Dan, the Tactician with the Master Plan(s)

By DarthMarth

Chapter the Final-Fight

Dan continued to scream his head off in rage as he twirled his Regal Blade around for the sweetest, deadliest, most awesome critical hit the world had ever known. He screamed, screamed, and screamed some more, and after he finished, he screamed again because he felt like it. Then he took up yelling. After a good 5 minutes of racing around Marcus screaming/yelling, he keeled over, out cold from oxygen deprivation.

Marcus seized his opportunity and attacked with both halves of his broken Killer Lance. However, his luck was against him; Dan quickly came to and sprang to his feet, deflecting both attacks with brilliantly fast attacks. Realizing his lance fragments were too short to do any good, Marcus rolled around the Shrine in perfect military form to save time on his broken leg, dodging Dan's Regal Blade strike, and grabbed his discarded Silver Blade.

"DIEDIEDIE!" Dan screamed as he did another jumping attack. Marcus hefted the massive weapon up and blocked with ease, then quickly twirled around and performed a two-handed horizontal slash. Having overextended with his enraged jump attack, Dan stumbled backward as Marcus' Blade slammed into his shoulder, sending him sprawling across the Shrine and making his left arm useless. Now one-handed and one-legged, he switched to a faster hopping method, keeping Marcus busy with swift slashes and thrusts while trying to get past his Silver Blade. After a while, he spun around to wind up for an especially powerful two-handed slash that Marcus barely managed to block; it's power and the Regal Blade's incredible sharpness actually sliced through Marcus' sword lengthwise and left him with half a sword, heavy and single-edged with an angular point. Bizarrely, he'd just given Marcus the sword of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII. "Oh, of all the-"

Emboldened by his awesome new weapon, Marcus struck back, matching Dan's speed and driving him backward with multiple hacks and slashes. He soon drove Dan into a corner, where he had trouble even blocking with his limited space. Marcus brought the half-blade behind his back and brought it down with a tremendous yell...right into the wall above Dan's head. "Nooooo!" He yelled, just as Dan thrust his Regal Blade through Marcus' torso.

"HAH! Finally!" Dan yanked his sword out and kicked Marcus backward, waiting for him to finally die. Miraculously, he got back up to his feet and stood, seemingly unimpeded. "WHAT? Curse you!"

"That stab only took off 22 of my 40 HP! It makes no difference!" Marcus continued his attack as though nothing had happened.

"I hate you!" Dan renewed his assault with incredibly furious strikes that eventually forced Marcus to drop his half-blade. He spun around and slices directly through Marcus' neck with a two-handed blow, leaving him... unharmed. "WHAT? Curse this infernal hit detection!"

"Next time play on the north server...wait, what?" As Dan's attacks lagged through Marcus, he retrieved his blade and actually managed to yell louder, doing a spin-attack a la Link that drove Dan back against a wall.

"Curse your video game-type attacks!" Marcus used the weight of his weapon for a crushing vertical slash, but Dan parried and deflected the attack, then dashed around behind Marcus and slashed his armor off, also a la Link.

"Hurgh!" Marcus gave a distinctly Darknut-like yell and did a jumping attack, but Dan dodged to the side of the vertical blow and took Marcus' head off with an upward slash.

"HAH-HAH! Finally!" Dan fell to his knees and started laughing more maniacally than ever, but Marcus' disembodied head continued talking.

"Hah! That decapitation only took off 12 of my remaining 18 HP! I am unharmed!" His headless body dashed over and grabbed the sword, then continued attacking. Now rid of Marcus' thick head, the body jumped clear over Dan and stabbed him in the back, doing less damage than it could with its half-blade.

"Argh! Why...won't...you...DIE?" Dan screamed and his head off yet again. He started attacking even faster, eventually getting past the body's guard and running it through the torso.

"Ugh, that did it," Marcus groaned as his eyes closed and his body fell over, finally dead.

"Yeees! Hah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Dan laughed manically while doing a victory dance around the Shrine, waving his Regal Blade like a maniac.

"ASTOUNDING!" Will cried, causing everyone to wake up groggily and look around to see what the cause for the noise was. Of course Wil, using a telescope to watch Dan's victory, was the only one who could see, so he filled everyone in as pathetically as usual. "Dan finally triumphs over the seemingly indestructible colossus Marcus! The crowd goes wild!" He did an imitation of another cheering crowd that was, if possible, even worse than his first. "Oh-oh-oh, and here comes ultimate cool-guy Wil doing a victory lap for no apparent reason! The crowd goes wilder!" He did the imitation again, as loudly as possible.

"I'm gonna go back to sleep," Eliwood muttered, leaning against Ninian who also slumped over.

The three flyers, all heavily laden with their great deals, swooped down to Dan, who was still laughing his head off in dark triumph. The Pegasus sisters flinched momentarily at the sight of the carnage that had taken place, but didn't say anything.

"What happened here?" Heath ventured.

"My ultimate victory over that experience-hog! Yes! Oh yes!" He continued to do his victory dance as the others stared.

"Okay...well, I bet you'll be even happier when you see how much we paid for all this great stuff!" Heath handed Dan the bill, grinning ear to ear.

"0.99 percent discount?" Dan fumed. "GAAAAAARGH!" He cried out in even greater rage at the three idiotic shoppers for a good 20 or 30 seconds, enough for his scream to echo through the entire valley. Finally, as he turned blue from oxygen deprivation, his head exploded from pure anger.

"Whoah...that was weird," Heath commented. They got back on their mounts and flew back to base.

Wil watched Dan's final, literal explosion from his safe distance. "Sweet, I'm the new tactician forever! Now you all have to, like, be my wives or something! Except you, Eliwood."

The Lord stirred. "Huh...what?"

And so, with its Tactician, most of its Mages, two Paladins, and a Lord gone, Eliwood's elite continued its trek across Elibe to protect the Sacred Stone...sorry, wrong game. Well, it did whatever it was doing, with Wil as its new Tactician. After reading the Tactician's charter, he realized with disappointment that his didn't get any wives. And then, suddenly, Jaffar made a startling new revelation about his heritage...

Jaffar: ...

Aaaand that's the last chapter! Please R&R! How was the massive final battle scene? Don't worry, I'm planning on a sequel/prequel/both!

Wil: Come on, seriously, don't I at least get a girlfriend?

Nope. You're a terrible Tactician.

Wil: No I'm not.