Year 2 – Shift 16 – Project Zeta: The Final Checkpoint – Cody
“I am so fucking hungry!” Chadriel sighed as he leaned against the massive tree at the center of the newly renamed Forest of Queer Joy. “How much longer?”
“You can always eat a dick,” Cody poked at him.
“I mean…yeah.” He pouted. “Later. But I want food!”
Glandalf, his tablet nowhere to be seen, was applying Epic runes inside a massive containment wall with Shardi and every free soul in the forest who could assist or buff.
“About ten minutes until everything is sealed.”
“If I don’t eat in the next thirteen seconds,” Chadriel got hangry, “I’m gonna eat you!”
“Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.” Glandalf slid a deliberately uncomfortable wink at the himbo.
Chadriel suddenly flushed, giggled, and walked into the small crowd. “Where’s Daddy? I’m hungry.”
“Hungry, Hungry Himbo?” Cody shrugged at Sara.
Sara stood stone-faced for a long moment until the split second it was too late.
“Bwahahah!” Sara lost her shit. “Hungry…” She wheezed. “Himbos! Ahhhh!”
Cody waited for a time that seemed far longer than was necessary for the joke to be funny before he continued despite her fit of hysterics.
“Sara. We have guests, remember?”
Sara snapped out of it and looked toward the caravan stretching as far as they could see across two sections of the teradyn fields and well into the Forest of Queer Joy.
“Is this…really everyone?”
“It is,” Lacuna confirmed. “A living representative carrying the blood of every race, class, beast, people, and denizen in Tawagoto and every adjacent Markian creation.”
Sara looked to Cody.
“We’ve confirmed every thread,” Cody reassured her. “Glandalf swept and dredged and pilfered and tested it all. This will do it.”
A loud horn sounded in the distance.
Cody’s ears twitched at the commotion stirring through the throngs of people.
“Something’s coming.”
For a long moment, the only sound was the murmur of the crowd as they all looked over the hill and saw them coming.
Five figures approached.
“Cody, fuck.” Sara looked at the monstrosities heading straight for them. “Is that…”
“Yep.” Cody sighed and cracked his knuckles. “The Platinum Glizzys. We are fucked.”
In front, a glowing, ethereal, armored paladin rode an equally glowing, ethereal, armored horse. Franc-Furter, the All-Beef Ascendant, was the leader.
Beside him rode a lich who made Szassy Tammy look like Strawberry Shortcake. His oily skin hung loosely from his body beneath a long, ragged black cloak. The Sovereign Salami rode a skeletal horse mount.
The last horsed individual was vile. His skin looked stitched together from a million different Wieners, and he was bursting at every seam. Bologna the Defiler.
Behind him, mounted on a massive hotdog with legs and no other identifying features—a dachshoggoth—rode a weighty, unnaturally red-hued man with a permanent crown of flame above his grease-glistening ass. Chorizo the Scorcher.
Behind them, towering over everyone, was a giant smoke-skinned juggernaut covered in thick plate mail. Kielbasa the Colossal.
Cody watched Sara do the Sara thing where she just fucking walked toward danger and swallowed hard before following her.
“You know you’re fucking dumb, right? Zeta isn’t up yet.”
“Dumb is my middle name.” Sara stepped forward.
Cody scratched his head. “I thought it was Kevin.”
But she was gone. Halfway across the field already, flanked by everyone but him.
Cody dashed after them, weaving through the crowd until he came to a stop next to Sara, staring across the dirt at the dismounting Franc-Furter.
The paladin strode across the field with girthy confidence, a sealed legal writ in hand. He stopped ten paces away and gave them a giant fake, brace-toothed smile.
He unfurled the writ and spoke in a loud, nasally drone completely unexpected for his stature.
“By order of His Majesty Albert, King Anaconda Baloney Dong LXVIII, we are here to serve the arrest warrant for one Elizabeth Sarafina Alvarez. Please present yourself, and no harm will come to the people of the king’s forest.”
“Damn.” Tripod strolled up from the crowd with Chadriel in tow. “Son government-named her.”
“Stand down, Tripod.” Sara stepped forward and turned around to face them. “Don’t let them take your homes.”
“I take it you—”
“Cody,” Sara continued, cutting the paladin off. “Tell Chadwick my favorite Buldak is Quattro Cheese. I told him I would let him know.”
“Sara…” Cody looked up at her, then at the Glizzys, knowing their tactics from having run afoul of them one fateful night when Sara swore off Bard forever.
“I’m one woman, Cody.” She poorly hid her tears. “Don’t stop your work. Trust the plan. I love you.”
Cody was in complete panic and awe at the same time. His system crashed as she turned and walked toward them with her hands above her head.
“I love you, too.”
Franc-Furter closed the writ and grabbed Sara’s hands, binding them in magical holds behind her back.
“As a reward for your cooperation, the king has agreed to give the trespassers who remain ten days to vacate or be removed.”
Cody panicked.
The first thing he taught every woman who came into his life was to never willingly get into a vehicle with an attacker. Their chances of living dropped hard once the attacker got them onto their own turf. He knew Sara knew. He knew she had used that advice several times.
And he knew she wouldn’t use it now.
The Shafted and every ally they had made from the shop were tense, locked, and ready. The firepower in their ranks was astonishing in a way this world was not ready for yet.
But even if they beat what were basically raid bosses…then what?
Cody shook his head reluctantly at the thousands of eyes looking to him for the word.
Franc-Furter loaded Sara onto his horse, mounted, and led the monstrosities away, back over the hill and out of sight.
“Dude,” Tripod said. “She said Quattro Cheese. We got it.”
Cody looked over at his friends.
“Day shift, clocking out.”
Cody dashed across the field at full tilt until he saw the Platinum Glizzys reaching the edge of the Forest of Queer Joy. He kept low and silent while studying them.
Then he saw it.
On the back of the dachshoggoth were baskets and satchels.
Of course there were.
That would be his target.
Cody dashed up and prayed for his roll not to fail at the worst possible time again. He leaped, grabbed the side of one of the baskets, and flawlessly clambered beneath the lid.
He lay there for a moment, catching his breath and regrouping, before a foul smell filled the space and something splattered against the side.
Cody clawed his way up the wall and held on for dear life as he realized he was inside the dachshoggoth’s colostomy bag.
“Well, shit,” he whispered. “This is gonna be a shitty ride.”