Some time had passed, and the gang has defeated all the Dry Bones, including the Red Bones, all of them had fled into several gaps in the floors and walls, through the windows, doors and so on.
"Man! That was awesome!" Sperg exclaimed. "I never had a fight like that before!"
"Yeah! I feel sorry for anyone who might have missed that." Goombella replied.
Mario on the other hand wasn't so cheerful, looking down at his outfit, he took enough damage to have lost the Hammer Suit. He merely places his hammer back onto his back and turns to the others. "Everyone ok?"
"Y-Yeah. I'm ok." Koops replied as he placed his shield on his back.
"I'm ok too." Said Junior.
Mandy was silent as usual as she patted the dust off her arms. Mario took that as her response as he turned back to Koops. "So, that letter than. He wasn't your dad?"
"N-No. He said his son was Kolorado." Koops then rubbed the back of his head feeling a bit embarrassed. "My bad." He then realised something. "Oh right, the note also said that Hooktail has a weakness."
"What is it?" asked Junior.
"It said Hooktail was weak to something that starts with 'Cr' and ends in 'Icket'."
Sperg rubbed his chin. "Hmm… I wonder what it is. It's really puzzling."
Mandy rolled her eyes at Sperg before turning to Mario. "Let's just go before more of those Bone-Heads show up."
Soon the gang continued their trek through Hooktail Castle. The next room was just as spacious, this time a few more Dry Bones were sprawled along the ground, but they didn't move, whether they were playing dead or were dead, either way they didn't bother the gang as they walked past.
After walking up a set of stairs, they found a locked door, Mario approaches the door and takes out his hammer to break the lock. That was until Junior stopped him and pointed to a key on a platform above them, Junior grabs it using one of his tentacles and hands it to Mario, who then unlocks the door normally, leaving a disappointed Sperg.
The next room was somewhat small but had a set of stairs leading to a giant green block, and in front of them was a door leading elsewhere. They walked up the stairs and saw that there was a smaller green block not far from the giant green block.
"I think I've seen this before." Said Goombella. "I think they're called Lift Blocks. You smack that smaller one and it makes the bigger one elevate."
"Oh, cool." Junior responded. "So, we just take this to go up."
"What about the other door?" asked Sperg, pointing to the one downstairs.
"Either one of them could lead us closer to Hooktail." Said Mario.
"Should we, um, split up to see which is the right way?" asked Koops.
"Use your head." Said Mandy. "We saw that dragon go to the top of the castle. Going up will lead us closer to him."
"Didn't need to be rude about it." Mario looked back at the door. "I think we should check it anyway, just to see if there are any Power-Ups."
Mandy sighed. "Fine, we'll split up." Mandy began to walk down the stairs. "Junior, Sperg, you're with me."
Junior and Sperg looked back at Mario who shrugged, they then followed Mandy towards the door. Mario, Goombella and Koops then stood on the Lift Block with Mario reaching over with his hammer to smack the smaller one.
Mandy looked to see the others rising up on the Lift Block, she then opened the doors and walked in with Junior and Sperg. The room itself had quite a few jail cells, all of them had the remains of other creatures, other than Dry Bones. They did a quick look around and found nothing interesting, but Mandy soon spotted something bright red under a pile of bones behind some of the bars.
She walked up to the pile and slipped her arm through the bars and grabbed the red object. As she leaned back, she opened her hand to see what she had grabbed. It was a strange red circle with a white musical note on it, she turned it around to see a small pin, implying this was a badge of sorts.
"What did you find?" asked Junior.
Mandy turned around to respond to Junior, but the second she opened her mouth, her voice was replaced by loud chirping noises, the second she spoke, she quickly covered her mouth with her free hand in shock. The startled and confused Junior and Sperg merely stared.
Mandy chucked the badge into Junior's hands before speaking again. "Uh, is my voice ok?"
Junior replied but now he spoke with loud chirping noises, the startled Junior dropped the badge. "Wh-What the heck!?" The three of them looked down at the badge in silence. "Weird. It's kinda strange, but you sounded just like a cricket."
