A/N: Happy anniversary, "MGT" fans! Today marks the two-year mark since I posted the first three chapters. So, just like I did last year, to celebrate, here's a collection of three short installments set around the MGTU that will help set up what's coming down the road. Parts 1 and 3 of this special dovetail with the end of the previous chapter, but from different perspectives, while Part 2 will actually be more relevant to "Harley's Angels" for the immediate future, but is still connected to "MGT" itself.

Without further ado, please read, review, and enjoy!

I do not own Super Mario.

Part 1: Meanwhile, Lubba…

Oh, woe betide me. For what felt like several days now I'd been trapped with the other members of Starship Mario's crew who took a brave stand against Mario's tyranny and lies, in a room at the bottom of a Warp Pipe on the Starship that Mario had sealed shut with what we believed was a tree trunk. We didn't do anything to deserve this. Mario was a jerk to us – me especially, for no reason – and we took a righteous stand against him. I made him captain! I gave him a place to stay while he headed after Bowser! And how did he repay me? By snooping through my belongings, trying to kill me with a nail gun, stealing the Star Bits I won from the Galactic Star Bit Lottery, and repeatedly using my credit card to buy new clothes for himself because he couldn't be bothered to take better care of his original pair of clothes to keep them intact.

And so now all the Lumas and I were trapped in one room with no food, water, beds, or plumbing. Actually, not even all the Lumas. Mario had barbarically ground-pounded the Co-Star Luma into a Launch Star, and no one knows what became of him after that. And as far as we knew, Willy the Whittle was still stranded in Bowser's Lava Lair, and Sam the Star Bunny (whose name Mario never even bothered to learn, that impersonal jerk) was stuck somewhere in the Haunty Halls Galaxy.

This morning (I think) I awoke to the now-constant hungry groans of my fellow "inmates."

"I'm hungry…," a Yellow Luma wailed.

"Oh dear, oh dear, if I don't eat again soon, I'll become oh so dreadfully emaciated," Lumalee whimpered.

"Lubba, I hate to say this, but when can we start resorting to cannibalism?" a Blue Luma asked me.

"Never!" I said. "We shall not resort to such inhumane, Mario-like actions."

"Mario was certainly wrong about you, Lubba," Lumalee said. "He and that Yoshi crony of his made you out to be some irrational despot, but you care about us all more than Mario ever did. He brought me along with him on a journey to collect a Power Star, then bit my head off for trying to make simple conversation with him, and stuck me under that unhygienic cap of his, where all those…." He shuddered. "…lice dwell."

I floated over to Lumalee and tapped him on the back. "I will never abandon you or treat you like that. And we will find a way out of here." I called up towards the Warp Pipe. "How's it coming up there, Red?"

Red Luma floated from the Warp Pipe in the ceiling. "Slow progress, captain. My stubby little arms weren't getting the job done, so I tried biting at the tree trunk instead. I've got 27 splinters in my mouth now, but I'm making progress!"

I hadn't wanted to resort to sending one of the Lumas up there to try to claw (or, I guess, bite) their way through the tree trunk, and I would've done it myself, but I couldn't fit up the bottom of the Warp Pipe like the other Lumas could. And there was no other way out of the room. We'd investigated it from top to bottom, but there were no alternate exits hidden under the red carpeting or behind the red-and-gold curtains covering the walls. And I wasn't holding out for another miracle like last time when that Star Ball fell from the sky and broke us all out. This time, we'd have to find a way out ourselves.

"I wish I had my hose with me," Red Luma said. "I'd set it to turbo blast and blow this tree trunk out of the Warp Pipe faster than you can say 'I hate Mario.'"

I turned to another Blue Luma in the corner. "Any luck with the ham radio?" Apparently Lumalee owned a ham radio, which I didn't think anyone even had anymore, and for a while now, the Blue Luma had been trying to get it to work to make contact with any sympathizers to our cause out there in the universe.

