So here's the real chapter 24. I might put the April Fool's version somewhere out of the way if I get enough (aka more than 1) requests for it. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 24: Back in the Game

Twilight Sparkle sat in the corner of the dank, musty prison cell, her limbs tightly hugging her body as it quivered from anxiousness. There was no way of telling what they were going to do to her, or to the innocent human girl in the other cell who looked just as helpless and frightened.

She had already considered using magic to weasel her way out and rescue the pink-garbed princess as well, but that was out of the question. An old hag of a reptilian witch had placed some kind of magical field around the cell, preventing her from using magic of any sort.

She couldn't even talk to the Princess, as every time either captive made a sound, they were promptly and harshly quieted by the guards.

At the very least, Twilight wished she could contact Blah and tell him about her plight, but with that barrier in place, her horn was nothing more than a stub of bone protruding from her head.

And yet, she couldn't abandon that last sliver of hope. Somehow, the unicorn knew - just knew - that someone was coming to her aid that very moment. It may have been Blah, it may have been her pony friends, or someone else entirely. It didn't really matter who at this point.

She felt the anguished gaze of the human princess from across the hall, and met it with her own, conveying that reassuring hope as best as she could with a solemn expression. The princess nodded ever so slightly, as if she was rather uncertain about it, but she understood nonetheless.

With each dull, passing hour, the tension grew for each prisoner. For a moment, it seemed as though nobody would come.

And then came a noise. Twilight and the princess perked up, expecting some daring rescue or at least the culmination of whatever that freakish tortoise had planned for them. Instead, what they heard was a familiar, unpleasant cackle.

"Eh heh heh heh! Oh, how the mighty have fallen!"

Into the hall strode a gleeful elderly Magikoopa, practically marching in her next victim using her wand as a baton. It was a short, stout man clothed in red and sporting a thick mustache whom Twilight could not identify, but the sight of him brought distraught tears to the Princess's eyes.

"Mario!" she couldn't help but cry out in despair, to which a guard reacted by pointing his weapon at her.

Twilight examined him with a wince. Mario had clearly seen better days. His clothes were torn, and the visible areas of his skin were covered in severe bruises. There was a particularly painful-looking and partially cauterized puncture wound in his stomach, and his overalls around the wound were singed. His hands were bound behind his back as he was being led by two Koopa guards to an empty cell.

"Tell me, Mario," the witch coldly continued, "how does it feel to be on the losing side for once? Excruciating, isn't it? Eh heh heh heh!"

Mario's head was fixed downward in defeated silence as the Magikoopa pointed her wand at the door of the cell, causing it to swing open. Jabbing at Mario's back with a spear, the guards forced him at the cell.

While Mario's cell door was open, Twilight felt slightly empowered again - the barrier weakened by a small amount as the Magikoopa exerted her magic on a different object. She knew she only had a small window to act, and that she probably couldn't get away with much... so she did the only thing she knew would ultimately help.

With a slight glow of the horn, Twilight casted a relatively simple and discreet spell, managing to elude the perception of the guards, and just in time - as the cell door closed, the barrier strengthened, and just like that, Twilight was powerless again.

Mario took one look at Peach and frowned, the slightest amount of moisture forming in his eyes as well. It pained Twilight to see the two of them like that, but if anything, it only made her hopes and determination stronger. They were getting out of this one way or another.

The first dragon to reach the island made a break for Blah. It was also the first mistake. In less than 5 seconds, Blah had impaled the dragon straight through the heart with his Phaselance. He stepped aside to let the body fall forward and turned towards the next nearest threat.

Tails aimed his crossbow at the incoming dragons, picking off as many as he could before they could make it to their destination. His finger slipped on occasion, missing a bolt or fumbling with a reload due to his nervousness.

Sonic took to the air and aimed his homing attacks at the foes. A solid bash to the head was enough to knock some of them unconscious in midair, causing them to have a great fall, but after a while the others caught on and started swiping back. Right before meeting a claw, Sonic unfurled himself and landed on its owner's back. "Too slow!" he boasted, leaping off and launching himself at another.

Astra took a more guerrilla approach, hiding in the trees and ambushing new arrivals from behind. She was almost inhumanly fast with her pole-scythe. Whenever she had the opportunity, she would cripple her target by snatching them by the throat, pulling a small switch on the handle and causing the blade to extend to a full, tight circle around the neck.

