"Travelling to other dimensions is bad enough without creating some kind of paradox," Matt said. "So, well...you can understand why we're concerned about you running around with your younger selves."

"So far I've deduced that the timeline simply readjusts itself accordingly," Gadd said. "And good thing it does. Just imagine what would happen if Luigi and his younger self weren't supposed to meet. I imagine them touching would create an error that would collapse time to a singular point, ending all of existence in the most painful, excruciating way possible, turning our last few seconds of life into something very unpleasant."

Luigi released a weak sigh and sagged, catched by Mario before he totally fainted.

"At least, that's what I figure, according to my calculations and the obvious fact that we aren't dead yet."

"How reassuring," R.D. said dryly.

Heading through the double doors at the top of the stairs, they found themselves on the battlements of the castle. At the north, a city unfurled, roofs of houses topped like the mushrooms they saw in the palace. Toad Town, Luigi pointed out. It looked pretty cool from this view - if they weren't already busy, Matt would've totally took the chance to explore.

They took another flight of stairs connected to a large, central tower lording over the main castle. It was just one large room covered with crimson carpet, six marble statues of Princess Peach surrounding the lip of a tunnel that had burst from the carpet. Matt carefully approached the edge and saw a swirling vortex, lines of purple and yellow whirlpooling around a central point.

"I assume that's the time hole," Hugo said.

"Yep!" said Gadd. "It's far more stable than it appears, trust me."

"Stable isn't the exact word I'd use for a rip in the fabric of space-time, but sure, whatever," R.D. said, examining it himself. "Let's just hop through, pull Matt out of the ground on the other side, and get this over with."

Matt sniffed rudely. "Well, why don't you go in first so I can land on ya? I'll be sure to go feet first so you'll know when I'm through."

"You'd still land on your face."

"Will you children knock it off?" Alasea sighed in exasperation. "Honestly!"

And with that, the girl stepped past both of them and entered the time rift.

"I'm totally gonna push her in some mud or something," Matt said. "THAT'LL teach her to call me a child!"

"You'd better hurry after her," Gadd said. "As always, I'll be keeping contact. Good luck!"

"Thanks," Hugo said. "Come on, Helena."

The weredragon leapt into the time hole with an impressive leap. Mario and Luigi followed with the babies on their shoulders - legendary jumpers that they were, they easily cleared the gap and entered the time hole.

"See you on the other side, STANDING UP," Matt said to R.D., and also bounded into the rift. The energies of the time hole captured him and swung him around like a bubble circling the drain, cascading through yellow-purple madness towards the light at the end. At least normal gateways threw you straight, this thing was TRYING to get him sick!

The land the time hole threw him into was dark. He landed right behind Helena, almost smacking his face against her wings. After readjusting, he took a moment to look around - dark purple clouds mixed over the black sky, and unhealthy, tainted grass flanked both sides of the path they stood on, with sickly purple mushrooms stretching up from the muck.

Matt glanced up at the obstacle before them - the castle doors, with wiry arms crossed in front of a ghoulish face beset with red eyes. He was thinking energy barrier, but these just looked like normal doors. Mario and Luigi couldn't just hop over? Well, they were tall, but it didn't SEEM like it could stop anyone from just climbing over.

"Well this looks pleasant," R.D. noted after he emerged from the rift. Ahead of him, he saw Alasea shiver as she looked around.

"What've they done to this place?" she whispered. Everything here felt unnatural and horrid.

"Dunked it through the ringer, it looks like." Matt looked behind him - past the time hole, the path broke off to a point, aimed at a thick forest of mushrooms that cut the horizon as far as the eye could see. Grim.

"Then let's get inside and get this over with," Helena said. She was also looking around, coming off as totally paranoid with the way she flickered about looking for enemies. "It's amazingly creepy out here."

"Duly noted." Matt walked up in front of the double doors and aimed Portal Runner. The beam he fired easily passed through the arms and drilled into the door, spreading apart into a clear hole, energy charging the rim. Even now that hole fluctuated. "Let's GO, everyone!"

