The gang went through a lengthy backtrack towards the cages. As they travelled back, two things were on Mandy's mind, the first was Mario of course, detaching himself from the team to search through the waters of the tree, for some reason it reminded her of when they split up a few times back in Petalburg and Hooktail Castle, it made her wonder how more often they were gonna split up like this, she could understand the logic, they're trying to find the Crystal Star and they can cover more ground this way, if what Koops said was true that they were told that the waters connect to the entire tree, then it could mean that Mario and Sperg may already be at the Crystal Star.
The other thing on her mind was something more pressing, during their first round here, they were facing against the X-Nauts and Boogey's crew and they hardly let up, she imagined they would be fighting them non-stop, but every where's been quiet. She wondered about speaking up about this, but once again, she kept to herself and just kept a sharp eye and ear out for anything suspicious.
Time passed and they eventually made it back to the cages. Once again, Punio ran from the others towards the blue cage. "Petuni! I'm back! We brought the key! We're opening the cell right now!"
They walked up to the cage and Mandy held the key out, only to see there was saliva on it, she immediately glared at Pud'n. "Were you chewing on the key WHILE I was holding it!?"
"I'm… surprised you didn't notice."
Mandy shoved the key into Pud'n hand and wiped the saliva off her hand onto his sweater. "You do it!"
Pud'n made his way to the lock and put the key in and turned it. Like last time, the lock dropped to the ground and the door opened. Taking them by surprise a little, every Puni ran from the cage flooding the ground, everyone took a few steps back to give them space and to not accidentally step on one.
"BIG BROTHER!" Petuni shouted. Soon every Puni moved out of the way making a ring around just Punio and Petuni.
"Little Petuni! Are you all right? You're not hurt, are you?"
"Nope, I'm fine!"
"Thank heavens!"
Petuni looked a little ashamed. "Hey, big brother… I have something for you! I meant to give this to you sooner, but…" Petuni soon showed the dried-up mushroom. "Mushrooms are your favourite, aren't they, big brother. But… well, this one kinda got dried out."
Without hesitation, and somewhat surprising everyone. Punio marches to the dried mushroom and began to eat it quickly. "Oh, nasty." He muttered so quietly no one heard him. As he finished eating it all, he stumbled a bit.
"Big brother…" Petuni asked looking very ashamed of herself. "It was icky, wasn't it? I'm sorry."
"No, not… URK! … Not at all! Mmmm-MMMMM! Delicious! Very…uh…urp… very… GAG…yummy." Punio said while desperately trying not to throw up.
Meanwhile Petuni had a very confused look to her. "Big brother? You ok?"
Punio regained his composure. "GIMME A HUG PETUNI!" He then jumped towards Petuni and rubbed himself against her in a very affectionate manner.
"Hey, quit it, Punio! C'mon! Don't get all mushy! Everyone's staring!" Petuni said trying to push him back.
Punio moved back with a pleased look to him. "Well, it was just a really sweet gesture, that's all."
"…Aw, it was nothing!"
Mandy soon interrupted. "Look, enough of this sappy nonsense! We need to get to the Crystal Star, and we need all of you to help us, now stop this and let's go."
Punio sighed a little. "She's right, if we get the Crystal Star first, then the X-Nauts and monsters should leave."
Every Puni jumped around looking like they were ready to fight, and all of them bunched together to follow the gang.
"Good, let's go."
"Where should we go?" asked Pud'n.
"Now that we have an army of Punies. Maybe we should try that other Jabbi Hive we couldn't get past." Said Koops.
"Good idea." Said Junior.
The gang made a massive walk all the way back towards the zig-zagged bridge where the two Jabbi hives were, the walk back was just as tedious as last time, especially so as they had to send the one-hundred and one Punies over the gap with the bubbly liquid like last time.
Soon they made it back and made their way towards the entrance where Koops and Junior went to. As they crossed the path, they were suddenly greeted by large greyish lumps that shot from the ceiling firing at their general direction, everyone jumped back dodging some of them, though some got hit, they all looked up to see seven large spider-like creatures with greyish bodies, six legs with large feet and googly eyes.