The Blue Luma shook his head. "Nope." He fiddled with some dials on the radio and spoke into it again. "Breaker, breaker, this is the Blue Bandit. Gimme a 10/4 if you got this, we've got a 1052 in progress here, so if you could spare some MP to give us a 767 ASAP, we'd be most grateful. Over and out."

"What the hell are you even saying?" a Yellow Luma asked.

The Blue Luma shrugged. "I don't know."

Suddenly, a loud rumble came from outside the Starship, and what looked like a wall of purple energy passed through the room. And then the lights went out. The lights that, for the record, I had never actually seen. The room was filled with light, but it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. If there had been any physical lightbulbs present, I would've had the Lumas take one of them, smash it, and use the jagged end to cut their way through the tree trunk.

"AAH!" one Luma screamed. "I'M AFRAID OF THE DARK! THE DARK IS FULL OF TERRORS!"

"Dude, calm the heck down," another Luma said. "There's no ways into or out of this room aside from the Warp Pipe, and there were no monsters in here a moment ago. There's no monsters in here now either."

"STOP BEING LOGICAL!"

"No, he's right," I said. "The…the logical one. What's your name?"

"I'm Lumalarry," the Luma said.

"Lumalarry's right," I said. "There's no reason for us to be worried. This is probably a good thing. Something happened to Starship Mario. Maybe someone's attacking it to free us."

"Yeah, or whatever attack just took out the lights also shut down all the other systems on the Starship, including the ventilation systems, and we're all gonna suffocate in here!" another Luma argued, probably the same one who had been panicking about the dark.

That was, admittedly, something I hadn't considered.

"Oh God, we're gonna die!" another Luma shouted. "Of all the ways I could possibly die, why did it have to be asphyxiation? There's no way to possibly spin this so it sounds heroic!"

"Everyone, calm down," I said. "We're not gonna die. We're gonna find a way out of here, or my name isn't Lubba. Do you trust me?"

"Most of the time, sure. Like, the part where you've told us that you were personally visited by God and sent on a sacred mission to destroy Bowser once and for all. But when you're arguing with simple logic…there's no way for us to get out of here!"

"Yeah, well…having faith is believing in something even when you can't see it."

"That's what I'm saying. We have faith. That's why we believe you about the whole God thing. But we also have common sense, which tells us there's no way out of this!"

I opened my mouth to offer a counterpoint I hadn't yet thought of when the Starship gave a violent lurch. All of us were flung into the wall in a heap. I groaned and rubbed my head. "What was that?"

"Where's my face?" a Luma asked as something moved against my crotch.

"I don't think you want to know."

The Luma yelped and floated away from me.

Suddenly, part of the ceiling creaked and groaned, then fell away, admitting a beam of sunlight. I shielded my eyes…it certainly hadn't taken long to get used to not being exposed to daylight.

"Free at last, free at last!" a Blue Luma chirped, floating towards the sunlight.

"No, stay back," I said. Now, don't get me wrong, I was as eager to be free and give Mario a good old fashioned ass-whooping as the rest of the Lumas, but I still had no idea what had happened to the Starship to blow it open like this and short out the lights to the room. And as much as it could've been someone coming to free us, it could've also been the Koopa Troop, who I wasn't on friendly terms with either. Between me and the Lumas, Bowser, and Mario, all of us were enemies, and I didn't see any two of us allying against the third in an "enemy-of-my-enemy" way anytime soon. If Bowser had blown up the Starship, he'd be just as happy to kill us as he would be to kill Mario.

But the Luma either didn't hear me or ignored me, and continued floating through the hole. He looked around and chirruped, "Uh, we're at the beach."

"What?" I asked. "The beach?" What galaxy had we ended up in?

Suddenly, someone who sounded suspiciously like Mario's pet Penguin (Perry or Percy or Peter or whatever his name is) quacked, "Help, a Luma! Piantas, kill his ass!"

Oh no. Not Piantas.

