This is it guys, the last chapter! Well kind of, because epilogue still, but that's extra. It should be pretty short too, so I'll try to have it up soon. This right here though is the longest chapter yet and pretty much the end of the story, so a huge thanks to everyone who's been keeping with it and encouraging me to keep writing! Ah, it feels good to (mostly) finish a fic. Except now I have to work out what to write next. Dang it.

Anyway, thank you for reading, and please enjoy the conclusion!

"Army of Darkness, defend the fortress! Cyclops, fortify the tower defenses and the inner barricades! Zombies, I need you inside and on standby! Vampire kids, ground team! Do not let them pass! And if anyone sees that fucking new kid Douchebag, BRING ME HIS HEAD!"

If it were any other circumstance, Craig might appreciate how effectively Clyde was assuming control of the situation. Instead he opened and closed his fist, blood pounding from the rapid progression of events. He was right there! They'd been about to-!

"Furthermore! Everyone has to say really cool shit about me! I am your lord and master, and I demand to be acknowledged as such!"

God fucking damnit. Fine. Clyde had his head in the game; Craig would get his there too. He'd get his forces ready, and then he'd make the attacking armies pay for interrupting his moment, and then they'd be destroyed once and for all, and then he and Clyde would celebrate by making out.

Craig stalked to his quarters, only to find five of his clones already there on the lower of the two levels. Good, he could work with this. "Are the others on their way?" he asked without preamble.

"I think so," one of the clones replied.

"They'd better be. Now, where are my cows?"

"We'll get them up here," that same clone replied with much more certainty. He pointed to the empty space below Craig. "That one is set to go and just needs to be cranked up when you're ready. The other two-"

He didn't get the chance to finish his report, because that's when they heard it: the upsurge of dozens of battle cries and the clamor of steel and Nerf.

Craig leaped down to join his clones, and continued straight past them. "I don't care how you do it, just get it done!" he commanded without so much as a glance over his shoulder as he made his way outside, to the walkway between the towers. He needed to see what was going on; to figure out what to expect from this siege attempt.

"Your attack on us is amusing, per se, but if you think you can get far you are sadly mistaken," Vampir said from below, heading off the attacking army.

Craig relaxed a little. He may not like the guy, per se, but it looked like he'd drawn up the bridge and was now standing as a strong first line of defense with relative ease. As a general, he seemed to have things under control.

Then, an apathetic voice came from the enemy's front lines. "Ugh, really?"

"Of-fucking-course." Another sighed. "All right, move over hobbits. We'll take care of Count Fagula."

The army broke, and from the crowd the four goth kids stepped forward, each looking annoyed enough for the next.

"You guys." Vampir puffed himself up, unmoved. "Yeah, I'm a general now, so that makes me immune to your negative energy, per se."

"Oh, are you."

"I forgot how much I fucking hate this kid."

"You know, we never did make up any abilities for this stupid game," the girl goth – Henrietta? – said. "We could do that now."

The tall goth took a drag of his cigarette. "Yeah, okay. What should we do to him?"

"Okay, back off," Vampir said, a hard edge replacing the previous indifference in his voice. They were getting to him. "You have a problem with me, I get that, but guess what? You can't do anything about it here. I'm a general for my side, while you guys clearly don't even know how to play and- hey!" he protested in astonishment as the kindergarten goth hit him in the leg.

"Sure we do." The goth with red in his hair flipped his bangs away from his face. "I'm pretty sure that means we get to attack first. Now shut up while we figure out our abilities."

Craig brought his palm up to his head and groaned. God, he took it back; Vampir was a shit general, and this was not how the first fight of the final battle over Zaron should be going.

"We could summon Edgar Allan Poe to take care of him," the tall goth suggested.

"Ugh, no, we do not want to deal with that guy. Besides, summoning? That's so conformist," the red goth dismissed.

"So conformist," the kindergartener echoed in agreement.

"So we do the opposite of summoning." Henrietta said simply. "We send him away."

This seemed to strike a favorable chord among the goth kids. For Vampir, it was the opposite. "No!" He backed up against the moat, losing his nerve. "You can't do that!"

"Yes we can. It's our turn."

The goth kids surrounded the vampire general and moved in, starting and ending the battle with four voices channeling one damning ability: "Scottsdale."

They dragged Vampir away, and his screams quickly became lost in the commotion as the sieging army surged through and fights started breaking out all around the fortress.

And then, amid the chaos, he showed up.

