Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Captain Toad run across the plains and quickly make it to a huge hill. Mario and Luigi jump up the side of the hill quite easily. However, they soon realize they get too far ahead of Peach and Toad more often than not.

"Hey," Toad pants as he follows closely behind Peach. "Could you two wait up a bit? My jump is a bit vertically challenged."

"Oh, yeah, no problem," says Mario. The four stop on the side of the hill, but are nowhere near the peak.

Luigi looks up to the peak. "I know we were told time and space is a bit fluid in this world. But I swear this hill wasn't as big when we saw it from the village as it looks right now."

"I wish there was a shortcut," says Toad.

Then Peach looks off to the side. "What's that?" She leads the group to where she's looking. Embedded in the hill is a red door. "It looks like the door we went through to get here."

"You think it's the same?" says Luigi.

Mario puzzles, "I don't know. Maybe it's like the Special Pipe? It could move around, but doesn't end up to the same place."

"That's possible," says Peach.

Mario looks to her. "So should we go through it?"

She hesitates for a second. "Oh. I was going to ask you."

"I just assumed since you were the princess you'd…make the decision…"

"And I thought since you have the field experience you might…have a bit more intuition on these things…" The two give each other embarrassed looks.

Luigi face-palms. "Well, honestly, which ever route is safer, I'm fine with."

"Same here," says Toad. He walks up to the door. "Maybe we could take a peek…" He cautiously opens the door. At first glance, they see nothing but blue sky through the doorway. "Hm, maybe it's safe…" Holding the frame of the doorway, he pokes his head through. As he does, he takes a step through. That's when he falls. He cries out as the other three rush to the door.

"Toad!" The three cry back to him. Peach goes through without hesitation. Expecting to fall as well, she jumps through the doorway. Mario and Luigi hang by the doorway for a second. The three notice that the door leads them a little above the top of the hill they were trying to climb. However, the way down the opposite side flattens out sooner than the side they were trying to climb up.

Peach falls down purposely to grab Toad. Then she uses her levitation sporadically to slow her descent. The brothers watch her jump from ledge to ledge until she makes it to safe ground.

"Okay, here we go!" Mario jumps down next. He falls faster than Peach, but adequately makes it to the bottom in a similar manner.

Luigi follows, but panics as he falls. "Too fast! Too far!" He wiggles his legs frantically, hoping for a slower fall. While roughly making those jumps down the ledges, he gradually eases his fall. Even falling a tad slower than his brother.

"Heh, not bad, bro," says Mario as his brother lands near him.

Luigi sighs with relief. "Just trying my best."

Calming down from the shock, Toad jumps out of Peach's arms. "Well. That worked. Let's stop for a break."

"There they are!" The four of them turn to see the Shy Guy, Snifit, and Beezo they saw in the town. Only this time, they have a squad of a few dozen Shy Guys behind them. The Shy Guy steps forward, pointing at them. "The invaders who're planning to interfere!"

"Oh no!" Toad cries. "Run!" He starts running in the opposite direction of the Shy Guys.

"No, let's hold our ground," says Mario, facing the Shy Guys directly. "We can take them!"

Luigi looks from his brother to Toad. Then he turns to Peach with a worried look. "I'd side with my bro, but Toad also has a point. What do you think?"

The princess quickly glances between her three friends. "Shoot, what should we do?" She nervously thinks to herself. "I know the Mario Brothers can fight, but could all of us?" She grows agitated in the couple of seconds she has to think. Then she notices Toad running toward a nearby red door. "Uh…retreat!"

Mario just starts to jump on some of the Shy Guys. "Wait, what?" Mario stops jumping for a moment to turn to Peach and Luigi. This allows a Shy Guy to lunge at the red plumber, knocking him back.

"Mario!" Luigi runs up to help Mario to his feet.

"I'm alright. Guess we're moving on?"

"Seems so."

The three catch up to Toad, who motions them to follow him through the red door. After the four rush through, Toad slams the door shut on the squad of Shy Guys coming toward them. "We have to move!" says the captain.

They turn around, and see two more Shy Guys notice them on their side of the door. Immediately recognizing them as enemies, the Shy Guys charge at them.

Mario notices vegetable leaves between him and the two Shy Guys. "I know what to do," he says to his friends as he runs to the vegetable. Fortunately, he gets to the vegetable fast enough before the Shy Guys reach him.