See, several years ago, after Bowser first threatened the entire universe back in 2007, I sent a few Lumas to the Mushroom Kingdom to keep me abreast of goings-on there that concerned me, such as the current state of their never-ending war-of sorts with Bowser. While they were there, they also reported to me that a small tribe of Penguins (not the ice-faring Penguins native to the Mushroom Kingdom, the beach-faring Penguins from outer space who are the sworn enemies of Lumakind) had returned to the Mushroom Planet with Mario and were getting awfully chummy with the Piantas of Isle Delfino. That was slightly concerning, but I made the (hasty, in hindsight) assumption that Piantas would never journey into outer space, so a potential Penguin-Pianta alliance against the Lumas wouldn't be an issue for us.

But now, clearly, the Piantas had headed to space, and had allied with the Penguins.

Suddenly, a spear flew through the hole in the Starship's exterior straight through the Luma, then buried itself in the wall. The Luma squealed and flopped to the floor. I gasped and floated over to him. "You'll be okay, buddy. Hey, stay with me. Look at me!"

The Luma weakly raised an appendage and wheezed, "Avenge…me…." Then he went limp.

I turned to the other Lumas. "You heard him! One of the Piantas out there did this, but Mario's friend the Penguin – and, by extension, Mario himself – gave the order for it to happen! Now we go out there, and we take them all down, to avenge this Luma whose name I unfortunately do not know!"

"His name's Dean," another Luma said.

I glanced down at Dean's lifeless body, then back to the other Lumas. "FOR DEAN!" Then, with a collective shout of righteous indignation, we floated through the hole in the Starship to defeat Mario once and for all.

Part 2: The Body

A Koopa guard pushed open the doors to the throne room and stopped in the center of the hall. He stood still for a few seconds, then cleared his throat. "Lord Ludwig, if I may please have a second of your time, there is something…pressing that demands your immediate attention. My Lord. Sir."

I raised a finger at him, still concentrating most of my attention on my Nintendo Switch. "Just a minute. I've got this Thunderblight Ganon on the ropes here – can't stop now. Come on, Link, you can do it." My thumbs danced across the controls as I evaded the Ganon's attacks, then dealt the final blow. I paused the game and stowed the Switch inside my throne's armrest. Well, technically, it was Dad's throne, but with him and Junior off in space, it was, for all intents and purposes, my throne. I inclined my head and looked down at the Koopa. "Go on."

He cleared his throat again. "My Lord, one of the scouting parties just came back from their nightly sweep through the mountains, and they found something…strange."

I groaned. "If I hear about one more idiot claiming they had a run-in with Cthulhu in those mountains-"

"No, no, it's not Cthulhu," the Koopa replied. "This time they actually brought back proof of what they claimed to find."

I nodded. Intriguing. Actual proof. This had never happened before. "Go on. Bring them in, then."

The Koopa nodded and walked back through the doors out of the throne room. At the same time, Iggy entered through the throne room's side door. "Hey, bro," he said. "What's all the commotion?" Cue a fit of his trademark deranged laughter.

"Apparently some of our scouts found something last night in the mountains," I said.

Iggy threw back his head and groaned. "Not this Cthulhu crap again. Even I know he's not real."

I shook my head. "No, apparently whatever it is this time, they brought back actual proof. Wanna wait and see what it is?"

"Do I ever," Iggy said. "This better be good."

Iggy stood at my side as the guard returned to the throne room, this time with two other Koopas behind him. The other two were carrying between them what looked like a horribly disfigured corpse.

"Who the heck is that?" Iggy asked. Then he gasped. "Is it one of the Mario Bros.?! Is one of them dead?! Oh my gosh, I thought this day would never come!" And more insane laughter.

"Hate to burst your bubble," I said (I really didn't hate to), "but it doesn't look like them. Whoever he is, he doesn't have their…big nose."

Iggy snorted. "So? Rhinoplasty exists."

The two Koopas dumped the corpse on the floor face-up with a wet, smear-y thud. I studied the body and rubbed my chin. He was definitely not one of the Mario Bros., but he was human. The man wore a badly smashed suit of armor, and his short brown beard and hair were matted with blood from gashes on his head. His face and limbs were all crushed, bent at horribly unnatural angles, or both. But so far as I knew, Mario, Luigi, and Peach were the Mushroom Kingdom's only three resident humans, and he clearly wasn't any of them. He could've been from somewhere farther away, I supposed, like New Donk City, but it seemed highly unlikely then that he would be randomly hiking through the mountains so close to Dad's domain.