"Fuck." Craig went straight back to his quarters; he didn't need to stay out there to know what was coming, and he had to be ready. Not that he didn't have faith in the Army of Darkness, but Douchebag was a hero. To stop a hero, you needed a villain.

"Shadow clones, we must prepare for battle. Where are my Nazi cow minions?"

"We've got one of them right here!"

"One of the undead kids should be getting us this one."

"The one in the middle just needs to be pulled up still."

"You guys work fast," Craig said approvingly. He moved past them to climb the rope ladder to the higher level so he could do a quick hat count. Everybody was here. Good. "All right clones, this is it. The final battle. The enemy may have taken us by surprise, but do not despair! Remember, you were picked for a reason: you're all generic enough to look like me. Individually, you may not be much. Individually, none of us may be much." Not true. Let the record show that Craig was very badass on his own, thank you; that just wasn't the point of this speech. "But together! Together, we are boss. Now to the shadows, all of you! And when Douchebag shows up with his buddy…" he thought back to Clyde, and how he'd been so close. He'd been so damn close. "We'll make them hurt."

"Awesome!" a clone said with a smirk that many of the others matched as they cheered.

"We'll be ready! What do you want us to do now?"

"What do you mean?" Craig asked. "I just told you." He didn't think it was that complicated.

"Well yeah, but Douchebag's not here yet. Shouldn't we be doing stuff in the meantime to, you know, get more ready for the battle and stuff?"

"Yeah, like what about that cow there?"

Craig frowned. "Why would we do that? We're a boss battle. That means we get to hang out in our lair until he gets here. If that's not good enough, then play Angry Birds or something."

The clones shared skeptical looks. "So you want us to do nothing and just wait."

"That's what I said." Really, he didn't see what the problem was. He checked his phone. "They'll be here in about ten minutes."

And sure enough, about ten minutes later, there they were: Douchebag and Kyle, tromping into Craig's lair like it was just one more level to be conquered.

Well, they had another thing coming. Thanks to Craig's unseen clones, the gate behind the pair slammed shut and closed off any hope they'd have of retreating.

"Ha ha, you're trapped!" Craig declared. Now was the time to get serious. He was ending this. "I'm a level fourteen thief and the dark lord's chief assassin, and you will all perish here and now! My three Nazi cow minions will take care of you!"

Oh yeah. They were intimidated. Craig turned away, content to let them despair in the face of their imminent doom, and started cranking up his third and final cow.

"Douchebag I'm stuck! Can you let me in?" Stan's voice came through the boarded up window on his left. Pfft, like there was anything they could do.

Then he heard a crash.

"This should even things up!" Stan announced triumphantly. Craig looked over at him from the corner of his eye just in time to register a cow plummeting to its doom.

Shit. Maybe there was something they could do.

"I still have two Nazi cow minions!" Craig shouted, refusing to be thrown, but then he heard another crash on his right. Damnit, this was not cool. "I should have started this sooner," he muttered. Stupid smart clones.

"You're gonna get it Craig, you fucking traitor!" Stan yelled as he tried to bypass the barricade. Craig rolled his eyes. Whatever. Like he even-

Crash!

Aaand there went another cow. "You guys are dicks."

"Sweet, you did it!" Kyle cheered. "Looks like we can't do anything about that last one though, not until we fight Craig. Come on Craig, can you hurry it up?"

"Hold on, it's almost there," Craig promised. At least he thought it was almost there, and that would just have to do; it wasn't like he was any less frustrated about it.

"Ah, okay," Kyle said. There was silence after that. "So…" Never mind. Apparently Kyle felt it necessary to attempt to engage his buddy in awkward small talk. "What do you do for fun?"

Thank god that's when the chain went rigid. Craig stepped away from the lever and turned to face his enemies, crouching to a proper rogue's stance with a knee and a hand to the floor. "Now let's see how you fare against the dark lord's chief assassin, and a cow!" Then he leaped down, and the battle began.

Almost immediately Douchebag drank a speed potion and struck down Craig's last cow with one fell slash from his sweet katana, much to the assassin's displeasure. Seriously. After all of the effort he put into getting those cows, seriously.

Then the katana came down on him next, and damnit, "Ow!"

There was no letting up on their side though, because it was Kyle's turn next, and he held his golf club high. "Let's fuck 'em up!" he said in a stat-boosting Rally before he stepped back and looked up. "Ready, Ike?"

