If you haven't read the final chapter, go back one. This here is the epilogue, after the story takes place .O. Make sure you've read the conclusion of Craig hitting Tweek before continuing here please!

Some Boys Are Monsters
Human After All

This place is just as beautiful as I remember it being. The plants underneath the soles of our shoes are a baby blue color. The sky is a painting of far off planets and shining stars on a faded green backdrop. The plant life is still untamed and thick. The streams still whisper and flow as specks of light dance through the vegetation. It was a lifetime ago when I last set foot on this strange planet, or any other besides earth, for that matter.

I peer down at my companion. His little head hasn't quite reached my hip yet, but he beams up at me with a smile wider than I could ever make.

"This is your first time ever leaving earth," I say as I squat down to adjust his helmet. "So stay close, okay? You'll be safe as long as you stick with me."

His little head nods.

"How many times have you gone to space?" my cadet asks with wide, intrigued eyes.

"More times than you can ever count," I exclaim while holding my hands up to the green sky. "You see all those stars up there?"

He nods in wonder.

"I've been to every single one of them."

"Really!?"

"Yeah! This planet is only one of the thousands and t-thousands I've explored! I've fought aliens, had epic space battles, and even saved this whole galaxy," I take a dramatic pause, lean in close, then whisper, "three whole times."

"Whoa!" he blurts in awe. His eyes look like they're about to bug out of his head with excitement. "Are we gonna fight aliens?!"

"Probably," I say while nodding my head. "This is a very dangerous mission, so you can expect at least one to show up."

His little feet beat at the ground and his arms shoot up in the air. "What are we gonna do?!"

"You see that palace over there?" I ask as I pull his tiny body close and point towards a tall, stone building in the distance. It's engulfed in blue light while the planet's sun is slipping away in the horizon. "An old friend of mine is being held captive in there. That's why I came back, cadet. We have to rescue her."

"Yeah! Let's go!" he shouts before launching forward.

"Waiiiit just a second," I mutter before scooping him up and pulling him into my lap. "Safety is important!"

He groans loudly.

"Hey, you never know when aliens are gonna attack, okay? Is your helmet secure?" I ask before tying the straps under his Band-Aid clad chin together.

"Yes!"

"Hm… maybe we should get some elbow pads, we don't want another wagon incident-"

"Come onnn~"

"Ah, fine, f-fine, lets go."

I release him from my grasp, and he quickly runs ahead of me.

"Now don't trip over the plants!" I warn. "I nearly bit my tongue off one time doing that."

"You did not!"

"I did so! And keep an eye out for aliens! Those guys can be nasty."

"Don't worry!" he shouts before turning on his heels and whipping his blade from the belt on his suit. "I'll protect you!"

A grin tugs at my cheeks while I wrap my arms around my middle. The autumn air is chilly, to say the least. Even on this planet.

"What's this?" my cadet asks while pointing at a round, wooden structure. He runs excitedly towards it.

"It's an escape pod," I explain while he peers into the submarine. "In case anything bad happens, you climb in and it'll launch you up into the sky where it's safe."

"Did you ever ride in it!?"

"Once."

I follow as he abandons the escape pod and makes his way towards the palace. His shoes leave tiny prints in the dew covered grass, and his hands are balled into fists as he runs full speed towards the massive tower.

I hear the faint sound of twigs cracking and the rustling of leaves, which makes me stop in my tracks. My eyes widen and my head turns with the suspicion of a hunted deer.

Before I even have time to scream a warning, a creature comes barreling toward us from the dense forest. I lurch back when it grabs for me with long harp talons, but lose my footing entirely. I tumble into the dirt and grass, kicking as it latches onto my ankle.

"Run!" I scream to my cadet. He quickly shakes his head. Little blond hairs brush his forehead as he rushes to my aid. The alien yanks me across the ground, and I'm too weak to fight such a monstrosity away.

"Let go of my captain, you butthead!" my companion shouts before lurching forward with laser gun in hand. Streams of light fly from the barrel. Though he hits his mark, the alien only flinches with a snarl. It launches up and away from me, but towards my cadet in rage.

I grab its massive claws to spare my companion, groaning as I struggle against its weight.

"Leave him alone!" The small spaceman persists. Realizing his gun isn't going to do him good, he pulls a jagged blade from his side. As swift as I've ever seen him move, he makes a stab for the creature pinning me to the ground. It doubles back at the blow. Though it's subdued, he continues jamming the blade into its thick hide.

It falls back in a heap, a low moan rumbling from its throat as the little cadet continues hacking away at its skin.

"Chill, little man. I'm dead, I promise," The alien chuckles while taking bumps with a foam sword to the chest.

My companion stands tall over his kill while holding up his blade and letting out a fierce battle cry. Quickly, I scoop him up and away from the mutilated creature's corpse.

"C'mon," I say before sitting him onto the ground and running towards the palace waiting in the distance.

We reach the front gate. Avery jams his blade into the metal and lets out a heroic yell as he pries it open. "She's in here! C'mon lets save her!"

We ransack the castle in search of our missing friend. We engage guards in hand on hand combat, affectively sneak by the alien overlord, and brave a rickety swing bridge to a tall, slender tower.

She's here, in this structure of stone and spiraling staircases. I can feel it in my bones.