The weapon was designed for swift, clean decapitation, but this was somewhat difficult against the dragons' tough exterior. So, when that didn't work, she did the next best thing - swinging the body of the ensnared soldier at his bewildered comrade directly behind him in rank. This act often killed the former regardless.

The echidnas were no strangers to full-on frontal assault, and they took the brunt of the invasive force as they hurled spears at the airborne and used their opponents' bulk against them in close combat. Their morale was fairly high despite lacking their original leader Knuckles, but they were fighting dragons after all. The battle bore casualties from both sides.

Blah, missing his mount already, had to make due with what little momentum he could gain on foot to use his lance effectively, and the power of the meteorite was barely enough to make up for that. He ran through a good dozen, noting with curiosity that these dragons preferred standing on two legs rather than the usual four. Before he could think any more about it, however, he was blindsided by a particularly brutish red-scaled brawler. Blah's shield stopped the damage from the blow, but the force was enough to knock him off-balance.

He rolled out of the way of the dragon's stomp and onto his feet, twisting around with the lance. To his surprise, the dragon leaped over the swing and swiped down at his head. Thankfully, his left arm was in the perfect position to block that attack, but it sent him on his back again. At that point, two other dragons had flown over to aid their red ally and were surrounding him as he laid in the grass. Blah was really in a bind.

Thinking fast, he focused his mind. "Fist of the Milky Way, Axial Recovery!" He hopped over, balancing on his hands as he spin-kicked outward with both of his legs, knocking all three dragons away and flipping back onto his feet in a maneuver he totally didn't rip off of Lost Saga. He then lunged at one of the downed enemies with his lance through the neck, finishing him off as the other two stood up. Blah pointed his lance at one and his shield at the other...

Suddenly, his head took on a curious sensation. It was akin to a headache, only more disorienting than painful. With it, however, came an image. A faint, mental image of the interior of a prison cell looking out across a hall at two other cells. It was somewhat blurred, but Blah could barely make out the shapes of several figures.

The picture made Blah hesitate and miss his chance to move first; this really was not the best time. The dragon on his right side lifted into the air, out of his reach, while the one on his left made a grab for his shield. Blah bashed at the closer one with his shield, causing him to flinch, while keeping his lance pointed at the one above him. The latter swooped down while the former snatched at the shield again with greater force. Blah had to sacrifice his shield in order to keep his concentration on the more immediate hazard; he lanced the flier through the ribs, just missing his vital organs, but it was enough to send him at the ground.

The uninjured dragon took Blah's shield and threw it at him, causing him to react by deflecting it with his last held possession, the Phaselance. Unfortunately, this bought the shield chucker enough time to make a passing slash at Blah's exposed lower body. Blah flinched badly, giving the dragon a free elbow to his head, causing him to reel and drop his lance. The domino effect resulted in the dragon clutching Blah by the neck and holding him high, preparing to strangle him into submission.

Blah's wide, desperate eyes were forced to gaze upon the carnage that was the war. No reinforcements had yet arrived, and the defenders were getting their heads handed to them... literally in some cases. Sonic was beginning to get overwhelmed, they were closing in on Tails, and Astra couldn't fool all of them with the same tricks. He tried in vain to release the muscular dragon's grip on his throat, but the beast was just too strong for him. It seemed as though the island would be under new management yet again by the time any help came.

Just as he started to feel faint, there was a red flash that dislocated the strangler's jaw and loosened his grip. Blah fell to his knees, inhaling gratefully as he looked upon the face of his savior... and it was none other than Knuckles, right on schedule.

"Now you owe me two," Knuckles asserted sternly to Blah before giving the dragon another grounding sucker punch.

"And me three!" announced a voice from behind him. Blah turned around to see Bo-bobo, Don Patch, and Jelly Jiggler sitting on top of a small yellow-orangeish cloud. "Thanks, Nimrod!" Bo-bobo said to the cloud as the trio of Hajikelists hopped off.

"Ok, my brethren! Be free and kick some scaly booty!" Don Patch kicked the Flying Nimrod, and a small door opened on the side. Soon, hundreds of Don's miniature likenesses, the KoPatch, piled out of it like a clown car, armed with various vegetables. Blah cried tears of joy.

The KoPatch immediately began darting around and between members of the dragon army, landing many quick and precise blows with their oddly potent plants.