"I'm behind you, bro!" says Luigi as Mario takes a couple of seconds to pull out a turnip from the spot.

Mario takes a moment to aim. One of the Shy Guys puts extra effort to run ahead of his companion. With an overhead throw, Mario chucks the turnip. The turnip bounces hard off the head of the closer Shy Guy, then beams the further Shy Guy straight in his mask-plated face. Both Shy Guys fall flat on their faces.

"There. That should do it!" says Mario with a grin.

Luigi stands next to his brother and gives him a thumbs up. "Good shot!"

A little behind them Toad claps and cheers. The princess beside him gives a small smile, her hands clasped together and arms hanging down. Then she frowns. "We're not much of a team, even while we were at the ruined village. Should I be leading, with the experience and responsibilities I've had as a princess? Or should Mario lead, with the combat and field experience I've seen him with?"

"Well, let's-a get going!" says Mario. He, Luigi, and Toad immediately continue in the direction the two Shy Guys came from. Peach raises her hand up, about to protest. But she holds it back. Then, when the squad of Shy Guys begin knocking through the red door they came through, she rushes up behind her friends.

The four continue a little further on, when they come across two waterfalls. "I think we can make it across along these two logs." Mario points toward two log logs, one crossing the top of each waterfall.

Then they hear tweeting sounds. "What's that?" says Luigi.

Suddenly, a large flock of birds hop wildly toward them from the other side of the waterfalls. Half of them are white, with red masks and wings. The other half is red, with white masks and blue wings.

"Ack!" cries Toad. "Let's find another way!" He immediately turns around and runs away from the waterfall.

"Wait!" says Peach.

"I've got them," says Mario as he begins to run across the first log.

"But…" Peach starts. She looks to Luigi. The green plumber gives her an afflicted look before hesitantly following his brother. "Not again!"

Toad doesn't look back as he's running. But he stops when he sees the squad of Shy Guys coming toward him. "Oh no!" He looks around frantically until he spots tuffs of leaves sprouting on a higher mound. He barely leaps up there and furiously plucks them up. Small turnips get ripped out of the ground and flung to the Shy Guys on the lower ground. "Get away! Get away!"

Most of the Shy Guys relatively ignore him and try to push passed the onslaught of vegetables. Some of them get knocked out. But some of them turn to try to climb up to Toad's ledge.

As he runs low on things to pull out of the ground, one tuff of leaves ends up being a beaker-like bottle. Surprised, Toad takes a moment to note the red liquid contents of the bottle. "What the heck is this? Some sort of magic potion? Do I drink it…?"

A stray masked bird creature suddenly appears on the ledge near Toad. In his panic, he flings the potion at the bird. He misses, having it fall far short of his target. But where the potion lands, a red door suddenly appears. Toad cautiously approaches the door. "Huh. How the heck…?" But then the masked bird creature knocks him from behind, causing him to fall through the door.

Meanwhile, the Mario Brothers just manage to cross the first log while avoiding the masked bird creatures. Princess Peach hesitates to follow at first. But when she looks back, she sees the squad of Shy Guys catching up to them. "Shoot! Where's Toad?" Under pressure, she cuts across the log bridge to join the plumbers.

Mario grips the wing of one of the masked birds, and chucks it at another. Luigi tops him by jumping into the air, grabbing a masked bird mid-flight, and flinging it toward another oncoming bird.

"Nice one!" says Mario.

Luigi smiles back. But then he notices the squad of Shy Guys congregating upstream. "What are they doing?"

The Shy Guys work together to take some small logs and chuck them into the second river. The flow of water rushes by so fast that the smaller logs hit the second log bridge with enough force to tip it over the edge.

"Oh no!" says Luigi. "Now how are we going to cross?"

Mario notes the smaller logs still coming down the river. "We time it just right." He jumps first, jumping from log to log as they fall over the waterfall. With ease, he makes it to the other side.

"Okay…" Luigi waits for his chance and jumps from log to log as well. The last log falls over the edge a bit sooner than he expects. He jumps off it anyway with extra force. Kicking his legs furiously, he just makes it next to Mario.

"Alright…" Peach jumps onto one log. But then she realizes for a split second that there aren't any oncoming logs left from the Shy Guys. "Shoot!" With nothing else to lose, she leaps into the air. By concentrating, she begins to hover midair. Pink-tinged sparkles surround the lower half of her body. Slowly, she levitates over to the brothers.