I looked up at the scouts. "Where did you find him exactly? Was he already…." I waved at the blood-smeared corpse with my scepter. "…like this when you found him?"

"Oh, yeah," one of the scouts said, rather disrespectfully in my opinion. I let it slide, and the scout continued, "We found him at the foot of the Mushroom Peaks – you know, that place where there's all those giant mushrooms leading straight down the mountainside?"

The other scout piped up, "If you ask me, My Lord, we think he was high up in the mountains and took a nasty tumble, and the mushrooms are the only reason we're looking at an intact corpse instead of a giant smear of tomato sauce."

"But what was he doing up in the mountains in the first place?" Iggy cackled, voicing the same thought I'd had.

"We don't know," the first guard said. "But…I seem to recall a while back, both of you had requested that, on the off chance anyone in the Koopa Troop ever happened to find a corpse lying around, to bring it to the two of you, right?"

Indeed we had. I'd just wanted to gain as much information about this guy as I could before attending to that, to see if he was alone or part of a larger infiltration force sent to invade Dad's kingdom.

I got out of the throne and walked over to the body to look it over more closely. Painted on his caved-in chestplate was what looked like a golden Blooper, but it didn't look quite right. The tentacles were too long. I'd never seen that symbol before; if it was some sort of coat-of-arms, I had no idea who it belonged to.

"I did tell you that," I said. "Alright, you're dismissed. Leave us."

The two Koopas nodded and left the throne room.

I turned to Iggy. "Head down to the laboratory. Get ready to activate Project Robocop."

Iggy's eyes widened. "Wait, you're serious? We're doing it?"

"We're doing it," I said. "This complete stranger is a good of a test subject as they come."

Iggy ran back through the throne room's side door, laughing to himself. I turned back to the dead body. Whoever he was – rather, had been – didn't matter anymore, if our plan succeeded. Because if it did, he would be ours, brought back to life as the ultimate killing machine to hunt down Mario and anyone else who threatened Dad's kingdom ever again.

Generally I frowned on evil laughter and thought it was a tad bit overdone, but I relished in the bout I let loose in that moment.

Part 3: Whatever Happened to Star Bunny?

"Hey!" I shouted. "Get back here, boiyoing!"

Hey there. My name's Sam the Star Bunny, and I was in the middle of chasing Mario throughout some creepy, spooky galaxy, boiyoing! Mario had rebelled against Lubba, but I remained loyal to him, and Mario had to be punished for his mutinous ways.

Mario ran down a stone path that appeared from a set of purple flames to our left and vanished into another wall of flames on our right. I hopped after him, closing the distance between us with each hop. He wouldn't get away this time. I'd catch up to him and kick him over and over and over and over again until we were boiyoinging even.

Mario ran down a long stretch of the path that was getting precariously close to the right wall of flames, but I knew I could make it down the path too. I had to….

By the time I reached the path, only a few inches of it were left outside the flames. I went to hop again, and in that moment I knew I'd overestimated my jumping skills. Because at that moment, the path fully vanished into the flames, taking me with it.

"Oh, boiyoing!" I shouted as the wall of purple fire consumed me.

…Only the flames didn't burn me, and I didn't die.

When I reappeared, I was in some place that was, arguably, even creepier and spookier than the creepy, spooky galaxy where I'd been fighting Mario. The path I was on was still drifting to the right, now emerging from a wall of purple flames to my left. Which was already out of my hopping range, so there was no going back.

Boiyoing! Now who knows if I'll ever be able to get back there to get my revenge on Mario for his crimes against Lubba?

All around the path I was on was a seemingly endless void. Flashes of purple lightning lacerated the void high above me, illuminating a layer of thick clouds, as well as other pathways vanishing into the gloom farther ahead of me. I gulped. Where the boiyoing had those magic flames taken me?