The moment Junior said, both he and Mandy made the realisation concerning the message Koops read out. Mandy then turned to Sperg. "You take the badge."
"Why me?"
"Because your voice will sound less annoying with it. Besides, we'll need it."
Sperg shrugged and picked up the badge. He spoke but he made chirping noises, quickly closed his mouth before placing the badge in his pocket. He tried speaking again but he still made the chirping noise. He then frowned and kept silent.
Before the three went towards the door, Mandy heard a faint whistling sound and stopped for a second, Junior was about to speak up until he could hear the whistling sound too. All three of them looked around to see where the whistling sound was coming from, Mandy soon turned to a crack in the wall far behind the jail cells. She walked to it with the two following, and from the sounds of it, the whistle was coming from the crack.
The crack was big enough for Mandy to slip through, and while she was adamant on avoiding traps, she carefully slips through.
The room itself was quite spacious and had a giant hole in the wall and ceiling, letting in a lot of sunlight onto a bed of flowers. But to her surprise, all of them were not regular flowers, but Fire Flowers, with the exception of about five of them, they looked the same as Fire Flowers, but were blue instead of red.
Mandy for some reason felt intrigued by this, but soon her intrigue was interrupted by the same whistling sound, she looked over to the right to see a lone Dry Bones, this particular Dry Bones was holding a small rusted watering can which he filled up by a small moat connecting deeper into the castle and far away from it. This Dry Bones then walked up to the flower bed and began to sprinkle the water, while somehow whistling in an eerie yet joyous way.
The Dry Bones then turned to Mandy, much like the other Dry Bones, Mandy would be compelled to fight, but seeing it like this, she at least decided to wait for it to strike if it wanted. "Intruders?" the Dry Bones murmured. "Well… make yourselves at home I guess." He then reattended to his flowers.
Junior soon slipped through the crack and walked up to Mandy. "Hey Mandy, find anything-" he then took notice of the Dry Bones. "Um, hello?"
"Hello to you too." The Dry Bones responded as he finished watering the flowers.
"Um… those are some nice flowers you have there." Junior knew they were Fire Flowers but played along anyway in case the Dry Bones didn't know.
"Thank you… I've been taking care of them for quite some time now."
Mandy spoke up. "You're not like the other skeleton turtles we've met. Why are you different?"
"The same reason why you two kids look different."
"I mean we just faced an army of them trying to kill us. Why aren't you defending this castle from intruders?"
"What's there to defend?" the Dry Bones directs his arms to all over the destroyed sections of the castle. "This place used to be magnificent… I can't even remember how it ended up like this, and I've been here for a thousand years."
"You've been a skeleton for a thousand years, in this castle, all by yourself?" Junior asked looking surprised. Mandy on the other hand pondered the thousand years part and made the connection to the Thousand-Year Door.
"It's not all bad." The Dry Bones responded, looking down at the flowers. "About a year ago, these flowers began to sprout, so I decided to take care of them and let them grow as much as they can, until it's time for them to spread their seeds across the land."
Mandy spoke up again. "So, what are the blue ones?"
"I'm not sure. Aside from their colour difference, they're pretty much the same. I think they're much rarer with how few there are. So, in a way, I'd want their seeds to spread more." Said the Dry Bones.
Mandy pondered for a bit and spoke up again. "Let's make a deal. Let us have some of the red flowers so your blue ones will have more room to spread."
The Dry Bones tilted his head slightly as Junior looked to Mandy with a confused look. "Now what would a bunch of kids want with some flowers?"
"You want the blue ones to spread right? We can get some use for the red ones. We won't take all of them. So, do we have a deal?"
The Dry Bones looks down at his flowers, then back to the kids. "Well… alright… sharing is caring I suppose."
"Thank you." Said Junior as he walked up to the flower bed and began to gently pick six of the Fire Flowers.
As Junior walked back, the Dry Bones spoke up again. "So, what are a bunch of kids doing in a place like this?"
