Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.

Answer to Chapter 29 Question: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog.

PART II

CHAPTER THIRTY

THE DARK ONE RISES

"Look," insisted a very annoyed Henry, "I'm trying to tell you. He is your son. I am his son. And we're all stuck in a bad rewrite of an already badly written reality."

"He doesn't look anything like me," huffed Rumplestiltskin from the cell across the dungeon catacomb.

"No one looks like you! You're covered in scales and have teeth like a troll!" said Neal.

"I do not have troll teeth! You take that back or I'll turn you into a snail!"

"I'd like to see you try, you impotent imp!"

Rumplestiltskin tried to magic jab at him with a claw-like finger, but the spark of magic rebounded off the bars and hit him in the face, resulting in a blob of slime.

"Damn it!"

"How the hell did a Dark One like you outlive the rest of 'em by centuries?" wondered Jafar.

"Says the fool who got betrayed by his brother and a street urchin and would have spent eternity telling idiots 'and you can't ask for infinite wishes' thanks to that evil realm-jumping hoe from another world if you hadn't been freed by some magical bullshit loophole."

"Unlike me," grumbled Gene. "I was freed by a tyrannical king in exchange for granting his wish to kill his wife who'd ruined his first love's life to get the throne. I thought I had it made as his adviser until their brat child got a bit older and trapped me in her mirror and forced me to help her plot to murder her stepmother. Then I was freed by the Snow Queen so Snow White couldn't use me to spy on her, which was nice of her and all, accept that she then made up some bullshit story that I escaped somehow so Snow White has been hunting me ever since!"

"Yeah, that's a very sad story, Gene," huffed Victor. "At least you're from this plain of reality. I was dragged out of my world by Snow White to try and revive her dead mother. Is it my fault she came back a zombie who tried to kill everyone? I mean, isn't that what she did when she was alive and creating zombies? Why'd the little brat expect any different? And now I'm wanted for treason and necrophilia! Not necromancy, necrophilia. Everyone thinks I tried to shag Queen Eva's corpse!"

"Hey," huffed Peep, "at least your family wasn't slaughtered for no reason. I mean, all we did was collect taxes for the King. And he was a good king. But no, that bastard shepherd was scheming to take over the kingdom and decided to use my family in his little con. I made mud pies with that asshole as a kid. Mud pies."

"Yes, well, I was betrayed by my best friend and lost my true love to him and then she tried to leave his abusive arse and return to me but was killed by Snow White for treason and now I am left having to raise that douchebag's marital rape spawn," said Nottingham, "so I win."

"Hey, where is Roland?" wondered Neal.

"The bridge trolls were baby-sitting him for the night," said Anastasia in the corner of the cell, a loopy smile upon her face. "Oooo, I found a bug! Yum!"

Everyone grimaced as she munched on a cockroach. Yes, poor Ana, stepsister of the evil queen Ella who'd exiled her to Wonderland for being prettier, hadn't been right in the head since she came back from the dead and her true love left her to bang the help.

It wasn't entirely clear how this nefarious Belle character fit into the greater tale, but she somehow managed to show up and infiltrate the "adventures" of a lot of characters, not the least of which was getting a job working for the Dark One and getting out of that deal.

"Hmm, if only humans were as trustworthy and compassionate as bridge trolls," said Peep and everyone nodded in agreement.

Henry smacked his forehead against the bars of the cell. Good grief, Isaac was the worst writer in the history of the written language, and he'd read that My Immortal fanfiction!

"For the love of all things unholy!" Henry growled, "just use the damned scroll you have hidden behind that rock to vanish your cell bars already, Grandpa!"

Rumplestiltskin blinked at him and then his eyes lit. "Ohhhh! I completely forgot about that! Teehee!"

The Dark One scrounged around like Gollum looking for his "precious" and finally pulled out a scroll with "Emma" written on it. He blew a foul breath of bad porridge and maggots in the direction of the magical bars and they dissolved.

"Awesome! Now free us!"

"Why should I do any such thing?"

"Because I'm your grandson and you'd still be stuck in that cell if I hadn't remind you of how to get out of it!" Henry growled, then amended, "Also, before we got stuck in this story, we were doing some family bonding torturing this douchebag who really had it coming and didn't get to finish."

The Dark One considered this, then agreed, "I like your style, boy. I don't know that I believe this story of yours, but there's nothing worse than torturous interruptus."