"Hello?" I called. "Is anyone out there? Where am I, boiyoing?"

Suddenly, another forked lightning bolt flew just in fromt of the path I was on. When it disappeared, an oblong purple object was floating in midair in front of me. Its exterior was covered in plates of armor that looked like they were made of some biological substance rather than metal. A glowing red lens in its top half illuminated, and a laser grid extended from it and scanned me. "Unidentified specimen," it declared. "Intruder detected. Response: detain."

I backed up as far as I could without falling off the path. "Wait a second, boiyoing," I said. "I don't know where I am or how I got here. Just…can we talk about this, boi-?"

The drone extended an arm from its side and zapped me, knocking me out.

When I came to, I was in a small, dank cell that looked like it belonged in a medieval dungeon. The walls were made of uneven, grey bricks, except for the barred metal door to the hallway outside my cell. The only light was from the flickering purple torches lining the hallway. What was with all the purple in this place, boiyoing? The flames that transported me here, the lightning, that robot, and now even the torches?

I hopped over to the bars and shook them with my paws. "Help! Someone let me out of here, boiyoing! I know my rights! I demand a speedy trial by a jury of my peers, boiyoing!"

No reply came.

After what I estimated was a few hours of shouting for help and no one answering me, I sighed and flopped down on the rectangular rock that I figured was supposed to be my bed. I hoped sleep would take me, but alas, a small, persistent dripping in the far corner of the room kept me from dozing off.

Drip drip…drip…drip drip drip…driiiip…drip drip….

I yanked my ears over my face to try to drown out the sound, but to keep them in place I had to lay in a contorted position that was even worse than listening to that godforsaken dripping. So I let go of my ears and suffered the incessant dripping.

I don't know how long I was in there. Two days? Three? More? All I know is I was getting horrendously hungry, and I really needed to use the bathroom, but at the same time didn't want to stink up the cell, given that I had no idea how much longer I'd be in this place.

But then all of a sudden, the sound of soft footsteps came from down the hall. My ears perked up, and I turned towards the cell door. A shadowy figure strode past the most distant pair of purple torches I could see, towards my cell. I got up and hopped over to the bars. "Hey, are you here to free me, boiyoing? I told that drone I don't know how I got here, bit it zapped me anyway, and I've been here for forever and please just get me out, boiyoing!"

The figure gave a low chuckle and continued towards me. It looked like he was wearing a cape of some sort, and he was short, not much taller than me.

"Wh-who are you?" I asked.

The figure chuckled again and entered the glow of the nearest pair of torches to me. Only, thanks to the ridiculously high collar on his cape, I stll couldn't make out much of his face. All I could see was that his skin was pale purple (what wasn't in this place?), and he had a huge nose. Like, as big as Mario's, but pointed, it seemed. Then he passed the torches, and I once again couldn't see any of him. Then the sound of clinking metal came from next to him, and I could briefly see him holding a keychain.

"Hmm," he said, then chuckled again. "Let's see…one, two, three, four, five…here we go." He hada Dracula-ish accent…and for all I knew, maybe he was, given the cape and all. Not to mention this dungeon looked like something I'd expect to find in Dracula's castle.

The key clicked into the door's lock, and it creaked open. The figure beckoned me forward. "Come, come," he said. "This way."

"Who are you, boiyoing?" I asked again. "Are you Dracula?"

The figure gave a strange laugh. "Ah-ah-ah! No, I am not Dracula." He took a step backwards into the light, and I could finally see him clearly.

He was a flippin' puppet!

And for that matter, he pretty much was Dracula.

Puppet Dracula wore a green cape and a black suit, had purple skin (or, rather, fabric) as I had seen before, and had a pair of small fangs and a widow's peak haircut. Although, again, seeing as how he was a puppet, it wasn't really hair.

"Greetings," he said. "I am the Count. They call me the Count because I love to count things. Like keys." He held up the keychain.

"So…you are Count Dracula?" I asked.

