more option…” Pete said from behind me.

My eyes shot open, and I turned around to face the large, old stuffed animal parrot behind me. I didn’t want to show my weakness, so I tried to lie as much as I could. “Oh, I was just… reminiscing about… the life of paper… weird, huh? Tree to pulp, to paper, to cut up scraps, to fire.” I chucked to break the palpable tension in the air. “Oh well… silly thoughts, so I just best be going.” I then quickly tried to make my escape and vowed to come back later when Pete was less observant.

But the old parrot was too quick for me. “Hold on there,” he squawked, jutting forward and then holding my right shoulder back with his wing. “I said you had another option.”

“What other option?” I shot back. “To sit around and wait for a Little to claim me while I slowly go mad or catch fire when I finally can’t take another day of them slobbering over me? Is that your third option, Pete?”

Pete looked at me wearily and shook his head. “No, but I want you to choose a Little yourself.”

It seemed the same to me, so I squinted at my would-be savior. “Pardon? I don’t think I quite heard you correctly.”

He quickly shook his head. “No. You heard me correctly,” he assured me. “I want you to pick out your own Little around here. Don’t regress them or anything, but just be with them. Experience what it’s actually like to be a toy… a loved toy.”

His last words hit me harder than I would have ever thought possible. True, I had been Charley’s toy. There was no denying that from all the time I had spent with him cuddled under blankets when watching scary movies or playing with me within this very room which now felt so long ago. Stil though, as much as I was his toy, I don’t think I could’ve considered myself his stuffy. That was Hop’s position.

Admittedly, a Little could very well have more than one, but for me, the difference between toy and stuffy was the element of love. Not forced, like my messaging had induced within Charley, but real and deep. As it stood now, Hop was Charley’s stuffy and was even helping him bounce back. The day after I let Hop fall into the garbage out our window, was the most depressed I had ever seen Charley. It was worse than when I had seen him scrape his knee or realize that he couldn’t pronounce something, or even when he realized that books were getting too difficult for him when I began to take his ability to read away. After I was gone however, I doubted I was even missed for more than a minute… if that.

“I don’t know, Pete…” My hesitation was laced heavily into my words. I was fearful yet again over this new chapter. I could be terrible at it, hate it, and then end up losing my mind anyways. It was a gigantic risk to just stop trying to regress Littles. “How could a Little ever love… this?” I gestured to my partially burnt, stitched-up, horror of a body.

Pete sighed and came over to me. Without warning, he suddenly wrapped his large wings around me. “You are a toy, maybe even a stuffy, Dash. You may not believe it, but I do. If you want, we’ll find you a Little. We’ll do it together.” He then backed up and looked at me directly in my fearful and sorrowful eyes. “What do you say? You willing to give my plan a shot now?”

His plan stood against everything that I stood and strived for so far in my life. Instead of regressing a Little, I would now be attempting to praise them and keep them from slipping further. Before, I would plunge them into their darkest moment to eventually find happiness in their regression, but now, I would be attempting to console them in their darkest moments. It was a huge step, but as I glanced back toward the incinerator, I knew the hero that I was based on was buried somewhere within me and would want me to fight and take every chance I could.

So, with a sigh of dread, but maybe one day hope, I nodded my head. “Okay, Pete. I’ll try it your way...” Pete only smiled and nodded over my acceptance down a new path towards being someone’s stuffy.

[BabySofia]

I think we can guess who he is going to end up with! Looking forward to her story!

[Guilend]

I am %100 sure who his Little will be. Thus will be a fun ride. I can't wait, the fire dog is on the hunt.

[LostBBoyBear]

Hey everyone! Hope you’re having a good week so far. I think I’m going to jump ahead a little and post the future selections for my next story along with my next chapter (chapter 4). I think this will give everyone the time needed to let me know what they think, and I might even be able to get a jumpstart on writing if the outcome seems clear before I announce my selection officially with the last chapter of this story.

Thinking ahead, the next few days might be a bit hectic, but I will try to get up the next chapter when I can. I’m trying to post at least two out of every three days for this story, but I’m not sure how possible that will be. Fingers crossed though!

Regardless, I hope everyone enjoys this next chapter!

Chapter 3: Judgment From the Fluff

Pete smiled down on me like I had seen dozens of times before when he looked at the newly arrived toys whenever and however that they came here. Most were donated, but a few had been gifted over the years from gracious Bigs with how this place was able to turn their bratty and dangerous Little into the sweet and innocent object that most wanted.

In a way I suppose I was the new toy around here. Despite me arriving some time ago as Charley’s toy along with Hop one day and then again even with my second stint here after my mauling, I had rejected everyone in this place nearly outright since then. Now, if I was reading in between the lines correctly, Pete was trying to get me to convert to their way of handling Littles around here. I might have been horrified at one time, but now, I knew I needed to find a new way out of the mess I was currently in… or at least down path that didn’t lead to the incinerator again.

“I’m very glad to hear you say that, Dash,” Pete waddled over to me and placed his large wing over my shoulder. “I know I should have come to you sooner. In my defense though, we were technically enemies at one point, and I doubt you wouldn’t have even taken my help to begin with even if I had offered it to you.”

There was a silence in the air after he finished his clear guilt trip for not checking in on me as the unofficial welcome committee here, but I also knew he spoke the truth. “You know… you’re probably right, Pete,” I tried to comfort. “I probably would have thought you were crazy or coming at me from some new angle if you had made the same proposal to me at any other time.”

“But not now?” Pete raised his head up a bit, as if a massive burden had suddenly been lifted off his mind, but he also now just seemed curious as to what I was meaning.  

I shook my head. “No, not now… See, I’ve seen you, Pete. You’ve been trying to help me out since we first talked when I was first in the Burrows room. Maybe even before that night but I definitely noticed you after our discussion and my dismissal of your secondary offer. You could be playing a very long game right now and eventually trick me, but I just don’t think that’s you. Am I wrong?”

Pete shook his head and then smiled in that almost all-knowing kind of way that I always hated, but now slightly admired and wanted to see. After all, a little knowledge and a helping hand was just what I needed right then in my current predicament. “I’m very glad to hear that. It means you have a little trust in me now. It might not be much, but it’s progress.”

I wasn’t sure if I would go that far to say I wholeheartedly trusted the old parrot, but I was getting the distinct opinion that Pete was placing at least more of his trust in me. It was only one aged stuffy in this whole place of maybe around 100 toys, though more if you counted every toy in every room, but it was still a start. Also, considering I was just about to drop myself in to a permanent fiery solution, my luck already felt like it could be shifting around.

Pete seemed contemplative afterward, but still remained silent, so finally, I had to pipe up to see what was going on. “So… uh, what’s first in this new plan of yours to help me out and save me as well?”

Pete sighed. “Well… I’ve just been thinking about that. Your situation is very unique amongst us toys around here. Most, especially the more downtrodden toys, just get accepted automatically, or…” He quickly shook his head. “Most with your background are welcomed in automatically… doubly if you’re stitched up like you are.”

When Pete essentially referred to me as one of the ‘downtrodden toys,’ my heart sank. I knew he spoke the truth, but at the same time, it was a bitter pill to swallow from the standpoint of who I used to be. Further, I had once even poked fun at the so called ‘downtrodden toys’ myself when I first arrived here. Seeing my currently tarnished self, Pete’s correct assessment of who I now was burned into me with tremendous fury. Plus, the karma of being one myself now when I had made fun of them in the past was not lost on me.

“It’s going to be very tricky,” Pete continued, “but I think with a little effort and maybe even a handful of apologies from you…. I think we might just be able to work it all out with everyone else as well.” Pete then paused and guiltily rubbed the back of head with his feathered fingers. “First step though… we need to appeal to the council here.”

Terror and doubt over all this soon entered my mind without a moment’s hesitation. If my suspicions were correct, seeking approval from the council would have been nearly an impossible task. In essence, we would be dead in the water before we had even started if my suspicions were even remotely correct. “You mean…?”

Pete nodded. “Yes… the council here led by Nadia, with her subordinates Cassie, Victor, and Sgt. Luvman now. I’m normally on the council as well to break a tie for the major decisions around here, but if I’m representing you in this case, that won’t be possible this time.”

The news just kept growing darker around my future here, but I knew Pete had a vested interest in my survival now. From his own statements, I still don’t think he thought very highly of me but considering my alternatives in this place or the incinerator, I knew I had to take a leap of faith now. “Lead on then…” Pete only nodded and then led me away to await my fate here.

It took some time that night for Pete to gather the council and set everything up, but he insisted on me starting my new journey right away. I felt he was still worried that if it didn’t happen tonight, I would still try to toss myself down the incinerator chute. He was at least partially correct in that I was thinking of that earlier, but I figured I owed it to just about everything else in my existence to give his method a try at least. Finally, though, I was shaken out of my thoughts as I was called forward into the Canopy room.

I had never really spent much time in here, primarily focusing on Charley when he was already in the Meadows room, and while I had seen it before, the looming canopy’s overhead and the seemingly more ‘mature’ ambience in here, began to unnerve me just a little bit. The illuminated, by a handful of nearby nightlights, council before me of all my former enemies didn’t help my nerves either.

“Stop right there!” Sgt. Luvman shouted down to me, his perch on several books granting him the perfect opportunity to look down on me. Considering that my formerly working teeth and claws had nearly severed him in half when he intervened in the duel between Hop and I, I knew he was likely going to be my biggest challenger tonight. I felt doom quickly envelop over my current standing.

That being said, I then noticed Nadia looking somewhat scornfully at ‘Sarge’ from her own perch high above the others. After my failure at the right of dominance, she was now the unquestioned leader around here, and her scornful look gave me just the smallest hint of the possibility of hope. “We are here tonight in this room to determine the fate of the toy before us, Dash.”

Pete stepped up from just behind me. “Thank you, Nadia. I called you all here tonight to allow our fellow toy, Dash, to join our society and all that entails in this daycare.”

“Impossible!” Sgt. Luvman belted out right at the moment Pete stopped his introduction.

“Elliot!” Cassie admonished her love. The two had grown much closer in recent weeks, and to the dismay of the grizzled and toughened ‘Sarge,’ she had mostly been calling him by his first name now. “We need to at least hear Pete out. Just give him a chance at the very least…”

“I agree,” Victor then noted to my surprise. “Dash may be the worst toy we’ve ever seen enter these premises, but he’s still just a toy.”

“Toys can be dangerous though…” Nadia mused. “What if this is just a ploy for Dash to attempt to regress more individuals? How can we trust someone like him?” To my dismay, her words seemed to strike at the heart of each of the council members.

In seconds, I felt that it wasn’t looking good for me. Due to my past, I felt the former sympathy of the council quickly evaporate, but I then realized a singular truth. I didn’t want to play this card, but realizing I likely had little other choice, I tapped on Pete’s shoulder. Curious, he leaned back to better hear me. “Pete,” I whispered, “what if I agreed to not regress any other Littles?”

Pete’s eyes bulged out and he quickly seemed flustered, but still managed to turn back to the council. “Will the council grant me a little time to confer with Dash? Please?”

The council grumbled a little, but Nadia just nodded.

Satisfied, Pete immediately switched his focus back to me. “I don’t even think that would be possible, Dash. Won’t you lose your mind or whatnot if you defy your purpose outright? Isn’t that why you were contemplating the incinerator in the first place?”

I sighed and I knew I had to make the hard move here. To me, while I still had the internal drive to regress a Little, I knew deep down that unless I was ever properly repaired, my days of regressing Littles were over. I could still use my subtle messaging system, but my pulses were effectively useless, or at least useless unless I also wanted the concurrent ability to start an electrical fire. I wasn’t scornfully called ‘hot dog’ in the hallways around here just for the fun of it…

“I don’t know…” I then answered as truthfully as I could. “I just don’t see another way though. I can’t use my pulses anymore without them smoking up, so maybe I could agree not to use them…? I just feel I’m walking on thin ice here, Pete.”

Pete pondered the whole notion for a while, but then seemed like he had reached some sort of conclusion. Before he could confer it back to me though, Nadia impatiently spoke back up. “We’re waiting, Pete. You’ve convened this council in the middle of the night, and we don’t like our time being wasted…”

Pete quickly nodded. “I understand, and I thank you all for your patience, but I just need one more minute… just one…”

The council quickly whispered amongst themselves, but after a little bit, they all stopped, and Nadia nodded. “Very well… but you only have one minute. One minute, Pete. Not a second more.”

“Thank you.” Pete then switched back to me. “We don’t have much time, but just tell me ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to my proposal, okay?” I nodded in nervous anticipation, and he then proceeded to whisper it in my ear.

I was nearly flabbergasted over his suggestion. If it was approved, it would completely remove any say I had over a function of my body whatsoever, but at the same time I knew I also had to weigh my options. I could see the dour look of each member of the council, and I knew that I might have only had the support of Cassie if they rendered their decision with the facts and feelings they had now. Pete’s proposal, however, could swing the other members in my favor. It was a hard call to make on the spot like that, but finally, I nodded.

With a weary smile, likely knowing what this meant for me and just toys in general if it were to happen to them, Pete then turned back around to face the council. “Members of the council… we have an offer to make if it would ease your fears about Dash here.”

“Go on, Pete,” Victor coaxed after edging to the front of his companion stuffed banana. It was lifeless, but it still made an excellent sleeping mate in general to the scarred gorilla.

“Thank you, Victor.” Pete then sighed heavily, and I knew he hated his own proposal as well.  Still, we both knew it could be just the thing to save me and my future here, so, he continued. “Upon his agreement and initial suggestion, we believe that many of you hold reservations regarding Dash’s past and current affinity to regress the Littles that we hold so dear at this daycare. As such, my proposal is twofold.”

“Twofold?” Cassie asked, a little hesitancy coming through clearly in her voice. I wondered why, but I could see now that at least the rest of the jury seemed interested in the case now, or at least no longer upset as they once were. Even Sgt. Luvman was now taking a keener interest in what Pete had to say.

“Yes, Cassie. My first proposal is that Dash be given the opportunity to bond with a Little.” The council quickly became agitated, and from his ruffled feathers, I knew that Pete was sensing the hostility as well, so he rapidly continued. “Second, and more important for you all I suspect, Dash will remove the battery and microchip that gives him the ability of his regression pulses.”

The jury immediately settled back, and to my shock, most seemed confused or even mournful of this decision. I guess I shouldn’t have been though. We were all toys after all, and in a real sense, losing a massive ability like that for me might have almost been seen as the equivalent of a toy losing their tail or even arm. It was a big deal, but from their faces, I could see Pete was winning them over.

“And Dash actually agreed to this?” Sgt. Luvman then questioned skeptically. I couldn’t blame him for his continued doubt, but I was just glad that Pete was answering instead of me.

“Yes,” Pete responded. “He wanted to get rid of his ability, and my proposal would allow that while also removing the possibility of you all going by his word alone. It would be enough for me, but I suppose I’m more of the forgiving type.”

I could see each of their hurt expressions and they knew his last comment was directed at all of them for their previous shunning of me. I didn’t blame them, but their actions and emotions had been evident to me since the start of my second time here at the daycare in making me feel like an outcast. Now, I just wondered how much each of them would change their minds about me if I was allowed to venture down this new path that Pete was setting out for me.

Finally, though, Nadia stepped forward once again. “We will need some time to consider this, like just a little longer tonight, but I would appreciate some privacy as we do…”

Pete nodded. “Of course…” Understanding what they wanted, he then led me out of the room, and I immediately saw that we had drawn a crowd of sorts. The toys that had jeered at me, called me names, or who even tried to foil me when I was interacting with other Littles, were now huddled around each other, and looking at me once more. Now though, I still felt shunned by everyone, but I also felt a confused or even respected sense amongst them.

“They’re staring…” I whispered to Pete.

Pete looked up from his own internal thoughts and saw the toys gathered around us on the shelves and various other areas of the Canopy room. “Hmmm… so they are. That’s interesting…”

I blinked at my defender in all this. Admittedly, he knew more about all these toys than I did, but that still didn’t help ease my mind any. “That’s all you have to say? Nothing else… at all?”

Pete shrugged. “Well, until the decision comes down, I could make the offer for you to go and talk to some, but just keep in mind that most might reject you still. Plus, and I’m not saying this will be their verdict, but if they bar you from interacting with a Little, all that effort could be moot anyways.”

I hadn’t thought of all that. I was so focused on just following Pete’s plan and my giving up of my pulses that I hadn’t even thought of how everyone else would feel about my return. It was one thing to win over the council, but I had a feeling that it was an entirely different matter in trying to cajole the rest of the toys here over to my side. Still, I had to give it a shot. “I’m willing to be rejected, Pete. I’m at least willing if you are as well…”

Pete grasped his head, huffed, and then just shrugged his feathers. Ultimate though, he nodded over my willingness to reach out to my fellow toys. “If you say so…”

For the next thirty minutes or so, we wandered around and began to try talking to the toys that managed to climb down from the shelves. Many were still up high and there were several that seemed dead set on sticking to the treehouse portion of the room in the corner, but I was encouraged by the amount that did come down at least. Or I was until they actually started to talk to me, that is.

In minutes, it sadly became clear however, that most just wanted to tell me off for the terrible things I had done or way trying to do to the Littles around here. I noticed that many of the ones who began to talk to me also seemed to be a larger fan of Hop as well. After meeting at least thirty rejecting toys, I knew that even if the council allowed me to stay and interact with Littles, my recovery from my past actions would be a long road with some of the toys here. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was hoping to find at least one toy that I could call a friend.

Finally, though, Pete turned to me after yet another rejection. “I’m sorry, Dash. I just think there are too many that got burned by you… maybe not even directly, but your regressions of the Littles here and hurting Hop and a few of the others did a number on your reputation. Also, I don’t think your fight with Nadia helped any.”

“But I lost that!” I tried to defend, though admittedly missing the point that Pete was trying to make.

“True,” Pete continued, “but you also tried to take over her role with some questionable methods. I mean, you know… toys are pretty smart, and they can guess your moves sometimes before you make them because they may have done the same in your position. So, in your fight with her, let me ask you this… would you have used your claws, or even your teeth on her?” I bent my head down in shame knowing that was in fact my plan in dealing with her.

Pete nodded in satisfaction. “That’s what I thought. I don’t blame you for that but then again, I feel pretty safe in saying that I’m a unique specimen around here. I’ve learned to forgive a little quicker than most others around here. For them, it’s just going to take some time.”

His words hung in the air for a little bit, but then, I knew I needed to do something before I forgot. “You know… I just want to thank you for what you’ve done, Pete… I wouldn’t… well, you know about where I would without you, but I just wanted to at least to say thank you to you…” No words needed to be exchanged after that and Pete just nodded back as his only reply. I knew he didn’t do all this for thanks and that I didn’t have to say it, but for some growing but unknown reason inside of me, it would have just felt wrong afterwards if I hadn’t.

Time then ticked by slowly and Pete and I had seemingly given up our hunt for a new friend or even just an ally in this place. The council was still debating far off and occasionally we would hear a shout of some kind, but we still couldn’t make out what they were saying directly.

Then, in my boredom and maybe even desperation, I thought I saw a few toys huddled around each other in one of the far dark corners of the room. I hadn’t noticed them before, but knowing the secondhand nature of the toys here, I wondered if they were secluding themselves on purpose. “Pete?” He stared back at me. “Who are those toys over there?” I asked, gesturing with my paw towards the group of them on the other side of the room.

“Oh…” Pete said, suddenly a little sad. “Them…” He then scratched his head for a moment and seemed very hesitant to reveal who they were. “They, uh… they’re the forgotten toys…”

“Forgotten toys?” In all my time here, I had never seen or had even heard about them. ‘Forgotten’ indeed. Their mystery and sadness just made me more curious though.

“Yes, Dash,” Pete reconfirmed. “The forgotten toys are simply that. They’ve been here a while but have never really been played with by a Little. To be honest, for most of them, it’s by choice… abused, hurt, or just thrown away ‘accidentally.’ Keeping that in mind though, I wouldn’t associate with them if I was you…”

Part of me wanted to heed Pete’s words, but there was another part of me that oddly found something relatable however with their group. We had two very different reasons why we were outcasts now, but in essence, we shared something similar. As such, to me at least, it was worth trying to consider all the poor outcomes we had so far. So, ignoring Pete’s words, I walked over to them anyways.

Upon seeing me, most inched away further into the darkness. A few stayed though… one a little more than the others. “Hey… don’t want hurt you all or anything, but I’m Dash…”

It took a little bit, but that one finally stepped a little more into the already dim lighting. “Hello, Dash. I… I’m Carmen…” She then extended her hand out.

I was hesitant to take it at first, but I eventually did. See, Carmen was almost exactly like me in the fact that at one time she was likely a beautiful and soft Hippo. Now though, scars and patches littered her body even more than mine. In a way, it almost made her cuter for some reason, but I’m not sure if that was just my sympathy for her coming through over anything else though. Still, to me, it didn’t matter. I just wanted to keep talking to another toy. “Good to meet you, Carmen.”

I then looked behind her at the few others that were there, and she quickly noticed. “Don’t mind them. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, but toys aren’t always ‘handled with care.’ A lot of us have been through the ringer and it doesn’t take long for that to catch up with us.

Remembering back to my own experience from not even a few hours ago, I pretty much knew what she was referring to. “Yeah… I used to be all sleek and smooth, but a few bad turns, and…”

“Oh, we already know all about you, Dash,” Carmen said bluntly, cutting me off midsentence. “I don’t think there’s a toy in this whole place who doesn’t know your entire life story by now.”

“Oh…” Them knowing about my past didn’t bode well for me. Or so I thought…

To my shock, Carmen only smiled. “it’s okay, Dash. We’re not here to judge. Well, they might be…” She then gestured over to some of the toys that had only retreated further into the shadows when I came over. “A few find it hard to imagine what you do with the regressing the Littles and all, but I know Bigs, and I know toys. Combine the two against a Little and there’s no telling what comes out the other end. Considering that you went before the council tonight… and then offered yourself up like that… I would say that you’ve changed a little, huh?”

I quickly nodded, but I was more distracted by the figure waddling up from behind her and out of the shadows again.

“Took a lot of guts for you to come out like that, giving up your pulse as tribute and all,” the partially threadbare kangaroo noted, still slightly hiding behind Carmen.

“He’s right, Dash,” Carmen agreed. She then gestured behind her. “This is Tops by the way.” Tops then waved at me and came a little more into the light.

“Hey… sorry about the hiding and all. Our group doesn’t get a lot of visitors and it’s pretty rare anyone ever leaves.”

Carmen nodded. “Take it from Tops here. He’s one of the older toys around here and knows just about all there is to being part of our group.”

“Yep. Was even here when Victor joined us years ago,” Top continued.

“Wait,” I said, holding one of my paws up. “Victor was part of your group, yet now he’s on the council?”

Carmen nodded. “That’s right. If it wasn’t for Hops, I doubt Victor would have ever left our group, let alone spoken to really more than a few toys outside of it. He’s almost kind of like out inspiration by now.”

I was happy for them, but… ‘Ugh! Hops…’ I felt I was always in competition with my old bunny enemy, but I knew I had to forge my own path here. Maybe one day we could reunite as friends, but based on today with the reaction from a council who was supposed to be welcoming towards new toys, I felt that destination was still a long way off between the two of us.

Still, it was nice to talk to other stuffed animals around here without being waved off, made fun of, or had just been completely ignored by. At the same time, while Tops and Carmen were wonderful in their own right, I couldn’t help but notice one more shadowy figure behind both of them. By now, the others had gone off and a few were even sleeping given the late hour of the council meeting and all, but that single figure had stayed.

Trying to get a better look at them, I guess I was quickly noticed by Carmen. As if to confirm, she turned around and saw that I was staring at the figure right behind her shrouded in the shadows. “If you were wondering, that’s Poodee…”

“Poodee?” I asked, questioning the name. I knew our names could be any words ever spoken, meaningful or not, but this new name just puzzled me. It was neither the babblings of a newborn, as some unfortunate toys were like ‘Baa,’ but it wasn’t as straightforward as most of the names around here.

Tops nodded. “Her former owner said it to label her while they were regressing still. No one really knows her whole story, but I think it’s safe to assume that it’s just bad all over. Best not to ask if you ask me, but if you were wondering, her name was chosen because she’s a poodle, but the name ‘Poodee’ was all her Little could make out at the time.”

“Oh…” I should have realized it was something along those lines, but I was so used to one extreme or the other and not something in between for a toy to be labeled with. I mean, ‘Baa’ was short and all and not really even a word, but the sheep apparently liked the name a lot himself. Still, my curiosity peaked over this still shadowy figure. “Can she come out maybe?”

Tops and Carmen looked back, and I almost saw a shaking of sorts from where the figure was. Both then almost immediately turned back to me, and Carmen shook her head. “Sorry, Dash. She’s curious about you, but she’s very shy as well. Maybe another day?”

I nodded. “That’s okay, and honestly no hard feelings. I’m just trying to show people that I’m not a threat. Only trying to make a few friends I guess, you know?”

Both nodded their heads. “As part of this little forgotten group,” Tops began, “you don’t need to justify your actions to us. Heck, if singing and performing a mambo number in front of the entire daycare would give me connections with the rest of the toys or the Littles here, I would do it.”

With Victor having left and both these toys seemingly so open and kind, I wondered why in fact they were part of this group still. Surely there had to be some hope for them. “So why…”

A semi-loud horn then went off. It was just loud enough that everyone seemed to freeze or bolt awake, but not enough to the point where the night attendant when be alerted to our true presence. In fact, after we said our goodbyes to each other and I walked back over to the council area to hear their verdict, I even saw the elaborate system of alerts in place to ensure we would never be caught by a living being accidentally.

I quickly rejoined Pete and I couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t want me to talk to the others, but soon, the council reappeared before us. I quickly felt the fear bubbling back up inside of me. I knew now was the moment where I would be thrust on a new path, or if I would just be sent back to either be a forgotten toy or simply furnace fuel.

After a moment, regardless of whether I was ready or not, Pete stepped forward and looked towards the council. “Has this council reached a verdict?”

Victor nodded. “We have.”

I gulped, but at the same time, I noticed that Sgt. Luvman was fuming a little bit. I dared not get my hopes up but considering his objections before my offer during the previous meeting, I was starting to feel just a tiny ray of hope in their decision.

Nadia then stepped forward. “We the council know our decision holds much weight for many of the toys in here. I will announce our verdict, but I would also like to speak afterwards, so please, hold your anger or celebrations until after I have finished.” I saw several people nod wordlessly as she gave them a moment to process what she had just said. “Now, we the council… will in fact grant Dash the access to a Little.”

In moments, the room was filled with several boos and even a few claps to my relief, but a quick look by Nadia eerily silenced every single one of them. “Thank you. Now, as our decision goes, we are going to give Dash a week to accomplish this task. If by the end of the week, no Little can be found, we will deem him a lost cause and will render a further verdict at that time.” Nadia then gestured over to Cassie.

“Uh, I just wanted to say that our decision wasn’t easy…” I quickly felt that the council was using her easy and amicable nature to soothe some of the perturbed toys in the room. “The council would have likely voted that Dash be barred from any Little contact here ever again, but his decision to give up his pulse ability swung many of our votes. The decision was not unanimous, but as toys in daycare, we feel that second chances must be allowed, if at least supervised in this case, in order for every toy to find their purpose and happiness.”

Cassie sat down and Victor stood up before quickly staring directly at me. “As the final member of this council to vote for you, I just want to say something directly to you. First, do not squander this opportunity as it should be considered a privilege for you on this new journey of yours. Second though, we ask that you be open to the possibility of this new path. Whether tonight was some ploy by you or not, we the council and at least me personally, want you to avail yourself of what is being offered to you. Every stuffy or toy should find their Little as well as their happiness. Now, that includes you as well…”

Victor then sat down, and Nadia stepped forward. “We want to thank you, Pete, and the rest of you toys for attending this council meeting. We are now adjourned and suggest everyone get some shut eye. Tomorrow will be here before we know it.”

With that, the council members departed and their set up was quickly dismantled. Pete patted me on the shoulder and escorted me out of the room. For now, I was to remain in the Burrows room, but even though I was going back to my old sleeping place and would be alone at night, I now felt I had at least a purpose and a path forward here now.

Right as we got to the door, Pete stopped. “I’m going to leave you here now, Dash, but while you drift off tonight, I really hope you consider the council’s words. This really is a rare opportunity for someone like you to partake on. Wrap yourself up in it… find your Little even, but just embrace it all. Do that for me at least, okay?”

I nodded. “Thank you, Pete. I’ll do my best…”

Pete smiled. “Good. Now, I’ll leave you here, but I’ll be back tomorrow to escort you to your little procedure before the arrival of all the Littles. We’ll start you slow in all likelihood, but just take it all in. After all, tomorrow could be the first day of the rest of your life.”

With that we then both said goodnight to each other, and I went back into the Burrows room to crawl under one of the cribs again. I was lonely, but I was happy that tomorrow was at least happening. I had no idea what to expect tomorrow as my eyes began to droop closed, but considering what I was even thinking of doing earlier in the night alone, I felt that tomorrow would undoubtedly be better. As I drifted off, however, I knew though that only time would tell.

[Guilend]

I didn't see that coming. Cutting apart of himself out wasn't even on the short list of what I thought would happen.

I bet some of the forgotten toys are there because their owner used them to get their sexual needs taken care of or they've seen Bugs do things with each other lol

[LostBBoyBear]

Hey everyone! Looking ahead at my schedule, there is no way I’ll have another chapter up tomorrow at this point. With St. Patrick’s Day celebrations this year, I might be able to write a bunch, but I don’t think editing would be my best bet. That being said, another chapter should be up Sunday.

Next, as noted previously, I wanted to post the ideas for the next story on here sooner rather than later to give more people the opportunity to pitch in for what story they want to see next from me. I will be using the same stories I pitched from last time that weren’t chosen, but I have chosen not to include the third installment of the ‘CON’ series in these options. I’m working hard on it to keep it fresh in my mind, but I want a little more time between the stories.

For now, and your future reading pleasure, though, here are the ideas:

Age Regression Story

For a yet to be named story, follow Peter as he deals with a world and a life that has been infected with the age regression virus. Coming off the heels of a terrorist attack, grapple with Peter as he tries to cope with his descending age and the realities that come along with it. Only time will tell if he bounces above or below the age where one begins to lose themselves truly to the whims of their new and younger body.

