My Little Paper Mario

by Codex92


The Crystal Palace

Mario and party walked through the doors of the Crystal Palace, marveling at the interior structure of the ancient ruins that was once used to worship the Stars in ancient times. The floor was made of crystal, their reflection able to be seen on the sturdy ground, stars patterned the worn out blue walls as a sign of the older culture's worship, and pillars were placed along the walls, both as a means of support for the long building and artistic with etchings of stars wrapped around the top and bottom portions of the crystalline cylinders. On their as they entered, the wall was a long and giant mirror, though Kooper made sure to keep a close eye on their reflections after witnessing Pinkie's somehow lag behind them outside earlier.

Ahead of them down the long hallway was a set of red doors and a red pressure switch, and along the wall was a normal white door that lead to possibly another hallway. However, the red doors were locked up tight, which means they'll need a key to get through.

"Oh my," Rarity said in awe as she looked around the hallways. "There may not be crystals all around, but this place is gorgeous."

"And shiny!" Pinkie added, bouncing up and down excitedly.

"But it's surprisingly empty," Twilight noted. "No furniture, no paintings or pictures of the landscape or founders. If this was someplace to be worshiped, there has to be at least something for wandering guests to come and relax onto."

"Maybe thieves took any valuables, including simple furniture, though with how the entrance to reach the mountain was closed off, that's unlikely," Kooper rambled, placing a finger against his chin in thought. "Maybe they had no need for furnishing, and the culture were able to easily traverse Shiver Mountain back then to pray to the Stars."

"Well, how about we pray for a key?" Rainbow suggested, pointing at the locked doors. "We're not getting through unless we find it. And the only way to go is through that door over there."

"No sign of Bowser's men just yet," Goombario said. "Everyone, stick together. If those Duplighosts are here, we can't afford to get tricked by those doppelgangers."

Staying together in a large group, they made their way down to the only accessible door and walked into another hallway, albeit smaller than the main foyer's. There was nothing much in the tightly spaced hall, only a mysterious red "X" a bit of a ways from the door on the other end. As curious as it was to find out why this "X" was placed on the floor, they steered clear out of its way in case it was actually a trap. The next hall had a few gray bats hanging from the ceiling, called Swoopulas, and as they dove down onto them, they clung on and tried to suck the life out of them like vampires. Luckily, a well-placed shock from Watt was enough to detach them, stunning them long enough to be smacked away by a fist, hoof, or hammer.

"Oh dear," Fluttershy uttered, feeling bad for hurting the squinty-eyed bats. "I know they're hungry, but do we have to be so harsh on them?"

"Swoopers are actually a really sentient species," Goombario said. "Some of them can talk, though, but they're just as dangerous as everything else we've encountered."

"Oh..." Fluttershy didn't feel as bad now, but it didn't help that the Swoopulas looked so cute to her.

Once the Swoopulas were dealt with, they entered the next room, holding a chest on a slightly elevated part of the floor. Mario opened up the chest and pulled out a key, but instead of it being the red key they needed to progress, it was blue.

"A blue key?" Parakarry questioned. "Well, that's clearly not going to work with the door."

"And there were no blue doors where we could get to," Sushie added. "So...are we stuck?"

"I don't think so." Kooper took the key from Mario and looked at it closely. "There was a switch back out in the foyer...I wonder what'll happen if we press it." Heading back through the halls and in the main hall, the party approached the switch sitting in front of the red doors. Leaping up onto the pressure switch, the Koopa jumped up and slammed his body weight down on the switch, pressing it down into the ground and making a sound as it activated something. The whole palace shook, shocking everyone, but the quake wasn't enough to send them falling over. Suddenly, the wall with the door in front of them began to move down, shifting part of the palace as another section lowered and stopped evenly with the floor, revealing a set of blue double doors similar in design to the red doors that were also locked. The switch beneath Kooper changed to blue after rising back up, stepping off and grinning as his hunch was correct. "And here's where we use the key."

"This...This is incredible," Twilight said in awe.

"There's more 'floors' in this place we have to search through???" Applejack questioned. "How are we supposed to know which way we're goin's the right one?"

"That's the fun part of exploring, AJ," Rainbow said, nudging her friend's shoulder. "Search every nook and cranny until we find the secrets hiding lots of treasures."

"Sounds more like a chore," Bow uttered. "And I thought Tubba Blubba's mansion was big..."