He laughed that dumb laugh again that certainly hadn't taken long to get on my nerves. "Ah-ah-ah! No, my name is the Count. That is my name. See?" He reached into his cape and pulled out a piece of paper. He held it out to me. It looked like it was his birth certificate (I didn't really care to know how a puppet could be "born"), and on it, his first, middle, and last names were listed as "Count," "von," and "Count," respectively.

Okay. Whatever, boiyoing.

The Count folded the paper back up and beckoned for me to follow him again. "Come, come. The Purpleforce Council, we have decided to grant you an audience with us."

I followed the Count down the hall. I had no idea who this Purpleforce Council was, but anything was better than that dismal cell. Even potential death, I supposed.

"So…the Purpleforce Council," I said, hopping up alongside the Count. "What…is that, boiyoing?"

The Count nodded. "All in good time. I'll let Twilight tell you. She loves outlining our grand history for any detainees who are brought before the Council."

At the end of the hall was a set of spiral stairs, The uneven stone steps curved up and up, growing slowly brighter as pale purple light emanated not only from the torches, but from above. And then, bizarrely, when we were about halfway up the stairwell, I started to hear music. Not the deep, ominous organ music I'd expected to hear in a place like this, but…"Purple Rain"?

The Count confirmed this, as he started singing along as soon as the music became audible. "I only want to see you laughing in the purple rain…."

Man, this place was boiyoinging bonkers.

The top of the stairs opened through an archway into a massive, circular chamber. Hanging from the ceiling was what looked like a huge chemistry flask, with a swirling orb of purple light in it. The music was louder up here, but I could still hear the Count say, "If you'll excuse me, now, I must go take my seat with the rest of the Council."

The Count walked away beneath the giant flask to the far end of the room. There, beneath a row of lancet windows made of purple glass, were twelve stone thrones on a curved dais. All but the rightmost one were occupied with indistinct figures, and the Count took his seat in that one. A switch clicked on that end of the room, and several small purple lights around the perimeter of the dais turned on, illuminating the thrones.

Two seats left from the Count, what looked like a purple unicorn leaned forward in her seat. Wait, are you kidding me? Unicorns are real? All my life, one of the central tenets of my existence had been that unicorns are not only stupid but fake, and now half of that had been thrown to the wind.

"Hi!" she said in a cheery, high-pitched voice, waving to me. "Are you…." She glanced down at a scroll she held in her other hoof. "…Sam the Star Bunny, of Earth-6488?"

"That's my name, boiyoing, but I don't know what an Earth-6488 is," I said.

"Oh, that's just your RDN," the unicorn said. "Reality Designation Number."

"How do you know all this about me?" I asked. "And who the boiyoing are you all?"

"We keep a close eye on the multiverse and all the gateways between it and the Purpleforce Domain."

In other words: none of your business, we're all-knowing and we like to keep it that way.

"As for who we are," she continued. "We are the Purpleforce Council. I believe you've already met the Count, ruler-" You mean COUNT. "-of Countsylvania, of Earth-123. My name is Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria, of Earth-657. Many years ago, the twelve of us were assembled by our fearless leader, Queen Mal of Auradon, of Earth-85." She pointed to one of the two central thrones. Seated in it was a woman with bluish-purple hair, wearing a golden crown. Twilight continued, "Mal discovered a link between her world and this place, the Purpleforce Domain, as well as the mysterious energy source called the Purpleforce that exists here." She pointed to the purple swirl above me. "She also discovered that portals exist between the Purpleforce Domain and not just her world, but many other realities throughout the multiverse. She assembled the twelve of us to guard the Purpleforce, and prevent anyone else from misusing its power."

She cleared her throat, and pointed to the occupants of the other thrones one at a time. First up was a woman in a purple-and-black cloak. "That's Agatha Harkness, wielder of the Darkhold, from Earth-615." Then what might've been an anthropomorphic turtle, wearing a purple bandanna with a staff strapped across his back. "And there's Donatello, scientist and member of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, of Earth-8668." Then a pinkish-purple dinosaur with a green chest. "Next we have Barney the Dinosaur, from Earth-666." A woman holding some sort of purple energy sword. "And that's Betsy Braddock, a.k.a. Psylocke, mutant and former Horseman of the Apocalypse, from Earth-369." Next was someone I recognized…I'd seen his likeness on a few occasions, but never actually met him. "From Earth-762 we have Waluigi, self-proclaimed archnemesis of Luigi, although this title has repeatedly been disputed, most notably by Luigi himself."