Bethany

Set as a semi-sequel to The Opening, follow former drug runner, Bethany, as she strives to find herself a better life that has been promised in the newly discovered dimension, tentatively called, ‘The Amazon Dimension,’ though some have begun calling it another name due to the ever-increasing rumors of something awaiting all portal Littles on the other side. Join Bethany as she looks to turn her life around there and maybe even find a redemption of sorts and something else in the most unexpected of ways. Watch out though, in this new world, new and even greater dangers than the ones she left lurk around every corner.

Tell Me More Sequel

With this shorter story, continue with Dr. Trisha Mengell from Tell Me More as she dives further into the lives of her patients following the FOY incident over a year ago now. All seems as well as can be with her various Little patients until she notices a frightening pattern begins to develop over time during each session. While it could be nothing and just a fluke in the city or her patient’s mind’s turning softer and more imaginative, follow the good doctor as she explores the truth behind what she might suspect within the very system that she herself is a part of.

Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys this next chapter!

Chapter 4: First and Smashed

The next morning came as swiftly as a tornado of fate that had just arrived in my life. I met Pete just as he had promised, and without any clue to where I was going after, he then guided me to the back room. The sun had barely begun to peek into the windows lining one side of the hallway here, but we still had to be careful. Mrs. Gillies was still on her night shift, and while she rarely took over that role, she was about twice as thorough as most of the other staff. From how the other toys were acting last night, it was just about a miracle that she hadn’t walked in on us during the council deliberations.

Regardless, Pete then led me to a room that I had never been in before. From my quick glance around at all the power tools, various supplies, and equipment needed to keep this place running, I knew it had to be the maintenance room. Before I had a chance to speak up about what we were doing here, a single spider toy hopped down off the towering nearby workbench.

They were an odd combination of both fluff, like Pete and I were, and plastic. Despite the oddity though, it seemed to do the spider before us very well as he stretched his limbs all around in a dizzying display when he landed. “Evening, Pete. Is this here my morning appointment from the council meeting last night?”

Pete nodded. “It is, Sam.” He then turned to me. “Dash, this is Sam… Sam the spider. He’s our operations and maintenance man around here. He knows just about every toy schematic out there and we try to lean on him as much as possible to fix us when we’re broken… that way, it’s much less likely we’ll be thrown in the garbage that way.”

“Oh… I see…” I looked back at the black and even slightly fuzzy, or maybe even hairy, spider before me. I didn’t have a phobia of them or anything, and I knew he was just another toy like me, but I couldn’t help but get the creeps over watching each of his limbs articulate about the place. “Hey, Sam… I uh, I guess we just need to get this over with, huh?”

Sam promptly nodded and his eight legs bent slightly downward as he did so. “Precisely. Now just turn over and I’ll be done in a jiffy.”

I tremendously hesitated at his request, thinking all this was going to be more official… or at least more sterile when I had first agreed to it. After a little encouragement from Pete though, I finally did as Sam had requested.

“Perfect!” Sam shouted before I then heard a loud series of bangs, clangs, and items being dragged on the floor.

I could only really see the crack of the door and the expanding rays of light from the morning begin to creep in, but the sounds going on behind me and I suppose even directly with my behind, were enough for me to be nervous as it was. “Geez! It’s just two things you’re removing from me, right?” I asked, feeling mighty uncomfortable as Sam dug into my back and popped me open like one would a turkey.

“Just stay still for me, Dash, but to answer your question, yes,” Sam replied as another grinding noise could be heard, this one far closer and more uncomfortable. “You newer toys are just a whole bunch of parts in here that are designed to squish and squeeze, but then that old man Paul and his dog Buster really messed you up inside. If I’m not careful, you could lose a lot more than just the ability of your pulses. I’m talikin’ the ability to walk at all with all the gunk that could wrong.”

With that final statement, I made sure to tightly shut my mouth for fear of screwing Sam up as he worked on me. I knew Pete’s plan was better than anything I had, but right then, I wondered just how much I would have to endure until I ‘came out on the other side.’

“There!” Sam said exhaustedly after another ten minutes or so. “Got the little sucker that’s the root of all your pulses.”

“That’s what you’ve been going for?” I asked in haste. My back continually felt like it was being ripped apart and put back together again. It was pure agony, but I held onto the notion that after this, it would all be over. With his last statement, I wasn’t so sure anymore.

Sam chuckled back. “Oh heavens, no, Dash. I got your battery pack out in the first minute I was looking back here. The microchip was the real challenge. That’s why I couldn’t have you moving around… too many possibilities for making a mistake on my part. And I’m not a spider who makes mistakes.” He then leaned forward and thrusted out one of his many legs… or maybe arms? I wasn’t sure, but regardless, I soon saw the tiny component no bigger than about half the size of just one of my still useless and malfunctioning claws.

“That’s it?” I asked as Sam retracted the part back to where he was operating on me.

“That’s it. Now just hold still and… there!” In seconds, I almost felt like I was being zipped back up into my own skin. It was a very peculiar and unnerving feeling, but oddly, after, I felt much better. More… for lack of a better word, complete than I had since I had woken up this morning. “Now then, just make sure you can get up for me and can still move around.”

I nodded and slowly got to my feet. I felt a little unsteady as I did so, but by now, I thought it was just my nerves more than his tinkering. “Feels okay… little wobbly, but I think that should pass…” I then turned back around to face Pete and Sam, who were now both grinning at me.

“Looks good to me,” Pete noted after seeing me spin around.

Sam used one of his appendages to stroke his chin. “Hmmm… I think your motor controls are fine. I didn’t really go near them, but never hurts just to see. How about your pulses? Can you test them out for me before you head out?”

I was immediately confused. “Wait… I thought you just removed my ability to do enable them? Am I wrong? Was all this for something else instead?”

Sam shook his head. “Not at all, Dash, but I closed your circuits after removing your batteries and the microchip. I want to be sure you can’t use your pulses, and just in case if you do accidentally, you won’t start a fire.”

“Oh… I guess here goes nothing then.” I concentrated and tried to access my units to activate my pulses about as hard as I could. I was nearly convinced I was about to blow a circuit just then, but after about a minute and to my relief, nothing happened. Sam and Pete quickly looked relieved themselves.

“Perfect!” Sam exuded happily. “No smoke or anything like that I can see, and from your expression, I doubt your pulses worked either.” I nodded my head to confirm his suspicions. “Excellent. Pete then picked up a singular bag of what I could clearly tell were my batteries and the microchip.

“Wait. What are you doing with those?” I asked, gesturing to the bag Sam was holding and now walking away with.  

“Oh, these? Did no one tell you?” Sam looked at Pete who then shook his head. “Oh… well in that case, these are going into our storage area. All sealed off in a place only we can really get to, but it houses spare parts or items like these,” he said, holding the bag up with my parts in it. “Just in case, we can always add them back if we need to. Just never know about these things, but for now, don’t worry about them, and I’ll need to see you in about a week for a follow-up.” With that, Sam then jumped into a hole I had just noticed behind a nearby red and slightly rusting toolbox. The tile next to it then soon slid over and covered up any evidence that Sam was ever there.

“Well,” Pete finally said, “how do you feel? Think of maybe tagging in today? Give the Littles here a shot at what you’ve got to offer them?”

I was still very hesitant to be around Littles and to even enact any part of Pete’s plan though. I knew it was my best alternative, but I didn’t want to just be tossed into the proverbial deep end of Littles daycare right away, so I shook my head. “Maybe just observe for now, like you suggested yesterday?”

Pete nodded. “Sounds perfect. Just wanted to make sure of that but let me find you a good perch before everyone else scrambles into place. You can stay there until recess or naptime, and we can figure out our next moves from there, okay?” I nodded and soon, Pete led me off into the Meadows room.

It was determined that the Meadows room was a good neutral zone to find new Littles and to observe their interactions with others. The Canopy room was likely filled with too abusive or overactive Littles for a new toy like me here, the Burrows room was just too dull for now, and the Oasis room was filled with Littles that were most likely already claimed by a toy or stuffy. Plus, in that room at least, I think Pete was trying to avoid any possible interaction with Hop and Charley for as long as possible. It was inevitable that we would meet again, but I think Pete wanted me more softened up and not so new before that happened. Knowing all the history between us, I felt that was likely a wise decision for now.   

So, Pete guided me into the Meadows room and we both then climbed to the top of one of the bookshelves and cubbies blended into the tree side of the room. A few leaves stuck out of the ceiling, and in just the right spot, a toy could stay up here forever and never be noticed. As such, a toy was always assigned to check up here before nighttime to ensure no one was stuck or injured up here, but for me in this instance, it was perfect.  

The day rolled in and several Little began to show up in earnest. As I had suspected, a few seemed more upset, but most actually seemed quite satisfied at this stage. There would be a tantrum or some Little running off to go pout in a corner, but most seemed pretty amicable being the regressed, or even still regressing, lot they appeared to be.  

So, with this seeping into my mind already, when I looked out and saw many of my fellow toys just simply being played with, without any obvious affect on the Little holding them, my inner drive couldn’t help but want to scream out at them for the wasted opportunity lying right at their feet. My mind toiled under the notion that they were all just weak-willed and they themselves would soon end up in a dumpster, lost and forgotten about like the rest of us. Already, I could feel myself begin to hate that side of myself, but then I then noticed something else, however, that pulled me out of my self-loathing.

For as long as I was with Charley, and even the few Littles around here I had tried to regress before, I had always been rejected or at minimum, not been favored by them. I was either soon discarded or even outright rejected, both as I was now and who I was before my mauling. It was only when I used my messaging and then pulses on any Little that I was ever held by them without disdain. What I saw below though, was just about the opposite.

Pete, Victor, Cassie, and so many others were all being tightly cuddled or played with in the most freeing and caring ways I could have ever imagined. Some were tea drinkers at high noon with the queen, while others walked the runway in all their newest attire of beads, feathers, and construction paper, or even some were mountain climbers getting ready to save the damsel being guarded by a terrifying monster at the peak. Not even one of the Littles was frightened or in a trance, and each of the toys, though as silent and still as a graveyard, were smiling and satisfied in their own little ways as well.

It puzzled me deeply and for the better part of an hour, I tried to wrap my mind around the scenes that were unfolding beneath me. It was a nearly impossible task, being so distant from all of them, and while I thought of all that, I even began to fearfully question if my appearance would be a further factor against me in all this.

All the toys below looked so nice, and I felt so ugly, but before I could dwell on any of these persistent and haunting thoughts any longer, mine and everyone else’s concentration practically was nearly shattered and redirected when one of the less regressed Littles suddenly began to pitch a fit.

“No, I will not share! I was here first!” the Little cried out, trying to cling to Sgt. Luvman tightly. From up here, I could tell that Sarge was in a pickle himself and wanted more than anything to flee the scene. Being the professional I knew him to be though, he remained as steadfast as ever.

“Tyler! We do not yell in this room, and we always share. Those are the rules,” Miss Mindy quickly admonished the Little before her.

“I don’t care what you all normally do. It’s stupid and pointless and I was here first!” Tyler shot back in record time. He even stomped his foot at his last point, and me and everyone else here already knew that it was literally a step too far.

Miss Mindy remained as calm as she had been, but I could see the inner mechanizations of her mind begin to whir about. I had seen her in action before, and anyone who had been at Little Friends Daycare long enough knew full well that punishments had to be dolled out equally, fairly, but also justly. If a worker was ever found to be excessive in their force with a Little, they could be subject to punishment outside of this building as well as inside it. In this society, it was honestly hard to know which would have been worse. So, it was a tough line to dodge, but I clearly saw Miss Mindy light up when she evidently had figured out how in this situation.

“Tyler…” she said remarkably calmly, “I’m going to give you one last chance to calm down and hand off the toy to Jimmy. I’ll give you until the count of three…” She took a deep breath in, looked at Tyler for one last reprieve and then began when he remained firmly planted. “One…”

Tyler was as defiant as ever, and if anything, only clung onto Sarge tighter. ‘Just let go, kid… don’t make her get to three…’ I might have been a proponent of regression, but Littles punished when they didn’t have to be, was just painful to witness beforehand.

“Two,” Miss Mindy continued. I could already see her brow arching downward into a scowl. Sometimes her looks alone could straighten up a Little. Today though, Tyler wasn’t one of them. ‘Come on kid… don’t make her do it…’

I could see that everyone was fixated on the two of them. Miss Mindy saw and even reveled in the spectacle of it all. Not because of a power trip mind you, but because she knew scenes like this could cull other Littles into immediately obeying her or the other workers later. At this point, she and just about everyone else here knew that Tyler was likely going to be the sacrifice for this batch of Littles to keep them in line this week. Two weeks ago, it was that girl who I saw later getting spoon-fed in her highchair one morning, but this week, Tyler seemed sadly and unintentionally determined that it was going to be him.

At the last second though, I saw a little twitch come off Tyler as his grip seemed to loosen on Sarge, but it was too late. There was a reason why Miss Mindy had given him to the count of three, but now, whether he was close to giving up or not, he had run out of time.

“Three…” Miss Mindy said with a finality that almost reminded me of the snap at the end of a guillotine slicing downward. There was even a little gasp amongst the other Littles, but it was all over now. Miss Mindy shook her head. “Oh Tyler…”

Tyler’s eyes swelled and his face screwed up while his hands almost dropped Sarge like he was suddenly on fire. Tyler had been regressed already, so his emotions weren’t as defiant as the other girl’s had been, but it was still all too late for apologies. He had effectively crossed the line he was never supposed to, and from the tears already leaking from his eyes, he knew it as well. One just simply did not say ‘no’ to a worker around here.

Miss Mindy seemed like she always hated this part the most, but she just sighed and then held out her hand for Tyler to take hold of. “Come on, Tyler. Come with me… Don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

Already whimpering and crying a little, Tyler nodded and mournfully reached out and grabbed the Big’s hand before him. It was practically like taking the grim reapers own hand at this point, but Tyler knew that any refusal now would be his doom. He was already screwed, but just how much was still to be determined.

Soon, the door Miss Mindy led him through was quickly closed. Fear gripped every Little and I could immediately hear a cute chorus of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ being uttered below me immediately following their departure. Miss Mindy’s intimidation and Tyler’s sacrifice had been very effective indeed, just as most had likely predicted.

Still, my mind, thinking back to my own appearance, briefly wondered about the discarded toys I had interacted with last night. I had nearly a perfect view of everyone, but still, I couldn’t find one of them, even in hiding. Unfortunately, right about this time and not long after Tyler’s incident, one toy had obviously been played with a little too fiercely. It was old and made of the now practically ancient, cheap plastic from decades ago by now. A Little, clearly on their way soon to the Burrows room, had been causing train derailments all morning of the smiling trains. This time, it had simply been too much for the toy to take.

One further derailment and the entire back half of the smiling train shattered into small plastic shards. The Little immediately burst into tears and Miss Tully was on the scene in seconds. She got one of the high school volunteers to clean the mess up while she attended to the Little to try and calm them down, knowing that it wasn’t the Little’s fault in the whole mess, or at least not deliberately their fault. By the time Miss Tully did actually mange to calm him down, the train was already in the garbage.

I hadn’t known them, but seeing the whole scene unfold that way made me think of two things. First, the forgotten toys may have simply been too scared that they would end up the same way. Many seemed to be holding on by only a thread, so any derailment scenarios for them could have spelled disaster. Then secondly, I couldn’t help but imagine myself in the same situation. I was after all, now only being held together by the stitching of old man Paul. I knew he had worked on several toys and then donated them here, but that hardly told me anything about his stitching ability. For all I knew, I was only a few playtimes away in my redemption here from being pulverized and thrown away myself. Needless to say, I was a little nervous at this whole prospect of actually being played with.   

Soon though, it was morning recess, and all the Littles rushed outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. I could see a few toys maneuver about to be better suited when the Littles came back inside but a returning Miss Mindy, sadly sans Tyler, quickly put a stop to everyone’s movement. I was disappointed in the fact that I would still have to wait for naptime now to see if I even could be with a Little, but it gave it did give me the opportunity to notice something… interesting that happened next.

Tyson, one of the Littles I tried to regress previously around the time I first found out about my smoking issue, came running in and was full-blown crying. Miss Mindy, ever the disciplinarian, was also a comfort to those who actually listened to her. As such, she immediately bent down and embraced the distressed and crying Little. “Oh no!” She immediately gave him a quick hug to fend off his immediate distress. After a second, she backed up and looked all over him. “What happened, Tyson? Are you okay? Tell me where it hurts, honey.”

Her tone was one of those completely reserved for small children and pets alike, but Tyson just shook his head as if her tone of voice was the most natural thing in the world. “I fell down!” His emotions seemed to be overpowering his words, so he then quickly pointed to his knee, which even from up here, I could tell was very dirty and worse, bleeding.

“Oh, my goodness! You got yourself a big old nasty cut, huh?” Tyson tearfully nodded his head. I could already see that he wanted to suck his thumb, but if what I had seen with the Little previously was any indication, he was still at the stage where he likely found shame in the action. Instead, seeing his distress and being wise and kind, Miss Mindy found a nearby stuffy and handed it off to Tyson.

The Little wasted no time and quickly squeezed the duck he had just been given as if it was the greatest treasure in the entire world. It was curious, but despite no change to his knee, Tyson seemed almost hypnotized as his calmer reaction was so swift. I thought at first that Maddy, the duck, was using her own regression prowess on him, but I saw no contact or even blurry and widened eyes in Tyson. To my shock, I then realized that Maddy had achieved nearly the same behavioral change in a Little by just being held. Curious with this new development, I leaned closer.  

“Okay, Tyson,” Miss Mindy said as she returned after leaving briefly to fetch the first aid box they kept nearby in the room. Littles were always falling or hurting themselves, so the box was a frequent visitor with everyone around here. Seeing the box though, Tyson freaked out a little.

“Hey, hey, hey now,” Miss Mindy said forcefully yet calmly and even reassuringly. To be honest, if she had a special power, it was probably the different tones her voice could make and seem both domineering and yet the sincerest and calming of all. “Just take some breaths, Tyson. Hug Maddy. She needs to be hugged and she panics if she’s not. Can you do that for me?” Tyson quickly nodded and squeezed Maddy so tight, I thought she was nearly going to explode. She was good quality though, so all that happened as a result was Miss Mindy just smiling more widely over Tyson’s acceptance of the stuffy now cradled tightly in his arms.

“Very good, Tyson.” She then popped open the box and retrieved a few items. “Okay, pick one.” She then held up several band-aids for Tyson to choose from and almost without hesitation he chose the Adventure Sam one. I always marveled at the popularity of that show amongst the industry titans like Naomi and Oliver or Jasper and Jinx, but I suppose the exploration aspect of this world and the silly jokes that Adventure Sam made were hard to find fault with.

Satisfied, Miss Mindy got a few more supplies out and then took a deep breath as Tyson just continued to hold Maddy tightly. “Okay, Tyson. I need to clean this, but it will just be a second.” Tyson winced and Miss Mindy took the go-ahead to start cleaning. Try and be a big, brave boy for me, okay?” Tyson nodded, but I could see the fear still present in his face. Nodding, Miss Mindy went in.

Tyson immediately began to squirm and even squeal as she applied the alcohol wipe and then antiseptic cream to the open wound. “Squeeze Maddy, Tyson! Squeeze her tight!” Miss Mindy had her job to do and stuffy’s made it easier, but I saw the way that Tyson gripped Maddy right then. She was a lifeline and a power beyond so much else that I had ever witnessed. If I was more of a simpleton, I might have even thought she was magic.

Sure, Tyson was still in pain, but Maddy seemed to almost be a shield or a sponge against the bulk of it. Most of the time, daycare workers here had to dive down and then dodge flying feet or even get others to help restrain the Little being treated. It was for their own good to prevent infection and all, but that didn’t make it any easier. Now, the only difference I saw with the relatively calmer Tyson was Maddy, and further, his complete devotion to her in less than a minute.

I was a top-of-the-line model for a toy, and I even came with all the bells and whistles. It then struck me that I felt as toy, my purpose was to regress these Littles, and while I knew this was viewed as wrong by some, if that was the ultimate goal, then I should have been the ultimate toy… but I wasn’t. In fact, I was nearly the opposite, which was how I found myself here and abandoned in the first place. I was such a bad toy that my previous Little didn’t even search for me when I went missing. Looking at Maddy now though, I felt that Tyson, having only just met her, would have done anything and everything he could if she was missing for even a few minutes and he didn’t know where she was. So, it wasn’t a surprise to me that this new concept intrigued me enough that it made me want to see this firsthand to know more… particularly more on a personal and grounded level.

So, after everyone came back in and had their lunch, the typical afternoon nap rolled around quickly. Cots were pulled out and the daycare workers retreated quietly out into the hallways when the last Little passed out. Sensing my time was at hand, I climbed down and found Pete.

“Are you sure?” Pete asked after I told him that I wanted to go in.

“Absolutely,” I confirmed. “I’ve been watching all day and now is the time I need to get my feet wet.”

“Well, hopefully not literally,” Pete joked, “at least not on your first day. I hope Miss Tully has improved her techniques during changing times for your sake. Victor almost wanted to wear a raincoat last week it was so bad in some cases.”

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or flee in terror over his little story, but I stood firm regardless. “Right… so, who’s my first Little?” I asked eagerly, now looking around the room at the sleeping Littles before us.

Pete chuckled. “Already trying to run before you can walk, huh? Well, I can admire that, but let’s hang back and find the perfect Little for you.”

“I think I can find the perfect Little myself, thank you,” I touted back. “I might be new to your method, but I’ve scouted out Littles before you know.”

“Oh boy do I,” Pete said exasperatedly, “but those were Littles you were trying to regress. Now, we need to find you a hard case. Not tough and bad to the bone, but a Little who’s gone through the ringer. I assume you saw what happened with Maddy?” I nodded. “Good. Well, that’s what you’re looking for. I mean, just look at them now.”

I looked over to the sleeping Tyson curled cutely around Maddy. His thumb managed to sneak its way into his mouth this time, but she was about equally there as well for the injured Little. She waved over at us and gave us a thumbs up, so we knew everything was good, but I also knew that scraped knees, while common, weren’t an hourly scenario around here.

“So, let’s just hang back and scout you out a newbie, okay? Just follow my lead,” Pete instructed. “After all, just remember that the council gave you a week for this.”

His reminder was a stark kick in my rear to ensure that all this went okay. A lot was on the line for me in the next few days, and my track record with Littles wasn’t exactly stellar. So, trying to be a good pupil of Pete, I held back as he instructed, and we both waited for naptime to end.

As it started to end though, we already began scouting out potential subjects. There were a few new to the daycare and this room now, so I felt my chances were even better. That being said, I was still very nervous, and it took Pete and I a little bit to find one just for me. “Ah! Right there!” Pete then pointed with his wing right over to a Little sitting by themselves. “I think Damien needs a new friend. So, how about it?”

“Them?” I asked skeptically. “They’re just so…”

“Vulnerable?” I nodded and Pete smiled. “Exactly. I suspect that some of the qualities you were looking for before when to regress a Little just might be the same as when you’re looking for one now. Big caveat though, now, you’re trying to build them up… not tear them down more.”

“So, what do I do?” My inexperience in all this was really starting to show more than I cared for. Still, I had to try, so I waited for instruction from my mentor.

“Don’t think about it too hard,” Pete said shockingly. “Just go up to them and be there for however they need you to be. It’s not rocket science after all.”

I grimaced at his comments, but I knew that Pete was likely just wanting me to dive into the deep end now. It was my choice to do this, so I knew I only had myself to blame, but my knees felt rubbery, nonetheless. In fact, I was barely registering anything else except Damien in front of me, but fortunately, all the daycare workers were far too distracted by a scuffle that was going on over another Little hogging all of the markers. So, I took my chance, and plopped myself right beside Damien.

It didn’t take long after that for him to notice me. “Oh wow! Look at you!” Damien quickly lifted me up and his mouth was so wide that for a moment, I thought he was going to try and eat me, but to my relief, he just cuddled me right up to his neck.

In seconds, he was dancing about with me and completely oblivious to nearly everyone else. There were a few close calls, but right then, I actually didn’t care. His skips, twirling, and then occasionally cuddling all combined into one giant euphoric bubble between us. I wasn’t feeling that forever connection, but for now, even without my hypnotic or controls over him, Damien truly seemed to like me. In fact, he only seemed to marvel over my scars and passed his fingers over their ridges in utter fascination at one point.

It was a wonderful moment in time, and I hoped it would never end, but Littles here don’t have the power to sustain all that activity for very long. Just as the first Little was picked up, Damien had to rest which meant he wanted to find something else to do. Unfortunately, he found my buttons.

Now my buttons had rarely been used and were actually a minor feature of my model on my belly. One selling point for us Dash toys was that we would use AI tech to activate our own controls so that regressed Littles wouldn’t have to. The buttons were still functional and would activate my lighting, sound controls, and other bits like that, but there was just one problem now. This morning, Sam had removed the super-efficient battery that had powered all those mechanizations.

Damien, it turned out, wasn’t the type of Little to be told ‘no’ to though, and while I never said it, the inaction of my buttons to him was basically the same thing.

So, he began to get frustrated, and I quickly learned that Damien wasn’t a crier… he was a hitter. In moments after my failed actions were apparent now, he began to smash each of the buttons harder. They could take the pounding, but when they still didn’t produce a result, he resorted to taking me by the tail and hitting me on the ground before him as hard as he could.

Now, trying to be redeemed in the eyes of every toy here, I tried to hold back as much as I could. Pete and I had even discussed contingency scenarios while we were waiting for naptime to end, but almost every one of those ended with him telling me to do nothing, which meant that’s exactly what I did.

For the first minute… the second… the third, and even all the way up to about five minutes in, I stuck to the plan, but at some point, I suppose, every toy had their breaking point. It just happened that at minute five, it turned out to be mine.  

Almost as reflex at that point, I activated my subtle messaging. While not as powerful as my regression pulses, as even the great Hop had witnessed himself, the subtle messaging system was very powerful still. Essentially, they acted as hypnotic programs from years ago in which they really couldn’t force you to do something you didn’t want to, but it all really just came down to the phrasing of the message. Something like ‘Stop’ wouldn’t have been heard, but something more like ‘good boys don’t smash their toys’ could work much better I thought. It turns out, I was right.

Damien immediately paused mid-smash, but I immediately froze in terror over what I had just done… I had just used my messaging on a Little here out in the open. If any other toy saw, I felt I was immediately going to tossed out. Fortunately, right as I began to panic, another Little knocked over a tower of blocks. The loud noise quickly popped Damien out of his trance, and I beat a hasty retreat out of sight and back to Pete.

When I got there, my emotions were a wreck and I’m none too ashamed to admit that I was on the verge of crying. Pete saw, and while his first look was one of sympathy, his next was to burst out laughing.

To say I was confused, would have been the most massive understatement ever. “Wh… why are you laughing? I screwed up! I used my messaging! I’m as good as garbage now! How can you just laugh like that?” I nearly wailed at my mentor.

Pete saw my distress and though it took him a second to calm down, after, he simply placed his wing over my trembling shoulder and looked at me straight in the eyes. “I’m sorry, Dash, but of all the types of Littles you had to get on your first outing, a hyper smasher was just absolutely the wrong choice. That’s on me. Sorry for laughing, but a scenario like that is just too perfect to make up.”

I just continued to look back at my mentor in sadness and confusion.

Pete sighed and got a more serious and understanding look with him. “it’s okay, Dash. You lasted nearly five minutes of him pounding you into the ground. Normally, a worker would have swatted his butt ‘till kingdom come within the first minute, but I guess they were just too busy today. And as far as your messaging went, look at him now.” I did. “See? Not even phased by anything. You didn’t hurt Damien. You acted out of self-defense, tried to maintain your own safety, and above all, you weren’t seen by anyone else. As far as toy first times go, you actually didn’t do too bad.”

I was awash with confusion and relief, but as Pete guided me away as all the Littles began to be picked up, I was at least happy that my first day hadn’t been a total screw-up. As I began to think on it further in fact, it was only for a few minutes, but I had felt something truly special as Damien had been dancing around with me. Despite the apparent failure of today, regardless of what Pete told me, I shockingly, to myself at least, wanted to do it all again tomorrow.

It was beyond all my logic, circuitry, and even base protocol, but it was still there and still lingering about. Now, my only doubt was my messaging. I knew it was in an act of self-defense today, but there was a part of me that couldn’t get away from the one simple fact that I indeed did use it. Despite Pete reassuring me all was fine, I wanted to but didn’t ask in fear that he would confirm my suspicions that if our roles had been reversed, he wouldn’t have used the messaging himself. As the attendants packed up for the night though, I knew only a new day and a new Little would bring me the clarity I needed to know if my messaging today was just a fluke, or if I was cursed to forever have to hold this compunction of mine in check.

[LostBBoyBear]

Hey everyone! Sorry for skipping Sunday when I was originally going to put this up but there was just no way I could finish this bit of the story then and get a lick of sleep. I guess things just happen that way sometimes, but I hope at least that everyone had a good St. Patrick’s Day!

So, I think it’s pretty fair to say that this will not be my most popular story on here. I’m actually totally okay with that as I’m a little more assured now as a writer on here than I would have been in the past. I have a guess as to why it’s not seeming as popular by far, but considering I have two other of these ‘stuffy’s tale’ stories, I’m just curious why you all think these may be amongst my least popular writings on here. No worries, I will still finish this story out, but I’m just curious about everyone else’s opinion on this matter to see if I may be missing something in my own writing at this point. The other two deal with the creation of the drug FOY, so they’re pretty important to my overall universe at least and I want to do them, but any pointers might help me in these stories and maybe even others I write as well.

Also, as this story just doesn’t necessarily seem to be clicking with readers, I’m going to try to write it as fast I can and then post it all at about the same hastened speed. This means that with only likely 8 or 9 chapters after this one, it should be all done relatively soon.

Lastly, for those of you reading this one, I’m still trying to determine my next story, so be sure to let me know what you want of the three stories I placed on here to decide from. For those of you who may have missed these options or whatnot, just refer back to chapter 4.

Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys this next chapter for those of you reading it!

Chapter 5: The Way Forward is as Muddy as the Ground

Two days later, I was primed and ready to try again. Unfortunately, yesterday, Pete had included me in the decision of which Little to choose, and while it was a step forward for me, we both chose the wrong Little again for what I needed at this junction. She wasn’t bratty or anything, but her extreme joy over finding a new toy companion sent her into a fitful of giggles… and a bit of a rampage. Of course, she was just frolicking around with me as a partially regressed Little might do, but she ended up knowing a block tower over where one of them hit the building Little on their head.

