Daisy popped out the warp pipe and onto the sands of a seashore, latte in hand. This was somewhere on the outskirts of the Sprixie Kingdom. Blocky green mountains stretched over the horizon and a lush green forest sat within sight of the beach. Just outside the tree line there was a sign: "Welcome to Peaceful Woods" and in smaller font "Beware of Yoshis."

She reminded herself to be careful. Yoshis were predatory and known to eat just about everything. But they were also good natured enough to not eat YOU – provided you were fast enough to ask them not to. They were one of the more feral species around, but their friendship with Princess Peach and her cronies meant there were plenty of them any place on good terms with the Mushroom Kingdom.

Signs posted along the trailhead guided Daisy toward the yoshi village, made up of tree canopy huts with brick ovens. She rounded the corner and came to a dead halt when she spotted bodies strewn all over the ground.

"What?!" Daisy said, swiveling her head in alarm. All around her, every yoshi in sight was laid out flat.

In the middle of the massacre, she spotted someone. Waluigi was crouched down near one of the bodies.

"You!" She stomped up to him. "What'd you do to these yoshis!?"

"Nothing," the murderer said, standing up. "I just got here, same as you."

"You expect me to believe that?!" Daisy took a swig of her coffee. "I caught you standing over a dead body!"

"They're not dead," Waluigi said. "They're sleeping. Look!"

Daisy stooped down to double check. No one appeared dismembered and they were all breathing gently. A couple were even snoring.

"Okay, well, that doesn't explain what you're doing here! I just left the stadium!"

He smirked. "I eavesdropped on your conversation with Peach. Went on ahead while you were getting coffee."

Daisy chucked her mostly empty coffee cup at him. It bounced off his hat.

"Get your own quest, copycat! This one's mine!"

"It's Mario's quest, and stealing his thunder was MY idea. You're the one who should get lost!"

There was a squeaky gasp. "Visitors?"

Daisy and Waluigi turned to spot a sprixie fluttering into the village. A tiny blonde lady with white butterfly wings in a pink dress and a folded hat to match. The little fairy pumped her wings to stay in the air while she hauled a big sack filled with melons into the grove. Her eyes lit up when she caught sight of their faces. She dropped the sack and the melons spilled all over the ground.

"You!" She hurled herself straight at Waluigi and grabbed him by his overall straps. "You're the one who did this, aren't you?!"

"That's what I was saying!" Daisy said.

"I don't know what you're talking about, lady," Waluigi said.

He tried to shoo the sprixie away only for her to swat at him with her puny little arms.

"You look like Wario!" she said. "He tried to take my woods from me before! I bet that's what you're doing too! You put all the yoshis to sleep!"

"I ain't got anything to do with Wario," Waluigi said.

"Wait, really?" Daisy was skeptical. "I thought you two were brothers or something."

Waluigi looked insulted.

"I mean…" Daisy searched her memory for evidence. "You both have pointy ears. And pink noses. And – er, similar taste in shoes?"

"Wow," Waluigi said. "Racist."

"I see you guys together all the time!"

"Alliance of convenience," he explained, ignoring the sprixie clawing at his face. "You take the tennis partners you can get. Doesn't mean we HANG OUT or that I even like the guy."

"Well, that's depressing," Daisy said. "I want to at least like my teammates."

"Yeah, well, too bad," he said. "SOME of us have to play the hand we're dealt."

"Get out of my forest!" the sprixie said, buzzing around their heads. "No bad guys allowed!"

Waluigi snatched her out of the air by the scruff. She struggled in his pinched fingers.

"Hey," Daisy said, waving to get her attention. "Hi! I'm Daisy! And I agree Waluigi here is pretty shady, but I don't think he has anything to do with what happened here. But maybe I can help. What's your name?"

She relaxed a little. "My name's Wanda. And I take care of these woods! I was doing a super good job at it too, until a few days ago. Now things are weird and bad!"

Waluigi shoved Daisy aside. "Oh yeah? Good thing I'm here. Tell me what happened!"

Wanda scrunched her brow. "Well, I wasn't around when it happened. But apparently a big scary monster showed up and put the whole village to sleep with a magic song. They've been stuck like this for DAYS. I just can't get them to wake up! All I can do is scramble to get enough food together so the yoshis don't starve in their sleep."

Daisy noticed the giant mound of fruit piled up near all the comatose yoshi. Wanda fluttered over to one of the dropped melons and, grunting and flapping her wings furiously, lifted it into the air so she could drop it over the mouth of a yoshi. It snatched the fruit out of the air with its tongue and made a happy "Num!" sound before rolling over back to sleep.

"Well, that sucks for them," Daisy said. "Is this what Mario is working on? How am I supposed to fix this?"

Waluigi waved a finger in her face. "YOU don't have to do anything. I got this."

Daisy ignored him. "Maybe if we beat up the monster it'll break the spell? Wanda, if you didn't see what happened, who did? Maybe they have an idea of what to do?"