Kooper unlocked the door, the lock dropping to the ground, and opened up the door to let them through. In the next hall, there was another mirror wall yet again, which was probably a really big theme that the Crystal Palace had. They were stopped by a wall, but it was cracked enough for a certain Bob-omb to blow it up.

"Alright, stand back, guys," Bombette said as she approached the wall, fuse lit up and ready to blow.

She exploded, crumbling down the wall to access another room. But there was something odd that Kooper noticed as he looked at the mirror. If it was supposed to reflect the room and their movements, then how come the cracked wall in the reflection didn't crumble, or why wasn't there an explosive blast from Bombette? Something suspicious was going on, and he had a feeling that this mirror isn't exactly a mirror to begin with. As soon as everyone walked through, barely paying attention to the mirror, their "reflections" tried to huddle against the wall as they failed to get through the wall in front of them, and Kooper spotted his reflection sweat a little while mimicking his pose.

"I knew it." He ran to catch up with his friends in the next room, which was a dead end that had several "mirrors" split by a few columns. The center one didn't have any glass in at all as Kooper pressed his hands against the mirror, his hands pushing through to the other side. "These aren't mirrors. It's just glass!"

"Kooper, what's going on?" Twilight asked.

"Those aren't mirrors in the Crystal Palace. They're windows!" He walked through the gap between the pillars, walking in the reflective side of the room. "This place is completely symmetrical on both ends, but there were some flaws with our side and the 'mirrored' side. Back outside the entrance, I saw Starborn Valley down the side of the mountain, but the village wasn't in the reflection. And our 'reflections' aren't really our mirror images."

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Rainbow asked in confusion, the others not following despite how odd it was that there was more to the room with the gap in between the pillars.

"Pinkie's mirror was able to keep up with her, even after bouncing around excitedly, but I saw it get exhausted and caught up, continuing mimicking her," he explained.

"...Or it could have been Pinkie being Pinkie," Bow stated. Kooper gave the Boo a deadpanned stare, and without even explaining the last flaw, he pointed at the wall they just blew up and walked through, then the still crumbled wall on the other side. It was then the group finally noticed the inconsistency with the mirror image and what they saw, Bow's eyes growing wide before grinning sheepishly. "Uhh...How did we not see that?"

"So that means there's so much more to this palace than shifting those doors," Parakarry noted.

"And that means..." They all looked at the crumbled wall on the other side as Kooper came up with the answer to their copies mimicking their actions, they plan failed after being unable to create a mirror image of the previous hall. "Duplighosts were disguised as us to make it look like we were walking alongside a long mirror."

"Then let's give them the element of surprise," Bombette said, running over to Kooper and lit up her fuse.

The rest of the group joined them and waited, Bombette blowing up and destroying the wall. Several startled yelps rang out on the other end, Rainbow and Watt zipping forward past their doppelgangers, the speedy pegasus bowling through them while the Lil' Sparky shocked and paralyzed each dazed Duplighost, knocking them out of their disguises. Fifteen stunned Dupilghosts groaned, unable to move their limbs as the hero party walking into the hall, now able to explore the other side of the Crystal Palace.

"Aww, crud," the foe that was disguised as Kooper grumbled. "I knew we were going to get caught."

"Hey, it's not my fault she's so hyper and moves around so much!" the Duplighost who copied Pinkie exclaimed. "You guys try pretending to be her!"

"And it didn't help you copycats when I stayed behind and watched you all press yourselves against the wall when you failed to blow up your side's crumbled wall," Kooper said.

"...I can't blow up like a Bob-omb," the one who mimicked Bombette sadly admitted. "We can't do everything we copy."

They then knocked out the Duplighosts, continuing on as they now had to search through more of the palace than they expected, the mirror sides merely an illusion thanks to the perfectly symmetrical design of the ancient temple and the many glass walls splitting the two sides in half. Making their way back into the foyer, they went through the white door on this side, finding a similar looking hallway they traversed before, only instead of a red "X" on the floor, there was a wooden floor panel.

"Two different ways to go, huh?" Lakilester asked. Mario approached the wooden floor, jumped up, then spin dove down, smashing through the board and bouncing off a spring down below into a lower level. "Think we should split up and see where each route takes us?"

"It's risky with Duplighosts running around, but it'll save us less time," Twilight said. "And remember the code word."