Bo-bobo leaped into the air after the group that endangered Sonic and whipped out his nose hairs. "Super Fist of the Nose Hair, Lemming Kamikaze!" He latched onto each dragon with his biological whips and hurled them at the earth below at speeds somehow exceeding terminal velocity, each one accompanied by an appropriate whip-cracking noise. The craters were visible even at that distance.

When he was finished, he grabbed Sonic and gave him a less-than-gentle toss back at the island, causing him to skid unhappily in the dirt. "Oh wait, you're a hedgehog, not a lemming. Whoops!" Sonic sighed, at least grateful for the help.

"Allow me," said Jelly Jiggler, forcefully wiggling into a flabbergasted Tails' hands and replacing his crossbow, taking the form of a huge rocket launcher. "Super Fist of the Wobble Wobble, Jelly Jiggler Bazooka!" Tails, seeing no room to protest in his situation, pulled the trigger, which launched a gelatinous missile at the oncoming dragons.

The missile grinned evilly as it neared the flock. "This jelly is the bom-AAAAH!" screamed Jiggler as the lead dragon sliced him to pieces. Dessert rained upon the battlefield.

In a panic, Tails began clubbing dragons with the empty bazooka. To his astonishment, the weapon was as forceful as a battering ram while weighing no more than a pillow! The onslaught was brought to a screeching halt as its members were knocked out-cold one by one.

Unbeknownst to Astra, a dragon had discovered her hiding place and was planning on turning the tables and ambushing her from behind... but unbeknownst to this dragon, Don Patch had already ambushed him.

"Grant me three wishes, Shenron!" Don Patch playfully requested from the dragon's back. His loud voice alerted Astra to the dragon's position.

"The only wish I'll be granting YOU is a swift death to relieve you of your idiocy!" the dragon replied, trying to shake the pop rock, who continuously crawled just out of his reach.

"They can talk...?" Astra commented, watching the chaos unfold.

"They could stand to talk less, that's for sure!" answered Don impatiently. "Just get to the wish-granting already!"

"Sit still, and mayb-ACK!" The dragon failed to watch where he was going and crashed into a tree.

"Awww... guess I'll have to find the dragon marbles again!" Don hopped off of the unconscious dragon with a shrug.

The tide of the battle had turned very quickly - with the aid of the Hajikelists and the KoPatch, the draconic soldiers were dropping like flies. Blah found himself unoccupied, and he took the opportunity to guzzle a healing potion for his previous wounds. He had 7 left, 6 of which he handed to one of the KoPatches. "Go heal up some of our wounded," Blah instructed.

Once the temporary medic went off to scout for injured allies, Blah made his way towards Astra. "So how did you manage to get Bo-bobo and the others out here?" he asked with curious awe.

"I know a guy," the templar explained simply.

"Hey buddy! Nice stabby stick," Don complimented, poking at Blah's Phaselance. "Does it come in Fun-size?"

"It is Fun-sized! The bigger the better!" Blah replied, stabbing through a tree like a switchblade through butter. "But that's not important! Astra. I got a vision earlier. It looked urgent."

"Can it wait until after we've driven off the dragons...?" asked Astra.

Blah looked behind him at a couple of KoPatch playing jump rope with one of the enemy. "I think they've got this covered."

"Oh man, that looks fun! I call nextsies!" Don rushed off to join his underlings.

Astra leaned against a tree, folding her arms. "All right. What did you see?"

"It's of some kind of prison," he recalled, thinking as best as he could to that stressful moment. He closed his eyes, and tried to re-imagine the scene. "It's a view from inside a cell... and there are two other cells occupied... one by a short round man, the other by an elegantly-dressed woman."

"Someone was captured?" Astra guessed. "...have you had any prophetic visions before?"

"Not really," Blah answered, "unless my dreams count in a bizarre metaphorical sense. So someone probably tried to contact me... with, like, a print-screen of their vision or something..." Blah and Astra nodded in unison, making their resemblance more obvious than ever.

"And you're not native to any of these dimensions, correct? So it had to be somebody you've met before."

"Unless it was a random distress signal, but yeah, I doubt that." Blah nodded again. "Connections vastly outnumber coincidences in this world. But who do I know that can send mental images over long distances..."

He immediately thought of Seraphina, but she could just teleport out of danger... except for that one time she was trapped in that pink bubble... but that blocked all telepathic communication, so if Sera were in any danger, Blah probably wouldn't hear about it from her... that just left one other option.