"Okay! I'll show you!" Wanda said, zipping off through the air. "This way!"

Daisy followed as the sprixie led them toward the far end of the village where they found a big, colorless clay tablet that looked like some sort of monument. It had five conspicuously empty petal shaped slots on the front. In the center was a bright orange sun shaped disc with a frowny face on it.

"Looks like someone dropped their trashy art project," Daisy said.

The eyes of the little sun disc popped open.

"That's mean!" it said, looking ready to cry. "It's not my fault I look like this right now! Don't hurt my feelings!"

"Whoa!" Daisy stepped back. "It can talk!"

Waluigi rolled his eyes. "Obviously. It's more a surprise when something with a face CAN'T talk."

"Sorry for being rude," Daisy said. The apology seemed to perk up the little face. "What's your deal?"

"This is the Sundream Stone!" Wanda said.

"Nice to meetcha!" it said.

"Wah!" Waluigi said. "I've heard of this!"

Daisy raised an eyebrow at him. "Have you, now?"

He shot an indignant look back at her. "It uses the power of the Dream Gems to grant wishes. It's an extremely powerful and dangerous artifact!"

"Aw shucks! You're making me blush!"

"And it's just sitting in the middle of some yoshi village?" Daisy said.

"Yoshis are creatures pure of heart," the Sundream Stone said. "They only ever wish for food when they're hungry. Which is often, but still! They would never use me to do anything bad and other creatures fear them! This is the safest place for me to be!"

"Uh." Daisy looked at the gaping holes on the tablet surrounding the face. "Are you sure? You look like you got mugged or something."

"Oh, yeah. A big nasty person got past the yoshis and made an evil wish on me! But it's okay! I went ahead and scattered my dream gems all over the world so they can't use me again!"

"What kind of evil wish?" Waluigi said. "Who was this bozo?"

The sun's smile drooped. "I don't remember. My head is reeeeal foggy without my gemstones. All I know is they had an evil heart. Although, without my gems, I can't even sense your hearts!"

"That's fine. We're good guys," Daisy said before glancing at Waluigi. "Well, I am anyway, and I'm here to help."

"Oh! That's nice. But you don't need to worry about it. Some guy named Mario came by and said he'd help."

Waluigi clutched his cheeks in mock surprise. "Wah oh. Big mistake! Mario is the biggest villain in the whole kingdom!"

"Wait, really?!" The Sundream stone looked panicked. "Oh no!"

"Hold on," Wanda said. "That doesn't sound right. I've met Mario. He's super nice."

Daisy thought about throwing Waluigi under the bus, but decided this opportunity was too good to pass up.

"You don't know him like I do," Daisy said. "He's awful! One time, I saw him ride a yoshi right off the edge of a cliff! He jumped off to save himself but what do you think happened to the yoshi?"

"Yeah!" Waluigi said. "And I hear he tried to orphan some kid by locking his dad in a cage."

Wanda did not look convinced. "But everyone calls him a hero!"

"Oh, and you know what's problematic?" Daisy said. "All those minions he's stomped on! They can't all be soldiers. I bet he's hurt civilians."

"He's a menace!" Waluigi said. "He might even be the one who made the wish that did this!"

Daisy smiled. "You better have us help instead. There's NO TELLING what havoc Mario might cause with the dream gems!"

"Really?!" The Sundream stone was blown away by their slander. "But he seemed so nice! I've really messed up this time!"

"It's fine," Waluigi said. "Just tell me where you put the gems and I'll fix this."

Daisy shoved him. "I'll get them back." She was not about to let him snatch this out from under her. "You can just stay out of the way."

"Hey, Sundream Stone? Just F.Y.I. but I saw this lady crawl out of a dumpster earlier. Pretty suspicious character if you ask me."

"Hey!" Daisy raised a fist to smack him but realized how bad that would make her look. She settled on pointing a finger instead. "Excuse you. That is a gross mischaracterization of factual events."

"Oh dear. Now I'm all confused and not sure who to believe," the Sundream Stone said. "Since I'm a bit soul blind right now, I need you two to be honest: Are you actually good guys?"

"Definitely!" Daisy said. "Super good, even!"

"Morality is relative," Waluigi said. "But yeah, sure. Whatever. Pure as driven snow here."

"Phew! Good to know!"

"Mr. Sundream Stone," Wanda said, "I don't think they're telling the truth."

"Don't be silly, Wanda! I already asked them to be honest."

"But…"

"Anyway! I can't remember where I put my gems exactly. But I can kinda feel them. One of them is still nearby! It's around the middle of the woods. Wanda, be a sweetheart and show them the way, would you?"

"I call dibs!" Waluigi said, snatching Wanda out of the air and tucking her under his arm like a football. She screamed as Waluigi sprinted off into the trees.

"Hey!" Daisy gave chase. "That's my lead! Get back here you scum sucking cheater!"

"Good luck, heroes!" The Sundream Stone chuckled as Daisy sped out of the village. "May the Stars watch over you!"