Year 2 – Epilogue – Project Zeta: Mujintō – Mora
Mora stood in front of the graves of Brian, Brunhilda, and the twenty others who died the last time this happened, flanked by every remaining Etokusopudlian as the Dong army came over the hill. “This is it, everyone. Project Zeta becomes reality or dies today.”
Mora turned and looked at all the faces, her honeybaes by her side. The ground rumbled beneath their feet, and everyone was silent. The forces outnumbered them ten to one, and Sara was still missing. She had hardly had time to get to know Sara, but Mora trusted her because of everything she had built. This would work. It had to.
She looked at her baby Kay-Kay and her steady Muffy, and tears welled in her eyes. Facing Phallilithids, ogres, and her sisters was one thing, but this was him. The man who drilled into her head like a weevil and left her with trauma that only Etokuso had relieved. Not cured. But made better.
This was it.
The chests were lined up in front of her, secured inside the box built by Chino Boreahole himself. The Tit-Mouse, the Octo-Nut, the Sperm-Whale, and the Camel-Toe all stared back at her, taunting her. The entirety of the kingdom could be hers. All she had to do was speak the words.
But she wouldn’t.
She didn’t want immortality. She didn’t want omnipotence. She didn’t want to be a god. She wanted to bleed for these people. The love she felt for each and every person in the city overflowed from her soul in streams of sob-free tears.
Everything all of them had worked for came down to this.
She looked at the people again, then at the injuries her beautiful girlfriends wore with pride, then at the spot where her arm used to be.
There was no going back now.
“Just shut the lid.” Chino nodded at her from the front of the group. “Once it’s closed, Project Zeta is active.”
Muffin wrapped herself around Mora’s arm and squeezed her hand. “We’re with you, Momo.”
Kaori wrapped her arms beneath Mora’s bust from the other side and snuggled against her. “Until the end.”
Mora’s heart raced. Nothing had ever meant so much to her until she found her honeybaes and then Etokuso. The trust she was placing in Sara based on the words of others was absurd.
But there was no other choice.
She took her hand from Muffin, broke the hold with Kaori, and stepped forward, placing her hand on the lid of the device.
This was it.
She looked at the encroaching army. She had to get out there quickly. They would attack soon if she didn’t.
Mora looked down, took a deep breath, and shut the lid.
The lights inside the box whirred to life. Suddenly, invisible tubes and pipes surrounding the town lit up, illuminating a border that extended to the perimeter of the Forest of Queer Joy, once the Forest of Nihilism.
There was little fanfare, and Mora felt no different.
Then the lamp rose from the middle of the box, floated above them, and hung there, burning inexhaustibly.
“Mujintō,” Mora said, loud and clear.
“Mujintō,” every Etokusopudlian echoed.
Nothing more happened.
“Did…” Mora cocked her head. “Did it work?”
Chino and Shardi stepped forward and examined the lamp, checking it over.
“It worked.”
Mora’s stomach dropped.
“Let’s go.”
Mora started across the field toward the encroaching army, and it didn’t take long to see who was leading it.
She looked toward her honeybaes. “Dicktoria. I think I can turn her.”
“This isn’t the time,” Muffin said flatly. “All we need to do is make our statement and go home. Nothing more.”
“We’re not ready, Mommy,” Kay-Kay said.
Mora didn’t answer. She finished the walk, Etokuso’s army behind her, to the center of the field. Dicktoria and a much larger army stared back across it.
“Parlay!” Mora shuddered at extending the word to her father’s people.
She walked alone to the space halfway between the armies and waited. Dicktoria snarled, then urged her horse forward. She covered the distance and looked down at Mora for a long moment before dismounting.
“What do you hope to achieve…Mora?” Dicktoria slowly circled her.
“Why are you still working for him?” Mora tried to fight what was still inside her. “We had so much—”
“We had nothing!” Dicktoria screamed her into silence. She stepped closer, stopped in front of Mora, and gestured toward her. “I had nothing with this. I had something with—”
“This isn’t you, Dicktoria!” Mora’s composure cracked. She felt the heavy weight of the women behind her watching her lose control over what? “Sixteen years, Dicktoria. I know this isn’t you.”
Dicktoria sneered and recoiled. “You have no idea who I am! How can you? You don’t even know who you are!”
Mora took the shot.
It hurt.
But she wasn’t done.
“I never knew who I was until I left those walls, Dicktoria. You aren’t a heartless puppet. You can still leave. Even if you don’t come here, just get the hell away from him! He’s deadly. He will eat your soul.”
Dicktoria’s sneer deepened. She stepped closer and lowered her voice.
“Why would I want to leave? I get free rein to do what I want as the general.”
Mora’s eyes widened. “You…”
“Yeah,” Dicktoria replied. “Did what you were too chicken to do.”
Mora’s heart was heavy. She had to push harder.
“Dicktoria, I want to see Iona—”
“You will NEVER see her!”
Dicktoria drew her blade with lightning speed and held it against Mora’s neck. The tension on both sides flared, and both armies readied themselves.
It wasn’t enough.
“How’s she going to feel when she finds out you’re not her real—”
Dicktoria swung the blade perfectly.
It was a clean strike, aimed directly at Mora’s neck, and Mora didn’t have time to flinch.
It landed.
One second passed.
Then another.
Mora’s heartbeat raced back faster than ever.
It worked.
The blade had simply touched her, all momentum gone.
“What the fuck?”
Dicktoria swung again. The blade landed harmlessly against three more spots before Mora understood there was no saving her.
“You can’t hurt us anymore, Dicktoria,” Mora said. “He can’t hurt us.”
“Then we’ll destroy the city!”
Dicktoria jumped onto her horse and looked down, stalling at Mora’s lack of concern.
“You can try, but no harm may come to anyone or anything in the zone from hostile interference.”
Mora turned and headed back toward town. Everyone else turned with her, unaffected by the barrage of arrows that harmlessly bounced from giggling babies and the elderly as they boringly went about their day.
She stopped and waited for the others to get farther away before turning one last time toward Dicktoria.
“You can’t kill innocent kids anymore, Dicktoria. Tell Tater Tot that his bastard will see him soon.”