"PIDERS!" Every Puni screamed at the top of their lungs and ran in multiple directions, all ignoring the Puni Orb in Flurrie's hands.
"The Punies!" Pud'n shouted. But he was interrupted by several more greyish lumps hitting him and knocking him off the bridge.
Everyone looked over to Pud'n surprised, but then looked back at the Piders, they shot more grey lumps from their mouths, revealing to be web balls.
"Pud'n darling!" Flurrie shouted, but then turned to the Piders looking furious, then with a deep breath, she unleashed a giant gust of wind blowing the Piders away until they were out of sight.
"What were those?" asked Koops.
"They're called Piders." Said Goombella looking at her book. "Apparently they're predators to the Punies and Jabbies." She shuddered a little. "ICK, they're so gross. They're not the only one who can't stand any sort of spider creature!"
Koops and Junior noticed Flurrie who had just flew back onto the bridge carrying an unconscious Pud'n. "Oh dear. Poor little darling."
"Don't worry Flurrie. Pud'n's had worse, he can take it." Said Junior.
"Uhh… where are the Punies?" said Koops. Everyone looked around to see every Puni was gone, all except for Jabble who just sat there with a dopey look to him.
Mandy let out an irritated sigh. "Just great! Now we gotta find them all!"
"Maybe not." Said Goombella. "The Puni Elder did say to talk to her if we lose any, she said she'll give them a whistle to call them back."
Back at the entrance, the gang re-entered it and explained the situation to the elder.
"So, you need me to whistle and call them back?"
"Yes, please." Said Junior.
"Very well…" The Elder took a deep breath, and she let out a hallowing shout. "PUNIES! GET YOUR BUTTS OVER HERE!"
In about two seconds, the entire room filled with every Puni they lost, as well as everyone having their eardrums rattled by the Elder's screaming.
"That's whistling!?" asked Mandy.
"It is to us Punies. Now don't lose them again."
After another lengthy backtrack to the zig-zagged bridge, this time the gang stayed at the pipe as Flurrie flew ahead to examine the area for any more Piders, making Junior hold the Puni Orb and having every Puni surround him like moths to a flame.
After a few minutes, Flurrie returned. "All clear."
"Good. Let's not have another incident like that again, backtracking through this stupid tree is driving me nuts." Said Mandy as she marched ahead of the others.
As they travelled along the bridge once again, Goombella spoke up. "I wonder how Mario and Sperg are doing?"
"Should be fine… you know… unless they lose their Frog Suits." Said Koops. "But I think that won't happen, I don't think those X-Nauts or monsters know to swim through the waters."
"Yeah, honestly, I would've have thought that either. Then again, Mario's been on many more adventures than I have, I reckon he's got that intuition."
Soon they made it to the new room, and to their surprise, there was a hive much bigger than the last one.
"That's it alright, that's what we faced earlier." Said Junior.
"Oh my! That is a big hive!" said Flurrie.
"Doesn't matter!" said Puniper running in front of them. "We gotta destroy that hive and bring order and peace to our Tree!"
Right after Puniper said that, a siren went off and out came what looked to be a hundred Jabbies, possibly more.
"Everyone! It's the Jabbies!" shouted Punio. "We've got to take them down! CHAAAAAAARGE!"
The Punies ran towards the Jabbies and much like last time, a huge swarm of black and white blurs surrounded the area as Punies and Jabbies fought each other, but this time, Jabble was with the Punies fighting them.
"S-Should we help!?" asked Koops looking a little panicked.
"No. This is a Puni thing." Said Goombella.
"It was exactly like this in the other room, Puniper said we need to let them settle this." Said Flurrie.
After a few minutes of this coloured chaos, eventually the Jabbies fell to the ground unconscious. Every Puni and Jabble looked around to see this before jumping for joy.
"We did it! We KO'd every last Jabbi! Now let's destroy the Hive Fortress!" said Punio as he and every Puni ran into the hive. Much like last time, there was a tremendous amount of shaking before the hive blew up into several pieces revealing another entry way.
