Page 74 of Not Like The Other Girls

“Stop,” the brave heroine screams at them.

Did they? Of course not.

Why would they listen to her?

They don’t even know who the fuck she is, since they’re literally just kitchen mice.

A whole drove of them swarm in after, skipping and skimming while everyone just watches. They go straight to the foundation walls of the nearest house and begin chomping the gingerbread crackers into crumbs. Lily watches with uncertain eyes, and her boyfriend nearly has a panic attack. As unexpected as it is, Gilly the Guard is the first to react. He flutters quickly like the fairy he is to get another section of the net.

Since fuck it. If it’s gone, then it’s gone.

He swoops down, looking comical in his metal wings like a flying polar bear, but redheaded, and catches the mice busy gnawing at their town. And that actually worked. He knots the net, trapping all one hundred and forty-seven mice he got inside.

Every gives him a thumbs up, still dry-heaving slightly.

Why didn’t he think of this before panicking the fuck out?

And then guess what?

Even more mice flock in.

“ATTACK,” Ferny shouts at his goons, and walks through the now-net-less barrier. “Charge all ’em fairy hoes.”

And they do, running straight into the unprotected town just because they could, as Lily rakes her hand through her hair in frustration because that’s the only thing she could do right now.

“Fuck it,” she announces to her team, and races over to fight them. She punches a certain mouse general in a tux and is sent flying back, landing on her ass with a plop. Just like that first time she came here.

History sure has a funny way to repeat itself.

And her two remaining brain cells have officially gone on vacation.

“You alright, Lils?” Her man asks, as he punches the tux guy to avenge his girl.

He turns his attention to the mouse general, anger clouding his face like a cumulonimbus cloud at the start of a twister. “Touch her and die,” he quotes.

Another punch lands, and this time, the crony goes flying into the net—thanks to Every’s arm strength that rivals that of gorillas—and lands on his ass with another plop. No wonder he won a national boxing championship in kindergarten. As the love interest, Every sure has some martial arts magic skills.

“How could I be?” Lily yells back.

Behind them, a whole wrestling match is going on, with whoever of the alliance who still has an energy level that isn’t in the negative range—that is, mostly the lumberjacks, because who knows where they were during the first two phases of the battle—fighting the mouse goons who have already reached the town. Most are still out there somewhere, but the minority in town are already fucking the place up big time. The lumberjacks swing their shiny axes, but the mouse generals, being mouse hybrids, have this mouse-like characteristic of evading every blow. A lumberjack—is that Steel or Wheel?—roars in epic frustration.

And that somehow reminds Lily of the bears she saw running after her previously.

Huh, strange.

Just as Every sets on punching away new entries of mouse-men trying to cross over their net-less barriers, Lily, as always, watches from the sidelines, her contribution summed up to pretty much a big fat zero. She watches as her sweet baby boy’s back muscles flex with every punch thrown at the bastards, his ripped biceps curling and uncurling.

A sheen of perspiration hangs from his perfectly-in-place hair, dripping onto the ground.

It just adds to his appeal, for her, unlike when Fernando dripped his greasy sweat all over.

Nah, that was just gross.

And villains are always described as greasy for some reason.

Lily watches the scene unfolding before her, with the mouse king and his generals parading the fuck around her town—technically so, although she doesn’t even live here—before they even finish conquering it.

Then the gym bros finally reach the town and join in on the clusterfuck. They rip their pink muscle shirts off in solidarity with their supreme leader, Every, and shine their sweaty abs and pecs onto the incoming Armice troops.