Let me try and explain.

Merlon from Super Paper Mario is based off of Merlon from Paper Mario, who in turn was based off the Shamen from Super Mario RPG, who could perform awesome magic if they were given the chance. That is why I figured Merlon could use magic. Although I don't know if that line really exists, I can't imagine it not existing.

Anyway, back to the action.

"Somebody grab that potion!"

Count Bleck dived. Tippi dived, although there was no way she could save it. It was O'Chunks, however, who was able to fling himself across the space between him and the wall, on the ground, and grab it in his burly hand.

The whole room seemed to pause to breathe a sigh of relief.

Count Bleck warped the potion to another dimension of his, where he felt it would be undisturbed. He looked up at Tippi and gave a weak smile, holding his torn waistcoat closed over his cut.

"I thought for sure…" she whispered.

"Timpani, go block what Nawrocki's doing," ordered Count Bleck.

Tippi dodged past Smilax's thrashing vines to Nawrocki, at the base of Smilax coming out of a warp pipe. He was pouring a pot of water into the opening of the pipe and frowning.

"It shouldn't be that brittle," he said to Tippi without looking up. "So I'm pouring some fresh mineral water in here. Go tell you're nutty hubby that."

Tippi rammed into the back of his head and flew away.

Nawrocki glared at her, rubbing the back of his head.

Tippi reported back to the Count, still dodging the melee going on around Smilax. "He's giving it mineral water," she said breathlessly.

Count Bleck thought for a moment. "I know what that means," he said. "It's a plant, too, so it shouldn't be as powerful as it could be, if I was right about Nawrocki, although if it's at it's maximum strength than I was wrong about—"

"Put your foolish head down if you wish to keep it!" Dimentio hollered from above, spitting out all of those words in fewer than two seconds and still managing to annunciate.

Count Bleck felt a sting on the side of his head. He fell to the ground, otherwise unharmed. Above him, a fireball flew through the empty space that his head had been thinking in only moments ago. Count Bleck straightened his hat and looked for Tippi, who was well out of harms way.

Dimentio was hovering in the air, arms crossed, glaring down at Count Bleck. "Pardon me, were you looking to become Our Headless Leader? Because if you are, I would like to reserve the pleasure of removing it for myself."

Meanwhile Smilax snarled, angry at loosing its target. He lifted a mighty thorny vine and brought it down from above onto Dimentio's head, driving him into the ground with all the power of a dodgeball hurled by the school bully on fitness test day, as Dimentio himself would have put it were he not the target.

"Dimentio!"

Count Bleck rushed to his side, in the cracked ground where the jester lay. He knelt down, surveying the damage with a grim frown. It looked pretty unfortunate.

"You… are such… a fool, Count."

Count Bleck shook his head sadly.

Smilax spat out some petal dust, a nasty substance that turned you into a mushroom if you touched it. Count Bleck held his cloak out and stood back, along with the other minions, so that they were out of range. Mimi, who was immune to shapeshifting damage, took the opportunity to sneak up behind Smilax and kick him really hard.

"I'VE HAD JUST ABOUT ENOUGH OF THIS."

Merlon had finally caught up with them, having figured out where they all went. He held out his hands and shouted something in the language of the Ancients. Whatever it meant then, it meant now, "I'm hurling a giant fireball at you to burn you to a crisp, Smilax," because that's what he did. Smilax caught fire, and he went up fast.

Count Bleck lowered his cape slowly, watching the plant burn. It looked around wildly, aware that it was in danger but incapable of understanding how to save itself.

Finally it lost its strength and collapsed on the floor, and slowly faded away as all enemies seem to do when they die.

"Thank you," said Count Bleck.

Merlon nodded once.

Nawrocki limped out into the middle of a room. "What an utter disappointment," he said thoughtfully. "Seriously. What an utter stinking disappointment. If I had realized what had been happening to me, I would have realized what happened to Smilax." He looked up. "My powers are almost gone, as you can plainly see."

O'Chunks, Brobot, Mimi, and Nastasia were closing in on him slowly.

Count Bleck hovered above their heads and looked down at him. "You've been very, very bad, Nawrocki," he said.

"I know… I just thought maybe things were finally going to come up Nawrocki for a change." He gestured to the table. "Um… that potion… how about I just write it off as a business gift and we'll call it even?"

Count Bleck stared Nawrocki down.

"No dice, huh?" He looked around. "Why are you all staring at me like that?"

"Because we feel bad for you," said Tippi. "You're a bad person, but I think you're just sad. Maybe a little lonely."

"That's dumb," said Nawrocki.

"I think you don't get hugged enough."

"I swear, if you try and hug me I'll cut you."

"Which one of us is standing victorious now, eh?"

Nawrocki shook his head. "Fine. I submit. I'll just go along my way."

Those circling him closed the gaps around him, so that he was surrounded.

"Yeah," said Nastasia. "See, it would be a bad idea for us to just let you go, 'K? So instead we're gonna make sure this is finished."

"You're not gonna kill me, are you?" Nawrocki looked from one face to another.

"No," said Nastasia, "but we won't let you leave here until we can be sure you'll never hurt anyone again."

Nawrocki reached behind him, into the folds of his leaves, and pulled out a knife. "I may not be able to find my way outta here, but I'm outta here!"

He thrust the knife forward, not onto anyone in particular, but into the air itself, cutting a deep rip into the fabric of dimensional space and leaving a large hole, which he leapt through.

"Do we go after him?" asked Mimi.

"What do you think? Count Bleck snapped in haste."

"No!" Merlon said. "That's a tear in the fabric of space- there's no telling what would happen if you jumped into it all willy-nilly."

"Ah, ha ha ha ha ha ha."

They all looked upwards to see Dimentio hanging in the air, smiling lightly. "It would seem that the battle, then, is not at all done. The curtain has fallen, but it is only the intermission. Shall we retrieve our snacks in the lobby before we engage the monstrous plantman in a vicious third act, oh Count?"

"I thought you were dead," said Count Bleck.

"No such luck," Dimentio replied.

Mimi snapped her fingers. "The mushroom you took from me- the one that I found in the woods!"

"You're a clever girl." Dimentio pinched up his face in a nasty grin towards Mimi. "Yes, even the great Dimentio needs backup every now and again. But, dear Count Bleck, do you have any backup, as it were?"

Count Bleck looked up at Dimentio, puzzled. Dimentio gestured down, and Count Bleck looked for the first time at his waistcoat, where he'd been torn by the thorns. It was covered in his blood.

"Blumiere!" cried Tippi. "It looks awful!"

Looking at all of that made Count Bleck feel so ill, he took a step backwards to try to get away from it. "It looks worse than it is," he muttered. He staggered sideways, and Nastasia held him steady.

"Did you just now realize it, Count?"

"No… I've just been preoccupied."

Then, all of the- Count Bleck, Tippi, Merlon, O'Chunks, Mimi, Nastasia, Dimentio, Mr. L- decided then and there that it was finished. Over and done. There were piles of scrap machinery hidden somewhere in the castle, a battle-scarred atrium with half a wall missing, an unfinished potion in a pocket dimension somewhere in space, and their beloved count was wounded. That's why they decided not to follow Nawrocki. For the time being, they would remain in Dimension Bleck.