Rumplestiltskin snapped his fingers and the others were free. "I suppose the rest of you can come as well," he said, "but no sitting on the furniture in those filthy rags!"

In a poof of purple they were all relocated to the Dark Castle where Belle let out a yelp and dropped the rose that was Gaston - a quite nice fellow, but she wasn't into nice guys.

"Rumplestiltskin, where have you been?" she griped, "and who are all of these filthy people?"

The Dark One shrugged. "In a dungeon for between two and twenty-eight years. I lost track of time and a bit of my sanity. This boy claims he's my grandson from a real reality as we are all stuck in a book, and that questionable fellow is my son who doesn't know that he is. Also, those two were once genies, that one's a mad scientist, that one's a slutty tax collector, that one's lost her mind completely, and... the rest of them didn't get around to boring me with their origin stories. Don't worry, they won't be staying long."

"Well, all right," agreed Belle, "because I had a very different dungeon scenario planned for tonight."

A collective "Ewwwwwwwwwwwwe" went around the room, followed by Nottingham looking ill as he croaked out, "Please don't tell me you tortured me in your sex dungeon!"

"Okay, I won't," said Belle. "Now, make sure they take their shoes off, Rumple, and don't make me make you."

Rumplestiltskin glowed. "You could have just summoned me out of Snow White's dungeon, dearie."

"Yes, I know, but you deserved to be punished for trying to trade me for a gauntlet," said Belle, "and I needed time to redecorate the castle without you bitching about it."

"I had wondered why it was now pink," said Nottingham.

"Hold on," Henry accused Belle, "you're evil?"

"Evil is subjective. There's only power, which is knowledge, and those too weak to seek it."

"Okay, now it's just turning into a bad plagiarizing of Harry Potter!" groaned Henry.

"Oh, I met him once on a wizard exchange program," said Jafar. "He's very evil! You should hear what he did to this poor guy Tom Riddle. Also, he gave me an atomic wedgie and set my magic carpet on fire and framed me so everyone thought I was a terrorist when he was really the terrorist using his giant snake to murder little kids!"

"Wow, that's messed up," said Henry.

Belle interjected. "As messed up as a sterile werewolf having a child with a punk Mary Sue and both of them dying off page to leave a godson plot device for a boy wizard who named his kids after the asshole who treated him like crap for seven years, the manipulative old bastard who used little kids as chess pieces in a game of 'clean up my own mess in secret so I look like a hero', and his arrogant prick father and shallow bimbo mother - whom he basically married since his dumbfuck fangirl wife looks exactly like her. But, hey, she grew bigger tits at sixteen then the brilliant bookworm who always stood by him and clearly loved him, but since he had the hots for Ginger Tits married the skanks low-IQ'd bigot with jealousy and anger management issues brother who treated her like a trophy or trash depending on how much or little his ego was stroked in any given chapter - all so the story could end with one big happy dysfunctional family of indoctrinated-into-stupid-traditions family? If that's what you mean, then, yes, it's very messed up."

"Belle shipped Harmony," sighed Rumplestiltskin.

"It's the only ship that makes sense!" huffed Belle.

"And it's not real, dearie," he sighed. "It's just a fake autobiography that real and very evil Harry Potter and Hermione Granger published after carrying out a genocide of the Wizarding World and making a fortune on magitech flying cars and zero emission trains. Really, the only down side," he mused, "is the global metropolitan infestation of crazed owls."

"Why are they doing this? Why are they doing this?" Jafar suddenly cried out, "They said when you got here the whole thing started. Who are you? What are you? Where did you come from? I think you're the cause of all of this. I think you're evil. EVIL! Get yourselves wands and wipe them off the face of the earth!"

Everyone had stopped to stare at the crazed ex-wizard who snapped out of it and shuddered. "Sorry, flashback. Worst Care of Magical Creatures class ever."

Henry just groaned and shook his head wondering if there was any great work of fiction that Isaac hadn't butchered for this idiotic fanfiction.

AN: So, yeah, I didn't like the Harry Potter epilogue or care for Ginny Weasley. I only watched the pilot of Wonderland, so my bad if I got any of Jafar's real story to mix up wrong. Shout-out if you know what TV show had a running joke of owls infesting cities instead of pigeons... or what Isaac has Jafar plagiarizing in his Hogwarts flashback.

Next up: Finding the not-so-Evil Queen... who is still a drama queen even without her evil.