"We're here to kill Hooktail." Mandy replied bluntly.
The Dry Bones was silent, but then he shrugged his shoulders. "Ok. Good luck." He then wandered towards a crack in the wall and disappeared from sight.
"Well… guess we should head back." Said Junior.
Before they left, Mandy looked to see the Dry Bones was still nowhere in sight, she looks over to the blue flowers, five total. She quickly walked up to the flower bed and picked one of the blue ones and went back through the crack.
"W-What are you doing?"
"These blue flowers are exactly like the Fire Flowers, it could be useful, besides, he still has plenty to grow more."
Junior hardly wanted to argue with Mandy, so he just kept quiet as they both went back into the previous room where Sperg waited for them. The moment he noticed the flowers, he spoke up again but to have his voice once again replaced with chirping noises, covered his mouth again and grumbled in frustration.
"Yeah, we found some Fire Flowers." Said Junior, just trying to assume what Sperg said.
Junior turned to Mandy to talk about the blue flower but became surprised to see that Mandy had crushed the head of the blue flower, then in a flash of light, Mandy's red dress turned into a cold blue, the white parts and her socks turned red and her headband turned blue too.
Pretending it was a Fire Flower, Mandy raised her hand out to try something, and to hers and the others' surprise, a ball of mist appeared from her hand, she threw it having it bounce like a regular Fire Flower, but it left traces of frost where it landed.
"Hm, so if I have to make a guess… this is an Ice Flower. Whatever. Let's just head back."
Meanwhile, Mario, Goombella and Koops had arrived at another door a few rooms away and had decided to wait for the others to come to them. Mario had already returned the Lift Block back down for them to use.
Mario, out of boredom, dug into his pocket to take out his treasure chest, after opening it, he took out the Nightmare Ruby and began to examine it. Mario couldn't deny, this was something he had never witnessed before, a red brilliant cut gemstone with a yellow sphere with a snake eye inside it, Mario looked at it from different angles and no matter where he turned it, the eye in the middle continuously looked at him.
"Man, that thing is creepy." Goombella spoke up about the Ruby. "No matter where you turn it, it keeps staring at me! Freak."
"It looks at you too?" Mario asked. "When I turn it, it's always looking at me."
"Weird…" Koops muttered. "Maybe we should, um, bury it around here or something. If that Boogey guy you mentioned gets it back, we'll be in trouble, won't we?"
"I'm sure Mario can kick his caboose again like last time." Goombella replied.
Mario was silent the entire time, but he soon gently placed the tip of the Nightmare Ruby against his chest, much like how Boogey had it. Goombella and Koops looked a bit concerned, but nothing seemed to happen, Mario moved it from his chest to examine it again. "I think Mandy mentioned that it only affects nightmare beings like Boogey. I think I know a guy who can keep it safe."
"Who?" asked Goombella.
"I have a rival of sorts who's obsessed with gemstones and treasure hunting, his name's Wario."
"Wario?! That ugly brute who steals stuff and smells like rotten garlic?"
"That's him, though we don't get along, he's good at keeping gems safe. So, I might just give him this, I'm sure he can protect it. That's one thing I do trust him on."
"Well, if you say so." Goombella responded.
Soon the three heard the Lift Block raising, so Mario placed the Nightmare Ruby back into the chest and into his pocket. To their surprise, they saw Junior with six Fire Flowers and Mandy with her Ice Flower colouration.
"Oh wow… looks like you found some good treasure there." Said Koops.
"Yup. We found a friendly Dry Bones that let us have some of these." Junior responded.
Mario takes out his treasure chest again and opens it up and Junior deposits the Fire Flowers. He then turns to Mandy to ask about the new colouration, but before he could, Mandy already placed her hand out and threw an ice ball, this surprised Goombella and Koops seeing the ice ball bounce like a Fire Flower's fire ball.
"Wow! An Ice Flower!? I thought they were extinct!" exclaimed Goombella.
"I remember seeing them when I was really young." Said Mario.