One stern talking to and subsequent timeout later, I was pulled away from her and the day soon ended afterwards. So, today, with two interactions with Littles under my proverbial belt, I felt I was more than ready to get back in this. My confidence was only further bolstered when I found out that Damien was simply alone the day I came up to him because he was just working off a timeout that he had been placed in for extreme roughhousing earlier in the day. Today, I wanted to find a calmer Little and Pete was only so happy to oblige. Pickings were a little slim though after a few of the stuffy-less Littles were out sick today.

“Hmmm,” he mused, scanning the crowd before him, “he’s not as calm as you might like normally, but see there?” I nodded as I saw the Little that Pete was pointing to. “That’s Travis. He can be a bit hyper, but he’s definitely better with toys than Damien was. Plus, he’s already a little more regressed, so a new toy, or even stuffy for him, would do him wonders. And, even better, he’s been feeling very down lately and could probably use a friend more than most of the others in this room at least. So… what do you think?”

I was still hesitant about the whole hyper business that Pete had mentioned with Travis, but he also seemed shy and lonely right then, so I felt that even my visibly scarred form could be of some comfort to him today. A challenge perhaps, but one that I was up to. “I’m in. I’ll wait until after everyone is distracted during snack time and then I’ll make my move.” Pete nodded, and I waited for my moment.

It took a bit longer today to get to snack time due to a few tantrums that occurred with a few of the newbies in the room, but soon, every little was handed a small cup of celery and carrots. Some of the Littles’ caregivers had allowed for dressings and the like, but others were flat-out refused. Again, some Littles threw tantrums because of this, while others just accepted it. Sensing the chaos from one particular Little near the painted barn on the wall, I made my move. Gratefully, it didn’t take long for Travis to notice me after swallowing another carrot stick in his mouth.

“Oh, lookie! A new friend!” With the speed and force of a fighter jet, the Little scooped me up and held me high above his head. His eyes immediately began to widen and look on me in a fascination I really hadn’t seen since Charley had first unboxed me so long ago now. Beyond anything else, that feeling of being ‘awed’ felt good again.

To my surprise though, Travis actually seemed interested in my scars, rather than horrified or put off by them as others had. I suppose a toy was just a toy to some, but I quickly found out just how different Travis was from the other Littles that had previously held me.  

To my surprise and elation then, the Little’s eyes grew and his previously melancholy seemed to evaporate in seconds. “Oh! Look at you! You’re just so cool! Lightning bolts and scars even? Oh wow! Were you a vet as well? A service dog maybe? So tough, but now we’re just alike!”

I stared back at him in my solid toy form and quickly saw a small scar on his face and I wondered if that was all, but Travis seemed eager to connect with me. As if to confirm this, in seconds, he set me on the floor facing him and pulled aside his romper as best he could. His strength and coordination had clearly taken a hit from his regression regime, but he was able to expose his chest a little and I could see the start of a massive scar. Seeing where it was and the fact that it seemed to continue beyond the fabric he had pulled aside, I knew Travis had been gravely injured at some point a while ago. My sympathies for the Little immediately grew.

“It was a big owie, but I got out and then came here for a vacation. A few oopsies later and now my mommy loves me more than anything else in the world! Now, I can do the same for you!” he said excitedly. Finally, I felt that a Little loved me for who I was and not just the shiny flashing my line came with. It still felt weird, but with Travis, I felt I could make it work.

For the next hour, Travis and I played excitedly, but like with Damien, Travis then saw the buttons on my underbelly. I panicked as he began to press them, and just like Damien as well, his frustrations soon began to get the better of him.

“Work! Work! Work! Come on!” His thick and heavy fingers smashed into my underside repeatedly. It didn’t necessarily hurt, but it was decidedly uncomfortable. I didn’t want to break any of the rules of being a toy, but I was getting desperate after a few minutes of him pounding away. I could already see Travis’ frustration mounting, and I knew his disinterest in me was going to take over soon if something else didn’t happen soon.

As such, I just hoped I was right, and did the one thing I could. “Aarf! Aarf-arf!” I fake barked out. Travis quickly paused and flipped me back to the right way up and stared intensely at me. I feared and wondered what was going through his head.

So, okay, yes, I broke… well, ‘bent’ a few rules, but I had only done it on suggestion from Pete. Damien clearly had issues beyond a broken toy, but his reaction to my busted and technically now-absent features, had been a major red flag going forward with any other Little. I couldn’t very well remove my buttons and remain physically intact around here for long, so we had come up with a backup plan.

Toys could only break the ‘no life’ rule if a Little was in terrible, likely life-threatening, danger, or when the action could be passed off as something else. This could vary widely, but anything like the motion being blamed on the wind, random tremors in a table, or something like that would satisfy that caveat. It was inherently a small action, but it could be enough of a doubt in their minds if a living being noticed that they wouldn’t question our true existence after.

Keeping all that in mind, when Travis hit my buttons and was quickly getting frustrated from a lack of results, I resorted to my formulated plan B. I was a dog after all, so me barking from him pushing one of my controls wasn’t necessarily out of the question. It was a little wonky as far as the rules went because my buttons did anything but make me bark before, but when Travis only smiled afterward, I knew my ruse had worked.

“That’s right, boy! We need to go outside real soon with Miss Tully and the others! She said it was really nice outside when we were doin’ the weather song this mornin’!”

The crisis had been averted and I could only subtly sigh with relief under the crook of Travis’ arm right after. Of course, he got a little frustrated once again when it wasn’t quite recess time yet and he had to endure a diaper change, but these weren’t my fault, and in fact, Travis only held me tighter in his frustrations. Like usual around here though, time moved quickly for a nicely distracted Little. Travis was no exception to this.  

“Recess!” Miss Tully finally announced, Travis practically having glued himself to the nearby window looking outside on the farm side of the Meadows room. “Come on everyone!” She began to clap a bit to ensure she got everyone’s attention. “Outside time class! Just be sure to be careful. It rained last night, and it might be a little muddy in spots.”

I could see a few Littles nodding their heads at her subsequent warnings and instructions, but most only charged forward and out the nearby door. To my dismay, Travis was one of them, and when the fresh air greeted us at last, I saw that Miss Tully had vastly undersold the amount of mud that was out here still. Unless one stuck to the playground, they were going to track mud everywhere they went afterwards.

Still, our time during recess flew by in a flash, and that was honestly saying something coming from me, but I felt it was almost the most fun I had ever had in my entire existence. Being the hyperactive type though, Travis and I would pretend we were something for five minutes and then quickly flip to something else. In one instance, we started off as a sailor.

“Avast! Lookie ahead, Dash!” Travis shouted out to me while still being held by him at the top of the playground.

I did but Travis also held me aloft to give me a better view. Travis then leaned in with his ear. “What’s that you say? There be rocks ahead?” He nodded my head. “Shiver me timbers! The sails won’t be able to give us enough wind. We’ll be sure to crash!”

In our little game, I panicked at what would happen next, but Travis knew the rules of make-believe better than I did. In a second, he jumped to the side. “There! Now we’re in space! We can just fly around any rocks out there or use our laser guns! Come on, Dash! We need to protect the ship! Our kettle spice has to make it to the colonists! Without it, they’ll get all icky and sick. Come on!”

We then climbed even higher on the playground equipment and then to one side where there was just some railing where Travis could just squeeze his legs underneath. He sat me carefully next to him, but I could also see that at least two volunteers were closely monitoring us from down on the ground. Travis was on the brawnier side than a lot of the other Littles here still, but I imagined that the staff probably just had one policy for all Littles here, regardless of size. Vigilance seemed to be their stock and trade.

“Pew-pew-pew! Fire the lasers, Dash!” Travis called out from by my side. I imagined it myself, but I also wondered what Travis saw himself with his own imagination. His face was so concentrated. I felt just his eyes alone could shatter anything in his mind or even reality from how hard they were focusing. ‘Wow… talk about commitment… his cheeks are even starting to puff out and… oh…’

While Travis had indeed been focusing with deadly accuracy over destroying the asteroids, and later the alien invaders, the dreaded bubble greens, to anyone who knew, it was obvious what he was doing. As if to confirm even further what I had suspected, Travis slightly bent forward, and a giant wet fart erupted from his backside.

Now, whenever someone like Charley ever did that for most of the time that I was with him, a look of sheer revulsion would cross their face… at least for a while that is. My mechanizations worked him down a lot in the end, but while Charley may not have had control, he could still recognize his own bodily functions when they did occur for the longest time.

So, while Travis had a clear physical reaction to what had just been deposited in the rear of his diaper, his mental reaction barely registered it beyond the sound he had just made. “Oh! Gross, Dash! We’re not supposed to use the fart cannons! That’s only for the deadly space lizard. Sends ‘em into a frenzy!” Right then, I was very glad there was a stiff breeze going the opposite direction of my nose.

Still, time moved on, and things went on like that for a while longer until Travis had utilized every spare inch of the playground in one of his little skits. Others were content to stay on one storyline for all of recess or to just have fun in general, but not Travis. So, like any bored Little without direct Big intervention, he tried to find other things to do, and when his patience ran out with the chalk, his eyes drifted over to the one unused piece of area back here yet; the muddy fields just beyond the mulch of the playset.

‘Don’t… please don’t, Travis…’ But my thoughts were my own. Travis could neither hear them, nor even at that point, likely register them even if he had. He was a determined Little who saw a new land to conquer and to play in. There was no second argument, and the daycare workers and volunteers were too preoccupied by an incident involving a big red ball on the other side of the lot to see what he was up to. So, without a single reservation, Travis hopped over and quickly went feet first into the mud.

Well, I will be the first to admit that we did have a lot of fun. Playing dystopian scavenger and then bumbling archeologist was fun and all, but all that ended when Travis harkened back to days of old and began to play soldier. “Incoming!” To my horror, the Little then plummeted themselves to the earth before making an explosion noise nearby.

The mud splattered everywhere as he smacked the ground with his body and then his hand to simulate the bomb dropping nearby. The muck below even began to seep onto me, and for half a second, I almost thought that Travis was intentionally pushing me further into the chocolate and tan ooze, but looking more closely, he was just trying to steady himself as his ankles sank further, but still…

“Whew… the enemy is getting’ closer every day, Dash. Lucky for my quick reflexes, huh?” Travis asked to me just about as causally as one might as about the weather. I wanted to get out of there so badly, but the odd playful smile plastered over his face, underneath all that mud, strangely made it almost all seem worth it in seconds flat. “I guess the next round of milo is on you tonight! Just be sure to top up my sippy for…”

“Travis Reese!” Miss Valerie shouted as she marched over to where we were. Flames were nearly shooting out of her head she was so mad. ‘Uh oh…’

“Yes Miss Valerie?” Travis asked about as innocently as he could, being nearly covered with mud on his front side.

“You… I can’t even begin to… I…” she just rolled her eyes as she looked over the Little before her and I quickly knew that she had some speech planned, but it all seemed to vanish in a second. “Ugh! You naughty little thing, you. I can’t stay mad, but also, what you did was very wrong.”

“Wrong?” Travis asked, seeming genuinely confused. “What’s wrong about playin’?”

Miss Valerie sighed. “Playing is fine, Travis, but you getting into mud isn’t.” She then stuck out her hand to help the mud-caked Little out of the muck. “Now, come on. You need to get… I don’t even know… maybe a run through the hose?”

Fully expecting to be clean in seconds, I was shocked when Travis suddenly crossed his arms at her request of him. “No.”

Miss Valerie visibly wasn’t expecting it either. “No…? What do you mean, ‘no’?”

To my horror, Travis then smacked his foot into the mud and sent it all flying, including a spot that got on Miss Valerie’s almost brand-new shoes. “I said no!”

Her mind seemed to be tumbling about over the Little’s recent outburst, but confusion soon turned to anger once more. If he had only gotten out like she had asked, all would have been fine. Instead, Travis probably only just made things worse than they were in the first place.

“Travis Reese!” she belted out. ‘Dang it… she’s using her punishment tone now… he’s a goner…’ Everyone here had their own tones and if you listened hard, one could almost predict the workers’ behaviors and Miss Valerie was no exception, but now, that just confirmed my fears over Travis’ soon to be fate. “You get out of that hole this instance, or you’ll be in so much trouble… ugh!” She looked back down at her shoe and even pants that had gotten splattered as well. “Geez! Your mommy will have to buy a new paddle after the time she’s done with you when you get home tonight!”

Travis yelped a little bit and without any further prompting, and Miss Valerie, satisfied with his submission to her as a Little would to a Big, turned around and began to lead him to the hose on the side of the building. Right as Miss Valerie turned away though, something happened I didn’t expect by a long shot.

The day had been going so well, and I thought I had finally found my Little. Travis was a bit damaged and definitely regressed, but they were all things that seemed to blend in well with my own peculiarities as well. All this felt even more definitive during our playtime, even up to mere minutes ago. So, I think my shock was reasonable when Travis looked down to me with the most hardened and evil looks that I think I had ever seen in my life. In fact, I didn’t even think it was a possible for a Little to ever look at a toy like that. If I could have run away then, I would have.

“You! You did this… you… you stupid toy! You got me in trouble!” Without another word, he then picked me up by the neck and with one heave, like some Olympic athlete, he tossed me far and wide and, to my horror, straight into the muck.

Not being able to move, I could only watch in horror as my form began to slip into the gooey substance while Travis walked away with Miss Valerie in the lead and none the wiser over what had just transpired. Right then, I felt so betrayed by the Little I had hoped for in all this new mess and my new path of life here. Under Pete, I had chosen Travis, and he might not have been the most ideal Little for me as far as his hyper personality was concerned, but I did feel happy with him. In seconds though, all that had changed.

The mud continued to seep around me and take me under. In my panic, I saw that no one had seemed to notice Travis’ tossing of me in here, but at the same time, there were still too many Little floating around nearby to move on my own. So, devoted fully to the code of the toys, I remained still… even as the mud covered my whole body, and then finally, my eyes…

Darkness…

Nothingness…

My doom and my terrible ending to a wasted life…

It was over…

“Miss Tully! Miss Tully!” a voice suddenly shouted from nearby. ‘That voice… it sounded so familiar… but how?’

I then heard a bunch of hurried footsteps near to where I was still slowly sinking. “What is it? What’s the matter, Georgie?” Miss Tully panickily asked the nearby waiting Little. ‘Wait… Georgie?’

“There’s a stuffy in the mud!” the still oddly familiar sounding Little, Georgie, cried. “He’s sinkin’! Please hurry! He’s gotta be so lonely and scared…”

“Oh no!” Miss Tully called out, a legitimate tone of concern in her voice. She was always good like that with the Littles when she wanted to be or when they were good with her. “I’ll get Splash for you honey!” ‘Yep… Splash… Georgie… oh, please, oh please, don’t recognize me Georgie…’ The last thing I needed right then was one of Charley’s and Hop’s old friends seeing I was here right now.

“No, no. I got Splash inside,” Georgie corrected Miss Tully. I briefly panicked, thinking she wouldn’t retrieve me now. “Too dangerous out here with all the mud! Dis is someone else! Please, oh please, help him, Miss Tully!”

My heart froze, as I didn’t hear anything over the cars rushing by outside from the main road. It was about lunchtime and most workers were probably getting a bite to eat for the day. So, for a few minutes, I was left alone… seemingly forgotten, discarded, and abandoned… once more at this daycare…

Then, suddenly, light! Glorious light invaded my eyes and a quick falling away from the ground and the sucking, oozing mud from beneath me. In seconds, I saw a smiling Miss Tully and an overjoyed Georgie. Briefly looking down and to my relief right then, from all the mud, I knew there was no way he could have recognized me as the former stuffy of his best friend.

“Okay, Georgie,” Miss Tully started up. “You go on inside. You tell Mrs. Gillies to give you a cookie for lunch. You were a very good boy today for noticing this poor toy out here in the mud.”

“Thank you, Miss Tully!” He started to sprint away, but then turned back. “Miss Tully? Is he going to be okay?”

Miss Tully sighed and looked down at me, but to my relief once again, she smiled back at the curious Little. “I think so, Georgie. He’s a little rough right now, but I think he wasn’t in there for long. Probably just needs a bath…”

And with that, Georgie smiled about as widely as he could and ran back inside for his cookie reward. As for me, I got exactly what Miss Tully had described… a large bubble bath in the back of the daycare. She eventually got one of the volunteers to finish up once she knew I was not permanently damaged and was going to be worth the clean-up, but a bath from anyone was still a welcome moment of my tumultuous day. Soon, after I was drying off nearby, many of the other toys began to surround me, including Pete and Sam. After a little cheering from the other toys and then clearing them away, Pete and Sam guided me back to the maintenance room.

“I just don’t get it…” I mused in both happiness and confusion as Sam worked on ensuring I was still in working order, my back split open once more.

Pete sighed. “It’s not your fault, Dash… these Littles… once regressed, they get confused. Sometimes, they even get flashes of who they used to be when they get stressed out. Travis was a mean and bitter Little when he first arrived. All this was ‘too degrading’ and things like that. He’s one of the few around here who probably is happier in life with a higher dose of regression, but he’s not the norm…”

“I’ll say…” Sam chirped in from my rear once again. “That Little is alone for a reason. Too trained from the military and was a fighter around here with all the other Littles. Sweet thing now, but back then… ouch for anyone who got in his way.”

“That’s right,” Pete concurred. “Today, all that happened to you was that you were on the receiving end of being the scapegoat for a regressing mind. I’m sorry that happened, but you handled it very well. A lot of us are impressed… as I’m sure you could tell from before.”

“He’s right!” Sam exerted from behind me. “All thanks to me removing your batteries in fact, you didn’t get fried out there in the mud. Now, you actually get to brag to a bunch of toys tonight and take in all that delicious her praise.”

“But I didn’t do much…” I quickly protested back. Every toy since I had come out of the wash and later been greeted by anyone else, was almost treating me like a hero. “I just kept Travis company… that’s nothing. It was just… sitting.”

“That’s the job,” Pete emphasized. “We’re not there to save a government from collapsing or to take the hill and win the day. We’re there to comfort these Littles in the best ways we can. It can mean a lot to them, but often, that just means being there for them in whatever way they need, and that alone can be the bravest thing we do. It’s definitely not nothing.”

“He’s not wrong there,” a voice said from the darkness. All three of us tensed up as Sam had just finished closing me up. Soon though, we all realized it was just Carmen. “You went out there, consequences or not, and put yourself on the line…”

Pete exhaled loudly. “Geez, Carmen. A little warning next time…” He then turned back to me. “But regardless, I thought you two could talk. Give you someone whom you actually seemed to connect with before… and who at least wanted to come out of the shadows…”

Carmen rolled her eyes at the last comment but nodded to Pete. “Thanks. I think we’ll just talk it out here. Dash might need what I have to say to him tonight more than you two.” Pete nodded and while Sam seemed like he wanted to stay, Pete ushered him out as well.

Carmen then turned back to me once they were gone. “He was right, you know. Old feather-brained might be off about some bits and not have the best judgement always, but he was right then. What you did today was a big deal… and everyone else here knows it as well.”

“But that’s just it!” I fired back, a little louder than I was anticipating. Noticing Carmen almost jump back, I lowered my voice. “Sorry, but it’s just so weird. I was like… the villain last week. Now, everyone else is treating me like I did the noblest thing ever getting tossed in the mud.”

Carmen smiled. “That is a big deal, Dash, but what they’re commending you more on is what came before and after that moment.” I looked at her questioningly. “Well, for starters and the easier one to explain to you, but you stayed still in the muck. You followed our code over your own self-interest. That showed everyone your commitment to this whole ‘new leaf’ bit you have going for you, personality-wise at least.”

“Is that not common with toys?” I asked questioningly. I was always taught to uphold that code above all else.

Carmen shook her head. “Not with the pits… that’s what we call that area by the way. It’s a no-go zone after it rains, and you shouldn’t have even been out there today in the first place. Toys really shouldn’t go outside unless the playground is completely mud-free. Lost about ten toys there when this place first opened apparently…”

“Oh…” It was something I never even had considered, but I thought that might have been my fate as well today, so it made a certain amount of sense to me as well. “And the second thing then?”

“Right,” Carmen nodded, the singular line of gold stitching only on her right ear glinting in the lights overhead. “Second, was that you played with Travis.”

“And?” Again, I felt that was what I was supposed to do. “Wasn’t that my task?”

Carmen waved her hand about. “Eh… only to a certain degree. See, today, you were with a Little in your playtime, but you were only there for him. You didn’t try and regress him or change him… you just kept up with his demands and stuck it out. Before the whole mud disaster with him, his smile was wider than I had seen on him for years. That’s the big deal.”

“Oh…” The realizations of the impact of today on my future here were finally hitting me. Today showed that I was serious about my change of path. Today showed that my task here to be one of them was truly possible. “The reaction of the Little is the important part… and I helped him today…”

“Yep… now you’re getting it…” She then looked down and oddly almost a little ashamed. “It takes guts here to help these Littles… that’s for sure…” She scoffed. “Its definitely not something that everyone has here…”

“Meaning?” I felt fairly certain I knew what she was going to say, but I waited for her to tell me in her own words.

Carmen sighed. “I’ve never even attempted to bond with a Little here. Even before…” she then gestured to her body, “I was still scared… I did it because I was a toy… but that was it… I didn’t do it for a Little to help them out. It was just a job to me… but I still got burned in the end…”

I hesitated but given my own scars, I had been desperately wanting to ask her about her own since I had met her. In the times since my council meeting decision, I had met with other times as well, but now, I felt I had the most right to ask. So, I did. “If you don’t mind… uh, how did that happen?” I asked, gesturing to her fairly extensive patchwork of stitching and other bits of cloth and fur.

Carmen sighed, and for a moment, I felt I had royally screwed up. She proved me otherwise. “I had a Little… before here, I mean… She was a bit regressed… more mental than physical though…” I could already see the emotion welling up inside her. “She forgot me one night out on the lawn… I think she was punished for something stupid… like not calling her caregiver ‘mommy,’ but I was there until the next morning.”

She then paused, and while I didn’t want to pressure her for more of her story, I wanted to know more, so I gently pressed… more in support than nagging though. “Go on…”

Carmen nodded and recollected herself to continue. “Her daddy was hungover from that night… he usually was, but the next morning, he walked out and began to mow the lawn…” ‘Oh hell…’ She blinked rapidly, almost as if she was feeling the pain from that day, but she just pushed on. “He didn’t realize it until it was too late. He tried to fix me… but my Little rejected my appearance completely… screamed in terror even… So, I came here. No Little since then for me.”

It was a lot to take in, but I knew that becoming one of the forgotten toys here rarely came with a heartwarming story. “I’m so sorry, Carmen…”

She shook her head. “Thank you, but it’s really okay. Happened so long ago, but now… I just wanted to thank you personally tonight…”

I arched one of my brows in curiosity. “Oh? What for?”

“Well…” she began. “You’ve given me the courage to put myself back out there. Sam did a check on me today right before you and I’m all good to go. I’m going to try tomorrow to find a new Little of my own.”

“Oh! That’s wonderful to hear, Carmen!” I was so confused with the emotions I was feeling, but pride and maybe even happiness for my new friends felt like chief amongst them. I knew she wanted it, and I could see the contentment on her face immediately with her new revelation to me. “You’ll do great. I just know it.”

If Carmen could blush, I’m pretty sure she would have done it right then, but instead, she just finally managed to stumble out with a simple, “Thanks…” For me though, it was enough.

We then departed, and after a few more congratulatory speeches and pats on my back, I made my way over to the Burrows room to sleep for the night. I had a long day, but I still had a few nagging thoughts before I drifted off that I just couldn’t shake… both good and bad.

So, while today had been an ultimate failure in finding a new Little to be within the one-week timeline I had been given by the toy council, I also felt that I might have just turned a corner. Other toys were already respecting me more than they ever had before, but even inside, I felt a shift of something. Today, for the first time, a Little had accepted me for who I was in this new form, and I hadn’t used even a lick of regression on him. Then bonus, I even managed to have fun with him afterwards. If this was what I was trying to achieve… I wanted more.

Still, I had been tossed aside like garbage into the disgusting muck on the playground in the end, and that repeatedly played in and haunted my mind. It was a major trip-up on my part, and while all the toys had assured me that I had done well, a lingering part of me questioned that as well. Deep down, I even began to wonder if all this was still possible or not for a toy like me. With that on my mind though, as I settled in for the night, I couldn’t help but hear the soft crying of a new Little arrival in the Burrows room. I wasn’t sure who they were, but hearing them in their pitiful state, I knew that there could be far worse fates for anything with a soul in this dimension. I only hoped that like my own misadventures today and yet hopeful future, their life here would improve as well.

[Guilend]

I actually really enjoy this story so I'm not sure why it's not getting the views or likes as with your other stories. I meant to comment on your previous chapter and I thought I had lol. I started a new job two weeks ago and I'm still getting used to the schedule. I really like the detail you've put into his redemption. The small and large turning points in his journey is amazing, especially the small ones that are normally overlooked in movies. Usually it's the small decisions that one makes that leads to change, not the spare of the moment ones when something happens, those just show the change that's already happened. You've captured that perfectly.

1 hour ago, LostBBoyBear said:

Mrs. Gillies to give you a cookie for lunch. You were a very good boy toda

Is this Mrs. G from the other story? The one that might have started wearing diapers at the end? I think I remember her introducing herself as Mrs. Gillies before it switched to Mrs. G? I'll go back and read that part again, it's probably my favorite story you've written lol. And yes, it's probably because Mrs. G might have been wearing a diaper at the end, and probably the most evil story you've written because you never said what happened to her, but gave enough information to drive my imagination insane lol.

 

1 hour ago, LostBBoyBear said:

I couldn’t help but hear the soft crying of a new Little arrival in the Burrows room.

Hopefully one of these new Littles will connect with him and claim them as their own.

As for your next story, I vote for Tell me more sequel or Bethany. Tell Me More was a great phycological thriller I guess you can say, the ending with that group meeting that added a threat wrapped in a mystery was amazing.

[Operational Systems]

5 hours ago, LostBBoyBear said:

Also, as this story just doesn’t necessarily seem to be clicking with readers, I’m going to try to write it as fast I can and then post it all at about the same hastened speed. This means that with only likely 8 or 9 chapters after this one, it should be all done relatively soon.

 

The story is good.  Don't take the absence of replies as absence of interest, sometimes there's just not much to say.  Plus you've got an advantage - it's a bit of a dry period at the moment.

[LostBBoyBear]

8 hours ago, Guilend said:

I actually really enjoy this story so I'm not sure why it's not getting the views or likes as with your other stories. I meant to comment on your previous chapter and I thought I had lol. I started a new job two weeks ago and I'm still getting used to the schedule. I really like the detail you've put into his redemption. The small and large turning points in his journey is amazing, especially the small ones that are normally overlooked in movies. Usually it's the small decisions that one makes that leads to change, not the spare of the moment ones when something happens, those just show the change that's already happened. You've captured that perfectly.

Is this Mrs. G from the other story? The one that might have started wearing diapers at the end? I think I remember her introducing herself as Mrs. Gillies before it switched to Mrs. G? I'll go back and read that part again, it's probably my favorite story you've written lol. And yes, it's probably because Mrs. G might have been wearing a diaper at the end, and probably the most evil story you've written because you never said what happened to her, but gave enough information to drive my imagination insane lol.

 

Hopefully one of these new Littles will connect with him and claim them as their own.

As for your next story, I vote for Tell me more sequel or Bethany. Tell Me More was a great phycological thriller I guess you can say, the ending with that group meeting that added a threat wrapped in a mystery was amazing.

Thanks for all your readings of my stories. As I've said, I can push through without the love with these, but there's a little part of me that just can't help but wonder what is going on. Until others find them again, thanks for your support.

Next, I think you're referrring to Miss Glifford from the elephant stuffy's tale. She was in fact diapered by the end, but this is Mrs. Gillies. I was halfway through that story when I realized there could be some confusion with the two characters, but I am here to confirm they are two separate Bigs. I actually have another story with Miss Glifford coming up some time this year, but for now, this story is just with Mrs. Gillies, who is actually in charge of the daycare. 

Lastly, thanks for your input on my next story. I'm feeling the Bethany story has some pull for my next one, as it already seemed to get some love from my last round, but there's still time for this to change. 

4 hours ago, Operational Systems said:

The story is good.  Don't take the absence of replies as absence of interest, sometimes there's just not much to say.  Plus you've got an advantage - it's a bit of a dry period at the moment.

I appreciate that. It's not required, but it's always nice to hear one is doing a good job. I guess this story might just be a slow burn in my library, but that's okay.

[Guilend]

42 minutes ago, LostBBoyBear said:

Thanks for all your readings of my stories. As I've said, I can push through without the love with these, but there's a little part of me that just can't help but wonder what is going on. Until others find them again, thanks for your support.

You're welcome. I think my favorite part of your writing is the detail you put into the emotions of each character. Like, you accurately account for their reactions to outside stimuli both physical and emotional reactions and thoughts. 

 

45 minutes ago, LostBBoyBear said:

Next, I think you're referrring to Miss Glifford from the elephant stuffy's tale. She was in fact diapered by the end, but this is Mrs. Gillies. I was halfway through that story when I realized there could be some confusion with the two characters, but I am here to confirm they are two separate Bigs. I actually have another story with Miss Glifford coming up some time this year, but for now, this story is just with Mrs. Gillies, who is actually in charge of the daycare. 

Oh lol yes, her. I didn't think it was the same person, but I wanted to double check. I can't wait for that story, she was my favorite character in that story, both because of her personality and her loyalty to everyone and of course because you had hinted that she was diapered at the end which the reasons to why has had my mind going nuts lol. 

 

47 minutes ago, LostBBoyBear said:

Lastly, thanks for your input on my next story. I'm feeling the Bethany story has some pull for my next one, as it already seemed to get some love from my last round, but there's still time for this to change. 

Either one works for me. Bethany sounds like it'll be fun to read, like any of your stories lol. 

[LostBBoyBear]

Hey everyone! I’ve been hard at work continuing to write this story. A few things just happened to fall through this week, so I should be able to snap out a bunch of writing at least over the next few days. Right now, the story is sitting at about 14 chapters, so after this one, there should only be about eight left to go. My hope is that I will at least be done writing this story by the end of the month.