Craig looked up too, and saw Ike turn away from the barricade he'd been trying to break. The Canadian jumped down from his perch to join them, hurrying past Craig to stand in front of Kyle and draw his twin blades.

Kyle grinned. "Kick the baby!"

"Don't kick the goddamn baby."

"Yeah," Craig agreed, "you really don't have to do that."

Kyle's smile turned sharp as he looked up at Craig. "Kick the baby."

"YAAAAAY!" Ike cheered as Kyle kicked him straight into Craig's face, dealing him massive damage and leaving the chief assassin critically wounded. Ike meanwhile was just fine; he followed the momentum straight back up to where he'd been before, and returned to his dedicated thwacking of the barrier.

"Next turn, Douchebag!" Kyle said happily. "We've got him for sure!"

It sure looked like it, didn't it? Well it was Craig's turn now, and he had a surprise for them. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small smoke bomb. "Why fight one Craig when you can fight five?" He threw his bomb on the ground and disappeared in a wisp of smoke, only to reappear in the same fashion with full health and a raised defense with the rest of his Clone Army.

Douchebag wasn't fazed, but Kyle stared with his mouth agape. "What?!"

"I'm immune to splash damage, Clyde said," one of his clones informed while another attacked Douchebag.

"We serve a dark and terrible master!" Black Craig input helpfully.

"Yeah? Well, who needs a clone army when you have an elven one!" Kyle stepped forward, and suddenly more than a dozen elves were rushing in at his back and drawing their arrows.

"Hey Kyle, do you ever fight for yourself or is your whole thing just letting everyone else do your dirty work?" another clone asked, to Craig's delight. He really did like these guys.

"You think you're one to talk? Hmph! Ready!" Kyle lifted his golf club. "Aim!" The Craigs braced themselves as he raised it higher.

"…Whoops!" Kyle dropped it. He actually fucking dropped it.

Craig couldn't help it; he cracked up. It was okay because his three surviving clones were breaking into hysterics right there with him. Sure some of Kyle's Rain of Arrows still hailed, but they only dispelled one of his clones, and all the while the legion of elves scrambled and fled in unbridled panic until it was once again just Kyle. The former elven king was red in the face as he shamefully bent down to pick up his golf club.

"Oh man, thank you," Craig said, catching his breath, "I needed that."

"Shut up!" Kyle absolutely screamed at him. "I can usually do it!"

"No comment," a clone snickered.

"AUGH! Douchebag, can you hurry up and take your turn!"

Lucky for Kyle, Douchebag did take his turn then. Not so lucky for either of them, he used his most powerful area ability too, targeting and eliminating only Black Craig.

It was back to Craig's turn again now, and he was glad they didn't time these things, because he really needed a minute. This was how a typical battle with Douchebag went? With all the hype he'd expected something a little less… he didn't know; did completely incompetent cover it, or was it just mostly?

Still, Douchebag's skills – or rather, lack thereof – turned out not to matter, as he made up for it with persistence. Craig and his clones continue to attack and deal damage, but Douchebag and Kyle continued to restore and buff themselves, all the while whittling down Craig's clone army until he had to call in the second round – and then they whittled them down, too.

"You've got to be kidding me," Craig said bleakly five minutes later when the course of the battle had reduced to him alone, wounded, and down on a knee.

Douchebag didn't respond. He drank another cup of coffee, and lifted his sweet katana.

GAME OVER.

CONTINUE?

When Craig regained consciousness, he found himself wishing he'd rather not have. It was unfortunate that wasn't how it worked.

Ugh…

What happened?

Craig pushed himself up on his elbows. He realized his head was pounding just as it began to quickly subside, but it was hardly comforting when absolute silence filled its place. Everything was quiet. Empty. Still. He turned his head back down to the wooden floor and sighed.

They lost.

Slowly he picked himself up to his feet and took a sullen look around. For the most part, everything was still intact. You could hardly tell a battle took place here, much less a boss battle. It was… upsetting.

Craig shifted his focus to the windows, where darkness continued to thrive. What time was it? He checked his phone, only to find it dead. He grumbled a bit as he put it back in his pocket, then decided he may as well do a quick personal inventory. When you lost a battle, it was pretty much a given that you'd lose some of your stuff too. He just didn't realize they'd take his dark emblem.

Craig closed his fist over the spot where it used to be, but only ended up sighing again. What was the point of anger? He'd lost, and this was the cost of it. He failed Clyde.

Clyde.