They soon split up into two separate groups, exploring their floors down a hallway until they reached a dead end. On the upper level, the first group found a Shooting Star sitting in at the end, while the lower level group's had a treasure chest containing a green badge with an orange and yellow arrow twisting in opposite directions. Unfortunately, there was no red key, both groups meeting back up in the foyer, making sure to use their code phrase to make sure they weren't impostors.

"Now what do we do?" Fluttershy asked.

"Umm, are we really stuck now?" Watt asked. "We didn't find another key."

"Neither did we," Goombario said. "And the only way further in the Crystal Palace has to be through those red doors."

While they pondered what to do next, Kooper put his mind to use as he looked around the symmetrical foyer. "Hmm...This place is symmetrical...No differences between either side split between the glass..." He suddenly had another idea, recalling the red "X" that was on the opposite side. "If that includes any side rooms...Guys, let's head back to the other side. I have a feeling that 'X' must be where a lower level is just like this side!"

"You mean on the real side or on the mirror side?" Pinkie asked. "Can we call the side we're on the Mirror Side and the side we entered is the Reality Side to avoid confusion?"

"Ah second that," Applejack agreed, feeling her eyes cross as she rubbed her head in bewilderment. "Ah'm already confused with which one's the right one."

"Just follow me." Kooper lead the way, making the long trek back around to the side they entered and made it to the hallway where they found the blue key. The red "X" wasn't there anymore, a hole similar to the one Mario broke through in the Mirror Side. "Aha! I knew it!"

"W-Where did that hole come from!?" Rarity exclaimed as everyone was just as shocked and confused.

"We broke through it," Kooper explained. "The Crystal Palace has to have some magical properties with how much this place was meant to be a temple of worship to the Stars. This place is symmetrical in design, so anything that happens on one side..."

"...It has to be the same on the other," Twilight finished, already fascinated by the mystical, mysterious ruins that have been lost for many years. "That's incredible. And the hole looks exactly like the Mirror Side's."

"Ok, no idea exactly how that works, but we'll go with it," Goombario said. "So, what's down there? Hopefully the next key."

Sticking together, they all jumped down, bouncing off the spring and continued onward. At the other end of the hall, the next room was actually blocked off by a crumbled wall instead of an open passageway. Bombette was on the job as she approached the wall and blew up, but as she fell, four other Bombettes fell from the ceiling along with the original, startling the group as they all backed away from the five pink Bob-ombs.

"W-What the-!?" Bombette exclaimed. "Oh, Great! Now it's happening to me! Quit looking like me, you impostors!"

"Excuse me!" the first copy spoke, putting a lot of dramatic emphasis in her words. "You're the one who's the impostor! Mario, do something about that fake!"

"Oh, no, I'm the real Bombette," the second one said with a soon, her cheeks turned a brighter pink as if blushing. "You have to know its me, everyone. Those other Bob-ombs are big liars."

"NO! I'M THE REAL BOMBETTE!" the third one screamed. "DON'T FALL FOR THEIR TRICKS! I'LL BLOW ALL OF YOU UP IF YOU SO MUCH AS TOUCH ME!"

"N-No," the last copy said timidly, acting like Fluttershy as she stammered and paused in nervousness. "P-Please...You have to t-trust me...I'm n-not lying..."

The real Bombette let out a frustrated groan, leering at the copies as none of them even got close to how she spoke to everyone. "I'm starting to get sick of Duplighosts already! Guys, you have to believe I'm the real Bombette, right?"

It was clearly obvious the others were fakes, especially the last three where one's a hopeless romantic, one screams like a banshee, and the last one's scared of speaking up. The ones who did know Bombette more could tell the real one from the impostors. Mario grabbed his hammer and approached the shouty Bob-omb, giving it a hard thunk on the head.

"OWWWW!!!!!" the copy screamed, poofing back into his real form. "Aww dang it! How did you find me out!?"

"Bombette doesn't scream her head off," Goombario answered, bonking the shapeshifting ghost, making him flee in defeat.

Mario then smacked the one who was giving Mario goo-goo eyes. "Oooh! That hurt!" the fake said, almost as if it enjoyed it before turning back to normal. "I thought for sure I confused you guys!"

"I don't sound like a lovesick teenager who immediately has a crush on some boy she likes," Bombette grumbled.