"C'mon." said Mandy as she and the others made their way to the entrance where the Punies were waiting for them.
Some time passed as the gang made their way further into the depths of the tree, there weren't any particular rooms that stood out, but in one room, they did notice a gigantic tree stump where the top couldn't be seen, but they didn't pay much attention to it and moved on.
The next room was fairly spacious, it had another black pedestal, but it didn't connect to anything, either way they approached it and Flurrie placed the Puni Orb in it making every Puni gravitate towards it. So far nothing happened as they looked around.
Goombella however noticed something about the pedestal, it looked like the others, but this one was a little different, upon closer examination, she realised the black stone it was made from was smoother, too smooth, and the white lines looked like paint. Goombella's eyes widened realising something.
"IT'S A TRAP!"
But before anyone could react, suddenly a series of bars and a roof slammed down around them trapping them.
"What the heck!?" exclaimed Junior.
Flurrie looked at the pedestal and took the Puni Orb off it, but nothing changed, then she noticed the differences. "O-Oh my, we've just been so used to putting the orb in the pedestal, we were hardly looking for any different ones."
"Who the heck would make a fake pedestal!?" asked Punio.
"I'll give you three guesses." Said Mandy as she looked up from where she was.
"Buh! Buh! Buh huh huh!" Suddenly, Lord Crump, two X-Naut Soldiers and Creeper dropped from the ceiling. "Man, you guys are dense! Brilliant little trap, huh? And BOY, did you bite on it. I saw you sticking that silly stone on the pedestals, so I made a fake one… awesome. I mean, I KNEW it was great, but seeing you fall for it gives me a warm fuzzy."
Lord Crump laughed until Creeper looked over to Mandy and spoke up. "So, Lord Crump, how do we get Mandy out?"
Lord Crump sighed a little. "I can raise the cage, but that'll risk freeing the others. Not to worry, they're not going anywhere any time soon, that cage is made from Nautanium, same stuff the Puni cages were made from. We can just order some knock-out gas from the fortress after we get the Crystal Star."
"Good point." Creeper then noticed something odd about the cage. "Wait a minute! Where's that Mario guy!?"
"Buh! What!?" Lord Crump looked and couldn't see him. "Oh crud! Well no matter! That idiot's not gonna get far anyway, I mean it's not like he's digging his way through this tree. And there's no way he's gonna get this cage open, there's only one remote to open it and I have it! Either way we can take our time searching for the Crystal Star now."
Creeper spoke up again. "Do us a favour kiddos and get Mandy ready to be taken to our fortress, we'll come back later."
With that, Lord Crump, Creeper and the X-Nauts walked out of the room, but what they didn't notice was a green arm with a white glove poking out of the water in the walls and gently took the remote device from Crump's back pocket, but didn't pull it back into the water in case the water damaged it.
The gang kept quiet as they watched this, as Crump, Creeper and the X-Nauts left, Mario popped his head out of the wall and leapt out, he hopped towards the entrance and peered through looking for any sign of danger. He then pressed the button on the remote device and just like that, the cage slowly lifted back up.
"Thanks Mario, you rock!" said Goombella as she and the others walked up to him.
"How did you know where to find us?" asked Pud'n.
"Honestly, just pure blind luck." Said Mario. "It's pretty hard to tell where I am in the tree when just swimming through these watery walls."
"Where's Sperg?" asked Koops.
"Right! Before I forget. I think we found the Crystal Star, Sperg's currently navigating around trying to find the way in."
"Awesome! So where is it?" asked Goombella.
"Right at the bottom like the Elder said. We saw two pedestals that need a hundred Punies. And I found a pipe that leads to one of them."
"Good. Show us." Said Mandy bluntly.
Mario began to hop out of the entrance, with everyone following him. "This-a way."
A moment later, they returned to the room with the large tree stump. Mario pointed to the top of it. "I saw a pipe on top of that stump, it'll take us further down." Mario then hopped to a large enough gap in the wall. "I'm gonna head down and take out any enemies I find. Good luck to both of us!" Mario then jumped into the water and disappeared once again.