I also just want to take the time to thank any of you who reached out and showed your support. Unlike The Opening story, despite a negative response initially, I’m still going to keep at this story and not doubt myself, but warm comments from you all are always nice to see. So, from the bottom of my creative soul and drive, I just want to thank you.

Lastly, for those of you reading this one, I’m still trying to determine my next story, so be sure to let me know what you want of the three stories I placed on here to decide from. For those of you who may have missed these options or whatnot, just refer back to chapter 4.

Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys this next chapter!

Chapter 6: The Regret of One’s Manufacturing

My efforts had all been met with failure and I was now about to attempt my fourth Little on my fifth day. Three Littles had all come and gone with various levels of success or failure for me, but as yesterday had been some Big holiday, I was now even more determined to find my new Little. If today didn’t work either with yet another Little, my self-confidence would definitely take a hit and I would only have two more days to accomplish my goal set by the toy council here.

Still, my confidence for now was at least higher than it had been. My time with Travis, though ending with him tossing me in the mud where I almost sunk to my doom, had shown my commitment to my new path of life to many of the toys here at the daycare. I still felt a little weird with the extreme turnaround everyone now seemed to have with me from dastardly mustache-twirling villain to hero of the hour, but I suppose it was better than the alternative. After all, if Pete hadn’t intervened when he did, I would either be sleeping with used diapers and moldy cheese at the dump or simply just dust in the air by now after the flames of the incinerator. It was a fact that I couldn’t let go of and that kept me striving to be better every day now.  

So, as usual, I met up with Pete out in the hallway before any of the other Littles arrived today. Every toy and stuffy knew that after a holiday, Littles could arrive in several ways. For some, it meant being tired from their day of fun, but for others though… many of them might not want to sit down or might need to be moved down to another room tier.

“Who’s up today, Pete?” I then asked eagerly when I saw the lumbering aged parrot in front of me in the still empty hallway. “Think of any good Littles for me?”

Most of us had been just relaxing about yesterday during the holiday and rested ourselves for the likely coming storm that would be arriving in the next 15 to 20 minutes. I had hung around Carmen, Tops, and even the ever-silent Poodee, but I had also poked at Pete. In unusual form though, he said he needed to really think about my next Little and sent me away. He claimed my past Littles as ‘personal failures he intended to fix,’ and so I left him to his own deep thoughts. As such, I was nearly bouncing with anticipation over which Little he had found for me next. His next words were anything but satisfying though.

“Turn around,” he said bluntly.

“What?” I asked in confusion, shaking my head at the sudden shock of what he just commanded me to do. The only thing behind me was to go back into the Burrows room. It didn’t make any sense to me, unless… ‘Oh no! Pete thinks I’m a lost cause now! He’s sending me back to await my fate!’ I could quickly feel the panic begin to surge in my chest. This was Pete, but maybe his deep thoughts had made him realize just how hopeless I was. Goodbye Littles, hello dumpster…

Pete nodded his head to the door behind me. “Turn around and go back into the Burrows room, Dash,” he said, now even pointing his wing back toward the Burrows room door to assuage any doubts that I had when I still didn’t move. “I want to try something different today…”

‘Oh no! I knew it! I was done for! A lost cause… a toy without hope… a… wait… What did he say again?’ I then looked at Pete with a mix of confusion. The anxiety I was feeling from the anticipation of that moment was nearly too much for me to handle, so I just had to ask for some clarity. “You mean… you mean you’re not giving up on me?” I asked quite pathetically. I almost couldn’t recognize my new self with my weaker demeanor lately. It might have disgusted my past self, but I knew I had been through a lot since my unboxing days and so I gave myself a break. To be blunt, I also knew that the previous shiny toy I had been was slowly becoming just a memory now.

To my surprise yet again though, Pete chuckled lightly. “What? What are you even talking about?” Pete let out another chuckle, but then cleared his throat and looked at me tenderly. “No, Dash. I’m definitely not giving up on you. Quite the opposite actually. Come on.” Pete then slowly guided my still confused form back into the Burrows room, quickly making sure that Miss Mindy, still on duty from the night before, wasn’t in there already for her morning checks.

Despite being a holiday and most actually going home this time, there were still two Littles left in the Burrows room. By now, most here believed that Fiona and Zack would be given up for adoption any day now by their original caregivers. It was pretty rare, but it still happened when a Big was never able to form a bond with their Little or if their life circumstances had changed somehow. After, we all would just reflect over the tragedy and wish them a speedy adoption. Fortunately, in this society, a Little rarely ever stayed unadopted for long.

Regardless, Pete then led me over to a single crib with a name written high above on an ID tag. I read the name, but for a second, I thought he had lost his mind when I noticed that the crib was still empty. “Uh, Pete? This one’s empty…”

Pete nodded nonchalantly. “Yes, that’s true, but it won’t be for long. As I’m sure you read, this crib belongs to Emma. You’ve probably actually seen her around before… she pitched a fit around the time you first came here. I think she might present you with a… unique opportunity.”

My mind flashed back to that girl, I now knew as Emma, and then again to when I saw her being force-fed in the highchair some time later. She was protesting being put back into diapers when I first saw her, but she was apparently in the Burrows room now. If she was in fact the Little that had been crying the other night, her fall from maturity nearly mirrored my own misfortunes after my fall from power after my duel with Hop.

“Uh, what unique opportunity did you exactly have in mind with her?” I asked, partially doubting my own abilities to help anyone in this room. The Burrows wasn’t a bad place necessarily, but it was usually seen as the bottom barrel around here. To be blunt, before my change, one of my bigger goals for Charley was that he would end up here by the end of my time with him. Looking back now, it wasn’t my proudest moment. “I mean, isn’t one usually too far gone once they get here? Beyond my help… especially as a newbie?”

Pete hesitated and then shrugged. “I suppose you could say that, but I think Emma is actually more damaged than broken or even purely regressed.” I quickly looked at Pete in confusion. “See, she’s regressed but definitely not to a newborn level. That being said, with her condition, the staff thought this room would be best for her. Seeing Emma the other day myself, I really can’t disagree.”

‘Yikes…’ If Pete was even seeing something as a reason for her to justify being in here, it must have been serious, and my own self-doubts were only growing larger now. “What do you mean? Uh, I mean, can she walk or talk? Why would a non-newborn or infant-level Little need to be in here?”

Pete sighed. “Well, I wasn’t there, but from what Nadia told me, she was punished severely after accidentally breaking a lamp and a phone in the lobby here initially. It put her on a watch list here of sorts, and when she threw a tantrum after being spanked because she went potty by herself, she was punished further. Since then, it’s been all downhill from there for her… that’s where you come in.”

Pete looked like he wanted to continue, but Fiona and Zack began to stir and both of us ran and hid under one of the nearby cribs. “Uh, just ask me any questions that you have tonight. Until then, keep your eyes peeled though for any difficulties you might encounter. For now, just wait under this crib as Emma should be here within the hour. Good luck with her… I know you’ll do me proud.”

Pete made her problems and my solution to them seem so obvious, but I was still completely in the dark. So, just as Pete began to leave, I placed a paw on his shoulder to stop him. “Wait… if she’s so… well, whatever she is, how is this going to be a challenge for me? What types of difficulties am I going to have with her? Is there something special I’m missing?”

Pete sighed but also gave me a little knowing smile. “Oh… you’ll find out. You’re not in any danger per say, but just stick to what you’ve been learning, and you should be fine here.” With that, Pete waved his wing at me and exited the room. Not long after, I began to hear the thudding footsteps of approaching Littles, and just as Pete said, Emma was dropped off in her crib within the hour.

Miss Dee-Dee then checked the rest of the Littles she had deposited into the cribs before and left the room. She was a new staff member, but one I had come to admire and respect for being the sole worker assigned to this room on a permanent basis. Due to the needs of the Littles here, she was completely dedicated to their care and took a lot of pride in what she did. There was even a rumor that her true name was Diana, but as no Little in here would be able to pronounce that by a long shot, she simply became known as Miss Dee-Dee.

Seeing the coast was now clear though, I then crept silently over to Emma’s crib once again. I heard some brief shuffling inside, but then it was all just silence. I saw a few of the other Littles stirring a bit, but most in here were so regressed to the point of nearly sleeping all day or may have just simply lacked the coordination to move around much. So, with bated breath, I quickly climbed the crib and entered in to see my new Little.

Unlike my attempts here before with Littles, I approached Emma differently. I knew I had to be more cautious since I couldn’t just simply fall back on my pulses to lull the Little into submission, and for all I knew, she could have screamed in terror of me when she first saw my deformed being now. When I got up near her head though, I knew that wasn’t going to be an issue today…

As I peered up over the blanket around part of her body as sneakily as I could, I finally peered into her open big blue eyes. I was at first petrified that she was going to see me and freak out, but all at once, I could see no reaction in them, and I knew she wasn’t registering me at all on a conscious level at least.

Now, as Pete and I had guessed, some of my skills when looking for valuable targets to regress translated well into my current life. After checking the rest of her out, from her look, I could see life behind her eyes still, but they appeared to be unmoving rather than just slow as one might find on a hypnotically blissed-out Little.

Looking at her body, I saw no surgery lines either and gave thanks for that minor miracle. Even when I was regressing Littles myself, I always hated surgery. It led to too many future complications and permanently maimed or disfigured any Little. If a Big was trying to convince others of their love for their Little, it was by far the most sinister sign to show that they were in fact liars in my opinion.

Curious as to the extent of what was happening with her, I moved in closer and decided to conduct a few tests to see what type of Little I was working with. First up, I shuffled the blanket and sheets around her, but still no response, and so getting a little bolder, I moved the sheet around to examine her further and found her to be physically intact and without red or purple marks blistered all over her rear. Padded yes, but not bruised or even slightly reddened. In all likelihood, she was probably a good girl that just fell down the wrong hole in this society. From my time at the daycare here so far, it was a sadly common story.

Sighing, I went up to her face and poked it casually, first from behind and then right as I stood in front of her. It was a little inhumane and a risk to revealing my whole ‘being alive’ bit, but as the other tests had shown, she still had no movement or reaction to my gestures. So, I tried two final tests. I then sat, raised my two front paws up, and smacked them as loud as I could by her ear.

A few other Littles squealed or cooed after, but to my dismay, Emma remained as silent and as still as ever. I then tried my final test. “Emma… Emma… Emma!” Each of my callouts to her were progressively louder, but she just remained still and fixed. I now felt like I knew what Pete was talking about when he said that she would present me with a challenge. How could I, a toy, comfort a Little who wouldn’t even react to the slightest stimuli.

So, resigned to figuring out how to actually get through to her, I waited by the head of her bed until the first round of checking was performed by Miss Dee-Dee and Miss Tully, who helped out when needed in the room. The other Littles were each changed and then given a bottle, and most rarely said anything but a few coos, giggles, and maybe even some fit of brief laughter or crying. Then finally, it was Emma’s turn, but she remained as still and emotionless as I was right then.

“Hello, Emmy!” Mis Dee-Dee greeted my new prospective Little. Her bright eyes and curly hair gave her a calming and matronly sort of look which I think went well with most of the Littles here, even the most regressed ones. For her part though, Emma just stared back… lifeless.

Undeterred, Miss Dee-Dee picked up Emma, bounced her a bit up and down, and then took her over to the changing table under the glowing crystals on that side of the room. I eagerly, but covertly, looked and listened in to see if somehow Emma would respond to Miss Dee-Dee.

“Oh Emmy! Someone made a messy-wessy, huh?” Miss Dee-Dee baby talked to the Little before her. Emma still made no motion, even as her onesie was pulled aside and the tapes of her rather large diaper were undone. Even the most heavily regressed Littles gave out some sign of distress when the warmed wipes were applied to their skin, but Emma wasn’t like them. She remained as still as ever.

The next few minutes were then just filled with baby talk or Miss Dee-Dee even talking to herself occasionally. It was becoming very apparent, especially after she remained silent during the whole change, that something was very wrong with Emma. To be honest, it was hurting me just to see a Little so damaged in that way. Regrettably, I thought of my own desired actions with Charley once again.  

Miss Dee-Dee, ever the professional, soon finished Emma’s change though and brought her back over to the crib and I became lifeless once more to remain undetected. Settling her down with a fresh bottle, Emma finally moved, but it was just to accept the object and hold it like it was only an automatic response for her. Miss Dee-Dee sighed and stroked the Little’s chestnut hair out of her face. “Oh, Emmy… what are we going to do with you?” In response, Emmy just kept sucking. “I suppose we’ll have to figure out something for you… maybe more permanent, but for now, just enjoy your baba, honey. I’ll be back to check on you in a little while…” And with that, Miss Dee-Dee left the room once more. Silence quickly followed beyond the subtle sucking sounds now occurring all around me.

From everything that I had witnessed, it was now clear to me that while Emma was regressed, she was far more likely in a distressed and catatonic state than strictly being the newborn that her abilities appeared to be. I doubt there was much discernable vocabulary or knowledge left in her head above a two- or three-year-old, but I wondered just how much of her was left locked away in her head.

Distressingly, even the valiant and kindly Miss Dee-Dee seemed distressed by her condition though, and that was never a good sign. Seeing this place for long enough, Littles like Emma were often casualties of the very places their Bigs sent them to. Reform academies and special schools for Littles often achieved these types of results and the Littles afterward would either never recover and be shipped to a state-run facility to be better cared for, or they would languish and eventually just regress themselves under the strain of their locked-in state. If Miss Dee-Dee’s comments were any indication, she seemed to be headed for the latter of those two options.

“Oh Emma…” I said quietly over the regressed girl, still suckling down her milk. “What can I do for you? I don’t know if I can help you in the way you need…”

For a moment, she shifted and seemed to look right at me. I froze in panic that she was actually seeing me, but her face squinted a little, and after a tiny little grunting, I heard a series of small wet toots erupting from her backside. Seconds later, she was busily nursing back at her bottle… not a care in the world to what she had just done in her freshly changed diaper.

“I’m sorry,” I said dejectedly to the poor Little in front of me. “I don’t think I can do this…” And with that, steeped in yet another failure and shame of not being able to help her, I climbed down off the crib and made my way over to the Canopy room. Pete’s normal Little just happened to be sick today, so when I managed to flag him down from underneath one of the low hanging chairs at the crafting table in there, where I could remain out of sight still, he came over.

He quickly looked at me in confusion and maybe even a little worry. “Hey Dash… what’s up? Why are you over here? Did something go wrong with Emma?”

I shook my head. “No, nothing like that, but Pete… I don’t think I can help her. She’s just… gone.”

Pete sighed and shook his head almost seemingly out of disappointment. “I was hoping that you would have learned a little more by now than that regarding our Littles here. Giving up so soon too… Maybe I was wrong about the type of toy you wanted to be…”

I felt his words like a knife to my soul. “What do you mean?” I asked with my pathetic and desperate tone once more. I didn’t care. “I tried everything you’ve told me to do. I tried to communicate with her… even get her to respond to outside stimuli. It’s all just… nothing. If we’re supposed to be helping them, how can I help if she doesn’t even know I’m there? I’m not a quitter but I just don’t know what to do!”

Pete sighed again, but almost oddly smiled a little. “It’s hard when they’re regressed to almost nothing… isn’t it? Almost like they’ve been lost to all that… forward and justified progress, huh? Much different seeing the regression on this side, right?”

Pete stared back at me, and I suddenly knew exactly what he was trying to imply. I didn’t say anything, but I’m pretty sure my face showed all I needed to anyways. “Exactly, Dash. This is what you wanted for all those other Littles. I think Emma will do you some good by seeing the consequences of your old ways. So, no, you can’t just quit her now. I want you to go back and help her out with the lessons and skills I’ve taught you. Is that something you can do that for me?”

I looked at the ground in shame. “But Pete… I don’t know if I’m the right person for her… I tried to regress people after all. She’s everything my line was designed to do in theory, but I think I’m too messed up myself to be with her. I’m just going to be a failure to her too.”

Pete frowned and gripped me tightly with both of my shoulders. “Now there’s none of that talk, Dash. You hear?” he belted as if it was more of an order than a question. I quickly snapped out of my funk and nodded. He then backed off. “Good. Now, as far as Emma goes, I think this will be a good thing for you to see up close and personal. In a way, you two can even grow and heal together if you do this right.”

“I guess… I just…” I was finding it hard to say what I was feeling right now. “It’s just that Emma is the reality of my actions. It’s one thing to be programmed to do something being a toy, but it’s something else entirely witnessing the devastation of what I was trying to do. Charley and the others wouldn’t have been as bad, but still… that room… Anyone in there is suffering a worse fate than I ever could have imagined. They’re just… gone…”

Pete nodded. “Now you’re getting it, Dash. I want you to go back in there and help her out. If you want, think of it as your penance for what you did to Charley and tried to do to the others. After all, just consider this. You were their toy and were supposed to protect them, but instead, you just hurt them. This time, find a way to do the opposite and help a Little heal from the exact same wounds you once tried to inflict yourself.”

Pete’s words were harsh but true. I nodded and had nearly left from under the table, but I wanted to know one last thing while it was still on my mind. “Pete?” The old bird shifted back toward me. “You think I’ll ever be able to apologize to Hop or Charley for what I did?”

Pete seemed perplexed, but ultimately shrugged. “I don’t know, Dash. You hurt them pretty bad but keep trying to change in the way that you have been, and you just never know.”

And with that, I retreated covertly away from the room. Due to the business of the day, as shown by Pete earlier this week, I used the air vents to get around a little easier, and soon, I was face-to-face once more with Emma’s crib. It loomed ever larger as my personal struggle to mount but facing Emma once back on top of the soft crib bedding, I knew I had to succeed. Not even for just my sake, but hers as well.

Still though, I felt I was out of options, so I tried a few of my old techniques that I had tried before. All that failing still, I tried a different approach and crouched down to meet her by her head and unfocused eyes contained within.

“Emma,” I said quietly, almost in a whisper, “I want to talk to you… I want to help you.” I sighed as she still remained motionless. “I’m not sure if you can even see or hear me, but I want to be there for you.”

It still wasn’t working, so I decided to go deeper within myself. “You know… there was actually a time where I would have been happy to see you this way… or at least a Little that is. I used to have a Little… Charley…” I was feeling so much guilt about what I had done to him lately that I had to continually check my emotions to keep from breaking down. “See, I hurt him… I hurt him bad. Others tried to stop me, but I was really powerful then and I stopped them instead, until one day where I became what you might be able to see before you.”

Emma eyes seemed to shift slightly. I wasn’t sure if what I was doing was working, but it was something… something I could hold onto, so I quickly continued. “I went through a rough patch of my own making, but now I’m realizing now that I was all wrong before. Even if it was my programming or wanting to help Charley out in my own way, I see now that I pushed too much. Littles like you are so fragile… I used to think that made you all weak and helpless and this was a good life for you all, but now I realize that it just means you need to be helped and care for more now instead. So, that’s what I want to do with you, Emma.”

Despite all that, there was still no response that I could see. “Emma… if you want me to help you… give me a sign. Anything… something… just show me that you’re in there. Please…”

For a moment, Emma’s eyes fluttered. I felt a surge of happiness. ‘Was this it? The breakthrough I was hoping for?’ My heart pounded in anticipation… but Emma only shifted a bit and closed her eyes… quickly falling asleep.

It was a blow to my ego for sure, but with Pete’s lessons and my own journey of self-discovery and penance, I knew I had to continue. I wasn’t sure about much with Emma, but I could see one thing; she needed me now more than ever. She needed that comforting presence in her life, even if she couldn’t directly show it.

So, accepting the challenges that were seemingly coming with this task, I followed Emma’s lead. She had shifted slightly to where she was leaning over just a bit to her right side… the side I was on. So, seeing that, I then found a nice large spot right by her chest and curled up into her. I could feel her heart thud softly against my fur and her chest heaved in and out like the bellows of an organ. It wasn’t much, but in my heart, I knew my presence here was still something.

And there I stayed for the rest of the day. I was content to just stay here the whole time, but I briefly had to slip away when Miss Dee-Dee and Miss Tully came in as they carried a struggling Little in with them. It was hard to see who it was at first, but after a moment, I recognized him as Tyler, the Little who had refused to share Sarge and then defied Miss Mindy. Clearly, his punishment hadn’t sunk in from back then.

“How long are the meds supposed to take?” Miss Tully asked as she struggled to keep Tyler’s feet from whacking her in the face.

“Oh, not very… long!” Miss Dee-Dee replied, finally sitting in the rocking chair in a particular dark spot in the room while still holding on to Tyler’s upper body. “The FOY just needs a sec to kick in. Interesting enough, his flailing should help it pass faster into his system.”

Tyler’s eyes immediately bugged out and he stopped struggling. Both the workers smiled, but also knew that by now, his efforts were just in vain. Tyler was screwed right then if he struggled for another thirty seconds or just lay still for another minute. In all likelihood, Miss Dee-Dee had only really mentioned that to get him to calm down faster. She was thoughtful, but she was also clever like that with the Littles under her care as well.

“There… that’s a good Little,” Miss Tully cooed down at the Little that Miss Dee-Dee was now cradling in her arms. “Are you going to feed him once the drug fully kicks in?”

Miss Dee-Dee nodded. “That’s right… Little Ty-Ty here is going to get some yummy nummies today. Should help solidify the FOY a bit more.”

“Perfect. Let me go get a burping cloth for you for after,” Miss Tully offered. Miss Dee-Dee just nodded back and then gazed into the slowly relaxed form of Tyler. The FOY was clearly taking hold of him, and I could only watch in morbid fascination as she smiled and then undid her top. ‘Oh… that type of feeding…’

The nursing wasn’t anything lewd or morbid here, and the atmosphere of the room only seemed to add to the nurturing moment between the two. The FOY was likely working overtime in Tyler, and I bet he didn’t even know or care what he was doing or where he was at. It was powerful stuff and by tonight, he probably wouldn’t even remember any of this when he came out of his near trance-like state.

Miss Dee-Dee then sighed. “Oof… I can tell you still have your teeth mister. Try and ease up if you can. I know the FOY is working hard in your system, but I’ve got others to help as well, you know…” Tyler seemed to shift a little and Miss Dee-Dee smiled back. “There… that’s better. Good boy…”

The nursing continued for a little bit when Miss Tully came back in. “No troubles I take it?”

Miss Dee-Dee shook her head. “No… poor little dear likely barely knows what he’s doing now. It makes me wonder if his caregiver even knows what she agreed to when she okayed our nursing protocols here. If she’s not careful, he might just end up in this room with me permanently…”

“Maybe that’s what she wanted?” Miss Tully countered. “Some do, you know? Otherwise, we probably wouldn’t even have this room in the first place.”

“Eh…” Miss Dee-Dee shrugged. “Pretty rare nowadays that any caregiver with a heart at all would actually want to subject their Little to being suitable for a room like this… especially with all the reforms and whatnot going on. I mean, I’m happy to provide the service, but I wonder how much longer it will be offered. Seems kind of cruel with what it does to these portal Little types…”

Miss Tully nodded, and after a few grunts from Tyler, both sensed he was done in more than one way. A burping and then a quick but badly needed diaper change later and he was placed into a nearby empty crib. No stuffy was with him, but Miss Dee-Dee just offered him a pacifier and the Little almost instantly drifted off to sleep after evidently gladly accepting it.

It was a nearly horrifying scene to witness firsthand nowadays for me, but I just hoped that Tyler would learn his lesson before it was too late. As they said, he was just visiting today, but I knew it didn’t take much for a Little to make this room their stay in this room a permanent one while here at the daycare.

By the time the two left, it was already late into the day, but another feeding and one diaper change a little while later for Emma, and the day was already over. Not wanting to scare anyone away at this point, I climbed back down off the crib and saw Emma and most of the others being taken away once more. It was tough to see her go, but as usual, I walked off to go see Pete for my daily debriefing and focused on what I was even going to tell him.

There honestly wasn’t much to debrief today, but I noticed Pete’s oddly persistent smile once I had mentioned that I had just laid down by her chest for most of the rest of my day. “What’s with the grin, Pete? I didn’t do anything with her… She’s the exact same as when I first met her.”

Pete nodded and sighed. “That’s right and I won’t deny it, but I’m smiling because you did exactly what you needed to today. You were just with her. As I told you the other day, sometimes, that’s the most important thing you can do with your Little. Even Emma, if she is still in there, likely welcomed your comfort.”

Of course, I knew he was right. If there was even just a slim bit of Emma left in her own mind, I had given her the comfort and care she likely wanted. “I hope so, Pete. It’s really hard to be lying next to a Little who practically embodies all the mistakes I used to make around here. I’m changing, but there will always be reminders of my past…”

Pete nodded. “That’s right, but with any luck, you two will grow together. Change is hard, but I think both of you need each other more than ever now.” Pete then paused and seemed to think for a long time and I almost left, but I also stayed because his contemplation looked to be important.

Finally, though, he straightened himself out and looked at me directly in my eyes. There was a sense of pride in them that I almost didn’t recognize in a fellow toy. “Yes… Dash, you know what? I think I’m going to call it officially after what I’ve just heard…” He then took a gigantic breath. “Congratulations, Dash. You’ve got yourself a Little, here at last.”  

It was such a sudden announcement, but before I knew it, a hoard of stuffy’s and toys soon descended upon me and cheered. I wasn’t expecting it to be announced so soon, but now that I was actually thinking about it directly, I had neither been rejected nor had used any tricks on my Little today. She didn’t have much in the way of a personality for now, but that only seemed to make everyone else cheer more for me and my success by just being with her today. Vigilance in caring seemed to be the key around here, and now that I thought about it, from what I had seen today, Emma needed just that.

After, I could even see Carmen, Tops, and Poodee smile and wave at me as I was paraded through the Meadows room right then, and it all felt so satisfying. I still wondered if the council would approve of Emma being my Little, but even alone, I had achieved some personal success today in staying with her and treating her with how I thought she should have been treated in the first place.  

My mistakes in the past were so obvious now, and it made them hurt even more, but with Emma, I felt just a tiny ray of hope that I could find the penance that Pete had mentioned earlier today. With any luck, Emma and I would both heal each other, but even though today had been a victory for me, I knew it was still going to be a tough road ahead for her. Still, this morning she had woken up alone and damaged, but now, she had me to help her in any way that I could. It admittedly wasn’t much, but it was still forward progress, and therefore, maybe one day of continuing that trend, she would find the same happiness I was experiencing now.

[Guilend]

Okay, I'll only admit this here, I was crying by the end of this chapter. So many feels. 

[LostBBoyBear]

Hey everyone! I got a little busy yesterday unexpectedly and was unable to edit this, but the good news is that I wrote a whole bunch before then. I definitely think it’s a distinct possibility that this story could be done before the start of April.

That being said… I had a thought last night and I think it might be something that you all could enjoy with this story. I feel that not as many have been reading this story because it may be a little hard to feel for a former villain of a story, let alone a stuffed animal. I also think, however, that it could be because of the lack of regression that I show explicitly in this story.

So, keeping those two elements in mind, I was wondering if you all wanted to see this story from Emma’s perspective. I already had an idea of doing it for the sequel to this, but I’m not sure if I want to come back to this particular story in the next year or so with everything else that I want to write ahead of it already. As such, I had an idea of maybe adding about eight or less chapters (at the end of this story before the grand finale) which would take place from Emma’s perspective. This story would end with Dash and all, but I thought this might be an interesting take on it all so anyone actually reading this story wouldn’t have to wait a year or even longer. What are your all’s thoughts on this? Would this be something you would be interested in, or would you rather just wait for the sequel to this story at a later date?

Lastly, for those of you reading this one, I’m still trying to determine my next story, so be sure to let me know what you want of the three stories I placed on here to decide from. For those of you who may have missed these options or whatnot, just refer back to chapter 4.

Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys this next chapter!

Chapter 7: The Silence Before Tears

The saying that the road ahead is long and tough would have been about the biggest undersell I think I had ever thought in my life when I became Emma’s toy. I couldn’t honestly call myself her stuffy yet, but I at least hadn’t been rejected by my Little, even without my pulses or messaging, and that was a bigger deal than almost anything else to me. Further, the toy council had even approved of the shepherding of my new Little and had then fully accepted me into the daycare here. It was a glorious couple of days, but as the start of my second week with her began, I started to wonder if I was ever going to make any further progress with her.

See, by the third day of being with Emma, I already knew her routine by heart… not that it was hard mind you. She would often arrive and first then be deposited into her crib. On the days she was running late, she would be fed, but then she always just lay in her crib after that with her eyes wide open but still unmoving and unresponsive. After that, she would rotate between another feeding, a nap, and then a change followed by another period of lying awake. Needless to say, it started to become disheartening after a while. So, after another day of frustratingly no progress with her, I decided to head over to the Meadows room to talk with my new friends here about what to do with Emma.

While I had expanded the category of those that I liked to practically every toy in the daycare, my original companions of Carmen, Tops, and even the still-silent Poodee were my go-to’s beyond Pete around here. In fact, I had hung around them so much that I was now even trusted by a few of the others and had been invited to their support group at night. To the surprise of no one, being a forgotten toy was hard and many needed to just talk things out. So, I sat down next to Tops and Carmen against a set of blocks and listened in to the rest of everyone else here tonight.

“I can’t believe she would just throw me away,” Rina cried out, after retelling her story once more, as I found out was usual with her most nights. Her Little had received her when she was mostly unregressed and was an active dancer with other Littles, but after a few punishments and the decision to regress her though, it meant that Rina was just a painful reminder of her past now. As such, she was tossed aside and ended up here.

“It was a terrible thing, Rina, but you can still find another Little here,” Doc Duck offered, being the group’s impromptu therapist with their white coat and old-fashioned head mirror. “You’re still very young and I’m sure another Little here would love to play with you.” Rina only nodded at the suggestion as she usually did, but after attending a few of these meetings now, I knew she wasn’t likely to take that risk any time soon though.

Doc Duck then turned to me. “I see our latest member has rejoined us tonight. Hello, Dash.”

“Hello, Dash,” the rest of the group said in unison.

“Hello group,” I responded as usual.

Doc Duck nodded at my compliance with their routines and ways here. After a second though, they seemed to squint hard in my direction. “You know, you seem like you have something on your mind. Any progress with Emma lately?”