So if I was understanding this right, this guy was Waluigi, but not my universe's Waluigi, since I was apparently from Earth-6488, and he was from Earth-762.

Twilight's monologue continued to drag on, this time concerning a woman in a purple, hooded cloak. "That's Rachel Roth, a.k.a. Raven, member of the Teen Titans and daughter of the powerful nexus being Trigon, from Earth-884." Then another woman with a purple-and-black suit, and a crossbow strapped to her waist. "Next is Helena Bertinelli, a.k.a. Huntress, leader of the Birds of Prey, of Earth-3238." Next was a guy wearing a purple shirt with the number 8 on it in white. "From Earth-1218 we have Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens quarterback and 2019 and 2023 NFL MVP." And finally we came to some sort of fuzzy purple blob seated to the Count's right. "And from Earth-6237, that's Grimace, self-proclaimed archnemesis of Ronald McDonald, although this title has also been disputed by someone calling himself the Hamburglar."

This felt like I'd been trapped in some sort of bizarre fan service, only I most certainly wasn't the fan this was supposed to be servicing, seeing as how (barring Waluigi) I had no clue who any of these people/things were.

The Count rubbed his hands together. "So let us count how many members there are in the Purpleforce Council, shall we? I count one, two, three-"

Mal sighed and hung her head. "Count, just…stop. Twilight literally told him that there's twelve of us."

"So before we begin your trial, do you have any questions?" Twilight asked me.

"Uh…what's with all the purple, boiyoing?" I asked. "I mean, I get you're the Purpleforce Council, but it just seems a bit…much."

Twilight pressed her front hooves together. "Oh, that's just because Mal thought it would be totally funerrific if all the guardians of the Purpleforce were associated with the color purple."

Mal glared at Twilight, and her eyes briefly glowed a fiery green. I sensed that Twilight was heavily paraphrasing, and the word "funerrific" had never actually been used when Mal formed the Council.

Huntress threw back her head and groaned. "Can we all just cut the bullshit and get on with the trial already?"

Mal cleared her throat and stood. "Sam the Star Bunny of Earth-6488, you stand accused of trespassing in the Purpleforce Domain. What, if any, defense do you have to offer for your intrusion?"

"I didn't mean for this to happen, boiyoing," I said. "I got sucked into that wall of purple flames in that creepy, spooky galaxy. I didn't know it led anywhere; I thought I was gonna die. I didn't even know this place existed, boiyoing. You see, I was chasing this real bad guy named Mario, boiyoing. He rebelled against Lubba, and he had to be punished."

"Wait, you were chasing Mario?" Lamar asked. "As in Mario and Luigi?"

"Yeeees…."

Lamar turned to the others. "This means he's a bad guy, right?"

Psylocke grabbed some sort of hologram-tablet from the side of her seat and scrolled through it. "According to our data file on Earth-6488, Mario and Luigi are the universe's two greatest heroes."

"Well, that's clearly wrong, boiyoing," I scoffed. "He's evil. Lubba's the good guy."

Grimace clumsily turned around in his seat. "What do we do now?"

"Maybe he didn't mean to come here, but if he's a bad guy, sending him back home with knowledge of this place is just asking for trouble," Huntress said. "I say we keep him trapped here. At the very least, it'll help Mario out a little bit."

"I say we demand exorbitant sums of money from him in exchange for his silence," Waluigi cackled. Well, even if he was from a different universe, his personality seemed basically the same as that of the Waluigi I knew.

"Let's just hug and sing and we'll all feel better," Barney said.

"Shut up, Barney," Lamar said.