Mandy let out a quiet sigh, he was starting to get on her nerves. She shook her head slightly and turned to Junior who already shot three tentacles up onto the top and was having every Puni walk along them to reach the top, Flurrie however picked up Pud'n and Goombella and flew up to the top, then she did the same with Mandy and Koops. Once every Puni was at the top too, Junior used his tentacles to pull himself up. On the top like Mario said was a Warp Pipe like the others, so they all went down to the lower floor.
The gang travelled further down and entered a new area, this one had quite a few X-Nauts and Boogey's crew in it, but all of them were unconscious, several bruises and some looked wet. They looked down at a lower area and saw three of Boogey's men looking around in a panic, there they saw Mario jump out of the wall slamming his feet into the back of one of them knocking him out, the other two tried to attack him but he jumped back into the wall, one of them tried to attack him with a laser gun, but missed, he got close to the wall to attack, but Mario shot his hand through, punched the monster, then grabbed him and pulled him into the wall out of sight, the third looked around in a panic and shot his laser gun everywhere in the walls trying to blindly shoot Mario.
The monster dragged into the wall was suddenly thrown out from the highest point, screaming as he smacked the ground hard knocking him out, the third monster jumped back in fear, but this distracted him long enough for Mario to jump from the highest point and land on the third one knocking him out. Mario took notice of the others and waved to them, then he jumped back into the wall out of sight.
"Didn't take Mario for the sneak-attack type." Said Junior.
"More so in a Frog Suit of all things." Goombella replied.
"Let's just get going before they wake up." Said Mandy.
Soon they reached the lower area of the room thanks to a Warp Pipe, with no enemies to fight, they simply walked towards another Warp Pipe heading further down. This led to a room filled with a large pool of water, on the other side was more land and a strange blue button on the ground. Before anyone could do anything however, there was a big splash as something jumped out of the water in front of them scaring the Punies to the edge of the wall. It was Sperg, still in his Frog Suit too.
"Man! Who knew swimming was so exhausting!" said Sperg looking out of breath.
"Oh, it's Sperg." Said Pud'n.
"Hey." Sperg said. "Have you seen Mario?"
"He wasn't far from us when he was sneak attacking some bad guys." Said Pud'n.
Right on cue, Mario appeared from one of the walls and landed in the pool of water, then he poked his head out to look at the others. "We're one room away from the first pedestal. We can get across, but you can't."
Mandy looked over to the blue button. "What does that button do?"
"We don't know." Said Sperg. "We were waiting for you to turn up."
Mario immediately swam for the button and jumped onto it, but all it did was bring up a blue block out of the water. Mario pondered for a second before speaking up. "Hey, someone hit this block, it's a Switch Block."
Koops looked over to it and took his shield off his back, then after careful preparation, he threw it like a frisbee striking the block, bouncing off back to him. In an instant, the water began draining into a small hole at the bottom at a rapid pace, soon it drained completely.
"Hey, wasn't the floor below just a bunch of pillars?" asked Sperg.
"Yeah, let's check it out." Mario jumped into the walls again with Sperg jumping into the nearest one.
The others went to the nearby Warp Pipe and went down into a lower floor. There they saw another pool of water, but this had some pillars in it, but only the top could be seen, in addition, there were a bunch of lily pads in between them making a bridge. Mario and Sperg jumped out of the walls and waited for them at the nearby Warp Pipe on the other side.
"Oh, so if we hadn't drained the water above, then the darling little Punies couldn't get across." Said Flurrie.
"No, but now that there's a bridge for them, they can get across no problem." Said Goombella, she then turned to them. "Go on little guys."
"Sure thing." Said Punio as he and the other Punies ran across the lily pads and pillars, making it to the other side.
Once they got across, Mandy crossed the bridge herself first, but she jumped to each pillar, not trusting the lily pads to take her own weight. The others followed the same logic with the exception of Flurrie who simply floated over. They walked up to the Warp Pipe and as Mario and Sperg jumped down it, the others followed into the pipe.
"We're coming up to the first pedestal." Said Mario. "We're so close to that Crystal Star."