"Careful, captain!" my cadet warns as he steps off the bridge. "We're real high up!"

I nod, but walk with confidence once I join him. However, all that confidence drains from my face.

"What?..." I ask in disbelief.

The wooden door is busted to the floor. The room beyond it is left in ruins. Blankets are ripped and strewn about messily, and dresser drawers are left emptied alongside them.

"What is it?" asks my cadet in the upmost concern.

"The princess! Someone got here before we did!" I rush into the destroyed space, my eyes darting around the room for some sort of answer. A window hangs open. Curtains flow with the breeze, and my heart beats hard.

"Who, though!?"

I swallow.

My cadet and I rush to the open window, where we see a damning site.

"There was only ever one other spaceman skilled enough to get this far," I say as we watch a twisted form move quickly down the side of the tower.

"It's the alien!" my comrade screams in panic.

"That's no alien."

I launch myself from the window. My feet kick up dust as I land on a lower level, my partner on my heels as we trail the creature onto the castle roof. It hears our boots thumping against the stone, then rears up its ugly head to face us.

I extend my arm to stop my overly zealous cadet, who already has his blade drawn.

"What? He has the princess!"

There is indeed a small bundle held tightly in the monster's grotesque arms, but while it remains still, so do I.

"He's one of us."

"What?!"

"I haven't seen him since my last mission," I explain quietly. The creature lets out a hot huff of breath, and my young ward gazes up in wonder.

"He was infected with some kind of larva, I had to leave him behind. There was no choice."

The creature has already grown tired of my tale. I chase after its gigantic form as it tries to disappear with the princess through the brush. I jump up onto it, clutching tightly to its thick hide while I wrestle it to the ground.

The princess falls from his grasp, but my well trained cadet swoops in to rescue her.

The creature and I continue with the struggle only until I rip the blade from my sheath and jam it into his rips. He rolls off of me, coughing and spitting as I straddle him, blade in hand.

"What are we gonna do with him?!" asks the littlest spaceman as he clutches his bundle.

"Well…" I utter with bared teeth as I look down at the heaving mess of a former spaceman. "There's only one cure for moon larva."

I raise my blade high above my head. My captive flinches away, his eyes clamped tight and mouth twisted. My blade falls right above his head, pinning him into the dirt.

I litter his face with kisses.

"Ah!" the monstrosity cackles through the barrage of affection. The smallest of us decides it'd probably be best if he joins in, and it isn't long before the monster is rolling away from us while covering his face with human hands. "I'm better, I'm better!"

"Yay! We fixed you!" Avery rejoices as he tosses an arm around the man's thick neck. Only one arm because the little princess is still clutched in the other.

A large pair of hands gently pat the boy's back. They're worn and scarred, but gentleness has helped the ugly bumps fade with time. Narrow, blue eyes go half lidded as a smile threatens to crack a stone exterior. It succeeds when a small hand presses against the stubble on his chin.

"I knew it was you the whole time."

"Then what was with all the stabbing, jeez."

"You were a-attacking!" the child shouts.

With a sigh, I retire into the grass alongside them. It's cold on the side of my face, but it feels nice.

It's been a really really long time since I've wrestled with Craig.

He lays back, too. Naturally, he pulls the tiny child onto his chest, who promptly lifts up a flap of Craig's unzipped hoodie only to snuggle underneath it and zip the princess and himself inside.

"Daddy," The child mutters as he pops his head up from under the zipped fabric. His cranium bumps Craig's chin, but the giant doesn't seem to mind.

"Hm?" I ask as my eyes close. The air feels so nice, and insomnia has been plaguing me lately.

"Does the princess have a name?"

I nod.

"Bob."

The child giggles at such an oddly usual human name being bestowed upon an intergalactic space princess.

"I love her!"

"That's good," I say before scooting towards them through the grass. "Because she's really far away from home. Me and dad took care of her since we were your age."

"Really?" the cadet asks Craig's hairy chin, as if he can't just take my word for it.

"Yup," he breaths softly.

The child wriggles around inside Craig's jacket to get comfortable, then snuggles close to the alien's plush face. She's old and patched up now, though we just recently took her down from the attic, just for this occasion.

"Now it's your turn to look after her," Craig says with ice blue eyes half lidded.

The child's little hands squeeze her face curiously, and the tip of a chubby finger traces her black eyes.

"One day, I'm going to go up in the sky for real," the little boy says with the upmost conviction. "I can be like you! And bring back real stars!"

I lay my head down on Craig's shoulder and gaze up at the starlit sky along with them.

The boy's fascinated brown eyes shine with an excitement I'd long forgotten about, and a big, strong hand squeezes my shoulder.

It's funny thinking back to all those years ago, when Craig and I were stupid teenagers. When we had no idea what life meant, but all the knowledge in the world of how to make a huge mess of it.

Those seem like such simpler times now, compared to then. My broken teenage heart can't compare much to all I've survived through since.

But he is still beside me, just as he was then, just as he was when we were spacemen. Ever strong and resilient.

Still just as much of a robot parrot.

Though, now that we're laying here so close in the grass. Now that we're passing the esteemed title onto a newer generation, I realize something I'd never thought much about before.

We're human after all.