As the others approached the gate, Alasea spotted something on the ground and knelt down to pick it up. It was then that she heard Matt's shout, and she quickly snatched it up and went through the portal with the others.

"What were you doing?" R.D. asked as she came through.

"What? Oh." Alasea held out what she'd taken--a single, green-stemmed flower with large, reddish-orange petals. It felt warm to the touch, and distinctly out of place with everything else. "Its just a flower, but its the only natural-looking thing around here. I figure me and Helena can use it to pinpoint whatever's causing the mutations in the flora around here. It might lead us to our target."

"Sounds like a good idea," R.D. noted, and they turned to Helena. "How about it? Think you two can figure out what's going on around here?"

Helena shot an uneasy look at Alasea. "Sure, I guess...I'll try it out." She set down Hugo as Mario and Luigi leapt through the hole in the doorway with the babies, followed by Ileyna.

"Don't close, don't close, don't close!" Matt yelped, making it to the other side just as the portal collapsed on itself with a sucking, slurping noise. He dusted off his pants and sighed huge. "Okay! Let's not try that again right away."

Alasea nodded and went over to Helena. "The dragons said that you're sensitive to the natural energies of a world, so that's what I'm relying on here," she explained. "We'll use the life energies in this flower to find the discrepancies and figure out where all this mess is coming from."

"I don't think you'll get much out of one flower," Hugo said, his gun trailing around, looking for things to shoot.

"It's better than nothing," Helena replied. "Let's give a shot."

"The flower's just the base," Alasea said. "Okay, Helena, here's how we're gonna do this: compare the energies in this flower with everything else, and find the differences. When you figure that out, I'll run a trace and we'll know exactly where the source of the mutation is."

As the girls began their scanning, R.D. looked around, keeping an eye out for threats. "Ileyna, you sense anything?"

"Not yet," came the child's reply. "It doesn't look like there's any Essence other than our own around here."

"Hurry up with that scanning," Matt said, walking up the path and looking back and forth. No one seemed to be turning the corner just yet. "I'd rather be scarce when the guards show up."

"It takes a minute," Helena said, annoyed.

"If the guards come, let 'em," R.D. said. "It'll give Hugo something to shoot at."

It was a few more minutes before the two teenage girls finished. "Got it!" Alasea exclaimed, magic forming between her hands. She held it up, and it formed a vaguely arrow-shaped bolt of energy that hovered in the air, glowing softly.

"It'll point in the direction of the source," she explained to the others. "We'll have to work a bit harder but I don't think we should announce our presence by using a full-fledged tracer spell."

"Then we'll keep it quiet for now," Matt said, pushing down on the air in front of him. "But if we need to make noise, don't be afraid to do so, because it'll probably happen eventually."

Following the arrow, they took the right path through a crumbling archway. Approaching the corner, Matt flattened his back against the wall and peered out just enough to catch a glimpse of what was up ahead - two purple mushrooms with wide red eyes discussing something in the distance. Their claws fingered yellow rayguns. Matt drew his head back and put a finger to his lips to shush the others, jabbing with his thumb to indicate where the monsters ahead were.

R.D. nodded and moved past him, taking a peek to assess the situation himself before moving back. "Just two of them from the looks of it," he said. "We can take them; I can shield the rest of you if they pull their guns on us."

He looked over at Matt. "How you wanna do this?" he asked.

"Let's keep it sneaky." Matt switched to the green gem and clapped his hand on the brick behind him. "Sleeping Mist." Leafy, snaky vines sprung from his fingers and crawled up to the edge of the wall before meandering around the corner. Up ahead, the mushrooms only noticed the vine when it birthed a large tulip. The petals yawned, spraying thw mushrooms with silver glittering dust, and immediately the mushrooms fell over in a fit of snores.