He didn't think. He didn't have to, with how familiar the route to the throne room was by now. Craig scaled it quickly, and when he found it empty, simply proceeded to the balcony in hopes that the vantage point would provide some answers.

Grabbing the bit of railing that remained intact, Craig scoped out the yard below. On the ground the signs of battle were more evident, but still the combatants were absent. They must have all gone home. All except for one anyway, who Craig finally saw almost directly below.

"Clyde," he breathed. He turned back for the exit, but only made it to just inside the throne room before he stopped.

Screw it; he was still a level fourteen thief. He gave his cloak a quick straighten and pivoted back to the balcony, this time stopping just before the space where the railing fractured off. He looked first to plot out his path, then leaped.

The fortress' exterior was just as multi-leveled as it was on the inside so he had little trouble in his descent, jumping from roof to balcony until he landed safely on the ground on bended knee. Then he hurried to his fallen lord.

"Clyde?" he asked, slowing his steps as he neared. Clyde was lying with his back against the grass, eyes closed. Craig started to seriously question if he was okay, but then he shifted vaguely.

"Hey, Craig," Clyde mumbled. He said nothing more, keeping his eyes closed and his hands at his sides. It didn't look like he was about to get up anytime soon either, so Craig sat down.

"Hey." Craig brought his knees up to his chest, then leaned back on his hands. "You okay?"

"Not really."

"What happened?"

"We lost the Stick," Clyde murmured heavily. "I got banished from space and time."

Craig sighed. He figured as much. All that work, all the excitement, all that build-up, and now here they were. It was exactly the same as it'd been at the start. "Did he have the Stick when he banished you?" Craig ventured to ask.

"What's it matter?"

"So he didn't."

"It doesn't matter." Clyde let out a strained sigh. "We lost. Game over."

Craig leaned forward, crossing his arms loosely on his knees. "Yeah, I guess I got that memo."

What could he even say? Clyde was right, everything pretty much sucked. Craig probably should have expected it. He could manage just fine, though; hell, half of his life was desensitizing himself to crap like this. Clyde, on the other hand… Clyde lacked the ability to brush things off in the same way. The fact that all of this had been so very much his just made it worse. He had control of the universe, he had a fortress, he had an army, and he lost it all. It wasn't a great place to be at.

But… he did still have his chief assassin. Maybe that was worth something. Clyde had said once – well, fine, he had said just a few hours ago – that Craig was good at cheering him up. As dismal as things were right now, he had to try.

"We could rebuild."

"It wouldn't work."

"The base is still in pretty good shape."

"So what."

"Just look at the humans and elves – they fought over the Stick loads of times. Remember the battle of Stark's Pond? The Stick switched hands five times that day alone. You fought valiantly," he reminded him. "We're still in this, Clyde. Hell, we can start plotting to take it back as early as tomorrow."

Clyde shook his head against the grass. "We'd lose again," he said, leaving no room for argument.

Well, fuck that. "Says who?" Craig went on more assertively. "We still have the taco sauce, and South Park still has a cemetery. We could raise another army, and once we have that, send out ravens to all of the vampires and sixth graders and-"

"It wouldn't work, Craig!" Clyde finally snapped, opening his eyes just to glare up at the sky. "You think the Army of Darkness will rejoin me after this? I promised them victory, and immortality! Tonight they lost, they died, and then they quit! Look around! Do you see anyone? No! I lost my army, and I lost Chef, and I lost you, and Douchebag- Douchebag is way too good even though he sucks, and I suck even more because I tried to quit instead of being the super cool evil boss I was supposed to be and- and! And it wasn't even Taco Bell sauce, Craig! There isn't even a Taco Bell! It's a crashed alien spaceship and the taco sauce is actually dangerous taco goo from another planet, and it won't even work anymore anyway because the dragonborn farted on a princess' balls!"

…Oh. "Well… I guess that makes a lot more sense."

"Yeah," Clyde laughed, though it was humorless and painful. "Taco Bell would never do that," he turned his head to mumble against the grass. He was a little bit flushed and even winded from his outburst, but just as quickly as his rant had begun, it was now on the wind down. "Besides," he said a bit more levelly, "even if we did try for the Stick again… even if we got back our army, or even if we got a better one, it still wouldn't work. It doesn't matter if it's a game or not, the villain's curse will always keep us from winning."

This again? Craig looked down at him, unimpressed with the reasoning. "We could still kill the Earth if we wanted to." Sure the odds were against them now, but absolutely everything had been against Clyde before and they still got really close.