"Ice Flowers were just as abundant as Fire Flowers ages ago, but the overgrowth of Fire Flowers dwindled their numbers, everyone thought they were extinct. I guess they can only grow in specific places." Said Goombella.
Mario then turned to Sperg. "So, what about you?"
Sperg tried to speak but only chirping noises came from him surprising them, he tried to speak again but the same results happened, he then chirped in anger as he took the badge from his pocket and slam-dunked it into Mario's treasure chest.
"Argh! Man, that badge is annoying! It's some kind of weird badge that makes you sound all chirpy, replacing your own voice!"
"I… see…" Mario placed his treasure chest back in his pocket.
Mandy walked ahead past them. "Let's just go already." They soon walked with Mandy again through the castle. They went up a flight of stairs towards another door, this one was also locked but they couldn't find the key, so Mario this time used his hammer to smash the lock off and they went through.
The next room was a long pathway high above the ground floor, leading to a bridge that connects to the wall, looking down, they could see the bottom where they started, but a drop from this height would be enough to kill anyone. As they went further ahead, they noticed the bridge was out, and it was too far for Mario to jump to. Mario notices the nearby window and looks out it, there he saw a narrow path just outside it leading to the other side, it was risky, but they could move along this small path to get to the other side.
As Mario turned to face them, he noticed Junior had already made a bridge with his tentacles with Mandy already across and Goombella making her way across carefully. Mario simply smirks at this as he waits for everyone else to cross before he does.
The next room had another green Lift Block, the gang climb the stairs and get on top of it, but they noticed that the switch to activate it was further away this time. Mandy threw an ice ball at it but to her surprise, it dissipated before it could reach.
"Guess the range of an ice ball is slower and not as far as a fire ball." Said Mario. He then suddenly picked up Mandy surprising her and moved her closer. "Try now." Mandy felt irritated with Mario just picking her up like that, but she chose to swallow her pride for a second as she threw another ice ball, this time it hit, and the Lift Block began to elevate, Mario placed Mandy down and she responded with a light punch to his arm. Mario knew what it was for, so he merely shrugged it off.
As they reached the top, two doors met them, one on the opposite side the another, either one could lead to the right way. "Split up?" asked Junior.
"Agreed." Mario responded. He, Goombella and Koops took the left path, Mandy, Sperg and Junior took the right path.
Mario, Goombella and Koops entered the left door and walked in, there they were greeted by a series of treasure boxes, and one suspicious creature. It wasn't a Dry Bones like the others.
It was a Mouser, looked like one of the same purple mouse-like creatures from Rogueport, but was a snowy white coloured, wore a red eye mask, has red high heels and had a tail that curled into a heart-shape at the end. "Hm? Oh my. And who's this handsome piece of cheese?" said the Mouser in a flirtatious tone, and seemingly directing that to Mario specifically. "I can't believe there are other thieves here besides me. How very strange."
"Oh, um… hi?" said Koops feeling a bit nervous.
"Who the heck are you?" Goombella asked.
"Me? Well I'm Ms Mowz, the globe-trotting thief! Heard of me sweetie?"
"Can't say that I have." Said Mario.
"Hm." Ms Mowz looked a little annoyed but shrugged it off. "Well anyway, I heard that there were rare and valuable badges here in this castle, that's why I'm here. But the real question is, why are people like you roaming in such a run-down place?"
Goombella huffed, despising flirts like her. "Well if you must know, we're here to defeat Hooktail! And just so we're clear on this! We set our sights on the Crystal Star before you! Ok?"
"Goombella! No!" Mario mumbled to her, making her realise what she just said.
"Crystal Star you say?" Ms Mowz chuckled. "I didn't know a thing like that was hidden here. Sounds intriguing. Or was I not supposed to hear that?"
Goombella bit her lower lip in frustration. "Why you!"
Koops whispered to Mario. "Five coins say Goombella goes ape on her."
"Deal." Mario whispered back.