I shook my head. “No, Doc. That’s actually why I’ve come tonight. I’ve been with her for over a week now, but I’m worried she might be a lost cause and sent to a facility. I keep hearing rumblings from the staff about it when they think that no one else is listening…”

Several of the toys gasped and seemed terrified, and I fully knew well why. Those facilities were often the source of scandal and the worst kinds of stories for Little and toy alike. For most Littles at least, it was usually a life sentence where they would slowly go mad or lose all sense of who they were if there was anything left in their mind when they were shipped off. In fact, it was only because of one escaped Little from the now notorious Garden Gate Hospital that most outside the medical community even knew about it in the first place these days.

Doc Duck shook their head in sadness. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Dash. I think everyone here can agree that we need to try and avoid that as much as possible.” Many of the other toys nodded their heads in agreement. “So, how can we help?”

It was a bit of a loaded question, as I wasn’t even sure what I needed at this point, so I just stated the problem plainly. “Well, I need to get her to show me, or probably preferably the staff, that she’s even still in there. I’ve done all the exams that I can, and I know there’s life still, but it just doesn’t seem to be enough to break through her shell.”

“Seems like that’s what you want to do to Charley…” Pinto stated gruffly from his own corner in the group before Doc Duck had a chance to respond. Several of the other toys either looked at him in shock that he would bring my formal Little up that way or even just simply looked away over the awkwardness but also truth of his very bold statement.

For my part, I stared over at the threadbare wolf and sighed. It was a typical response from him, and while I tried not to pay him any mind, his one green and one stitched-in red eye always got to me a little bit. “Yes, Pinto… You’re right, but now, I’m trying to help Emma… my current Little.”

“Maybe then think of what you would have done to Charley and work backwards from there,” he suggested, now oddly seeming to be both an agitator and helpful toy in the group. By now, I knew it was his usual M.O.

Doc Duck then sighed themselves. “You were a bit out of line earlier Pinto… remember everyone, this is a safe space, but also, Dash, he’s not wrong about that last part. Maybe think about what they did to her… try and reach out to her that way?”

Tops let out a huge breath of air and I spun over to look at him. “Maybe, but you know,” he began, “it kind of reminds me of my own Little, Kimberly…” I stared back at the older kangaroo and like with Carmen; I had always wondered about his story of how he got here in the first place. “See, I got to her after the Bigs got to her first. She had been regressed in the worst of ways. It was almost thirty years ago now… one of the first Littles over here and Bigs were still experimenting around with how to push portal Littles into becoming their perfect surrogates. Her mommy wanted a baby and that’s exactly what she got…” Tops had to stop for a moment and clear their throat, clearly from the rawness of it all even all these years later.

I could see all the other toys with their own emotions welling up as well. Any toy knowing anything about Little treatment back then, personal or otherwise, knew that hypnosis was just in its infancy, and FOY hadn’t been discovered yet, so Bigs had resorted to other means. Most Littles back then were lucky if brutal punishments were the worst they got. A lot of them though, went under the knife…

“Anyways… I saw how damaged she was already, and while I was a first-generation messaging toy… I tried all in my power to help her out and get her to come back to the light, but it wasn’t enough. So, beating the Bigs at their own game, instead of using my messaging to push her further into the abyss, I used it to try and get her out of it.”

After a moment of him pausing, I just had to know. “And did it work?”

To my relief, Tops nodded. “It did. Took some time, but Kimberly made it back and we were together for another 23 years… car crash took her from me later, but my messaging worked and gave us all those precious years together. Maybe it could for you for Emma as well.” Every toy was disheartened to know the fate of Kimberly, but there was still a ray of hope in the story and each then smiled over at me. I could feel their happiness inside of me as well, because if everything went well, I might have just found my solution.

It was all so wonderful. Finally, a friend had given me another way that I didn’t even think of before. My messaging was much better than his, maybe about ten generations or so since then, so the effect would be even better. I was so overjoyed that I wanted to jump in the air over maybe even finally helping my Little. It was so wonderful. It was so… something then dawned on me, and a horrible thought cross my mind. The group quickly saw my previous elation vanish into nothingness.

“Dash? What’s wrong?” Carmen asked with concern, having quickly noticed my change first being next to me and all. The other toys, once grinning, stopped and quickly looked back at me with a similar mark of concern.

“It’s a great solution, but my messaging… I was exiled before when I used it. How do I know I can even use it now without incurring the wrath of the toy council… and what if I… lose control?” I felt so ashamed for even thinking it, but there was still a part of me that felt Littles were better off regressed. I wanted to stab that part of myself out and filet it on a barbecue, but I couldn’t, so it was still there… waiting like a coil ready to pop. Lately, I continually lived in fear that one day it would. ‘What if using my messaging is the trigger that sets that part of me off?’

Almost immediately, there were several whispers and wide-eyed expressions amongst the toys around me that only moments ago were smiling. Likely sensing the tension in the group, Doc Duck raised their wings and tried to calm everyone down. “Easy, easy… easy, everyone. Safe space, remember? Dash has a legitimate question for us. Being a super toy, he’s bound to face challenges that some of us older toys never have before.”

Carmen eagerly nodded in agreement. “That’s right. We accepted Dash, and so we need to help him with his concerns.” To my relief, most of the group that I could see at least also nodded their heads in agreement.

“So, does anyone want to chime in here?” Doc Duck asked the group.

To my everlasting surprise, Poodee raised her paw. Doc Duck was clearly surprised as well, but gestured to her, nonetheless. Poodee scooched forward. “Trust yourself…” It was barely above a whisper, but everyone nodded in agreement as she slunk back into the fold of the group.

Tops nodded while grinning a little at the small but truthful comment from our friend. “Poodee is right, Dash. You need to trust yourself and the progress you’ve made here so far. You haven’t abused your remaining tech, so keep the faith that you won’t abuse them in the way you’re worried about.”

Doc Duck nodded in agreement. “Exactly. Thank you, Poodee and Tops.” They then turned to me. “They’re both right, Dash. And just to add a little bit, because we are all flawed in our own ways, if you ever feel yourself slipping, take a step back, assess yourself and try to gain your control back. If you’re still too frightened, find someone to watch you for the first time, or if you feel you can’t stop, just walk away. Sometimes, it’s the best thing to do.”

Pinto scoffed a bit and most shot him an angry glance, but we all just kind of ignored that type of behavior from him. At this point, it was almost a rite of passage being in this group, but regardless, he shuffled forward a little. “All good suggestions, but we still can’t help old Dash here about that second part. That’s council business.” Several murmurs went up amongst the group.

Carmen then stepped forward into the group and the murmurs died down. “True, but what about Victor, though?” The group seemed to quickly take positively to her suggestion. “I mean, he was one of us and he’s on the council. To get a clarification on a previous ruling, we only need one of them, right?” Each toy slowly began to nod.

So, after a quick vote, in which every toy voted yes or just remained silent, Victor was quickly summoned from his current perch in the Canopy room. Apparently, a new Little had just arrived and had taken quite the liking to the scarred gorilla.

After hearing both sides, Victor seemed to think for a long time, but then stepped forward into the middle of the group and addressed everyone listening in. “I was once one of you all and we all know that it’s hard enough to find a new Little in one’s life. Dash is on his own journey, and I believe that per the council’s decision, Dash has to find a relationship with a Little. I will argue that maintaining that relationship is part of the bargain as well. So, due to these circumstances, in this instance, I will allow the messaging to be used.”

Several of the toys cheered with Victor’s decision. I nodded at my old enemy. “Thank you, Victor. I swear now that I will only ever use this ability for the good of my Little.” And with that, Victor nodded and then started to make his way back to the Canopy room.

After, I quickly thanked the group, and then ran after Victor. I was supremely happy that I now had a new way that I possibly could get to Emma, but it still almost felt weird having some of my old enemies vote in favor of me. First it was the council’s deliberation to give me a chance, then their approval of Emma being my Little, and now, Victor was actually allowing me to use my messaging on a Little. My inner curiosity burned and demanded to be satisfied. “Hey, Victor!” I called out. Victor stopped and looked at me.

“You’re wondering why I voted yes for you, right?” he asked, completely catching me off guard.

“I… I…” I stammered. “I mean yes, but… how did you…?”

Victor smiled at my stammering. “Dash, what you did with Charley, the other Littles, and even some of your fellow toys, including me, was all inexcusable. Even if you account for your purpose and all that hooey, some of your decisions were personal and sadistic. You can’t deny that…”

I hesitated, but I knew the truth. I quickly lowered my head a bit in shame and shook it mournfully.

Victor nodded and almost seemed relieved with my revelation about my own personal truth. “Right, but every toy here has seen your progress since we on the council gave you a second chance. So far, you don’t seem to be squandering it.”

I shook my head again. “I… I don’t want to let anyone down…” I admitted. “That includes me at this point. I was just wrong in my past, and like Pete told me before, some of this is my penance… I have to succeed.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, Dash,” he said with a little smile. “You are on a path of redemption, but one can’t find that within themselves without a little trust by those around them. You have a shot with Emma now… so don’t screw it up.”

I nodded and thanked Victor before he walked back off into the night. I returned to the Burrows room myself, astonished by what had just happened. I didn’t want to hope, but if Victor could forgive me from the group of my old enemies, perhaps one day, the rest might as well.

Two days later, the next morning came swiftly, and it wasn’t long into the day before all the Littles arrived. I had been working with my messaging to help Emma out since Victor had given me his approval, and even though it wasn’t working, I still had hope. Curiously, though, Emma was late today, but instead, I once again saw an unfortunately now familiar face to the Burrows room… Tyler.

“Quit your squirming, Tyler!” Miss Tully yelled at the wiggling Little under one of her arms.

“No, no, no! I won’t go back! You can’t make me!” he shouted. “It wasn’t my fault! Jimmy started it!” Interestingly and yet predictably enough though, his protests or complaints had lately started to become more closely aligned with a more regressed Little. Today was his fourth punishment coming into this room since I had first seen him, and I could quickly tell that the FOY was working overtime on his system.

“Easy, Tyler,” Miss Dee-Dee said, now walking in from the other door to the Burrows room. Her radiance seemed to almost flood the room and Tyler looked at her like she was his one true savior. “Shhh… shhh… easy now.” She then extended her arms and Miss Tully seemed to be only too happy to hand off the now almost magically calm Little over to her colleague.

As before, Miss Dee-Dee cradled Tyler in her arms, rocked him back and forth and brought him over to the rocking chair. This time though, the regressing Little put up no fuss during the process, except when Miss Dee-Dee began to remove her top. “No, no, little one. No fussing. You know you like this by now…” She adjusted him a little bit once she unclasped her nursing bra and it seemed to do the trick. In seconds, Tyler had quickly latched on without further incident. “There, there, baby. Easy does it…”

The two then rocked and nursed in the chair for quite a while. As the minutes ticked by and I watched covertly from underneath the crib, I began to worry about Emma and why she still wasn’t here. The hour in which most Littles arrived had come and gone, and still, her crib remained empty. A panic began to rise in the back of my mind that she had already been shipped off and I was a failure with yet another Little, but I held out my hope that maybe she was just late or sick.

Hearing a loud sucking motion, I looked over and Tyler was clearly getting into a rhythm, and in fact, today, it only took about 15 minutes to finish nursing once he started. A quick adjustment and pat on the back and he let out a giant burp afterward onto the strategically placed cloth over Miss Dee-Dee’s shoulder. “Ooh! Good baby! Get all that yuckiness out.”

She was now almost permanently baby talking to him while he was in this room, and more than once now, I had heard the volunteers who frequented this room whisper, ‘any day’ now. Today, the effects of the breastmilk of the Bigs on Tyler’s system were very evident and I knew they were right.  

He was soon passed out by the time Miss Dee-Dee placed him in his own crib and had even greedily accepted the large pacifier she had offered him. Further, he had rapidly accepted and latched onto Miss Dee-Dee when she pulled her top down, owing to the addictive properties of the milk, and her mere presence alone seemed to calm him down vastly. Lastly, and almost most evidently of his continued nursing, Tyler soon let out a wet fart not long after Miss Dee-Dee had left the room and hadn’t reacted to it at all. By now, he either didn’t notice it, due to the lack of control the milk exhibited on a Little’s system, or he didn’t care, owing to the mental regression properties it had. In the end though, I suppose it didn’t matter, and as the volunteers had insinuated, I knew his permanent residence in this room was more now a matter of when, rather than if.

About an hour afterward, Emma finally arrived, and Miss Dee-Dee set her down in her usual crib. “Oh Emma… I wish your mommy understood what was happening with you. I just hope she finds a way forward that doesn’t have you end up in the local hospital…” I could see the clear look of disappointment all over her face and I knew that my fears were quickly becoming a reality.

A near newborn Little was a lot of work for a Big to handle if they had any type of high power or stressful job. Emma was likely to have been regressed to a toddler level, and that suited most of those Bigs just fine, but her new damaged state presented those types with several problems they likely hadn’t counted on. From my experience so far, I knew that if Emma stayed like this, it would likely prove too much work for her caregiver, and she would soon find herself in a state-run facility… and likely never leave. Knowing that, I knew I needed to achieve some success with her and soon.

So, I began again. Hour after hour, I hid through diaper changes and bottle feedings, but otherwise, I was right by her side and using my messaging to the best of my ability. “Wake up… wake up… no one is upset with you… you are a good girl… just wake up…” I almost began to believe all those messages myself I had heard them so much, but I just pushed through and focused even more intently on Emma. It was like those old stories where some hero would valiantly wait by the side of a princess, and she would wake up after a kiss or some completed task. I was no hero, and there would be no magical kiss, but my labors felt just as intense.

I grew more desperate as the day wore on and lunchtime quickly elapsed into naptime for the rest of the daycare. In the Burrows room, this pattern nearly followed, but due to Emma’s late arrival, her schedule was slightly off, and she was just beginning to flutter her eyes open after a brief nap she had taken.

“Emma… wake up, Emma. Wake up for me… show me something… please, Emma… I will protect you… I will make it all okay… just please wake up…” I felt I was at my wits end. I needed a new plan somehow, and I turned around to go confer with Pete to see if he had any ideas about what to do. His newly attached Little would be taking a nap now and I knew he might have some brilliant or hair-brained scheme to help me out. Being desperate, if I did it now, I might be able to implement it before she left for the day. So, I turned away from Emma.

“Uhhh…”

I spun around and looked at where the noise had come from. It was almost a grunt, or the sound one would make if they had been punched in the gut, but it was a noise… and further, it seemed to come from Emma. My heart leapt, but my soul wouldn’t allow my hopes to be raised. I needed to hear and see something from my Little before I could do that.

I waited…

And waited…

A full minute went by and my tiny wellspring of hope that seemed to leak out, seemed to once again shrivel up and dry out in the desert of nothingness. I sighed and turned around…

“Uhhh…”

‘Blast it!’ I had turned around and left right as she said something… right as she apparently said something. My brain lit up like a firecracker. ‘Was this some way of her communicating for me not to leave?’ If so, it was barely anything, but it was something.

For over a week now, I had labored hour after hour with Emma, and beyond what she consumed greedily and automatically from a bottle and then what it produced in her diaper not long after, I couldn’t discern much difference between her and a statue. This though, felt different. Not automatic, but perhaps a response to me leaving. I had to test it out.

So this time, I still left, but I made sure to look back at her the whole time. She still didn’t have a response to me, but I was counting on this. If my face was the singular thing she was focusing on, even me backing up, she would still be able to see it. Curious about my theory, I gathered some sheets up to the point of creating a mound in which I could hide behind, but still see her. Ready, I dove behind it.

“Uhhh…” I saw her spew out of her lips, and by all the powers, it was one of the most glorious things I had seen. Her bottom lip even seemed to tremble, and not wanting to have her suffer anymore, I popped out of my hiding place and quickly went back up to her. To my surprise, a small smile began to creep up on her lips.

“Emma…” Her smile grew and my heart fluttered. I leaned in and rubbed my nose against her cheek. Once again, to my shock, she even moved and seemed to get closer to me to feel my soft touch and fur even more.

I sighed in relief. Most Littles were sleeping and both Miss Dee-Dee and Miss Tully were out of the room, so I felt pretty confident in my ability to hide my true form from any others, so I went a little lower and cuddled into her body next to see if it would react. It did.

Again, her movements were barely noticeable, but I did notice them. They were there and I could see them and feel them. In seconds, I cursed myself for ever trying to chase that feeling after I regressed a Little. It was a powerful feeling of control and strength, but this… this was something more. I couldn’t exactly put words to it, but it felt like growing warm sensation in the very pit of my soul. If nothing else, I could label it as satisfaction… longing… I wanted more.

So, I positioned myself once again near her head and looked into her eyes. “Emma… you’re safe with me. I can be your friend if you want, but just please come out of the darkness. Come back to us, Emma…”

Suddenly, her eyes began to widen as if she was just waking up from a long nap. Life appeared to grow within her eyes… she was coming back, and her little smile grew even more. “Oh Emma…”

Her eyes fluttered, and despite her long days trapped inside her own body, she began to move about. I think it took her a second to realize what was going on, but her smile grew with each new function she discovered she had. It was like watching an adventurer find the lost treasure they had been searching for years for.

After discovering her toes though, her feet dropped, and her head twisted about. Unfortunately, right then, I think she realized that she was in the Burrows room. Not having been fully regressed like I believed, I knew she likely knew exactly what that meant. All at once, her ruined life and her current situation seemed like it became plainly obvious to her. In an instant, she broke.

Tears began pouring out of her eyes. Wails like of which I head never heard before erupted from her long dormant vocal cords. It was truly a gut-wrenching sight to see, and it hurt me deeply in ways that I didn’t anticipate. All the pain that had been done to her, that I might have once wanted to do myself to any other Little, all rushed into her realizations, and she saw just how far she had fallen. Then, something happened that I still don’t know how to feel about.

Grasping at air, as if she was trying to cling onto anything that was once her life, she seemed so helpless, but her head began to shake as if she was either trying to toss something off her face or she was trying to tell the universe that she wanted anything but this. In that action though, her eyes quickly darted to me. I had slightly backed up away from her, not wanting to interfere in her process, but in seconds and without hesitation, her body twisted, and her hands shot out at me and then pulled me tightly into her chest.

Shocked, and curled up with her in her new fetal position, I didn’t know what to do right then. With Charley, he had always opted to cuddle tightly in his moments of distress with Hop. Only the single night after I had dropped Hop into the trash did Charley ever reach out to me truly. It was an awkward moment for me then, and now as well, but for an entirely different reason.

Then, I didn’t want his slobber, snot, or tears getting into my innerworkings and causing a problem in my ability to regress him further. Now though, while I still felt awkward, it was because of my conflicting feelings. On the one hand, I was overjoyed that Emma was now clinging on to me so tightly in this way. She was my Little and for the first time, I felt that it wasn’t just something other toys had bestowed on me. Right then, I truly felt as if I belonged to her and was providing some measure of comfort to my distressed Little, just as I should.

On the other hand, though, I also knew that the only reason I was feeling good was because she was feeling bad. It was possible that she would cling to me even if she was just so relieved to be out of her former state, but I knew that wasn’t the case now. Her sobs wracked into my very soul, and I felt guilty for feeling so good when she clearly felt so terrible. It was the burden of all toys, and I had heard it during conversations with other toys for so long, but I never truly understood it until that moment.

A few minutes later, I knew this was her battle and she had every right to cry it out, but Miss Tully and Miss Dee-Dee were out of the room and couldn’t help her out themselves. Due to the policies of the daycare, any Little that had been punished, wouldn’t be immediately tended to even if they had heard them cry though. As such, having been punished herself to get to this state, Emma was on her own to self-soothe. To me, it felt too much for any one Little to face by themselves, so I resorted to the one option I had.

“Easy, Emma… calm down and relax… listen to my messages… feel them… hear them… relax…” Emma’s wailing started to die down as each of my subliminal messages entered her mind. I didn’t want to do it, but her cries for justice, for help, for just anything beyond what she was currently feeling, were all being unattended, and she was my Little. I felt it in my duty to help her in these difficult times. If necessary, I would face the consequences of the toy council for the use of my messaging in this way, but I didn’t care right then about that. I only cared about Emma.

So, finally, she began to lull into a sleepier and calmer state. Emma would still be upset, and those feelings weren’t erased, but this way, I knew she would be able to tackle them in a way that wouldn’t completely overwhelm her or even truly break her into a lower tier of regression as I had seen before.  

As she began to cuddle me tighter and then suck her thumb in a peaceful sleep on her side, my thoughts allowed themselves to drift back to myself. I had seen enough of this room and of these poor, regressed Littles that I felt a change within myself. They had only acted in their own interests and were almost all being punished for something beyond their control. So, despite my inner workings, I vowed right then that I would never regress another Little as long as I existed in this world. Pete was right after all… Now, I had a new purpose, and that purpose was helping Emma out. Knowing what lay ahead, I knew she would need me now more than ever, and while a part of me still felt guilty, as her dedicated toy, I felt more than ready for that challenge when it came.

[Guilend]

Now that I'm off work and have time to respond. Great chapter. I was so happy to see Emma come out of it. I did tear up. 

As for you writing a few chapters from her POV, in my opinion it's not needed unless you really wanted to. 

[Operational Systems]

One thing I prefer about this novel, compared to some of your others, is the theme that there is nothing that is broken that cannot be fixed with perseverance, love, and attention.  Some of your other works are about maintaining a sense of self and accomplishment with a declining sense of autonomy and becoming whole despite injury, but this is one of your first works about repairing and improving on a problem.  I'm hopeful these themes shine through the rest of the novel and into your other works.  Some of them are a bit depressing at times, despite being joyous explorations of the genre and the wonderful description of how fun it'd be to become a little in this other dimension.

[LostBBoyBear]

Hey everyone! So, it seems most are pretty split on if they want the new chapters from Emma’s perspective or not. There are still a few chapters left until that point, so if you have an opinion either way, definitely let me know. I think I’ll use chapter 12 as the cutoff date for these, so stay tuned for when I announce it then.

This chapter also contains a bit of another story that I’ve been wanting to make for a little bit now as just a fun side project like the Mommy Does one that I had in another story. Maybe one day, but for now, I hope everyone enjoys it here.

Lastly, for those of you reading this one, I’m still trying to determine my next story, so be sure to let me know what you want of the three stories I placed on here to decide from. For those of you who may have missed these options or whatnot, just refer back to chapter 4.

Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys this next chapter!

Chapter 9: Fun With Pash

I suppose the whole notion of being slow and steady winning the race would have been my motto lately. First, it took several false-start Littles for me to finally find Emma. Once she held me tightly while she was breaking down, however, she had claimed me as her one and only toy around here. Satisfied with our connection, I decided to stay with her after naptime had ended just to test the waters of how others would react to our pairing. Miss Tully was the first to spot me nestled against Emma.

“Dash? How’d you get in here?” she asked after seeing my form. I could feel her trepidation fill the room, but she eventually just shrugged and began to pull me away from Emma’s sleepy and relaxed form. I began to panic as I felt all my hopes of being Emma’s toy quickly begin to evaporate.

“Nuh! Nuh!” Emma cried out, likely about as best as she could at this point. It wasn’t much, but it made quite the impact.

Miss Tully immediately stopped and looked down at Emma with wide eyes. “Did you just…?”

“Nuh! Nuh!” Emma cried out again, this time even shifting her body about as much as she could to try and reach out for me with her limp arms.

“Oh my…!” Miss Tully craned her neck backward as far as it could go. “Diana! Get in here!” I nearly instantly heard a series of panicked running steps come into the room.

“What?” Miss Dee-Dee asked in terror, likely thinking that something had gone terribly wrong. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Miss Tully shook her head. “Nothing is wrong but… look!”

Miss Dee-Dee peered into the crib and saw Emma blinking at the two of them, but more importantly, for me at least, staring back intently as she could at my still hovering form above the crib in Miss Tully’s hands. “Watch this!” Miss Tully announced excitedly. Miss Dee-Dee got closer and watched the scene before her carefully.

Miss Tully then lowered me into the crib and Emma seemed so happy, to my relief, but Miss Tully quickly pulled me out. “Nuh! Nuh! Nuh!” Emma wailed out, even more distressed as my form was even further from her than I was before.

“I’ll be…” Miss Dee-Dee said with both astonishment and wonder. “I’ll have to tell Nancy. I’d imagine she’ll be so relieved. I know taking care of Emma has been a strain on her lately. I know she blames us for her daughter’s regression…”

“Maybe…” Miss Tully said skeptically. “I actually thought I saw her the happiest I’ve ever seen her this morning, but I guess we’ll just have to see… you just never know sometimes.” The two nodded at each other and gazed back down as I was handed back off to Emma. Despite her diminished strength and coordinated efforts, her hands thrusting up toward me as much as she could was another wonderful feeling in my already spectacular day.

Since then, though, the second reason why I felt the motto applied to me was the long hours I had spent with Emma since then in getting her back up to par with where I felt she needed to be. While Emma was definitely making progress each day, it took another full day for her to stay out of her locked state on her own. Then, after that, we began the journey of flexing her out and building up her strength.

Fortunately, she hadn’t been in her state for too long, so the process was grueling on her body, but progress moved at a steady state. At this point, I practically became her own mini coach with her new recovery program.

‘Come on, Emma… come on… just a few crawls more…’ I was positioned on the floor by Miss Dee-Dee across her large crib. She knew that Emma couldn’t leave here until she at least mastered crawling. Before today, even rolling over had presented her mixed-up brain with some difficulty. Now, I could see her shakily move toward me one tiny movement at a time.

In truth, it was more of a belly crawl than a strict crawling, but each little bit she managed toward me was better than the day before. ‘Come on, Emma… you can make it!’ I was sending out little messages of my own toward her, on top of the occasionally encouragement by Miss Dee-Dee, just to ensure she would keep up the effort. I could sense from her repulsed face that she wanted nothing more right then than to lay down and cuddle with me, but I knew she would be happier out of this room, so I continued to push. After another few minutes, she made it and we both hugged in triumph.  

Days like that continued more and more, and her progress was able to get to the point about four days after she had first awakened to at least be moved to the playpen section of the Meadows room. It was still the youngest tier here on the farm side and was enclosed on all sides to ensure all the Little’s safety, but outside was a different room at least. It felt so odd to me celebrating the fact she had moved up a room, instead of down like I had originally wanted for Charley, but those thoughts were always supplanted with those of pure satisfaction with her continued progress.

“Congratulations, Dash!” Carmen shouted that night. “I knew you could do it!”

“Yes… congratulations, Dash,” Nadia continued in her usually reserved manner. “I’m very glad that you’ve taken this opportunity to use your time wisely and help rather than hurt a Little around here.”

I nodded in respect to the great lioness. “Thank you, Nadia. I’m trying my best. It’s hard work, but I’m just glad we’re making progress still. I still have to use my messaging a little bit, but I think she would just stop where she was at and not to continue any further.”

Nadia raised one of her eyebrows and I could see that many other toys seemed surprised as well. “You’re still using your messaging on her?” I could hear the fury in her voice already.

That being said, I knew it was a risk to do for Emma, so I nodded proudly. “Yes, and I don’t regret it. She just needs a little extra push. I see her dissatisfaction in life, and I want to help her.”

“Isn’t that going a little far?” Sarge asked, coming out from behind her.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think it is. I crawled around during naptime today and I saw her chart. With the amount of FOY that they used on her that it would take a lot more than my messaging to get her past a toddler level in her physicality ever again. Mental… it’s hard to say, but I’ll stop pushing her when she’s reached her limit. I think at the rate she’s going… she’ll probably be there by next week.”

Nadia hesitated and while Sarge seemed to bluster a bit initially, he gave me a tiny nod in acknowledgement. Nadia then sighed. “Very well… while I wouldn’t normally approve of such methods,” she said looking at the other toys who had gathered around us, “I will allow it for Emma. You seem to have a plan and I don’t see a reason why we should interfere today.”

I gave a little bow to the leader of the toys out of respect. “Thank you, Nadia. I have to admit though that Pete has been helping me out a lot and his guidance has been instrumental in finding those boundaries.”

“Then he’s a very good friend to you…” Nadia almost seemed to purr. “Be sure you don’t take the old bird for granted now, though…”

I quickly shook my head. “Never…”

So, days went like that for quite a while. Emma would come in and we would work on building her back up. The strange thing though was that about at the one-week mark, and about after three continual days of it happening again, I noticed I was almost having to repeat my progress from part of the day before. We still had a momentum going forward with what she was relearning, or at least re-remembering essentially, but I also felt that she should have been further along by now. If I didn’t know any better, I felt she was regressing a little bit each time she went home for the night.

So, concerned that maybe I had overestimated her limit or was doing something wrong, that morning, I decided to ask Pete about it. “What do you think is going on? Is it a lapse… or something else that I’m just not seeing?”

Pete stroked the underside of his beak with his wing and sighed. “I’m not sure what to tell you, Dash. It could be a lot of things… but what about her caregiver? Nina, is it?”

“Nancy,” I corrected. “What about her? You think she’s doing something to her?”

Pete shrugged his wings. “I honestly don’t know, Dash. It sounds like something is happening at home and Nancy is a Big… but I just don’t know what. Could be a new product or something else as well… hard to know about things like that in here though…”

I nodded in resignation and we both parted with a note that I should just monitor her as best I could and see if I could discover anything odd. Then, now being able to just sit out in the Meadows room when she wasn’t napping, I waited for her to arrive.

It wasn’t long before she came in, all wide-eyed and excited, but once again, a little worse off than she was yesterday when she had left. The last thing we practiced was being able to stand up with the support of an object nearby. It was practically a miracle to get to this point, and she was still pretty hopeless unassisted in standing, let alone walking, but it was progress.

Now, though, her knees would hold for about a minute or so but would then begin to wobble and she would then fall back on her butt. There was so much padding that she seemed to find it funny, but it still frustrated me to no end over her continued mini regression each night. ‘What is going on with her? Is Pete right that something is happening back home with Nancy?’

It felt too horrible to believe that Nancy would want to do something like that, but knowing Bigs, both the ones who designed me for a previously singular purpose and just those I had met since I was unboxed, it was a possibility, but my new connection to my Little and the pride I felt over her accomplishments began to cloud my judgement of them. To me, it was starting to feel inconceivable that anyone would want to take all that away. Still, an hour in when we took a break from playing and trying to stand up right, I got closer to the then obviously distracted Emma.

Seeing no other Little was around in our vicinity, I popped on my messaging. “Emma… Emma… listen to my voice Emma…” Her eyes widened a little bit, and I knew I had my hooks in her. Subliminal messaging wasn’t as effective at first on the listener, but if you could grow the connection a bit over time, any Little listening would be more susceptible to getting hooked at the outset and quickly listen in.

