Mario quickly explained the Power-Ups, basically they're magical items that give people costumes and special powers, they can be found in floating Item Blocks, Mario's shape shifting treasure chest has quite a few items already in them but he's saving them for emergencies.
After walking through the eastern part of the ruins once more, they found another entrance not far from the first underground Warp Pipe they took to find the Thousand-Year Door. As the gang entered it, they found themselves at a ledge full of water with a wooden bridge leading to a small stone island with another Warp Pipe on it. Soon the gang lightly walk along the wooden bridge making it to the small stone island and they quickly jumped down the Warp Pipe.
"I'm coming for you Princess Peach!" said Mario excitedly.
The Warp Pipe had taken them to a completely different area almost instantaneously. From the ruins of the underground cities of Rogueport to a vast field of grass and trees far and wide; Mario and Goombella were at front near the edge of part of a grassy hill the Warp Pipe was on looking ahead, Junior was looking around at the green beauty in amazement, but Mandy on the other hand felt disgusted by this scenery, too cutesy and nice for her liking. Soon their eyes caught something in the distance, it was a huge old looking castle, it looked like the one on the Magical Map.
"Mario look!" said Junior. "That castle over there!"
Mario and Goombella looked at the castle in the distance. "That must be where the Crystal Star is." said Mario.
"But how do we get there?" asked Goombella. While it looked straight forward, there was actually a giant chasm blocking the way to the castle.
"Wow, what a drop." Junior muttered looking straight down. "I could make a bridge again using my tentacles, but I'm not sure if I can reach that far.
"Even then, I'm not sure I'd want to cross a bridge over a chasm like this." Mandy replied.
"I only have two Raccoon Leaves so I can't have everyone fly over." Mario added, making Mandy and Junior confused about flying raccoons. Mario soon turned back around to look at the fields, soon something caught his eye. "Over there! There's a village in the distance, maybe someone there might be able to help us."
The others agreed and was about to make their way to the village, but the second they took a single step. There was a sudden monstrous roar coming from the sky, everyone looked up to see a gigantic object flying over them blocking out the sun, as the object flew over towards the castle, they realised the object was in fact a giant red dragon with a long neck and teeny tiny wings carrying it, it flew across the chasm and into the tallest window of the castle fitting through it perfectly, simply showing the castle was much bigger than they thought.
"What the heck was THAT?" asked Junior.
"A dragon?" muttered Mandy.
"I remember Frankly saying he had his suspicions about the place, but he never mentioned a giant friggin dragon!" said Goombella freaking out a little.
"We better tread lightly." said Mario. "Odds are that thing isn't friendly, and I'm guessing that village up ahead is no stranger to that thing."
Everyone agreed and began to walk down the grassy hill and into a gravel-like area with three stones in a line, two smaller ones and one shaped like a big Warp Pipe, the smaller one on the left had a moon shape engraved into it whereas the right one had a sun shape engraved into it. After a quick silent examination, the gang continued their walk towards the village.
A little later going through a series of trees, Mario suddenly stopped as something hard fell onto his head, he looked down to see it was an apple core, Mario looked up at the tree, only to have another apple core smack him on his big nose, Mario then looked up again looking a bit irritated that time. The others then looked behind them to see Mario had stopped, they then walk back to him to see what Mario was doing.
"Something's up there." Mario muttered to himself, he then took out his hammer and quickly swung it at the side of the tree which actually made the tree swing from side to side. Suddenly there was a girly scream as a fat blur fell from the tree landing directly on Junior. It was a familiar looking fat kid with a white vest and a red woolly hat.
"Sperg?" Junior exclaimed as he pushed him off. Mario soon placed his hands under Sperg arms and slowly picked him up off Junior and placed him on his feet.
"Ow my head." Sperg muttered until she looked around noticing who was next to him. "Mandy!? Junior!?" Sperg immediately hugged Junior. "Oh man! I'm so happy I wasn't the only one stranded here! It was so lonely! No one to bully!"
Junior pushed Sperg off of him again. "Y-Yeah, great, good to know you're doing ok."
Sperg then suddenly turned Junior round and performed a wedgie making him shriek a little. After Sperg let go, he patted Junior on the back. "Now I feel much better."
"Jerk."
Sperg turned to Mandy, noticing her red dress. "Oh… that's a cute new outfit. Didn't think you were the fashion type."
"How the heck did you get here?" Mandy asked. Trying to ignore what Sperg just said.
"How should I know?" Sperg responded shrugging his shoulders. "One moment I'm knocked out by a big green monster, the next I'm in this field lost and hungry, so I climbed up that tree to get some apples."
"So, you never fell in the ocean like Mandy?" asked Mario.
"Nope." Sperg responded, he looked at Mario with a surprised look. "Wow, killer moustache! Looks like my grandmother's, only smaller."
"Um, thanks?" Mario said awkwardly.
"That's sort of a relief you weren't stranded in the ocean too." said Junior as he was fixing his underwear. "This at least guarantees that we may find the others easier."