"Oh, but it's ok, I mean you were looking for this Crystal Star first. And I already found the badge I was after, so I'll let you get your Crystal Star." Ms Mowz began to walk towards Mario.
"Let us!? What the heck do you mean by that, you gross Flirt?!" Goombella shouted.
Ms Mowz suddenly jumped up and kissed Mario on the cheek surprising him. "It means I must say bye-bye Mr Cutie. I know, it's sad, we just met and now we already must say farewell. Alas…" She then leapt up high and onto the edge of an open window.
"O-Oh… you're so bold." Muttered Koops feeling a bit stunned by all this.
"J-Just who do you think you are anyway!?" said Goombella.
"Oh, I almost forgot. I have a little secret to share with you?" said Ms Mowz with a confident grin. "Somewhere in this castle is a badge that will help you best Hooktail, or so I've heard. I don't know what kind of badge it is, maybe you've found it, maybe not. But I would recommend getting that badge if you are going to fight Hooktail… well, take care handsome moustached man! Let's get together again real soon."
"Sheesh! What's with that girl!?" said Goombella. "Who acts so disgusting like that!?"
"I-I dunno. I think she's um, kinda cute." Koops responded.
"Don't you already have a girl waiting at home? You know, the one who kicked your shell left and right?"
"Uh… I ah… M-Mario help me out here."
Both of them looked to see that Mario wasn't paying attention, instead he had his treasure chest out and was holding the red badge Mandy found, he was in complete silence, most likely pondering something. But soon he let out a smile as he dropped the badge back into the chest.
"I think we may have already found Hooktail's weakness." Mario then walked up to the closed treasure boxes. "Come on, looks like our little thief friend forgot to loot some stuff."
Goombella and Koops looked at each other confused, then went to help Mario with the stuff. During that, Mario gave Koops five coins without Goombella noticing.
Mandy, Junior and Sperg had entered a larger room, there they saw a door at the far end that was too high for them to jump to, but Junior's tentacles could construct a bridge as usual. The three walked up to it and Mandy looked over to Junior.
"You know what to do."
"What about the others?"
"Mario can carry them, now do it."
Junior let out a very faint sigh as he made a small diagonal bridge looking like stairs, Mandy walks up first with Sperg following. Junior pulled himself up and the three walked through the door.
There was a flight of stairs going up, another one going down but was destroyed, not that it mattered too much since their destination was up. They began to walk up them in a line, with Mandy first, Sperg second and Junior last, keeping his eyes peeled for any traps.
As they reached the top of the stairs, they saw a door with a lock. Mandy looked around to find a key but nothing, so she lifts her right leg and throws a strong kick into it denting it badly, but it didn't break off. Seeing this caused Mandy's eye to twitch slightly, seeing she couldn't break it off with one hit when Mario was able to no problem, the idea of Mario being stronger than her began to get under her skin, but she shook the thought away and prepared for another kick. But before she could, she heard footsteps behind her. She, Junior and Sperg looked behind to see Mario, Goombella and Koops walking up to them.
"Wow, you caught up quickly." Said Sperg.
"We didn't want to keep you waiting, so we hot-footed it once we finished our little looting." Said Goombella.
"Oh cool! What did you find?" asked Junior.
"Just a few coins, but we did find this." Mario took out from his pocket, a cute little frog doll, the material somewhat resembled that of the Hammer Bro Suit.
"Is that a Power-Up?" asked Junior.
"Yep, it's a Frog Suit, it lets you swim and breathe underwater as if it was second nature. The only problem is that it's kinda useless on land. Either way I have three more with this, so if we need a swimming expedition, we're covered for a small team."
Their conversation was disrupted by Mandy doing another kick on the lock breaking it. She turned back to the others. "If you're done chit-chatting, we need to get moving."
"Hold on." Mario said as he placed the Frog Suit away and prepared his hammer, he gently opened the door and to their surprise, it leads outside.
All of them looked ahead, there they saw a long stone bridge leading towards a giant stone tower, that was where Hooktail resides.