After that Duplighost fled, Mario smacked the timid one, letting out a terrified whimper before reverting to his original self. "I-I won't forget this..."

Now with only one left, Mario approached the last clone and smacked it hard. "Ow! A painful blow!" the final Bombette doppelganger said with terrible acting before turning back to normal. "Crud. I thought this would have worked, but I guess we screwed up."

"No kidding," Bombette said, ramming into the Duplighost and sent him scurrying away. With the last of the Duplighosts gone and their plan to confuse everyone failing horribly, Bombette approached Mario. "Thanks for seeing I was the real Bombette, Mario. If you hit me with that hammer, I probably would have blown up on you while you were asleep. But you didn't, so here's a little something for my gratitude."

Bombette leapt up and gave Mario a kiss on the cheek, flustering the plumber as his cheeks turned red. The other girls giggled as the hero got his reward from the damsel of a bomb, though he was sure any girl he rescued aside from Peach would have probably done the same. Once Mario stopped blushing, they continued into the next room to find a chest, and inside that chest was the red key to the red doors. It was ironic how both the keys were in the same section, but on different floors, and it involved breaking the floor on the Mirror Side to make it open on the Reality Side. Mario kept hold of the key as they backtracked to the main foyer and finally progress further through the palace.

Making it back in the foyer, the group approached the switch, pressed it, shifted the wall back to the red door, and finally unlocked the door. It was odd to see just from unlocking one of the doors, the other side's lock also unlocked through some mysterious power, but at least they didn't have to find duplicates of the keys if they ever had to switch between either side. Entering the red door, they were now in a small room, the glass in here separated by a big gap, allowing them to enter the next hallway on either side. Sticking to the Reality Side, they walked through the doors and found a very peculiar sight.

Both sections had a thin bridge in the middle leading across the other side, the Reality Side had three White Clubbas barring their way forward, while the Mirror side had statues of them on pedestals, looking far too heavy to move even with Mario's enhanced strength through Applejack's inherited power. The only difference was that the Mirror Side had the doorway to continue onward while the Reality Side lead to a dead end. The Clubbas saw them, though they made no movements to charge after them.

"No one may pass!" the first White Clubba proclaimed. "The great and honorable Crystal King will not allow you all through!"

"And we aren't budging an inch!" the second one said.

"Yeah! The only way you'll get by is if you defeat us, but you're going to have to come to us because otherwise we'll end up moving the statues on the other end as well." The first two Clubbas turned around and leered at the third one for blabbing way too much, shocking the others when they saw the first two statues on the Mirror Side turn around along with them. "...What?"

"We're supposed to intimidate them into running away, not tell them how things work around here!" the first one yelled. "This is why you're in the back, because not even the Crystal King can trust you with being the first to guard the bridge!"

"Yeah, you guard the door like a lackey!" the second one said, putting his two coins in their comrade's loud mouth.

"Actually, we kinda figured out this place had a symmetrical feel to it when we encountered the Duplighosts pretending to be us a few rooms back," Twilight said. "And we don't even need to physically confront you anyway."

Twilight lit up her horn, grabbing the White Clubbas and lifted them up in the air with her telekinesis. "Wah! What's going on!?" the first Clubba exclaimed. "How are we flying!?"

As the alicorn kept the Clubbas hovering above the ground, the statues moved along with them as they flew off the ground, mimicking the real foes. She moved them over the pit the crystal bridge rested over, the three Clubbas looking down and gulping as they looked at Twilight, her horn fizzling out as she let go.

"...Oh no," the second Clubba said before all three of them screamed and fell down the pit, the statues following suit until they fell to a crash a moment later.

The party heard the statues crumble to pieces once they hit the ground below as well, their way forward no longer barred. They could hear the Clubbas reprimanding their third companion while trying to figure out how to climb out of the surprisingly deep hole. As they headed back to pass through to the Mirror side of the halls, they wondered who the Crystal King the Clubbas mentioned.

"So, was there a king who once lived here?" Sushie asked. "I thought the Crystal Palace was a temple."

"Did Merlar mention any royalty in her rambling?" Goombario asked. No one answered since they all fell asleep, Kooper and Twilight ashamed to be the more studious ones on ancient folklore as they nodded off from Madame Merlar's life story. "Of course not..."