Hugo chanced a look around the corner. "Not bad. You should try sneaky more often."

R.D. used channeled wind to blow the dust away so they could get through, and motioned for the others to follow. He had a Phase Blade in hand, though deactivated for the moment.

"Hold up a second," Alasea said as they neared the two fallen creatures. One spell later, and loops of energy wrapped around their arms, legs, and mouths. "We'll make sure they can't alert anyone else if they come to," she said. Hopefully this'll last."

Helena scooped up their guns and snapped them into splinters. Up ahead, the path ended in a formidable archway leading into the interior of the castle.

"Think they're keeping her up at the top?" Matt asked. He looked up at the zenith of the corrupted castle. A huge marble statue of a bizarre alien woman lorded over them at the top. "What's THAT supposed to be, anyway?"

Mario explained that it was a statue of Princess Shroob, the leader of the invasion forces. "Like an evil Princess Peach," Hugo said. "We're already familiar with evil clones."

"Let's just hope she doesn't grow gigantic like Cackletta did," R.D. commented.

"The trace is saying the source of the corruption's inside," Alasea said, sparing the arrow a glance. It was pointing towards the castle. "Three guesses as to who's causing this, and the first two don't count."

R.D. snorted, and Ileyna giggled quietly, holding a hand up to her lips to try and stifle it.

"Looks like our enemy's got a face now," Matt said. "Let's go punch it."

They snuck through the archway. Sick lights droned yellow on the walls where the lamps would eventually be in the future. The floor lacked carpet, with the Shroob's eerie faces tesselated to the tile in an ongoing pattern.

"It's cold," Helena said, unconfident. She was right - way different than the sticky humidity Matt felt outside.

"Its not natural," Alasea said, agreeing with Helena. "I don't like this, guys. If our enemy can cause this much environmental change on their own, then we could be in trouble."

"Its fine," R.D. said, holding up the rear. "We've faced worse odds before."

"I'll take point," Hugo said. "Form a hexagon. I want Helena in the back so she can take out anything following us."

Under Hugo's command, they moved through the castle. Any Shroobs they saw got pummelled old-school. Anything bigger got a free sample of Helena's heat beam or Matt's lightning blast. They briefly left the castle to take the familiar stairs up a few floors, bringing them to the battlements. Matt looked back out over the horizon - he couldn't see any sign of any Toad Town, the forest of mushrooms just engulfed details after a certain point. Almost felt like they were surrounded by an army.

"Damn thing still keeps pointing up," Alasea muttered, checking the trace again. "Do you think we should capture and interrogate the next Shroob we see?"

"I dunno. Probably wouldn't be too bad an idea," R.D. said, thinking about it for a moment. "But chances are, they can't speak our language."

"Mario," Helena asked, "did Gadd give you any kind of translator to understand the Shroobs?"

Luigi pulled a gray box out of his pocket - kind of a modified walkie talkie, with a red-tipped antenna sticking out the end and looking totally awkward. With this, they'd be able to translate any Shroob's speech into human words.

"Well, what do you know!" Matt said. "Gotta love it when a plan comes together."

"Let's go find one--oh, there we go," Alasea said as one came into view. It quickly spotted them, and expressed surprise at what it saw.

"Get it!" R.D. shouted.

Hugo's pickaxe burst apart and shifted around, firing a Grapple Option at the Shroob. It captured the alien and yanked it over, where it dropped its gun and immediately began jabbering in choppy, grunting noise. Luigi pressed the red button on the translator.

"-AND I WILL FEED YOU TO THE PIT OF KLI'KLOSH FOR YOUR IMPUDENCE!" the translator spoke alongside the Shroob's babbling.

"Tell me where to find Princess Shroob," Hugo said.

"I WOULD NEVER BETRAY MY NOBLE RACE TO THE LIKES OF NON-PURPLES!"

"Well, this is certainly getting us somewhere," R.D. muttered. "Helena? Make a flame, see if this thing will start talking."