She wobbles a bit, but the brothers help her stand as her disorientation quickly passes. She smiles. "Thanks, guys. First time I've done something like this outside of practice…and negative energy."

"No problem!" says Mario.

Luigi looks around. "Where's Toad?"

Peach sighs. "I don't know. I think he got caught between the birds and the Shy Guys." She grumbles a bit to herself. "I should have asked Remnus what kinds of enemies are around here."

Mario glances to the direction they're heading. "Let's worry about that in a minute. And I'm sure Toad can catch up to us. He's pretty resourceful, especially when his well-being is on the line. Let's go…"

"Wait!" says Peach, a little louder than she expects. The two brothers look to her before she continues. "I…" She shakes her head. "I think you're right. However, I feel like we're moving just a little too fast and recklessly. I know it works well for you to, given your success against the Koopa Troop. But it just feels…off-putting for me to act like that. I wish…to be in control somehow…."

Mario sighs. "You're right, princess. I'm sorry. I always knew you are capable as a fighter, given how you saved me and my brother from Bowser once. But I should also consider your leadership skills."

Peach blushes a tad. "Yeah. I'd like that."

Mario holds out his hand. "I'd like to think of myself as a leader. Maybe we should lead instead."

Peach takes it and they shake. "Sounds good to me."

Luigi looks between the two. "Sooo, are we going or are we staying?"

Peach nods to Mario. "Let's move on for now."

"Right." Mario jumps just ahead of Luigi and Peach. The three run into some more Shy Guys, but just between them is a patch of vegetable leaves. "Perfect. Each of us grab a vegetable and throw!" Mario plucks a set of leaves first. But instead of some plant food, a POW Block comes out of the ground. His eyes light up with excitement. "Oh, nice! I never thought I'd see this again!" With a grin, he chucks it at the Shy Guys. A seismic boom shakes the ground around the Shy Guys, causing them to fall over. "As nice as before!"

Then, the squad of Shy Guys pursuing them comes from the waterfall. Luigi notices them first as he's pulling out his tuff of leaves. What he ends up pulling is a shell. "A Koopa's shell?" He exclaims. But with the Shy Guys coming closer, he hardly hesitates to throw it. He gives it some spin to help it slide faster at the enemies, knocking half of them off their feet.

"I'll get another," says Peach. She plucks a patch of leaves. However, a bomb comes out instead of a vegetable. She ponders for a second. "Actually, I'll get the rest!" She lobs it over her head. The bomb lands right in the middle of the remaining Shy Guys. They flinch and gasp. One explosion later, they are left unconscious. The princess does a little jump and pumps the air with both arms. "Yes!"

Mario smiles, then turns to look around him. He notices a cave entrance in a hillside. "How about we go through there?"

The princess looks where he's pointing. "Sure."

Meanwhile, Toad find himself in a strange place. Even stranger than the dreamscape. It sort of looks like the waterfall area he was just at. Except everything is in shadow, or tinged in blacklight. "Where the heck am I?" He looks back to the door he came in. "I hope those Shy Guys don't follow." Not seeing any enemies in the area, he decides to explore. He goes over the waterfall, when he finds a container shaped like a heart. "Huh…" He crushes it, and instantly feels refreshed. "Ah, much better." He continues on, eventually finding a cave entrance. "Always wanted to go spelunking. Can't get any darker than it is already, right?" He goes in, but carefully proceeds. "And I'm not talking to myself for reassurance. 'Cause that would be weird!"

Just then, a skittering sound echoes through the cave system. Toad whirls around. "Who's there?!" Behind him, a swarm of dark puffballs surges up the tunnel. Scared, Toad rushes up a vine to an upper level of the cave system. Fortunately, the puffballs continued on the lower level, and pouring into a river. Toad releases a sigh of relief. "What was that stuff? Was it even alive?" After a quick breather, Toad continues his way to the end of the cave.

Meanwhile, Mario, Luigi and Peach have little to no problem getting through the cave system. They climb up some vines, take down a lone Shy Guy, then make their way back outside. They find themselves on an upper hill.

Mario looks up ahead, seeing hanging vines from floating cloud blocks. "I think we have a little ways to go before…"

Suddenly, a red door appears nearby. When it opens, Toad stubbles out. "Finally!" he says, "Those puffball things creep me out!"