"Twilight Sparkle?" Blah concluded aloud.

"Who?" Astra prompted.

"A unicorn pony that can do magic," Blah informed. "She must've been kidnapped by... uh..." He thought back to the image. That could've been any dungeon, and the fact that he couldn't quite discern any of the figures did not help in the slightest.

"A unicorn," Astra repeated skeptically.

"Well, yeah... they exist... didn't you see that pegasus pony that was with us in Metropolis?"

"I didn't get a good look at the back seats. Plus, I was kinda running for my life."

"Ugh, whatever... well anyway, I should really get to Ponyville ASAP so I can maybe find out what's going on. I have the feeling I'll need all the help I can get. Are you coming?"

Astra looked away. "Well... there's something I've been working on for a while that I need to get back to as well..."

"I could help you with that once we're done," Blah offered. "It's only fair, if you help me. You scratch my back, et cetera." From what he learned about her in Metropolis, Blah figured she would probably benefit from his aid. "In fact, you've already been a great help to me. I can't not return the favor now."

"Actually, it's kind of..." Astra paused, looking back up at Blah. The gaze she received was not unlike that of an older brother, warm and benevolent. It was almost an instinctive feeling for both of them, as if the two had known each other their whole lives. "...ok, I'll come. But it can only be the two of us... for reasons I can't really talk about here."

Blah nodded. "Whenever you're ready, Astra."

Wait a second! Blah froze for a moment. Did Astra ever actually introduce herself to him? If so, he couldn't remember it. How did he know her name? Somehow, he must've known it from the moment the two first exchanged words... the confusion began to make Blah feel light-headed, and for a sliver of a moment, Blah felt the world shrink into blackness around him, as if nothing was real - as if he was in a dream.

Blah shoved one foot in front of himself, noticing that he had briefly lost his sense of balance, causing him to fall slightly forward, and this snapped him back to reality.

"Are you ok?" asked Astra with concern.

"Yeah yeah, I'm fine," Blah answered hastily. "Just had one of... those moments, you know? When you just feel faint for no reason?"

Astra shook her head. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Blah sighed. "Well, not important. We have a pony to save. Again." He headed over to the cloud that Bo-bobo and co. arrived on, parked between two trees.

"Wait, 'again'?" Astra inquired, running to catch up with him.

"Oh yeah, basically Twilight was possessed by this dark spirit who corrupted the entire town of Ponyville and I killed him and stuff." Blah dragged the cloud out of its parking space. "I wonder if we can we use this?"

"Wait wait wait, hold on!" said Bo-bobo, sitting at a poker table with Tails, a couple of dragon soldiers, and a pig with a Gameboy. "I just bet the Nimrod in a Poker game, and..."

Blah peeked at Bo-bobo's hand. He had a 9-high and no better. His eyes widened. "Smart move," he said, as genuinely as he could muster.

The other players exchanged glances and all folded, one after another. Except for the pig, who was too busy playing Super Mario Land to notice what was going on. Turns out he had a 7-high anyway.

"Hehehe... looks like you all LOSE!" Bo-bobo pulled a lever, causing the floor to fall out from under everyone at the table but himself. The dragons and the pig fell into a pit of lava, while Tails simply hovered over it and landed elsewhere.

"I forgot how fun this game could be," commented Tails with a chuckle.

"Not so fast," Bo-bobo shouted with a sharp point in the fox's direction. "You avoided the lava, now you have to eat 15 cartons of Twinkies!"

"WHAT. That wasn't in the rules!" Tails flipped through a small pamphlet entitled "How 2 Pocker".

"What version are YOU playing, son?" Bo-bobo said, pulling out an entire bookshelf. Each book on the shelf was labeled "The Official Rules of Poker" and given an arbitrary volume number from 1 to 10000, most of them including the digits 89 together. The final book on the shelf was called "Just what is up with this 89 number anyway?"

"Oh hey, I've been looking for that one," Blah said, snatching the last book and shoving it into his backpack. He caught a mellow stare from Astra. "You don't seem to be very perturbed by our shenanigans," Blah noted.

"I'm used to it," she answered plainly. "Shall we get going? I thought this was urgent."

"Right, right, sorry," Blah said, hopping onto the Nimrod. Astra soon accompanied him and the cloud zipped off at a pleasant speed.

Blah looked behind him one last time and saw that the dragons were already retreating from the island. He smirked. Nothing to worry about but what lay ahead...