Of course, she didn’t know she was under my trance, but I knew, so I pressed. “Emma… be a good girl for me. I want to protect you… keep you safe… You want to be a good girl for me, don’t you?” Emma nodded as if on autopilot. “Good… very good, Emma. You are a very good girl for me… Now, is something happening at home to you? Maybe something you don’t like or something that’s regressing you?”

“Ligh…houss…” she mumbled sloppily. Her communication skills were vastly improving, but they still left a lot to be desired, much to my dismay right now. I tried to reclarify, but she just repeated the word three more times.

‘What did she mean by that? Lighwhose? What the heck is that?’ I began to think intently about it, but as my mind started to put it together, I could think of only one thing she had meant, so I messaged her again. “Okay Emma… you were a very good girl for me.” She quickly smiled with a big goofy grin. “Yes… very good. Now, just nod or shake your head… did you mean lighthouse?”

I waited for her to do something. It felt like there was almost a block and I nearly asked her the question again with my messaging. Then, however, she nodded.

‘Lighthouse?’ I was very puzzled by what this could even mean, but I vowed that I would find out. I just hoped that whatever it was, I wouldn’t be too late to help Emma when she needed it most now.

With my answer rumbling about in the back of my mind, I broke my connection and Emma, none the wiser, just went back to going between playing with me and the cushy blocks themed to miniature haybales in front of her.

Soon, Emma was immersed in fingerpainting with most of the other Littles. The whole classroom was nearly completely tarped off and each Little was draped in an oversized smock. Several of the Littles, including Emma, were placed in walkers attached with specialized plastic sheets and an easel on which to paint their own pieces. I was a little disappointed she wasn’t going to be able to use her standing skills, but I was just happy that a large smile was plastered all over her face.

It didn’t take long though for the paint to be plastered there as well. I was neatly shielded in my own version of what could best be described as a poncho, and I felt ridiculous, but as soon as Emma started painting, I was quickly grateful. Bursts and splatters of purple, red, yellow, blue, green, and at least five other colors were lobbed around the immediate area.

“Oh Emma. You’re such a messy girl!” Miss Tully playfully chided her as she made her way around to each of the gleeful Littles. She then bent down to see what exactly Emma was creating. I couldn’t tell, and from the look on her face, I don’t think Miss Tully could either. Being ever tactful though, she smiled. “Oh, it’s so beautiful Emma. Is that the sky?”

Emma enthusiastically nodded at the recognition of the large blue area on the piece before her. “Uh huh!” Miss Tully smiled at her response and then even more when Emma just took over and explained as best she could that it was a “bu’erfwy.” Looking at the painting now, I could see the butterfly’s wings, but not much else. Right then, I was just glad I was an inanimate toy to her and not someone she would truly expect a response back from if she asked me what it was.

Not long after, the paintings were then placed elsewhere to dry fully, and the Littles were each pulled away and cleaned by their respective mental or physical limitation ages. Those in the walkers, like Emma, were left until last so that those who could actually run around were taken care of first, likely as a step to prevent the room from being painted anew today by mischievous wandering and painted coated hands. ‘One day you’ll be like them Emma… one day…’

Finally, the staff made their way through most of the Littles, and they got to Emma. I had to use my messaging a few times to ensure she didn’t suck her fingers and therefore eat the paint coated on them, but I was just thankful that she was getting washed, and to be honest, from what I could see from my position down here with her slightly hiked up onesie-dress, and seeing the time, a likely diaper change as well now. She had leaked the other day and it had set back our progress a bit when we just cuddled together for about an hour. Not that I minded the cuddle, but from whatever the ‘lighthouse’ was, I didn’t want any more delays in her progress.

So, then all clean, fresh, and powdered, Emma was treated like the rest to a quick spot of lunch. She still required a bib like most of the others on the bottom here, but I just went along with it for now. I wanted her to be as big as she could be, and considering where she had been, I was just proud of her for now being fed in a highchair with actual food. Her stomach and diaper after her bite of solid food took a bit of a beating at first, but I think after the nuggets yesterday at lunch hadn’t done anything disastrous to her, she was now in the clear.

After lunch, I could already see the sleepiness getting to Emma and the others. I was pretty confident that she would always require at least one nap a day, but to be honest about that little bit, I didn’t mind it much. It just meant more cuddle time with just her and I, and today was no exception.

With me wrapped tightly into her arms and her eyelids already beginning to flutter closed, Mrs. Gillies began to read Gilda and the Three Amazons. Of course, as she read, I found out that Gilda was a Little and the three Amazons were the Bigs desperately looking for a Little in their lives. Starved and homeless, Gilda wandered in and found all the ‘adult’ furniture and food to be too big or spicy. Instead, all the Little things were exactly to her specifications, and tired and full now, she lay down in the crib upstairs.

“And the three Amazons all came home and found Gilda asleep in their once empty crib,” Mrs. Gillies continued, despite most of the Littles listening in already being asleep, including Emma. Mrs. Gillies only smiled and turned the page. “‘Can we keep her?’ the child Amazon asked. ‘Of course, sweetie,’ the mama Amazon replied, looking over their new sleeping Little. ‘First though, I think someone could use a diaper…’ The end.”

Smiling over the Littles in front of her, Mrs. Gillies waved over to the other workers and volunteers, and each began their process of transferring the sleepy, half-awake, or near comatose Littles to their respective sleeping places. Most stayed in this room on their cots but Emma and one other Little were soon carried over to the Burrows room and laid in their own cribs. Still clutching onto me, as soon as we were in the crib, I shut my eyes and drifted off contently with my Little.

Being a toy though, I of course didn’t really need sleep, but I still slept with Emma to first be more in sync with her, but second, to just rest my mind a little bit before the last chunk of the day and she was then picked up by Nancy. Still, as usual, I woke up before her, but today, that was mostly because of the squalling Little a few cribs over. It was Tyler.

Despite everyone’s warnings, he had continually gotten himself into trouble, and was now sleeping as a permanent resident in the Burrows room, having taken over Zack’s crib who had recently been adopted by a family living up in the state of Lygonia in the northern part of the country.

Meanwhile, Tyler had been regressed heavily and his needs had become much more basic; comfort, a full belly, and being well rested. If I had to take a guess, he was likely currently uncomfortable with his now seemingly always full diaper and empty belly. Miss Dee-Dee of course quickly rushed in and soothed her newest permanent charge. “Shhh, shhh, baby. It’s okay. It’s just a little messy wessy. Let’s get you cleaned up and fed before you wake the others. Come on, honey…”

I stared on in fascination over the routine unfolding before me. I had seen it hundreds of times before with other Littles every day here, but this was Tyler. Maybe it was because what had happened to him was a stark reminder of what I had wanted to do to other Littles here, but his regression had hit me pretty hard and I looked on sadly as Miss Dee-Dee handled him with care, but as one might do with a baby no older than four months old at best. Of course, I knew Tyler was actually 31, but that didn’t matter anymore… especially not after a clean diaper and his filling belly of milk now by Miss Dee-Dee herself. Still, I had my own Little, and I spun back around to face her as I could hear her begin to stir.  

After she awoke, Emma was changed once more, and we rejoined the rest of the Meadows room. I got her to continue with her standing exercises for a while, but eventually, I could see she wanted to color more instead. Satisfied with our progress today, I let her go and she immediately laid on her belly and began to furiously scribble on a blank piece of paper.

Not long after, Miss Mindy came over to check on us. “And how is my most special Little doing today, huh?” she asked down to a clearly content Emma, me lying right by her side and watching her doodle for the better part of an hour now.

“Nuffin, Miss Minie!” she said, butchering Miss Mindy’s name a little bit. I made a mental note that we were definitely going to need to focus on her speech more tomorrow. “Jus’ coworing! Wook!” Emma then held up her latest drawing.

There were clearly two figures on it, but I really wasn’t sure what I was looking at beyond that. I could have guessed like Miss Mindy appeared to be doing, but I felt pretty confident that I would have been wrong.

“Hmmm… is it you?” To Miss Mindy’s clear relief, Emma quickly nodded. “Oh, how lovely! And who is that right next to you?”

Emma beamed excitedly and almost seemed like she was about to vibrate off the floor from her intense joy right then. “Iss Pash!” she announced loudly.

To be blunt, at that moment, I was a little hurt but even more confused. I knew her enunciation of words left something to be desired, but Pash? ‘What the heck is a Pash?’ I tried to wrack every corner of my brain right then, but I just kept turning up empty on who or what Pash could be.

Still, Miss Mindy just smiled and praised Emma for her crayon drawing and went on to check on the rest of the mentally younger Littles in the playpen. After, Emma kept drawing for a little bit, cuddled and kind of babbled while she played with me, and then eagerly bounced around at the edge of the playpen once Nancy was announced to have made it here to pick her up. Emma had to endure a quick diaper change before then, but in minutes, she was gone.

The day over, and my mind filled with more questions than I had answers to, I went and found Pete. He was relaxing on a large pillow in the Canopy room and stretched out on the comforting surface after his long day of play with his Little. “Vivian giving you some trouble, old man?”

Pete rolled his eyes at my jest over his age but said nothing as he got up from his pillow and stretched out his back. “I’ll be good… just you worry about Emma. How is she by the way? Any better?”

I nodded. “She is. The same thing happened today, and we had to repeat the lessons she had learned yesterday afternoon, but we made more progress and I think she’s almost ready to maybe begin walker training. Maybe tomorrow even.”

Pete smiled with satisfaction. “Excellent. That’s really excellent news to hear. I’m very proud of you for what you two have been able to accomplish together.” Pete’s face then darkened a bit, however. “What about her regression though? Were you able to end up asking her?”

I sighed. “Yes, but she said just one word. It was a bit garbled, and I think I’m going to work on her enunciation of words tomorrow while she’s in a walker maybe, but she just said ‘lighthouse.’

Pete squinted as if I had just told him about the oddest thing in the world. “Lighthouse?” I nodded to his question. “Maybe it’s a metaphor for wanting safety in a dangerous world.”

Now it was my turn to stare at Pete oddly. “Pete… she just relearned the difference between hot and cold three days ago. I don’t think she’s dealing in metaphors quite yet.”

Pete and I both had a good laugh at that one. “Maybe you’re right, but I’ll still put out some feelers with the others around here that go home at night during naptime tomorrow. They might know something.”

“I appreciate it. There’s o…” I almost mentioned the while thing about ‘Pash,’ but I just let it go. Pete though, quickly noticed just as I turned to go over and join the forgotten toys group tonight.

“Wait. What was that?” he asked inquisitively.

I stopped in my tracks and turned to face my mentor. I sighed. “It’s uh, I think… it’s nothing, Pete. Just an odd word Emma said today.”

“Oh?” Pete raised one of his brows. “Isn’t that what she does now with her speech? Combination of babble and our language can be a bit strange sometimes. Could it have just been that?”

I shrugged. “Maybe? Probably nothing, but it’s just… she was so excited over this word. It felt… huge. Like something that was holding her whole life together and like twelve birthday presents combined into one word.”

“Oh wow… must be something big then,” Pete mused. “Mind if I ask the word?”

I shook my head. “Not at all. As I said, I think it could just be nothing. But word was… Pash.” Pete’s eyes quickly lit up. “Ever heard of it?”

From his near instant reaction, Pete seemed to have definitely heard of it before and he almost seemed frozen for a few seconds after, but then he just burst out into laughter.

“What?” What is it?” I felt Pete had just heard the biggest joke ever and now I really wanted to know about it as well.

Pete took a second, but finally composed himself before placing one of his wings on my shoulder. “Of course, I’ve heard of it, silly. It’s you!”

“What?” My mind spun with the mere implication of what Pete had just told me. “But my name is Dash. Her speech isn’t that bad, Pete.”

Pete just kept smiling but then shook his head. “No, silly. Your show is mostly watched by Littles, right?” I nodded. “Well, it’s mostly guy Littles, Dash. She probably hasn’t seen you there and likely couldn’t tell you apart from Mantis or the Blur even.”

“But we look nothing alike!” I protested. Those two were both superhero men from the Equity Alliance and I was a superhero dog that could run as fast as lightning on a cartoon show.

Pete chuckled. “I know that, and you know that, but I don’t think she does, buddy. Pash.” Pete smirked and almost seemed to hold the name in reverence as he said it. He then looked directly into my eyes. “Dash… it’s her name for you. Patch! That’s you!”

For the second time tonight in just over a minute, a revelation hit me smack in the face. I felt dizzy, but maybe relieved as well? “Hold on… she called me Patch? That’s her name for me?”

Pete nodded. “Yep! Seems like your hers as well now. She’s claimed you, named you… I would say in fact that you’re almost a true stuffy. Congratulations!”

I was reeling from what Pete had told me, but it didn’t take long for everyone to start congratulating me as well. It was a solid name, and like Victor’s had been, it was because of my extensive patchwork fur and stitching now, which rubbed me a little harshly, but still, she had named me.

To be named by a Little was a big deal. I was still ‘Dash’ but Emma was just tightening her ownership of me now seemingly every day. As we worked together to get her better, our bond felt like it was just continuing to grow. I still couldn’t give up my name, but it felt like a sign of something more. So, looking ahead, especially with whatever ‘lighthouse’ was and her regressing, the road ahead seemed rocky, but almost seeing it all laid out before me, I felt pretty confident in saying that I would definitely be taking it with Emma right by my side.

[Guilend]

Absolutely fantastic. If Nancy is regressing her, Dash should use his messaging ability to make her poop her panties, maybe in front of her mother or someone that'll give her a good spanking and make her wear diapers. I swear my opinion isn't clouded by the fact that I want to see an Amazon spanked and diapered 😂

[LostBBoyBear]

Hey everyone! Whoops! Sorry about not posting again yesterday like I had originally intended. Needed to fix something urgent with my car and one of the blasted bolts just took way longer than I thought to loosen up. All good now, but I do apologize for the delay it caused in me editing this next chapter.

Next, again, I just want to reiterate that I’m still debating on if I should include the perspective of Emma into this story or not. I rejiggered my potential plan a bit, so it would likely only be a few chapters, but I could just as equally expand it out into a story in and of itself. Let me know your thoughts and I’ll be sure to post my decision by chapter 12.

Lastly, for those of you reading this one, I’m still trying to determine my next story, so be sure to let me know what you want of the three stories I placed on here to decide from. For those of you who may have missed these options or whatnot, just refer back to chapter 4.

Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys this next chapter!

Chapter 9: The Folly of Most Bigs

Oh, how time flies when you’re having fun. Just like that, a few weeks had passed since I had first heard the term ‘lighthouse.’ Pete had put out his feelers and I had practically asked every toy that came in here from the outside world, but I was still no closer to figuring out what it could mean in terms of me helping Emma any further. That being said, because of my messaging and continuing progress with her, she was nearly at the peak of her abilities now. Her progress had been the cause of several general good feelings and celebrations in the daycare lately, and I couldn’t help but feel a speck of pride in knowing that I was largely responsible.

The slowdown in her development had happened a few days ago when I noticed that any further progress that we seemed to be making just kind of hit a brick wall. For example, I would try to get her to write her name at the end of each paper she drew on for Nancy or one of the staff here, but at best, the letters ended up squiggly or backwards. There were numerous other examples like her clumsiness in feeding herself, her lack of potty training, or her trouble reading more than the most basic of sentences. At the end of the day, I knew it all just led to one inevitable conclusion.

Still, even hitting that wall was tantamount to practically a miracle in this society. In fact, lately, I found that the only time we had to practice something any further or again was in the morning right after she came back from her house. Nancy seemed to be pleased when she dropped Emma off, but when she picked her up in the afternoon, I noticed a scowl would form on her face. At first, I thought it might have just been a bad day at work, but then I began to notice her scowl would always form right after Emma would do something particularly mature or at least something that flew in the face of her negative progress in the morning. It all but confirmed anyone’s suspicions that Nancy was trying to regress Emma again for some reason, but I still had no proof. In trying to help Emma as best I could, I knew that would all change today.

For now, though, I was just content to be placed on Emma’s shoulders as she played horsey in the Meadows room. Her walking was still incumbered by her diaper and I doubt she would ever have the physical ability anyway to run a marathon again even if she did before all this, but toddling about and even short stints of running were all doable after a little practice last week. The first time she ran outside was probably the happiest I had ever been, and of course, she had to relearn that bit the next morning when she came in, but after a few days, the lesson stuck, and she had been running and toddling everywhere since.  

It didn’t take long for the room to erupt in near total chaos as each Little began to mimic her or even just run around laughing. Likely sensing that their charges needed to just get outside and play on such a gorgeous day, Miss Mindy and Miss Tully clapped their hands and held up their pointer and pinky fingers while the rest of their fingers remained down and closed together. “Quiet coyote! Quiet coyote!” they shouted in unison. I always thought the whole concept was strange, but for whatever reason, the hand gesture and the phrase seemed to work wonders on the room of Littles. In seconds, each of them were eerily silent.

Miss Tully smiled. “Very good class! Now, we’re all going to go outside in a minute. It hasn’t rained in a little bit, so we should be good there, but just remember our rules, okay?”

“Yes Miss Tully!” The whole class responded back, with varying degrees of accuracy and pronunciation. By now, I was immensely proud that Emma was now amongst the most average in this room and fit right in on that level. It took a solid week for her to get to a level that wouldn’t require an interpreter, but the result was a source of joy for everyone around her.  

Regardless, soon, the whole class piled outside and predictably by now, Emma joined her recently made friends, Anna and Lilly. Of course, that meant that Cassie was here as well, being Lilly’s personal toy here, but she had quickly warmed up to me after my first day of just cuddling with Emma. Several of the toys had, but it was nice that she didn’t dislike me anymore. Additionally, Anna had now started playing with Carmen and was sadly teased at first, but once Emma stuck up for her new friend, no one bothered her again about it.

“More tea, Anna?” Lilly asked, adjusting Cassie’s arm to drink from her own teacup at the table.

“Oh, yes, tank you,” Anna said as she nodded and held out her own plastic but beautifully decorated teacup.

Emma joined in and was the more regressed of the three, but it didn’t bother any of them anymore. She slipped up a few more times when she was talking or playing, but on the most basic of levels, she was now about the same level as they were mentally… she just had a little trouble with some words still. “Cwumpet Li-ly…?” Emma asked her new friend slowly. She was still having trouble with her ‘L’s,’ and while I wasn’t sure if she would ever master them again, I was still happy her friends could understand her now.

“Oh, why yes! Thank you, Emma!” Lilly replied enthusiastically. In truth, I think Lilly was the happiest to add Emma to their group, regressed as she was or not. As it turned out, Emma was very loyal and proved this after a bully had pushed Lilly around and even threatened to chuck Cassie over the fence one day last week. Emma didn’t take that well at all and pushed him back. Miss Mindy broke it up and the bully was sent for some type of punishment in the backroom, but Lilly never forgot the loyalty that Emma had shown her with that one gesture.

As the fake tea and invisible crumpets were being passed around, I let my mind wonder for a second as to how I even got here in the first place. It had been a long road with Emma so far, and I couldn’t believe that looking over at the now dry mud pits, that it was almost a month ago that I had found myself sinking deep into them as I was rejected by yet another Little. Now, I felt so happy to be paired with her and I knew if she knew my true state of being, I think she would thank me if she could, and I knew I would have definitely thanked her back. If we hadn’t effectively saved each other, after all, we could have both ended up like Tyler.

The Little had progressed out of the Burrows room as well, but only because his caregiver had threatened to sue the daycare if he wasn’t aged up a little bit. I’m told by a few of the other toys still in the Burrows room that it was practically agony for him, but he had just barely made the criteria now to get out of there. He would still nap in the Burrows room like Emma used to, but it was something to those just ticking off checkboxes in a Little’s life. Looking at him now though, I wasn’t sure just how much progress had been made or even how happy he was with his current life.

He was all by himself and his onesie clearly stood out on his now pudgy body. Continual dosages of breastmilk and a low exercise diet will do that to most Littles around here, if not properly regulated, and I could see that his chubby curves now practically blended in with his thick, bulging diaper. He was by no means an athlete before, but he certainly wasn’t the rounded Little before me today.

He then began crawling over to dump more sand into what could be generously described as a lumpy tower. It was all his coordination would allow, but I also knew that his crawling was a minor miracle alone. That being said, just as he was about to dump more from his bucket of sand, he paused, clenched hard, and then immediately looked relieved with almost a goofy grin on his face.

It was a common enough facial expression around here, but it didn’t take a genius to know what was now sitting in the rear of his diaper. His continuous dosages of breastmilk had given him a layer of ‘baby fat,’ but it had also virtually destroyed any control he had or ever would have over his bladder and bowels. We all knew that by now, even if Tyler was mentally restored to the Little he used to be, he would never again regain his potty control. Further, his smile and little laughter during the whole event gave me the distinct impression that he would probably never even want to try in the first place.

Seconds later, he dumped his bucket and then sat back with his legs splayed out before him, not a care in the world with what likely just squished beneath him. In fact, at that point, he just seemed to be in total bliss right as he grabbed a handful of sand and went to put it in his mouth.

“No, no Tyler!” Miss Tully cried out, running over to the hapless Little. “Put that down now!”

For his part, Tyler did as he was told, but perhaps a little stubborn streak was still engrained within him, and he began to cry out of frustration for simply being told ‘no.’ Miss Tully immediately began to comfort the poor Little, but I couldn’t help but also feel bad for him at the same time. Not because he cried… that happened to all Littles here, but because he was still without a toy that had claimed him. From my own personal experience, there were few things in this world that could comfort a Little like their own personal toy; however, I knew that day would never come here for him.

See, feeling bad for him last week, I set out on my own little side mission to find him a toy. Hoping beyond any measure of success, I first asked the mainstream toys if they would do it, but most just laughed in my face. I then tried the forgotten toys, and all just flat out had told me ‘no.’ The next night, I guess feeling bad for my wasted efforts, Carmen and Tops explained the situation to me, and I was shocked. Tyler had been blackballed by the toys here in the daycare.

Now, normally, a toy’s first duty was to a Little and to provide them comfort. I knew that by now inside and out, but there was one caveat to that rule. Protect oneself first if there are other Littles more in need or if they don’t own you. Tyler was in need, but he was apparently a known destructor of toys around here and was personally responsible for the trashing of two when he first got here. In fact, the sturdier Sarge almost broke under his wrath, so now even with his regression and clear distress, Tyler would remain toyless.

I know I shouldn’t have been feeling guilty and all that about him, but I just couldn’t help it. I glanced, still in my statuesque toy form, back over at Emma and saw her laughing and giggling with her new friends. I of course let myself be manipulated to drink more fake tea or eat crumpets or dine with royalty, but I also just mostly marveled at Emma’s progress. To be frank, seeing her pinky flex with Anna and Lilly as a joke between them was such a proud moment for me due to the amount of skill it showed he now had back.

So, time passed very much like that, and the hours rolled by outside, only being punctuated by more laughter and the occasional diaper change. At one point toward the end, the Littles even ate their lunches out here, or at least the ones who could, and I couldn’t picture a better day. Of course, the food resulted in playtime being halted for most as they began to droop down and were in desperate need of a nap. Emma wasn’t the exception to this, and I was carted inside with her straight to a cot for naptime. It was all so simple yet all so peaceful.

Waking up and another diaper change later, Emma just spent the rest of her time coloring something for Nancy. The picture seemed a little odd though as Nancy seemed to be upset in the picture, and red flags and sirens immediately went off in my head. Portal Littles like her may have had the adult bodies of their planet, but their minds and some of their abilities were very much malleable in a near childlike state. As such, drawings were almost always a good indication of what was ticking in their old noodles.

Now looking at Emma’s drawing, I so desperately wanted to ask her what was wrong, but I knew I couldn’t, so I just remained silent. That being said, I did have a plan B in mind that Pete and I had concocted over the weekend. Nancy would be picking her up soon and there was a single air duct without any security measures or traps that I could use to peer in and spy on her as she picked up Emma. I would have to be quick about everything, but I knew it just might work.

“Emma! Emma!” Mrs. Gillies called out. “Your caregiver is here!” I always admired the way she memorized the ever-changing tittles of who took care of each of the Littles. One slip up from her could mean a full-blown meltdown. So far, she hadn’t gotten one of them wrong yet though.

“Bye, Patch!” Emma shouted out to me, still using the new name she had bestowed on me. I was still hesitant to use it personally, but I always liked what it represented when she called me by it. Emma then quickly hugged me and ran in her slightly bowlegged way over to get her bag from her cubby in one of the woodpecker holes in the fake trees in the room. I knew my chance was now, so when most Littles were distracted by their own toy or in waiting to be picked up, I made a quick run for underneath a crib and the air duct cover that was there.

As I crawled up the shaft to the top of the duct work, I briefly hated to see Emma off like that and was even worried she might notice my absence, but while she did genuinely love me, still calling me Patch and all, I knew she would be too distracted by Nancy’s arrival to look back for me, or if she didn’t see me then, she would have likely just convinced herself that she had set me down elsewhere. It was a problem sometimes with regressed Littles, but in moments like these, it worked out well.

Finally, I arrived at the open vent over top the lobby of Little Friends Daycare. Rainbows and cartoon characters were on the walls as I had seen when I came in with Charley, but more importantly, I then saw Emma run up from the back hallway with Mrs. Gillies. Second, and maybe even more important to me today though, I saw Nancy waiting impatiently by the door.

Nancy was your typical Big in this country who wasn’t one of the elites of society. She seemed well-off, but her lack of an ancient name and the fact that Emma hadn’t been bathed in hundreds of unique dresses by now from what I had seen, told me all I needed to know about the curly blonde woman now standing under me.

“There you are!” she said when Emma finally burst through the little gate between the lobby and the rest of the daycare.

Emma then raced up to Nancy and held up the crayon drawing she had been doodling for her. “Look, Nancy! I made dis for you!” Her infectious grin was enough to melt almost any heart. Almost any…

“That’s wonderful, dear, but I’ll look at it later,” Nancy quickly brushed her Little off, wiping the smile right off Emma’s face. “Right now, I need to speak to the adults, so hands on ears and hum your favorite song.” Emma limply lowered her drawing and paused for a moment as if she was thinking about something massive. After a moment of silence and inaction between the two, I could see the impatience rising in Nancy. “I meant no…”

“Which song, Nancy?” Emma interrupted while staring back at Nancy with her wide eyes.

I could see Nancy roll her eyes a bit. “Just pick your favorite. Mo… I need to speak with the adults.” Emma still seemed to think, but her delay still seemed to be intolerable to the Big. “Now, Emma!”

As if on cue, Emma’s hands snapped to her ears, and she began to hum while also closing her eyes. Her movements and all her motions that came after… I knew that there was just no way it wasn’t a hypnotic trigger of some sort. I could feel my blood beginning to boil over what I was witnessing with Nancy.

Seemingly satisfied now, Nancy’s stern demeanor only got worse as she shot back to Mrs. Gillies. “I don’t under what’s going on with her! I asked for her to be regressed once again. How is that so hard for you people here?”

My heart sank at the final confirmation that Nancy wanted Emma younger. If I could have bounced down and used my old claws on her, I would have.

Mrs. Gillies seemed hesitant to speak back. “Well, Nancy, I told you that the process would be difficult this time. She seems to have bounced back almost miraculously. It’s almost as if… as if she’s receiving counter commands to any of our techniques…”

I smiled widely. “That would be me, Mrs. Gillies. Score one for the tiny toy!’

Nancy, however, was not amused. “I don’t care what it takes. I want my baby back. You all broke her that way and she somehow bounced back… so just break her again!”

Mrs. Gillies sighed, and I could see Izzy, the receptionist and sometimes swing worker in the back, being to shirk away in fear. “Nancy… you know, I thought you wanted Emma to only be a toddler. You were just as angry when we overshot with the FOY last time. What’s changed may I ask?”

It was now Nancy’s turn to sigh and her facial expression almost seemed sad. “I… I just want my baby back. It was hard at first and I hated you all so much for robbing me of all the fun that my friends were having with their own Littles, but then, I realized she was so helpless. I was her whole world… and I want that back.” Nancy then shook her head as if waking up from a dream and then quickly resumed her snarling glare towards Mrs. Gillies. “Why do you want to know that? What good is that information to what I’m asking now? Just do it already.”

“Well…” Mrs. Gillies quickly seemed hesitant to continue but even I could see the determination and fury in Nancy. “Look… if we regress Emma again, she’ll likely be stuck there… permanently. No miracle or anything could get her out of that hold again. Before we start poking around or deadening her brain cells for your new request, I just want to make sure this is what you truly want.”

Nancy quickly nodded. “More than anything, so I don’t care what it takes. Give me my baby back.” And on that final note, before Mrs. Gillies could counter, Nancy tapped Emma and she put her hands down and stopped humming. “Come on baby. It’s time to go home.” Emma nodded and the two quickly walked out together.

Mrs. Gillies remained behind and just seemed dumbfounded for a moment. After a minute though, she shook her head and walked off. “Crazy witch…” Only she didn’t say ‘witch’…

At that point, my mind swam with conflict as I made my way back down the shaft and out into the Meadows room. I was the one helping Emma stay as she was at this point, and I was that unknown factor that had plucked her out of the blackness in the first place. Seeing her today, there was no way anyone could think of a happier Little, but now, Nancy wanted to take that all the way. If I did nothing, Emma would be unhappy and lost forever, but if I did what a toy was supposed to and protect their Little, Nancy would only get more upset and lash out at Emma. Seeing others around here, like Zack and Fiona being so quickly abandoned… I felt stuck between two impossible choices. So, as usual by now, I reached out to Pete for some advice.

“Pete?” I asked the seemingly sleeping bird. Vivian was really tiring him out lately and I worried just how much he could take from her. She was still regressing a little, but I don’t think I had ever seen a slower regression in my life.

“Huh? What? What time is it?” Pete asked sleepily, a little startled before seeing me. “Oh, Dash. It’s just you. What’s up? Everything okay?”

I shook my head. “No, Pete. Not even close…” I then explained what I had just learned from my spying on Nancy. With each detail, I could see the tension mount in Pete’s body.

“That evil, manipulative… Amazon!” he stormed after I finished. “I knew there was something going on with her! Ther’s just no way a Little regresses without a reason. There’s always one and even though we still have no idea what that blasted lighthouse is, we know Nancy is behind it all. Unbelievable!”