"Toad!" All three cry out and hug him.

Toad gets very flustered from the sudden attention. "O-oh! T-there you guys are."

"Where were you?" says Peach.

"I…got surrounded by Shy Guys," he says nervously. "Then ended up in some sort of upside-down world."

"At least you got out and here with us." She starts leading her three friends underneath the vines. "Now let's head up that small cliff so we can…"

Just as the four stand beneath the vines, Luigi looks up and gasps. He points to a dozen spider-like creatures crawling down the vines. "Incoming!"

Mario and Peach look at each other and nod. "We're going up!" says Mario.

With that, the four furiously climb up the vines. The spider creatures climb down to meet them. To maneuver around them, Mario and Luigi jump between the vines. Although it does little to knock them off, the brothers jump on the spiders to stun them and climb up quicker.

Toad, on the other hand, struggles to catch up with the others. "I can't jump that fast," he whines.

Peach slows up for Toad to join her. Then she scoops him under one arm. "I got you." She continues her climb, using her floating ability to easily outmaneuver the spiders.

Mario and Luigi reach the top of the cliff. Peach almost makes it with Toad, when the final spider creature climbs up the vine to reach where she's about to grab. "Aah!" The princess yelps. In an involuntary move, she thrusts Toad in front of her. Toad screams and flails his appendages as the spider nears the two. He ends up wildly head-butting the spider, knocking it off the vine.

"Good job, captain!" Peach smiles as she gets herself and Toad on the cliff with the Mario Brothers.

"No prob…" Toad replies in a daze.

"Well, well, well…" says a deep feminine voice. "Seems like I found the ideal spot to wait for y'all!"

The four look to the voice. Not too far ahead stands a pink dinosaur-like creature with a huge snout and a red bow. "I haven't seen anyone like you four before in these parts," she continues.

"I haven't seen anyone like you, either," says Mario plainly.

Birdo's puts her hands on her blushing cheeks, and winks to him. "Oh, you tease! And so handsome, too!"

"Ew…" mutters Toad.

Peach steps forward in front of Mario. "Who are you?"

"Oh. My name's Birdo." She puts a finger to her snout and cheekily looks to her. "I have to ask: how do you get two and a half strapping young men to follow you by your side?"

All four begin to have flushed faces with embarrassment. As expected, Peach is taken aback the most. "I…beg pardon?!" "I don't know how to respond to this!"

Then she frowns. "That aside, I'll have to ask you to leave this world. Wart hates it when outsiders come to interrupt his plans."

"You work for Wart?" says Luigi.

"We're not leaving until your boss does," says Mario as he gets back into a fighting stance.

Birdo sighs, "Very well. Then this is as far as you go!" She puckers up and spits a white egg out of her snout. It flies so fast at Luigi that he barely avoids it.

"Scatter!" says Mario. He tries to charge straight to Birdo, but she spits another egg to keep the distance. "Someone look for a vegetable!"

"Don't need to tell me twice," says Toad, who hangs back behind his friends. "Should do something, though." The three keep Birdo's attention while avoiding the barrage of eggs. But Toad runs about the area, trying to find a vegetable patch. "Why can't I find any vegetables?" After a few minutes, he still can't find any patches. "Guys, I can't find any vegetables!"

"I thought they're supposed to be everywhere?" says Luigi.

Birdo laughs. "I made sure to pluck all the vegetables where I went. Now y'all have nothing to throw at me!" She steps back and forth, spitting eggs continuously.

Mario and Luigi jump out of the way of the eggs. Toad runs in and out of the line of fire. However, Peach is not as fast or nimble as the other three, and begins to tire out. So when one egg comes for her too quickly, she holds up her hands and creates a small barrier. The egg beams straight up while she gets pushed back from the force of the hit. Then the egg falls intact near her feet. Her face lights up and smiles. "That's it!" She picks up the egg and starts running to Birdo.

Mario somewhat notices Peach's bold move. So he waves his arms to Birdo, making her look away from the princess. "Hey! How are you even spitting out all these eggs?"

Birdo stops for a moment and looks to the red plumber. "Oh! About time a guy tries to nicely ask me that question. You see…"

"Is it something like this?" Peach interrupts sternly. She gets in close behind Birdo and chucks it at her head. Birdo barely gets to glance over her shoulder before the egg hits the left side of her face. The princess smirks as she runs away from the pink dinosaur.