While the Purpleforce Council was infighting, I looked up at the Purpleforce. No matter how this debate ended, it wasn't looking good for me. No doubt Barney was gonna get outvoted eleven-to-one, and they'd either execute me or worse, leave me stuck in that jail cell for the rest of time. Twilight had said the Purpleforce was an energy source…and it might also be my only way out of this pickle. It was pretty high above me, so it was a good thing Star Bunnies are proficient in the ways of spin-jumping.

"I could hex him and wipe his memory," Agatha suggested. She snapped her fingers. "Easy peasy."

"Didn't you try that before?" Raven asked. "On that variant of Dr. Doofenshmirtz who found his way here? And then three days later the hex wore off and he came back here with that Purpleforce-Steal-Inator."

"That's because we didn't hug him," Barney said.

Mal sighed. "God, what did I ever see in you?"

I cleared my throat. "If I may offer one more argument in my defense, boiyoing…."

"Of course," Twilight said. "Go ahead, Sam."

I gathered all the energy I could in my hind legs, then leapt into the air. "THIS!" I said, spin-jumping and kicking the flask holding the Purpleforce. It shattered, and the Purpleforce flew out. Huh. I'd hoped that wwould work, but at the same time, I hadn't exactly been holding out hope that one kick would do the trick. I'd thought the glass would be a bit sturdier than that.

"NO!" Mal shouted. "The Purpleforce!"

I fell back to the floor, and the Purpleforce flew after me. Now to hope the next phase of my plan would work.

"Come to me, Purpleforce!" I chirped. "I liberated you, boiyoing! Give me the powers I need to get out of this dreary place and exact my righteous vengeance on Mario!"

The Purpleforce floated around me, hesitated for a moment, then flew into me.

And suddenly, I felt like I could do anything. Like I was more powerful than I could've ever imagined. Like I could think anything, and it would happen.

I want to go where Mario is right now and take him down.

Suddenly, several purple sparks flared in the air before me, and started to coalesce into a portal. And on the far side of it, I could see Starship Mario. Haha! It worked.

A bolt of green energy exploded on the ground to my left. I hopped backwards, and looked up to see Mal preparinng a second attack of the same variety. "Stay right where you are," the ordered, her eyes glowing again.

"I don't think so, boiyoing!" I said. I concentrated, and a ball of purple energy shot from my ears towards her. Huh; maybe there really was no limit to what I could do with the Purpleforce.

But just as the energy was about to incinerate Mal, who stepped right in the way but the one member of the Council who was on my side. "No, Mal!" Barney cried. "Don't kill him! Let's all just get along and be ni-"

My attack hit him and he exploded into a puff of fluff. Wait, was he a puppet too? Geez, this place was weird.

"Barney!" Twilight shouted.

Donatello leapt from his seat and grabbed the staff from his back, then extended a blade from one end of it. He shouted and leapt towards me, twirling the staff around. I flicked an ear towards him, and another energy bolt hit him in the chest. He smashed through one of the purple lancet windows behind the dais, while his staff flipped through the air towards Grimace. The blade stabbed him between the eyes. "Uh oh…," he moaned, then flopped over, dead.

Huntress leapt up and aimed her crossbow at me; at the same time, Psylocke got into a battle stance with her sword, Raven's eyes turned black as smoke floated around her, and Waluigi sprang to his feet, shaking his fists at me like he was ready for a boxing match.

But I was done wasting my time on these boiyoinging fools. Mario was my true objective.

I looked up at the ceiling, and clenched one of my paws. Violet fractures split through the ceiling, and chunks of stone rained down all around me. The members of the Purpleforce Council took their eyes off me to assess this new threat, and in that time I leapt through the portal. "Get down!" I heard someone shout, before I shut the portal behind me.

Now that I'd hopefully seen the last of them, it was time to get my revenge on Mario, boiyoing.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this special installment! And minor spoilers, for the record, no, this is not the last Star Bunny has seen of the Purpleforce Council. They will be back in the not-too-distant future.

Next up: battle in the Starshine Beach Galaxy and "Surf, Sand, and Silver Stars"!