"So Junior, Mandy." said Goombella. "Don't you think you should introduce us to your friend here?"
"Oh right. Mario, Goombella, this is Sperg, our top bully and one of the kids who helped us. And Sperg, these are our new friends, Mario and Goombella." Said Junior.
"Nice to meet you Sperg." said Mario.
Sperg gave a thumbs-up. "Sure! I just had to help them, no one bullies my targets except me."
"Ooookay…" Goombella muttered.
"Now for the million-dollar question here. What are you hanging out with these two for?" Sperg asked to Junior and Mandy.
"They helped us out earlier, and we figured we could find you easier if we helped them in their treasure hunt." Junior responded.
Sperg turns to Mario for a few seconds, then to Goombella and soon back to Junior with a look of intrigue. "Treasure? I'm all ears!"
"We better explain while we're on our way to the village up ahead." said Goombella. "Saves time."
After a minute or so, Junior had given the full details of what happened to them in Rogueport, meeting Mario and Goombella and learning about the treasure behind the Thousand-Year Door which can only open with the Crystal Stars. Mandy then reluctantly explained how she ended up on a boat and Mario requested her to help him out until he can get her home. Soon the gang stopped for a moment to let Mario handle a bunch of Goombas attempting to attack them.
"So, all in all, we're kinda stuck here until we find Grim, so we decided to help Mario until we find Grim and the other kids." said Junior. "Mario doesn't know how we can get home without Grim's scythe however, so we're likely to find the others before then anyway. Especially if they're on the same path."
"Yeah, I need more nerds to punch, I gotta fill my quota." Sperg replied. "So, I'm down for finding everyone."
"Who knows, we might even help Mario through his treasure hunt even after we find our friends." Junior responded. "Being honest, going through this adventure, even though we just started, I kinda wanna see this to the end."
Mandy pondered for a moment, thinking about the treasure. She wondered if this treasure was worth keeping for herself, like Frankly said, it could be a magical item of money, thinking about it, she began to recall when she first heard about the Nightmare Ruby and how it's worth so much, eventually going back to her idea of ruling the world and making it all about herself. However, she wondered if the treasure was even worth it, since it might not be valuable at all, but she did remember that the people in her world still think the Nightmare Ruby is the Cyclopes Ruby and is only worth money, so she could still use it for what she wants, even if she has to get rid of Junior and Sperg, or even Mario for it.
But as she thought that, she was suddenly reminded of Mario patching her up when she was on the brink of dying, but she shook those thoughts away, only caring for herself and no one else.
"Ok, now I'm 100% in." Sperg replied. "It'll be way better than some dumb school trip about trains anyway. So, where's this first Crystal Star and who do I have to pummel to get it?"
"Probably in that giant castle we went past." Goombella spoke up. "The map shown a castle so that's our guess, so we're heading towards town to find a way to get across that giant chasm."
At that point, about seven Goombas ran off past the gang looking beaten up and bruised, Mario then came back to the gang holding onto a new Power-Up, it was a reddish flower. "Pesky Goombas." muttered Mario.
"Cool, you found a Fire Flower!" Goombella exclaimed. "Those are awesome."
"Definitely a personal favourite." Mario nodded.
"Can you show us this Power-Up?" Junior asked. "I really wanna see it in action."
"I'd… rather save it for emergencies."
"Ah c'mon." Sperg added. "I wanna see it too, Junior said how cool you made them out to be."
"Well… alright… I have three more in the chest anyway." Mario then placed his other hand on the head of the flower and crushed it, then in a flash of light and traces of fire. In an instant, Mario's red shirt and hat turned white, and his blue overalls turned red.
"Um. That's it?" asked Sperg looking unimpressed.
"Wait for it." Mario placed his hands forward and to their surprise, small fireballs began to appear in his hands. He then threw them in different directions, Sperg, Junior and Goombella looked really impressed with how he was just shooting fireballs from his hands effortlessly. Mandy was somewhat intrigued, but was mostly unimpressed, seeing much better things from Grim and throughout her adventures.
"Anyway, the town is just past those trees, so it's pretty much just a hop, skip and a jump to finding out how to get to the castle." said Mario as he extinguished the fires from his hands.
"Hang on Mario." said Goombella. "We better just ask where the Crystal Star is before asking how to get into the castle. If that town is familiar with that dragon we saw, whether or not it's a friend or enemy, I doubt they'd be comfortable telling us."
"For either protecting the dragon or believing we're not tough enough to face it I guess." said Mandy.
"I suppose we ought to." said Mario. "I don't want to cause some sort of alarm, or maybe the Crystal Star isn't even in the castle, either way let's just ask around for the Crystal Star like Goombella suggested"
As the gang began to walk towards the town again, little did any of them know that a green humanoid creature climbed out of the bushes, it was one of Boogey's men from the Underworld Express. He picked up a transceiver and spoke into it. "This is Shmebulock. I found the target, she's currently escorted by the kids and a couple new faces, she's heading towards the village in Petal Meadows."