"Ouch!" whines Birdo. "That's not fair!" She spits more eggs her direction.

"That's a good idea," says Mario.

"Let me try," says Toad. He runs into the volley of eggs. As he leaps over one, he nabs it out of the air. He stumbles a bit on his landing, but raises the egg over his head triumphantly. "I got one!"

"Oh no you don't!" says Birdo. She starts running toward Toad, while still spitting eggs. While he's momentarily preoccupied, one egg hits Toad straight to his face. He drops the egg he's holding and is knocked out on the floor.

"Toad!" cries both plumbers. Mario tries to get to him first, but the stream of eggs forces him to duck. He stubbly walks the rest of the way to Toad, while still staying low to the ground. On the other hand, Luigi stays off to the side and tries to distract Birdo. "Hey! Handsome bachelor over here!" he says with a hint of dismay.

"Oh no, I'm not falling for that again!" the pink dinosaur says between spitting eggs. "You're going to have to make me stop."

Peach dashes to Toad. "I got him!" Before another egg flies by, she scoops Toad into her arms and jumps into the air. She stays suspended midair. Eggs keep flying underneath her as Birdo runs closer and closer. "Don't know how much left I have in me to use my powers."

"Oh, so you can keep yourself airborn?" She jumps into the air, only a few meters away from the princess. "Here's a little revenge gift back at you!" She puckers up and spits an extra fast egg.

"Oh no!" says Peach. "Not again!"

At this moment, Mario is still in a ducking position fairly close to the princess. "No!" With all his might, he leap off the ground. Just before it hits her or Toad, Mario gets between the two and catches the egg.

Peach gently descends back to the ground. "Nice," she smiles.

Mario keeps on flying into the air, peaking at over twice his usual jumping height. He raises the egg over his head. "Take this!" He hurls the egg back down just as fast as it was spat.

Birdo momentarily panics. Then she points to the air below Mario. "No! I'm the sharpest egg spitter around!" Just before the second egg hits her, she spits out her own egg in the direction she's pointing.

The red plumber begins to fall back to the ground. But he notices that the egg Birdo hurled is going to hit him before that happens. "Yikes!"

Then, Luigi jumps in front of Mario. "I got you, bro!" In one motion, he swipes the egg midflight, spins around, and flings the egg back without having it lose any of its momentum.

Birdo's eyes grow wide. "Oh no." The third egg decks her head. She flies a bit back and falls on her back. She groans as she lies knocked out cold.

"Oh yeah!" Mario cheers and hugs his brother after they land on the ground. "We did it!"

Toad comes to as Peach sets him on the ground. "We did it? Thank goodness!"

Peach smiles and claps her hands together. "This feels so wonderful! I can see how you brothers like this sort of thing."

Luigi half-laughs. "Wouldn't you know it; we do make a good team."

Mario taps his brother's back. "Oh, you doubter, you!" Then he sits himself on the ground. "Maybe we should rest a minute now? I feel a little winded…and a sudden craving for mushrooms."

Peach takes out the walkie-talkie from her pocket dimension. "Good idea. In the meantime, I think I'll give our new friends a call. It'd be best if we know more about what we're up against…

Wart steps up to the Dream Machine. He holds a vase precariously over one of the nozzles. Suddenly a Beezo flies into the room. "Have you captured any more of the Subconians?" says the frog without turning around.

"No," says the Beezo.

"Are there any more Subconians?"

"…yes."

"How many?"

"Just two. They hid somewhere in the ruins of the town. Now they are on the run."

Wart grunts as he shakes the vase. Osama fumbles out and falls into the Dream Machine. "Keep an eye out for them. Fortunately, they are neither instrumental nor a nuisance to my plans." He presses a few buttons on the machine. A few clicks and hums later, the machine starts spitting out Phantos. "With all the Subcon fairies we've captured, they will provide plenty of energy well into the completion of my conquest."

The Beezo nervously watches the Phantos fly out of the room. "What is that machine doing, anyway?"

Wart grins. "Two simple things. One: spread my nightmares into other worlds. Two: expand my army." He turns around and starts walking out of the room. "Now that it's working swimmingly, I can move on to the final phase of my plan: watching it all unfold!"