I let him rant a little bit longer, but when he finally started to calm back down, I needed to ask the pressing question I had originally walked over here to ask. “So, yeah… she’s the worst… absolutely, but what do I do, Pete? I do it one way and Emma gets hurt, or I do it in the other, and she could get hurt as well but in just a different way.”

Pete had mostly calmed down, and he exhaled loudly. “Geez, Dash… that’s a toughy, but personally at least, I think Nancy is a big idiot. She’s a Big and she’s sadistic it seems like more than we could have ever guessed. I say do what’s right for Emma in the long run… not some would-be doll collector trying to impress her friends or fill that void she calls a heart.” It was a lot to take in, but Pete and I froze as we heard something from behind us.

“He’s right, you know…” a quiet but shocking voice said from the shadows nearby.

“Who is it? Who said that?” Pete asked in his usual scared tone with these types of situations. “Wait… you?”

I couldn’t see the figure as well as Pete, but soon, she stepped into the light. It was Poodee. “Wait… you spoke? Like real words this time! Holy… I almost didn’t think…!” I was so shocked, I could barely form any words, but Poodee only chuckled.

“Yes, Dash. I speak. I’m just more reserved after what happened with my own Little before all this.” Her voice was barely above a whisper and her facial expressions were still sad all over, but I was still about equally shocked as well as happy that she was finally speaking to me. “In fact, that’s why I’m talking to you now. Pete is right, but more than that, for Emma, this is a major crossroads in her life.”

“Right. I get that,” I nodded confidently. It was why I was asking Pete in the first place.

Poodee quickly shook her head though. “No, I don’t think you do, or you would have never asked that question in the first place.” She did have me there. “See, you’ve never bonded with a Little and then lost them afterward. It’s a lot different, like I found out with me and Harriet.”

Pete still seemed too shocked to utter anything, so I knew I needed to be the one to press a little to find out what she meant. “What happened? What don’t I know?”

Poodee sighed. “I’ve seen the folly of Bigs before, Dash. We all have, but Harriet’s caregiver, Amalia, was a big-time senator in New Columbia. See, most Bigs really just want more control than to be nurturing with their Littles. A lot just don’t know it, and all it takes is just a little push.”

Her statement resonated loudly within my own mind. “Like I guess happened to Nancy when Emma was accidentally regressed too far here…”

Poodee nodded. “Exactly. With Amalia, she was all kind and caring and while Harriet had been regressed a little by then, hence my simplistic name, she was still a very happy Little. But Amalia was ambitious. In New Columbia, Littles are a sign of status, and it was right as the Big control movement was beginning to pick up steam. So, she felt to get more power there, she needed a more regressed Little.” I didn’t like where this was heading.

“At first, it was just a few things done here and there. No more potty breaks, help with basic tasks… those types of things. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but the more newfound dependence that Harriet with Amalia, the more the Big wanted. For Harriet though, the more she was regressed, the more her playful and yet destructive personality came out.”

Poodee absentmindedly brushed a few of her well-hidden, but numerous scars. “Harriet used to be so gentle with me, but she was right at the point where she would get all playful and then roughhouse with me and accidentally tear me apart without feeling the slightest pang of guilt after. Her daddy was a gifted toymaker and put me back together each night, but come the next night, I would be torn at least in three different spots once again.”

“That’s terrible…” I didn’t know what else to say. I was only torn once. It was bad, but still painful. Every night though? It was a wonder that Poodee remained any type of sanity whatsoever. “How long did it last?”

Her eyes swam with the memories of pain and loss. “A long time… but thanks to her daddy, I still got through it in one piece.” Her eyes then got very big and she appeared to be on the verge of a breakdown. Still, she seemed to gather every ounce of her strength and she persisted. “But Amalia wanted more… and soon, my best friend in the world… my whole world even, was regressed to barely above a newborn. Amalia got what she wanted and moved up through the ranks, but me? I was deemed too dangerous with all my stitches and repairs for Harriet’s new mentality, so I was thrown away.”

Pete and I were too stunned to say anything further, except mumble out a few ‘I’m sorry’s’ and condemnations of Amalia. I wasn’t sure what the uncharacteristically quiet Pete was thinking right then, but I quickly flashed back to when I had let go of Hop and basically condemned him to the exact same fate. It further wasn’t lost on me that I was once teetering on the edge of both being trash and incinerator food at one point at my lowest here. Now being with Emma, I was eternally grateful I hadn’t, but I still mourned for all those whose fates didn’t turn out so well in here, including it seemed, Poodee’s.

“It’s okay…,” she said finally, sniffling a little bit. I could tell it was still a painful memory for the heavily stitched poodle. “It was terrible for a long time, but unlike so many other toys, I managed to escape the dump and the incinerator there. I wondered on my own for a while, but eventually, I found this place and settled in.” She took a long time after that to compose herself, but then, she looked me dead in the eye.

“You can’t give in to what Nancy wants, Dash. Big’s wants are changing all the time, like with what happened with Amalia. Right now, though, you have Emma, and she has you. That’s not going to change anytime soon. Can you honestly tell me you aren’t the happiest you’ve ever been in your entire existence right now?”

I had experienced some highs in my life with Charley, but each of them had been followed by the now marred actions of me regressing him further. It was purposeful at the time I believed, but now, especially compared to how I was feeling with Emma, those old feelings now almost felt hollow. They weren’t invalid, but what I felt with Emma was just so much more in about every way I could even imagine.  

I shook my head. “No… I can’t deny that. I just don’t want to choose a path that hurts Emma. If I do it the way I think I should, she might lose everything.”

“But not herself… or you, for that matter,” Pete interjected, seemingly now coming out of his previously mute shocked state.

“He’s right, Dash,” Poodee agreed. “Do what’s best for your Little, and even in this case, yourself. You haven’t even gotten to the best bits of being a stuffy. Don’t throw this new path of yours away now just because a Big had more feelings of control when Emma was suffering and was a shell of her former self.”

Their words struck true with me in a way that I, Dash, would never have imagined possible. My main purpose before all this way to regress Littles to the state of permanent residence in places just like the Burrows room. Perhaps not newborns, as some might have wanted, but not too dissimilar. Now, it seemed I would be actively fighting a Big whose sole determination felt like it was to keep Emma there… permanently.

So, in full acknowledgement of my new task, I nodded my head. “You’re both right. I can’t do that to Emma. She’s come too far in all this. I need to protect her from whatever Nancy wants to do to her. It’s going to be tough, but I have to succeed… for Emma.”

Poodee and Pete nodded and congratulated me on my new purpose. We all then hugged over each of our losses and for our camaraderie we would need in the coming days. Knowing Nancy and seeing her blind determination earlier though, both of my friends knew I would need all the help I could get.

As such, we broke the hug, invited a few others into our meeting, and started to formulate a plan of attack to keep Emma safe. Tasks of running electrical interference in machines, diluting medicines they may give her, and new phrases to help me continually pump my anti-regression or learning subliminal messaging loops into her during the day and while she slept were all quickly formulated to battle Nancy’s dastardly plans.

It was an exhaustive time and late into the night, seemingly satisfied with our plan, we all leaned back and just hoped it would all work out in the end. After a moment, though, Poodee turned to me. “You know… no matter what happens you should be proud of yourself… Always remember that.” I nodded. “Good, but also… just know that things are likely going to only get a lot tougher from now on.” Knowing this system, I knew just how right she was, and I began to mentally brace for the coming times ahead that lay ahead for all of us.

[AlexTheAlex]

Awesome developments! Im very invested now.

[Guilend]

Bolts and even screws have a tendency to be stubborn. Personality I hate working on vehicles.

You did great on this chapter. I think he should eventually try and go home with her. That way when she sleeps he can disable the "lighthouse" and possibly ware down Nancy's potty training, maybe just enough so she doesn't always make it to the big girl potty lol. I really don't like Nancy. She's a bigger villain than Dash ever was, simply because he did what he was programmed to do, or at least what he was trained to do since "birth". Nancy is a Big, someone who's supposed to protect Littles, not destroy them for her own validation.

As for Emma's chapters or story, I honestly don't have an opinion. Personality the story would be good with it without it. But I'm different then most that read DD stories, I read them to see the world building, the characters and their interactions and of course to see if any Bigs get made to wear diapers, spanked or punished in any way like a Little. If not, then I like to find inspirations in a story to come up with my own side story in my head involving a Big character or just changing a scene in my head into something I like, even if it completely details the rest of the story or ending lol. Mostly my brain immediately creates a bunch of avenues that could happen or could've happened from a scene. It entertaining to me lol. I honestly don't know exactly what others normally read DD stories like about them. 

[LostBBoyBear]

Hey everyone! I added another chapter to this story as I felt I was rushing part of the plot a little too much. I think it probably would have been fine, but this way, I won’t feel like I’m cutting off any of you actually reading this story. This and at least the potential of adding Emma’s perspective into this story will now mean that I won’t be able to finish this story by the end of the month like I was intending to, but it should still be done sometime next week no matter how I do the ending.  

I also want to mention that I reference my made-up language, Agnustralete, in this chapter. I am currently writing or plotting out several other stories right now, and one of them that still needs a bit of work first introduces the language known as Agnustralete as a plot point. So that no one is confused, because it’s not in my reference guide yet, it’s a language that originated in Australia to shake off the imperialism of Albion in their country. There is a whole language that goes with it, and I won’t say what it means, but the following phrase does mean something: “Yeios djuu'haest u ghw lyrnguashel tut foortheub khonnfuhob u ghw lyetettehnd en ab upcomm'lin haeoreh.  Bheownina rhouintos phur yakho nu yakho khaan duunhd'and yeios.”

Next, again, I just want to reiterate that I’m still debating on whether I should include the perspective of Emma into this story or not. Let me know your thoughts and I’ll be sure to post my decision by chapter 12.

Lastly, for those of you reading this one, I’m still trying to determine my next story, so be sure to let me know what you want of the three stories I placed on here to decide from. For those of you who may have missed these options or whatnot, just refer back to chapter 4.

Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys this next chapter!

Chapter 10: Two Options; Two Outcomes

I suppose it might be safe to say, at least relatively speaking, that we kind of kicked the proverbial hornet’s nest when we decided to go up against Nancy and her determination to practically turn Emma back into a newborn… permanently. We knew it was going to be difficult, especially considering our ‘toy state’ around living beings, but the wrath she had brought since then was something that needed to be seen to be believed. It didn’t take long for even the staunchest of our toy opponents of messing with Nancy’s plans to join our side.  

At first, Nancy just seemed pissed at the staff. From her perspective, she began to accuse them of aiding and abetting the pro-Littles movement. It had apparently been growing for some time, and while I never thought that Nancy was political per say, her desires for Emma’s future had put her squarely on one side of the argument now.

After two solid weeks of the staff insisting that they weren’t the problems, Nancy began to get paranoid and started performing sweeps of the daycare for possible bugs or other devices that could be interfering in her Little’s regression. Not wanting to lose a customer like her or those who may follow her to another one of the numerous daycare facilities in town, the staff at the daycare gave her some freedom, but everyone could see the staff’s quickly diminishing patience… especially today.

“I will find out what’s going on here!” Nancy spit determinedly as she passed her monitoring device to look for hidden anti-regression bugs and the like. From what I could learn here and there since she had started her sweeps, pro-Little’s movements used them to ensure that whenever they had a meeting, no one would be regressed, accidentally or not. They were expensive, rare, and above all, illegal now, but many private collectors had been accumulating them since they were first created about a decade ago now. For anyone a part of the Big control movement, they were tantamount to their own private boogeyman foiling their every turn to just regress a Little to have as their own.

At first, it was actually a little hilarious to see the mighty Big and villain against my Little act so frantic around the daycare each morning. As time progressed though, her desperation shown through and started to wear thin on the staff… none more so than Miss Tully.

“Ma’am?” Miss Tully tried to get Nancy’s attention. That morning, Littles were already filing in for the day, and with her temper and near foaming at the mouth scene, many were starting to get frightened. I suspected half of them could be candidates for some serious therapy for PTSD by now, but a threat was still a threat. “Ma’am? I’m going to have to ask that you leave now,” Miss Tully doubled down against Nancy. This morning, it turned out to be the wrong day to confront her.

“Back off, slim!” Nancy insulted her. Emma and I could only watch from our spot with her friends in terror. “I’m warning you! Another step, and I’ll have this place condemned. I know people on the city council!” Thankfully, Mrs. Gillies was just walking into the room right then.

“Nancy…” she said with a calmer tone than I think anyone else could have mustered at that point. “Nancy… the Littles. Please… I’ll let you come in again tomorrow, but right now, we need to attend to everyone else here, and you can’t be here while we do that… you’re scaring them.”

Nancy paused her scanning of every corner and fake tree branch overhead and looked down at the terrified expressions of the Littles sitting on the ground. Miss Mindy and even Miss Dee-Dee had come in to help keep everyone calm, but I could see that Nancy realized the situation she was putting herself in. She could always argue that she was just looking after her Little, and that went far with most law enforcement lately, but she could also just as easily have been seen as endangering other Littles. There was only a handful of ways that would end, and Nancy likely knew that Emma would be pulled away from her with each of those outcomes. “Fine… I’ll be back though… I don’t trust any of you lot anymore.” Mrs. Gillies only nodded and led the Big away.

Nancy never did find any device like the ones she was looking for over the next week, but she was still determined to find the root of Emma’s resistance to be regressed again. So far though, she had been unsuccessful. For every toy in here helping me in their own ways, be it switching or diluting FOY vials in the air or in the food, or lowering power to the built-in hypnotic machines, it was seen as a massive win. That being said, it wasn’t long before my worst fears with Nancy losing were confirmed.

Nancy was sitting with Lilly and Anna once more and each was just talking to each other and cuddling their respective stuffy’s. Emma had referred to me as that the other day and I was positively electrified for the rest of the day. I was still basically riding that high even now, but all that was about to change.

“Yeah, my mommy switched to dese cheaper diapers the otter day,” Anna complained. “I’ve ruined two dresses now. Iss no fair!”

“Ouch,” Lilly said, with a pained expression. “I’m really sorry to hear that, Anna.” For her part, Emma just sat and nodded but she hadn’t leaked herself in weeks now. Nancy was turning out to be quite the nasty Big, but she at least made sure that Emma was always well-padded, though admittedly to the detriment of her stride lately.

“I can’t believe these Bigs sometimes,” Lilly complained, stroking Cassie’s hair in her lap. “My mommy wants me to give up my ballet practice in favor of another playdate with one of her cousin’s Littles. It’s just not fair!” Emma and Anna both comforted their friend. It was a nice moment between the three, but then Anna and Lilly turned to Emma to get her to share her own issues.

Emma had to think for a second and even seemed nervous, but finally, she relented. “Nancy’s been punishin’ me hawd watewy…” Emma mumbled. My happy feeling evaporated.

“What?” Lilly and Anna asked in unison. “Were you bad? Did you throw your food? Did you say no to something? Did you throw a tantrum?”

Emma was bombarded with a myriad of rapid-fire questions from her friends, and she just shook her head to each. My inner anger began to grow. “No to any of dose! I wassa good girl! She jus’ got weally angwy at me fo’ no weason! My tushie huwts weal bad now!”

My anger grew to intolerable levels at that moment, and even though Emma’s friends were there to quickly comfort her, each of us knew there was nothing that could be done in this society currently. Bigs punishing a Little, even for no reason unfortunately, was just considered standard practice. In fact, if Emma did bring her complaints up to someone higher, she would even run the risk of being punished for making a false accusation and maybe even be punished by Nancy later that night for the needless trouble she had caused. To most Littles, taking the punishment and hoping it would end was usually just seen as the best way to go forward. Eventually, the Big would get tired from it or the Little would learn their lesson, knowingly or not.

For me though, this was different. Emma had been punished for seemingly no reason before, but it turned out she had accidentally backtalked to Nancy one day. Now though, I knew I was the culprit of her ‘unknown’ reason for punishment. Nancy was growing frustrated with Emma’s lack of regression and was now taking it out on her. It wasn’t the first time I had heard about something like this happening, as most Bigs thought that correctional punishments like that would mold any Little to do anything they wanted, but it was something else entirely to witness firsthand. To be blunt, I almost broke right then and gave into Nancy’s desires.

Before I did though, I knew I had to ask some advice first, so I brought it up at the forgotten toys meeting later that night. “Uh, I just want to thank you all for how you’ve helped. Pinto, that frayed cable behind the TV that led to the hypnosis circuit was brilliant! I don’t think I saw a single spot of drool today when they turned on Jasper and Jinx!” The group quickly clapped.

It was a happy moment in celebrating our success, but I knew I had to get real now. “Unfortunately, I think we might need to stop…” The group immediately stopped clapping, and some even gasped.

“Why would you say that, Dash?” Doc Duck asked in concern.

“It’s because he sees that Nancy is taking out her frustrations on Emma now…” Poodee spoke up from the group. Ever since she had spoken to me and Pete, she was slowly making her way out of her shell. Still, it kind of shocked everyone each time she spoke up now during our nightly meetings.

Doc Duck quickly looked shocked still like most in the group, but then turned to me. “Is that true, Dash?” I nodded. “Well, that certainly changes things…” They turned back to the group. “What do we think everyone? Is this something Dash, and by extension, we, continue for Emma?”

There was a lot of murmuring afterward and I could already hear that there was a bit of a mixed response. Unlike Poodee, some of the other toys here I knew believed that Littles being regressed was fine in small doses and if it also placated their Big, so much the better. After what had happened with Tyler, I couldn’t blame them.

In the on-going saga of Tyler’s downfall and regression, we had all watched in horror as his caregiver announced to the staff one day that he had become too much for her to handle anymore. It was exceedingly rare, but it was always a risk whenever there was an extreme change from what a Big wanted to what they actually got. After all, with the hundreds, if not thousands, of portal Littles coming in now, Little scarcity that had once been so prominent, was now letting up. In certain countries, Bigs could be far more selective, which means that a very babyish Tyler was a problem for some Bigs that could easily be traded away.  

As a result, he was now up for adoption, and while he could find a good family like Zack did, the odds were not in his favor. Fiona had been adopted too, but apparently it was by some technology company that I couldn’t quite remember right then. ‘Was it Emerald? Ruby? Saphire?’ Something along those lines, but regardless, she was gone and likely being experimented endlessly on. For some toys, Nancy’s desires, though sinister, were more favorable than that type of fate, and honestly, I couldn’t exactly disagree…

Still though, there was a chance, which is why I was now in this dilemma in the first place. Before I could say anything else to the group, Rina then stepped forward a little. “I, uh, think Dash should continue with what he’s doing. We’ve all seen Emma, and it’s scary to think that she could be given up by Nancy, but I also think almost any other life would be better for her.” There were several nods and she then melted back into the crowd.

“Thank you, Rina,” Doc Duck acknowledged to the ballerina. For once, she seemed to think about others rather than herself. “Anyone else care to voice their opinion?”

Pinto then cleared his throat and stepped forward. “I know I haven’t always been supportive of Dash, but Nancy isn’t right for Emma. We all can see that by now. Emma’s regression probably won’t even make her truly happy, so I don’t think it’s worth the risk. Besides, Emma is a cute toddler-level Little and would likely have better prospects than both Zack and Fiona ever did. Tyler, too…”

There was a lot more murmuring, and while I could tell that many of the toys were nervous or even skeptical over our ability to give Emma a new and better life, it was hard to deny that a shot at that was better than nothing at all. I knew what I had to say, so then I stepped forward. “Thank you, Pinto… Rina… all of you. I had my doubts before tonight, but I think that we can still give her something better. We’re toys, and as you all have taught me, helping our Little out is our most important calling. I know that now, and I don’t think I can turn away and let her be permanently regressed. It’s going to get even harder I’m guessing, but I’m still in. I say, we stay the course and Emma stays as she is!”

The forgotten toy group then all cheered for my renewed vigor in helping Emma. She was practically becoming a Little to every toy in here, and while I was her stuffy, I knew that more and more toys were gaining a vested interest in her current and future happiness. Seeing Nancy lately and her fury to ensure Emma would be regressed, I knew I would need all the help I could get.

So, things continued like that for about another week. Nancy grew more desperate, and Emma grew wearier as her stories to her friends became even more concerning. Timeouts and the occasional single spanking evolved into losses of privileges, spankings in the double digits, and even mouth soaping’s if she used longer or more complex words in front of Nancy. I could tell she couldn’t take much more of it and despite my resolve to ensure she wouldn’t be regressed, as a result, I felt my world was starting to fall apart. Then, after daycare one day, I saw Nadia run up to me after I had spent most of the day outside with Emma.

Being the leader here and trying to attend to the needs of everyone, it was a rare sight to see her this close and personal. Coupled with the bit of commotion I thought I had seen in the Meadows room before closing, it immediately made my legs weak from worry. “Dash! Dash! Hurry! It’s Pete! He’s hurt!”

My eyes widened in shock and soon, both of us were hurdling down to the maintenance room. I could already hear the grinders, drills, and snips coming from inside as I knew Sam was feverishly trying to save my mentor. When we got there though, Sam just looked at us both and shook his head. “I’ve done all I can for him, but he’s going to need a new part, or...” Sam trailed off, but his implication was clear. My heart sank.

Noticeably trying to keep her emotions in check as the stoic leader she was, Nadia spoke first. “Is there anything that we can do, Sam?”

“Not unless you’ve got a back massager…” Pete said jokingly, but all of us grimaced as we could hear the exhaustion and pain in his voice.

“What happened?” I asked after smiling down to my friend in comfort, grateful that he was at least not so bad that he was still making jokes.

“I’ll let Pete tell you,” Sam replied first, “but if he doesn’t get what he needs… he won’t last more than two… three days tops.” With that, Sam then bounced off on his still creepy eight legs. He was a miracle worker most days, but Pete seemed beyond even his immeasurable skill.

Pete then slowly rose and propped his back up against one of the tool benches. I could instantly see that his chest had slightly caved in one area and his left wing hung limp and was bent at an unnatural angle. “Guess I don’t have very long…”

“Don’t say that!” I admonished my mentor, my emotions all bubbling out right at that moment. “You’ll come through this. I know you will.” I then turned to Nadia. Surely, the strong leader had to be more upbeat, or at least steadier. “Tell him, Nadia. Please.”

Nadia sighed and I sadly could see even her composure begin to crack. “I… I just don’t know, Dash. Pete’s been here for years… decades even. There’s a reason why we put him in charge of you newbies. His experience helps you all out, but it also means that whatever is wrong, won’t be easy to fix.” She then turned to Pete. “Sam said you had something missing or whatnot?”

Pete nodded. “Some type of actuator… valve… something like that or whatnot inside me… I can hold off from needing it, but my body is compensating and won’t last very long at this rate.” Pete sighed. “I get a new one… I’ll be fitter than I have been in years… but Mrs. Gillies called the repairman. He’s coming to get me tomorrow after closing. You know what that means…”

Nadia and I remained in shock for a moment. The repairman for us toys was either seen as the savior of all us toys or the grim reaper incarnate. Most toys had a 50-50 shot of coming back after he had taken them away to his repair shop. Considering Pete’s age though, his odds were likely even worse.

Nadia soon gave her condolences but tried to exude the same strength she typically showed around here in that he would be able to find a part available to fix himself up by the repairman. I could hear the hesitancy in her words, but she walked off and at least portrayed a sense of confidence in her movements.

Sensing the impending failure of his broken body, I then came over to my mentor’s side. “Pete… if there was anything I could do…”

“Forget it,” he said forcefully while also stopping me with his undamaged wing. “Focus on Emma. She can still be saved. By now, there’s nothing any of you can do for me.”

I wanted to respect his wishes, but I didn’t want to just leave him to the mercy of a man that had consistently ‘retired’ our kind in the past. Seeing Pete now, I didn’t like his chances. I just had to do something for him. “Pete… please… I can…”

“Just go,” he said a little sternly. “There’s nothing you can do tonight. Help Emma. She’s your priority. Figure out a new plan and go from there to stop Nancy or at least keep delaying her.” I was about to stay something more, but he just pointed with his wing to the door. “Go, Dash! Please…”

Sensing that he just wanted to be alone tonight, I abided by his wishes. As I walked back to the Meadows room, my new home for the night since Emma was now staying in here during the day, I kept thinking about how to save Pete. I was still a super toy in many senses of the word, but at the same time, I felt entirely clueless.

The next day came and went, and right as the last Little left, the repairman stopped by on his way over from some job he had just completed. Having returned to the Meadows room, where Vivian now was and Pete had been damaged initially, the repairman picked up the old bird and the rest of us toys watched in frozen horror. Hope seemed to be in short supply.

“Hmmm… model 80… this line is up to 900 now, so it might be difficult to find the part I’m looking for.” The rotund man then scratched his balding head while Mrs. Gillies waited for his decision about Pete with earnest. “See, newer models have it with their… uh, pulses or whatnot, but these models… I’ll see if I have a spare tomorrow morning at my bench, but no promises.”

“I see…” I could see the look of disappointment come over Mrs. Gillie’s face. We all knew that Pete was basically here when this place opened, and I could just imagine that Mrs. Gillies and he went way back. “Do what you can for him. I can pick him up during my lunch shift either way…”

“Very well, ma’am… you have yourself… a…” the repairman then paused and to my shock and slight horror, he spotted me lying on the ground where I had resituated myself after seeing another day of Nancy being upset with the staff as she picked up Emma. “Well, I’ll be…” The man then reached down and picked up my body and inspected me closely.

“Oh, yeah… Patch… Dash series I think,” Mrs. Gillies mused. “Got mauled by a dog next door and old man Paul fixed him up for us.”

“Did he now?” the repairman asked, while still probing around my body. “Looks like a bit of rough job, but seems to work fine, but… hold on…” In seconds, I could feel him pop open my underbelly resealable seems and look inside me. “You know… this toy is missing half it’s functions… I can’t get to him tonight or tomorrow morning, but if you want, just bring him with you tomorrow. I could basically restore him to looking brand new, electronics and all even.”

Mrs. Gillies was clearly taken aback by the statement and looked at me with wonder, but also maybe a sense of sadness in her eyes. I wasn’t sure what that was, but she only smiled back and nodded to the repairman. “Thank you. I’ll definitely consider it…” With that, the two then nodded at each other, I was set down, and both left, Pete firmly wrapped up in a box under the repairman’s arm.

“Holy crikey!” Carmen shouted to me from nearby. “You okay, Dash?”

I felt myself up, but seeing he actually didn’t take anything away from me, I felt okay. “Yeah… I guess, but Pete…” We all looked sadly at the door the two Bigs had just walked out of. Even though Mrs. Gillies seemed determined to bring Pete back here, for one reason or another, we all knew that Pete’s days here very well could have been numbered. Right then though, a small flicker of hope remained in my head.

Running away and still being sure to stay out of sight of the rest of the packing up staff and the exiting repairman, I made my way into the small library that Sam had kept in the maintenance room. “May I help you, Dash? Or is it Patch?” he asked, dangling down from the workbench.

“Just call me Dash…” I breathed out heavily. “Might change it… not sure, but I need to see the manual on series 80 versus my series. Now!”

“Okay, okay.” Sam then disappeared for a moment and retrieved the two manuals. “No need to be so pushy, and you know, a thank you wouldn’t kill you…”

“Thank you,” I said hurriedly as I flipped through the two manuals. I always wondered by Honshu and Agnustralete were first in these things, but I finally found the right language. “Here!”

I then raced off with both manuals in my hands. “You’re welcome, but just bring them back!” Sam shouted back, but I was too distracted by my new mission.

In less than five minutes once everyone else on the staff was practically gone, I gathered everyone around into the Canopy room and stood on one of the chairs before all the toys who had gathered. “Everyone! Quiet please!” I tried to yell, but everyone just kept murmuring and bustling about.

“Silence!” Victor shouted out. His voice carried a little more than mine and he nodded in my direction to speak and in acknowledgement of my leading status right then.

“Thank you, Victor.” I then turned back to the crowd. “So, as you all know, Pete was taken this afternoon by the repairman.” Several began murmuring again. “I know many of you know what that means, but I heard it firsthand tonight. I’m afraid that it’s more than likely that Pete will not be saved!” Several gasps went up within the crowd. “However, I have a plan!”

“You have a plan to save Pete, Dash?” Nadia asked from nearby, seeming a little hopeful while also a little skeptical as well.

I nodded. “I do. See, I got these two manuals tonight when the repairman noted what Pete needed. I didn’t know before then, but I do now!” Many gathered closer as I showed the two manuals off. “See, as most of you know, I gave up my pulse ability in order to be accepted into this daycare and to find a Little. I did in Emma, and I owe all I have now to Pete. Without him, I wouldn’t be here. So, looking at the manuals, I can give him one of my parts in order for him to fixed.”

The murmurs increased tenfold, and to be honest, never in my whole existence did I see so much resistance over my plan to further mutilate myself. Taking one or two parts was nearly unheard of, but voluntarily giving up one of my own? It just wasn’t heard of. I almost found it humorous that this crowd of toys that once rejected me so completely, were now trying to convince me to do almost anything else.

“But if you give up your part, then how does Pete get it?” Cassie asked, clearly hoping I had an answer.

I sighed. “Well, I would have to go to the repair shop.” There were a lot of gasps, and I think I could even hear a few fits of laughter from the more skeptical. I just ignored them. “I’m serious now! Pete deserves my help at the very least. The address is in their records here and I can use their computer to map out my course.”

“So why do you need us?” Maddy asked from the far back.

“Well,” I began, knowing full-well that my plan was about to either take off or massively fail right now, “I was hoping that at least one of you would come with me…”

Just as I had feared, there was nothing but silence for a solid minute. Leaving the safety of the daycare as a toy, especially this lot, was tantamount to near suicide. Beyond the roadways, there were animals, and just the rest of this society who would snatch us up in a heartbeat. It would be a major risk, and everyone knew it.

“I volunteer!” I looked in the far back to where the voice had come from. If it wasn’t so silent right then, I’m not sure if I would have been able to hear her silent voice.

“Poodee! You can’t!” Nadia tried to protest.

“No! I can do this! For Dash… for Emma,” she said passionately. “She deserves a better life than the one she’s got and that comes down to Dash. I don’t think we can change his mind on this, and two toys are better than one.”

“Three!” Carmen bellowed, stepping out as well.

“Four,” Tops said, hopping a bit to get out of the corner he was hanging in.