Clyde shook his head. "We couldn't. We're the bad guys, and the bad guys are cursed to lose. So unless we want to turn over a new leaf…" he grimaced.

"No way," Craig said shortly, trying not to get too frustrated. Clyde told him he was good at this damnit, and he was going to cheer him up, whether he chose to cooperate or not. "Let's just break it."

"Huh?" Clyde blinked.

Oh, was he cooperating? Good. "Zaron, Larnion; it's all a fantasy realm, so if it's a curse we should just break it. Like, isn't there some quest we could make up? Or, hey, Token's a cleric! He could use his divine magic to- oh wait, no, he won't help us," he remembered.

Okay, Clyde had gone strangely quiet, but he also hadn't shut anything down yet so he was at least hearing him out. Craig was on the right track, he just needed to figure out something else. He didn't know though; this was hard. He tried to think. What else could break curses?

"Um, Craig."

Craig looked down again, and this time, Clyde was looking right back up at him. He felt a sudden wave of anxiety, which seemed ridiculous because it was just Clyde, but normally he could read him so easily. Right now he couldn't.

Thankfully it only lasted for a second before Clyde smiled, faint and almost charming. "What about, like. A kiss?"

Get…

Get out.

He knew it. Not that he hadn't pretty much worked it out earlier, but that wasn't the point because he knew it! And here it was, right here! No more misunderstandings, and no more delay. God, he'd been waiting for this. He'd been waiting for this for a long time. And, and now…

"Dude, want me to see if there are any vampire girls around? There might be some cute ones still in the fortress."

And now he was apparently being a self-sabotaging asshole. Okay. That was good too.

Why was he like this.

Clyde didn't take it to heart though. Instead, he actually chuckled. "I deserve that," he said in acknowledgement, and even though a small part of Craig wanted to commit to being bitter, he could only fight off a smile.

"Anyway, it wouldn't work," Clyde went on. "To break a curse like this… I mean," his smile slipped into subtle uncertainty, but he stayed his course. "It'd have to be true love, wouldn't it?"

Something caught in Craig's throat. It might have been his heart. That… "That is the cheesiest goddamn thing I have ever fucking heard."

Clyde opened his mouth to respond, but whatever it was, it wasn't important. Nothing was nearly important enough to delay Craig any further. He moved over Clyde, put his hands down on either side of his head, and captured his lips against his own.

Clyde didn't react at first, but as soon as his initial surprise faded Craig felt him kissing back with increasing warmth and affection as he leaned up into him. It only made Craig want him closer, so he shifted his weight to one hand and moved the other to the back of Clyde's neck. He slid it up until his fingers grazed just into his hair, then pulled Clyde against him a little more greedily. The response was the welcoming envelop of a pair of arms, one snaking beneath Craig's cloak and wrapping itself firmly around his waist, and the other moving around his neck to cling to his opposing shoulder.

Craig broke off their kiss with a smile; he couldn't help it. Something about knowing the guy you've always wanted wanting you back just as much, he guessed. Clyde pulled away, but only far enough to look up at him searchingly.

"It's nothing," Craig assured him.

Clyde eased into a small smile of his own. "Okay."

Craig shifted to try to get a little more comfortable before he leaned down once more, and Clyde adjusted and tightened his grip to pull himself up. Their efforts resulted not in another kiss, but in the mildest of collisions between Craig's face and the front spike of Clyde's crown.

"I do not like that thing," Craig grumbled. Seriously, did it mind? It was becoming a problem.

Clyde was biting his lip in an effort not to laugh. "S-sorry, here, let me," he pulled away from Craig to sit up, and Craig reluctantly backed off so he could.

Clyde removed the crown from his head with the utmost delicacy and inspected it for damages with a sheepish little smile. Craig found it hard to stay mad at the inanimate object as he watched.

"So did it work?" he had to ask, once his head started catching back up to him. "The kiss."

Clyde flushed, but set his crown to the side and turned back to him. "I think so?"

"Good," Craig smiled. "I think so too."

Clyde positively beamed at this, leaving any and all remnants of his previous despair behind him as he sprang forward and wrapped his arms around Craig's neck. "Then it must have," he said with certainty. "But just in case…" he inched closer. "Double-check?"

"Fuck yeah." Craig grabbed Clyde's waist and met him in the middle, completely endeared, and more than a little in love.

QUEST COMPLETE