“You’ll never make it,” Maddy shouted, still ever the skeptic. “I mean… look at you all! You’re one fall away from flying apart in the next strong breeze.”

Nadia quickly growled over at her. “Silence! If any others are willing to go, let them step forth now, but otherwise, remain silent.” No one dared question our plan afterward.

The four of us then began to prepare for our journey. We would use the setting sun to our advantage and go when it was dark out. It could present more dangers, but we had a better chance of going unseen and just being safer in general when there were less cars and beings out in general.

Sam then quickly popped my part out and even gave me a little side bag that was originally for some toy horse set that he then strapped around my back to carry it in for Pete. “Good luck, Dash! Save the old bird for us, will you?” I nodded and strutted out.

Getting ready to head to the front entrance, I saw a group of toys I never really ever wanted to see as a group again. To the detriment of my nerves, Sarge and Victor stepped forward from the rest of the toy council and looked at me with the most serious face I think I had ever seen in my existence.

“Here,” Victor began first, his face relaxing a bit while also handing me a rope. “Just in case. Try not to jump off anything and use this instead. Also, I’ve heard lassos are pretty great at hooking things and using the leverage to pull down on various objects out there.”

“Thank you, Victor,” I said, taking the rope from him. I then looked over to Sarge.

He seemed to just gruff and bumble a little bit, but finally, he spoke. “You going after Pete and all… shows me a lot of character I didn’t know you had… uh, still don’t like you too much, but I don’t want you getting lost out there, so… here!” Without about as much affection as a cactus, Sarge thrust two items out to me.

The first was a small flashlight and the second was a map to the repair shop. I wasn’t really sure what to say, but I looked up and tried not to make a scene or anything. They were all once my enemies, but now, each of them was wishing me a safe return. It was all very peculiar, but given the journey I was about to take, I just accepted all the help I could get. “Thank you, Sarge. Thank you all.”

“Good luck,” Cassie said sweetly, giving me a quick peck on my patched cheek.

“Say hey to the old bird for us,” Nadia added. “Safe travels and be sure to be back by dawn.”

I nodded and departed the council to meet with my other friends who were already waiting by the front door of the daycare, still vigilant to watch out for Miss Tully keeping check on the Littles still in the Burrows room. “You all ready?” I asked after handing Tops the flashlight and Poodee the map.

Carmen nodded. “As ready as we’re ever going to be. Lead the way, Dash… We trust you.”

I nodded and looked out into the big scary world beyond the front door of the daycare. While I had been outside, it was always within the safety of the back fence. Now, I would be stepping beyond the property for the first time since I had been mauled by Buster. It seemed like so long ago, and though I was filled with more fear than I could have ever guessed, I knew Pete needed our help. So, I took a breath and pushed open the doors.

[LostBBoyBear]

Hey everyone! First, I just want to give a huge thank you to all who have been reading, commenting, or liking this story. It’s not a lot of you, but it’s always nice to see a few of you enjoying or at least still continuing to read this story.

Next, again, I just want to reiterate that I’m still debating on whether I should include the perspective of Emma in this story or not. Let me know your thoughts and I’ll be sure to post my decision by the next chapter.

Lastly, for those of you reading this one, I’m still trying to determine my next story, so be sure to let me know what you want of the three stories I placed on here to decide from. For those of you who may have missed these options or whatnot, just refer back to chapter 4.

Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys this next chapter!

Chapter 11: Tough Roads and Crossroads Lie Ahead

Breathing the air of freedom once outside, I couldn’t help but also feel a twinge of fear shiver along and down my back. We were all fragile toys, Tops, Carmen, Poodee, and I, so I knew that any problems that a normal toy would encounter out here, would only be magnified with each of us. As it was, Poodee, Carmen, and I were held together by numerous stitches and patches of fur that might not have even been ours, and Tops was thinning out in several places. His recent attachment to one of the Littles inside had only made it worse, but each of us also carried a determination with us to save our friend.

“Alright Poodee, where to now?” I asked the nervous but still present poodle behind me.

Poodee held the map up that Sarge had given us and Tops held the flashlight over it. “Hmmm… well, we’re here,” she said while her paw pointed on the map, “but we need to go here.” Her paw then traced far across the map. “Not too bad, but we can either go the longer way, or the shorter but dangerous way.”

Of course, it just had to be one or the other. “I don’t know about you all, but if we want a chance at all in making it back here before tomorrow morning, I think we should stick with the shorter path.”

Carmen and Poodee just nodded, but Tops seemed a bit hesitant still. “I don’t know, Dash… I’ll go with whatever the group wants to do, but let’s agree that if the path through the shortcut gets too bad, we get out of there immediately. We’re not exactly prime condition toys anymore and it would be dangerous enough for us even if we were.”

I nodded. “Agreed. Good thinking, Tops. No sense in losing one of us in trying to save a friend tonight.” I sighed and then turned back around. “Alright, let’s get moving.”

“Take a left, Dash…” Poodee noted before folding up the map again. “We go straight after for a bit, but definitely a left up ahead.”

I gulped but willed my paws to move on. Left would round us moving behind the daycare… and old man Paul’s backyard. It would only be a brief stint on that side, but I knew without even looking by now that we would also subsequently be passing by Buster’s territory. My heavily stitched ear flicked in nervousness, but for the sake of Pete, I just kept walking.

So, soon enough, we all took a left and I could see the back of the building and then the fence on this side that held back Buster. It was an old ugly looking thing, but I just hoped the rust at the bottom would still be enough to adequately keep Buster in check. I thought that if I just walked quietly enough by the fence, he would never suspect any of us, but Carmen accidently stepped on a dry and dead leaf.

I snapped around and looked at her with deadly seriousness. “Sorry…” she whispered, having a fear of Buster as well. Any toy worth their while or who actually valued their existence lived in fear of becoming Buster’s next chew toy. Unfortunately, despite our otherwise quiet presence, the dry leaf proved to be enough of a disturbance. Buster quickly ran up to the gate and started barking at us.

“Run!” I screamed. We all then ran as fast as we could, but Buster was at least three times our size. He had no problem keeping up with us, and soon, at the end of the fence, I saw our ultimate doom when dealing with a faster animal. There, small but vulnerable, was an opening in that part of the fence. To my horror, using his superior stride and speed, Buster quickly got to it and wiggled through before stopping right in front of us… all seconds before we could have even a single moment to react.

“Don’t move…” I barely whispered to my equally petrified friends. Buster growled and loomed ever larger. I could see gobs of drool coat the sidewalk as he stalked right up to us. I felt I was a goner as he paused and sniffed around me. Buster had his meal of me earlier this year, but now, he was going to finish me off. ‘Sorry Pete… we tried…’

But instead, to my utter shock, Buster just licked me.

My fur was covered in a thick slime that smelled terrible, but in moments, the hungry pooch was just sitting on his hind legs and wagging his tail and panting right in front of us. “What the…?”

“Oh! Doy!” Poodee exclaimed from behind me. I saw each of my friends unfreeze, but Poodee smacked herself on the forehead. “Geez! I always forget… dogs can sense our inherent level of goodness. Everyone just thinks Buster tears into every toy that crosses his path, but he only eats the bad ones.”

“Seriously?” Tops asked skeptically to which Poodee only smiled and nodded.

Carmen chuckled and then gave me a slap in the back. “Look at that, Dash! You’ve got a genuine endorsement now from the literal animal community. You’re one of the good guys now!”

Covered in drool on my left side and now reeking of dog breath, I didn’t feel so lucky, but eyeing my stitches and different patches of fur, I knew full-well that it could be a lot worse. “Lucky me…”

“Here…” Poodee then crouched down and picked up a nearby stick. It wasn’t too big, but Buster quickly saw it. Now seeing that she had him in her sway, Poodee drifted the stick back and forth, and almost hilariously, the former mangy and terrifying mutt seemed to move its head with the simple object. “Alright, Buster. Here’s the stick! You want the stick?” Buster quickly nodded back. “Well then… go get it!” With that, Poodee launched the stick back into old man Paul’s yard. Buster immediately took off after it.

“How’d you know that was going to work?” Tops asked, marveling and shocked over the latest turn of events, pretty much mimicking Carmen and I as well right then.

Poodee just shrugged. “I actually really didn’t… but it did, so come on! We’ve got a lot of ground to cover tonight if we still want to save Pete.” She waved us forward, and the rest of us, still a little stupefied by what had just transpired, followed her lead.

After, I thought it was all going to be smooth sailing, but once Poodee looked at the map again, we knew we had to cross a major intersection coming up. For whatever reason, cars still whizzed by in record breaking speeds. I knew without any doubt that if any one of us hesitated for even a second, we were done for.

“Well, screw this!” Carmen said, even go so far as to turn around.

Tops quickly stopped her. “Easy there, Carmen… we’ll do this together and quickly. We time it right, we should have plenty of time, okay?”

She nodded, and while she was the only one of us who had began to run away, I could see the fear still entombed in each of us. Toys weren’t meant to use crossroads, and I had really hoped that the intersection would be clear at this hour. What I didn’t know though, was it was still just at the tail end of rush hour.

Still, I felt I needed to lead the group on, and fortunately for everyone else, I had been highly observant in my time with Charley. While it was mostly to form a better strategy in regressing him undetectably and efficiently, it did bleed to a few other aspects of life as well. One was that I knew that Emma was currently wearing the impossibly thick You-Ni-Corns brand of diapers, despite Charley never having worn them, but another was that I knew stoplights pretty well.

“Okay… here’s the plan,” I iterated to my friends. “The light’s turn red, yellow, and green.” I then pointed to the nearest stoplight. “If it’s green, we’re goners, but yellow and red may give us a shot. As soon as the light turns red next when we’re all ready, we’ll dart across the street here. We’ll go faster than a walk, but not so much where we could trip.” I then pointed to the other side of the street. “If the lights over there turn yellow though, I want everyone to run. Even if you drop something, just run. Everyone clear?”

Most nodded, but Poodee seemed a little hesitant. “What about being seen? Won’t it be weird for us to just be running across the road?”

I nodded. “It would, but each of us is going stick a few bits of dried leaves around us. It’s pretty dark around here, and if anyone sees us, they’ll likely just pass us off as blowing leaves in this weather. It’s not fool proof, but right now, unless someone has another idea, this will just have to be the plan.”

Everyone nodded, and I could still see the hesitancy in Poodee’s eyes, but she gathered up the fallen bits of twigs and leaves to stick in around her body. The leaves weren’t amazing, but once most of our sides were covered up, I saw that everyone was at least as ready as they were going be. “Alright, let’s move out in 3… 2… 1… go!”

The whole group quickly took off across the road. I few cars cut the intersection pretty close to the crosswalk we were quickly walking across but considering no one was shrieking over the sight of us, I felt our disguises were halfway decent for this time of night. We were almost across though, when the unthinkable happened.

Tops was half-walking, half-hopping across the street. He was still pretty confident and was even helping Carmen to cross as well, but at the same time, his crossing was much slower than the rest of us. He wasn’t the worst walker I had ever seen, but by the time I was across to the other side and looking back at him, he was still only about halfway. “Go faster, Tops!” I shouted back at him.

Tops nodded, but even though the light was red, I saw a car speeding toward the intersection and the crosswalk Tops was still on. I wasn’t sure what was happening, and maybe I got it wrong, but it didn’t matter… Tops was right in the car’s path. “Tops! Run! Run right now!”

“What? What is it?” Poodee asked worriedly.

“Look!” I shouted while pointing to the low riding and speeding car headed right for our friend.

She quickly saw the danger immediately. “Move it Tops! Come on!” Poodee cried out as well. The racing yellow and blue car just sped further.

Tops tried, but his speed just wasn’t a match for the oncoming car. In seconds, I squeezed my eyes shut, as I heard Carmen shriek out. “Tops! No!”

I felt sick.

I was a mere toy out here in the big wide world, and I knew there was nothing I could do… but then I looked back. Thinking and dreading that I was going to find my friend’s shattered remains, to my everlasting pleasant surprise, I just saw Tops, hunched over and crouched into a little ball.

I could see some black marks on his back where the underside of the car had grazed him and his camouflage was absolutely pulverized, but he was alive. “Holy…!”

“You made it!” Poodee yelled out to him with clear relief and jubilation.

“Yeah…” Tops said, looking over his body to see if he was even really injured anywhere. “I guess I did…”

“Oh! You idiot!” Carmen cried out, clearly a little emotional over her close friends near passing. “Get out of the road, you damn fool. You only get one miracle tonight, and you just zapped yours right in the bud!”

We all chuckled a little after and inspected Tops a little further once he finally made it to the other side. His back was definitely going to need a good wash, but he was otherwise mostly intact from his near miss of the car. I suspected he was likely only inches away from becoming a pancake, but in this case, ‘almost’ had just saved my friend’s life.

So, our calms returning to normal, we ventured onward. On the direction of Poodee though, we soon entered the forest section of our path tonight. If we were able to cross the whole thing, we would be safe at last, as far as roads or dogs were concerned, on the other side, but seeing the mass of trees and thicket, I knew I couldn’t get my confidence too high up just yet. “Let’s go everybody… single file…” Everyone didn’t like the path, but knew we had few other choices, so we all entered one at a time.

Soft pellets of mud began to pelt each of us as we moved through the bramble before us. It was hard going but we were making progress as I had hoped we would. I was worried would have been ensnared in the thicket after about five minutes in, but instead, it took about 30 minutes.

“I’m caught…” Poodee called out from the rear. Her delicate condition after Harriet’s previous adventures of tearing her apart had been taking a toll on her ever since we entered the forest. While Tops had been snagged, and Carmen and I had to maneuver carefully around one particularly large bush in our way a little bit ago, each of us had made it through unscathed.

Now, I looked at Poodee, and I could see from her brief struggling in the rear, she had only entwined herself more tightly into the thorned bush she was now attached to. “Oh… crud…” was about all I could say right then.

Carmen gave me a little slap to my side. “Dash! That’s not helpful,” she admonished me while working her way back to the trapped Poodee. “We need to help her out of this…” She seemed sure in her words, but her looks showed her trepidations about the whole situation.

Sighing, I dragged Tops along and we all examined the situation with our trapped friend. “Wish I had brought a knife…” Tops finally said when each of us had thoroughly examined the bush and yet Poodee was still stuck.

“Well, wishing won’t do us any good…” Carmen pointed out. “If only we could just get through this branch…” Her arm gestured to one of the more firmly embedded branches in Poodee now. “Maybe we could just…? No… Or maybe…? No…”

Finally, though, Poodee made the hard call for all of us. “Look… time’s wasting on just me. At this point, either leave me behind or pull me out. If I rip, I rip.”

Her words were confident, but I could still see the fear behind her eyes. “Are you sure, Poodee? We can keep trying if you want. We won’t leave you, but ripping yourself apart… and in your condition? It could be worse than we could repair…”

Poodee sighed and looked back over her trapped body, but ultimately nodded. “Just do it… quick. Or at least before I change my mind.”

So, with her final consent, I nodded back at my other friends, and each of us grabbed her in a strategic more secure position. “Okay… we pull when I say and pull towards me… only towards me. Got it?” My friends nodded and Poodee did as well, but it seemed like she wanted to be anywhere else right then… and I really couldn’t blame her. “And… now!”

With one hard yank, Poodee was free. Unfortunately, we all heard a loud rip and quickly rushed to see where it had come from. To our relief, the branches had only popped a few of her older stitches, but still, some fluff was threatening to tumble its way out of her.

Seeing my friend like that, I knew our options were limited in going forward. Ahead just seemed like more of the same, and I knew Poodee couldn’t handle another situation like that again, let alone risk it for the rest of us as well. I then looked up, and to my relief, the moon was high in the sky. From one of Charley’s later before bed books that Monica had read to him, I knew it meant that it was now firmly nighttime.

I turned back to my friends, and could see their fear and hesitancy moving forward, so with it all combined, I knew what we had to do. “I know things have been tough, but we have to keep moving for Pete. That being said, we told ourselves that if it ever got too hard with the shortcut, we would hit the longer way. So, who’s in favor of going the longer route now?”

Everyone seemed hesitant, but Poodee was quick with the map and after looking at for a moment, looked back up. “It actually looks like we made it through the longer part of the longer path. Now, the distances are about the same between either option. If we take a right up at the creek, we could make it out of here and get to the repair shop in about the same time as going forward would.”

Smirking at Poodee having likely saved our hides, literally, I turned back to the group. “So… how about now?” Quickly everyone raised their hands, and so, using Poodee and her map, we finally made it back out of the woods using the stream she had told us about. I never felt so relieved to see a sidewalk and a road in all my life.

Awhile later, we were within sight of the repair shop, but I could hear voices quickly approaching. It could have been just another bunch of toys, but I didn’t want to take the chance, so I spun back around to the group. “I hear voices! Hide!”

Like scurrying nocturnal animals shirking away from the light, we all dove into a cluster of nearby bushes. Despite the lateness of the year, they still were pretty well covered in their usual foliage, so they provided an excellent cover for us. Not long after, I saw that I was right to dive into the bushes.

“Geez… you hear about those new humane Little laws on the senate floor in New Columbia?” the man asked the woman, both Bigs.

“I did… poor little deluded dears think that thing is actually going to pass?” she asked rhetorically, clearly not a part of the Littles movement. “Must be true babies there to think that would ever pass.”

The man nodded, but also seemed a little uncertain. “I don’t know, Irene… I’ve been hearing the arguments made and I have to say… almost convinced me…”

“Oh, Richard…” she practically gasped. “Not you as well?”

Richard laughed right as they walked by us. “Oh, definitely not. Just saying though… Libertalia is changing. This may be the south, but the north is having a pretty powerful influence on the senators at least. I doubt the house will pass it though…”

“Oh, definitely not,” Irene agreed. “All Littles are just helpless babies and sometimes, they just need a strong hand to guide them. I mean if not us, who then? The Middles?” Both shook with laughter, and after a turned corner, were gone.

When my existence began, I would have been a staunch ally of what they were saying. I even believed back then that Littles were meant to be and would have been better off regressed. Now, I was about the polar opposite end of the spectrum and would have told them both off if I could. After all, it was people like Nancy that made the passage of those laws more important than most other things right now.

“What a bunch of whack jobs!” Carmen spat.

“I don’t know, Carmen…” Tops began hesitantly, “not saying I’m in favor of shooting that bill down obviously, but what they said about it never passing? Can’t really fault them for thinking that might just be some elaborate joke or ploy by Littles.”

“No,” Carmen sighed, “but I wish it was a little closer to reality than just a pipe dream of that pro-Littles movement.”

“You just never know…” Poodee mused dreamily. “You’ve seen our daycare… that place is built with pro-Littles in mind.”

We all looked at her strangely. “Uh, Poodee… how can you say that? They use FOY and most Littles end up younger than they were supposed to. How is that a pro-Little place?” I asked her.

“Just think for a minute… if it wasn’t for FOY, the Bigs would use surgery, punishments, and hypnosis to hurt or change the Littles back down into submission and into their second babyhoods. FOY isn’t great either, but it’s more like going to sleep than downright abuse at least. From what you’ve seen, don’t you think the same?”

She had a point, and I could tell that the rest of the group thought so as well. FOY was still part of the problem, but with all the other solutions out there, it did seem to be at least a little more merciful. In some cases, I had even heard it was able to be reversed. It would take a lot of effort, but as opposed to surgery where something would be cut, FOY gave a Little the chance to still be who they were again one day to some extent. Case in point, Emma. If it was even a decade ago, there would have been no way I could have ever helped her, however… she was facing a brutal Big, but I also knew that was only because she had been healed now to some degree.

Shuffling the thought off, I got everyone back out of their seeming daze and led us on to the repair shop just down the street. A bird tried to swoop in on us on the way, but a quick little flashlight action from Tops shooed them away in no time. Then finally, after a former enemy dog, mud, others speeding through red lights, birds, and bushes, we were face to face with the shop.

The whole group just stared up at the little shop at this nearly abandoned corner of town, but of course to us toys, the whole thing still seemed gargantuan. I think we were all also just a little stunned that we had even made it here at all as well. Of course, one wants to believe they will succeed in their appointed task, but the odds were always long, as we had even proved tonight with our several near misses. Another variation of this group… all of us might just be tomorrow’s mulch by now. Still, I was just personally glad we were finally here.

“So… do we just ring or…?” Tops asked sarcastically. Carmen just rolled her eyes at his comment, but I knew his question was valid.

To be honest, I hadn’t really thought about getting in, but I was still determined to put on a front of confidence in front of the group. “Spread out… there’s got to be a way in for us toys. Bigs don’t always think of security for keeping us out.”

The group nodded and split up. Poodee was with me while Tops and Carmen went their own separate ways. After a moment, Poodee kept looking but broke the silence between us. “You didn’t have a plan to get in, did you?”

I sighed. “Was it that obvious?”

To my shock, Poodee giggled a little. “No, but I can see when you’re lying Dash. Being quiet for so long made me a keen observer and I basically picked up on everyone’s subtle clues in their bodies. I saw you were confident to be able to get in, but not that you had a plan to do it. Besides, if you did, I don’t think we would be looking, right?”

“I never thought of it like that before…” I was just glad that Poodee wasn’t making a big deal out of it now. I knew that Pete was a mentor to all of us and any plan to rescue him was considered brave, so I suspected I was being given a little slack. Still, though, I couldn’t help but feel good that she kept my small secret in confidence.

“Hey Dash! Poodee!” Carmen then shouted a little bit later. “I think we found something!”

Poodee and I then rushed around the corner of the building and came face to face with a large door. I couldn’t see anything up top like I had expected, but when my eyes shifted back down to confront Carmen and Tops, I saw it… it was a large doggy door right in front of me. “You’ve gotta be kidding me! Another dog tonight? These Bigs collect them or something around here?”

“I don’t about that, but it’s this or we bust out a window from what I can see,” Tops noted as he hoped down from a few stacked boxes by a window up higher. “Positive is though… up in the window, I saw the dog, but I also saw it’s treats. It doesn’t look too unfriendly, but I can hook one of the treats with the rope and bribe the dog as part of plan B.”

It seemed to make sense, but then I felt I missed something. “Plan B? What happened to plan A?”

Carmen shuffled around and gestured to Poodee. “What she said earlier… animals can sense the good in us or not. Plan A is just to walk in and hope for exactly that.”

“But I’m going to play it safe and hook the treat first… just in case that’s just some toy circle gossip or rumor.” Tops gestured to each of us. “I don’t think anyone wants to take a risk otherwise, right?”

We all quickly shook our heads and then went along with their plan. We each crept quietly into the doggy door and were just thankful there weren’t any extra alarms to it. The repairman likely thought a Big, Middle, or even Little would never be able to fit through the opening unseen during the day, and at night, the dog we were now about to charm, would likely take care of anything or anyone else. I just hoped that Poodee was right earlier.

Tops then pulled the rope out and made a little lasso out of it. It took about seven or eight tries, but soon, he hooked one of the longer treats hanging off the edge and pulled it down. Carmen caught it while I went over cautiously and held out my paw to my fellow dog.

In seconds, the dog began to stir. Its eyes opened and stared me down cold. It was the same look that Buster had given me when he first saw me. I could feel my whole body begin to internally quake in fear. I didn’t want to show it, but I knew my instincts were powerful and were probably about to get me to flee the scene in seconds. “Treat… now…” I whispered over to Tops.

Tops nodded and both he and Carmen slid the treat over to me. I slowly picked it up and held it out in front of me. “Nice doggy… Easy there… just a toy, giving you a treat… no biting me please…”

The dog, Bruno, sniffed my outstretched paw and the treat held within. At first, he didn’t seem to know what to do. Clearly, we were intruders and Bruno likely only had one order for things like us. At the same time though, we were apparently good toys and giving him a treat. Fortunately, seconds later, Poodee was proven correct, and our goodness and the treat won out over his training.

“Oh, who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?” Carmen asked in her sing-song voice to Bruno. Bruno just responded happily and licked all of us. One treat later and Bruno settled down. To my relief, we were now inside and past the ‘security.’

“Okay… this place isn’t too big, but there do seem to be a lot of rooms. I say we split up again but be sure to shout out. Time is ticking and Pete needs this part no matter what before morning. We can always delay or come in late to the daycare, but right now, Pete is the priority.” Everyone nodded and we split up individually to cover more ground this way. Presumably, we had navigated our way through the hardest obstacles already tonight.

Being a repair shop, I half-expected to find bauble and half worn out fixtures from everyday appliances, and while I did find several of those objects in the first room I searched, the rest of the shop seemed dedicated to toys. It made sense of course to house us toys since he was the one who was repairing us from the daycare, but it was just downright unsettling to see so many of us here.

To my ultimate sadness though, it didn’t take long to see that most in here were just husks of their former selves. Most were decades old by now and had likely already just moved on as whatever we were. I had seen it before a few weeks ago with a particular old mouse toy that just kind of stopped living as we were. There was a whole ceremony, and it was very nice, but this place… it was giving me the creeps. Essentially, for us toys, we were basically looking at a hospital, morgue, and cemetery all in one.

Trying to shuffle those images out of my head, I found a backroom that seemed to be under heavy security. Given that Pete was likely to be repaired where the repairman kept all his tools, I figured they had to be valuable. A room like that was bound to have a little extra security. I was wrong.

As soon as I entered, I knew I had made a mistake coming in here. The repairman had looked at me closely and a little too greedily for my own liking, but I had just passed it off as another project for him to fix… maybe a challenge even. I now thought differently as this room was filled with dozens of lines of toys. Baby lions, Miss Pinks, Mister Browns, even Hop’s model. All seemed to be asleep or even moved on, but it was the toys at the rear of the room that really drew me in and unnerved me most of all. There, tucked away preciously, were about a dozen of so of the ‘Dash’ line… my line…

I slowly approached, hoping that maybe with our inherently large mental capacity, they would be able to tell me something. As soon as I came within a few feet of them, each of their eyes opened wide and stared back at me. I stopped and even jumped back a little bit in surprise. “One of us,” they chanted in unison.

“Uh… hi,” I said, a little nervous. I was honestly hoping they wouldn’t recognize me in my current state, but each just seemed to peer within me more than what I felt comfortable with. “Uh… I’m looking for a parrot that might have come through here… can you all…?”

“One of us,” they said in unison again.

“Yeah… you said that,” I nearly stuttered as I tried to move on, “but see, I need to find a parrot. He’s about this tall and…”

“One of us, brother,” another Dash said, now walking up to me. “Welcome home.”

I quickly backed away. “Yeah… no thanks. I already have a home. See, I need to find a par…”

“No, Dash. You belong with us,” the other me said more demandingly this time, even going so far as to walk closer to where I was. The rest soon followed, and I glanced back at the door and wondered if it would hold all of them back if it came to that.

“No… I belong with Emma, and I need to get back to her…” I said, trying to go about this whole thing a different way. “See, to do that, I need to find…”

“You’ve come back. It’s been so long since you’ve been here brother,” the head toy enforced, clearly not letting up or wanting to talk about Pete.

“Uh, I’ve been here before? Like here, here?” I questioned. I didn’t remember that, but then again, if I was ever repaired, I was supposed to go into factory mode temporarily to preserve my systems. If that’s what was happening to the rest of the Dash’s, it could explain the creepy group speak.

Disturbingly though, everyone of… me, began to quietly laugh. “Yes, brother,” they said in unison. “One of us. Come… be one of us.”

The lead Dash nodded at the rest of the pack and then looked at me. “You were repaired and maintained here by one Monica Hubert.” I could see the Dash’s eyes light up a pale white and I knew he was going through online files. It was a feature I never found particularly useful, but I guess in cases like these… “Yes… you were here some time ago for your check-up, but then never returned…”

“Return, brother,” the pack said in unison.

“They are right, Dash. Return with us, brother,” the head Dash tried to convince me. “Return to us. Let us repair you… let us show you the way again…”

I could almost feel myself being drawn into them. I didn’t want to, but I almost felt a wave of some kind leading back over to them.

“Dash? Dash? Where are you? Where did you…?” Carmen then stepped into the room and saw the scene unfolding before her. “Oh… what the…”

“Carmen!” I shouted. Her presence seemed to be shocking enough that I felt the wave dissipate and I quickly ran over to her. “Thank all cuddles above that you’re here! I had a…”

Carmen shook her head. “I don’t think I want to know… just come on… we found Pete” She then tried to lead me, but the other Dash’s looked right back at us. Curiously though, they didn’t seem to move any further from where I had left them.

“Brother…” the head Dash began again. “Why are you with her? She is beneath you. Come back to the fold. We can help you be part of the pack again.”

“One of us,” the pack said in unison, their eyes now glowing the same yellow mine used.

“Jiminy!” Carmen shouted out in shock over seeing my other models. She then took hold of one of my paws and refocused me back on her. “Let’s go, Dash. We shouldn’t be here!”

I nodded slowly and took one last look at the leader and the pack. “We will be waiting for you, Dash… always… you’re one of us…”

I could feel a pull of some kind right then, but Carmen’s tugging just helped me push past the room. After a second, I didn’t feel it, and I stopped. “Wait… Carmen… I just want to thank…”

Carmen then held her own hoof up to my mouth and shook her head. “I don’t know what happened in that room, but I don’t want to know. You are our Dash, and we are here to save Pete. Let’s just agree to never talk about what I just saw in that room… for both our sakes, okay?”

I slowly nodded and quickly walked away with Carmen to wherever Pete was apparently being kept. As we passed dozens of worn out or husked toys, I was just glad that she had come and pulled me away. I wasn’t sure what was going on back there, but I felt as if I stayed, I would have never wanted to leave the pack again. There was something else though as well.

I wasn’t sure what it was, and for a moment, I almost thought it was a pity for them. Sure, they were shiny and even truly flashy, but they were all alone and would likely never find a Little to stay with permanently. In essence, they would never be someone’s stuffy. I don’t think they cared though, and the more I thought about it as I raced toward Pete, the more I felt it was something else.

Ever since Emma had called me, ‘Pash,’ I kept rolling the name around in my head. It felt weird and just plain unnatural at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered who I even was anymore. Seeing those other near-drone Dash’s, I wondered if I really even could call myself a true ‘Dash’ anymore. Sure, I still had my speed and my abilities like those others, but I also felt a shift within myself that at the end of the day, I wasn’t the same toy that I was even beyond my special features. Now, I wasn’t sure if I was Patch exactly, but I also wondered if I just took a second to think about it, that maybe I was more Patch than Dash lately. For right now though, I had to set that thought aside and just help Pete.