"I'm gonna guess and say this Crystal King is working with Bowser," Lakilester said. "If his troops are here, then he must be 'ruling' this place while keeping the last Star Spirit from us."

"If there's anything informational to find once this is all over, maybe I'll work with Prof. Kolorado and go on an expedition with him to uncover what other secrets any older residents from Shiver City or Starborn Valley have heard stories about," Kooper said, ensuring himself to come back after they deal with Bowser and the Mushroom Kingdom was at peace again.

Passing over the bridge on the Mirror Side, they walked through the doors and found themselves in what appeared to be a dead end again. However, there was a small platform in the center between the thick glass splitting the rooms throughout the palace in half, and there was a red switch on either side. Curious, Mario pressed the switch, causing the platform to spin around like a turntable, everyone getting the idea as they used it as a means of switching themselves back to the Reality Side. It was a menial task as the party individually stepped on and off as Mario pressed the switch over and over, but once everyone was across, he hopped onto the turntable while Pinkie volunteered to press the switch.

As soon as they were all together, they continued onward, getting into a fight with a few more White Clubbas, but they easily overpowered the tougher foes. The Mirror side had a Duplighost wandering around, having watched the Clubbas get beaten, but he was at a dead end with a cracked wall back in the previous hall, and the way forward was on the Reality Side anyway, so they didn't bother dealing with the doppelganger and continued on.

The next room, they found only two doppelgangers on the other side of the glass, the Duplighosts disguised as Mario and Kooper. Instead of trying to mimic them, they approached the other side of the wall, where, on both sides, there was a small crawlspace that was only able to fit something as small as a shell. Not even Goombario or Bombette could squeeze through with how low it was. The Duplighosts demonstrated what to do as the Mario copy gave the Kooper copy a bounce, shooting him straight through the hole.

"Are they...trying to help us?" Fluttershy asked.

"Well, the wall's not breakable, so I don't think there's much I can do if it's stable," Bombette said.

"I can get through by myself," Kooper said. "I'll see if there's some kind of switch on the other end to open a way up."

The Koopa tossed himself through the small gap, the others waiting to see what he found. After a few minutes, they began to grow concerned when he didn't say anything and nothing happened.

"Kooper?" Parakarry called out. "Everything alright over-?"

Suddenly, they head numerous yelling on the other side of the wall. Before Bow tried to phase through the wall to find out what was happening, the wall suddenly broke down as several people came tumbling out, everyone moving back before the charging group bowled them over. Kooper groaned as he fell on his back in a slight daze, but along with him were Goombario's grandfather, Mario's brother, Luigi, Kolorado, and an elderly Koopa Troopa with a forest green shell, a grayish-white goatee, and had a walking stick in his hand.

"W-What in the heck!?" Goombario exclaimed as he saw Goompa lying on the ground.

Kooper stood up, rubbing his sore back as the other surprise guests stood up as well, the older Koopa firmly planting his cane to the ground to keep himself up. As soon as he got a look at them, he was shocked to see Kolorado and the elderly Koopa he knew back in Koopa Village, but it soon turned to irritation, knowing there was no possible way the older Koopa Troopa could even be here, let alone leave his house.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Kooper grumbled. "More Duplighosts!"

"Who are you calling a Duplighost, sonny?" the elder Koopa questioned, then turned to the surprised party. "Don't listen to this fake, everyone. I'm the real Kooper."

Their shock faded away as they stared at the elder Koopa, all the party's eyes blinking at him as they processed what he had just said. "...Are you kidding me?" Kooper questioned, his eye twitching out of bafflement. "...You're trying to pretend to be ME!?!?!?!? You're disguised as the old Koopa who lives next door to me, Koopa Koot! That's not even close to looking like me!"

"Then that means I'm the real Kooper," "Kolorado" said. "Mario, ol' boy, give that fake a good pounding, eh wot?"

"You're pretending to be Kolorado!" Kooper exclaimed. "He's back in Koopa Village as well, and there's no way he could have gotten up here without us if he went on another expedition!"

"I'm the real Kooper!" "Luigi" said. "Mario, brother, you've known me since we were babies! It's obvious I'm the real Kooper!"

Mario gave the fake a deadpanned stare, then let out an irritated sigh, rubbing his forehead as he got a worse headache than trying to figure out Pinkie Pie for the first since meeting her. The plumber just shook his head, knowing his brother was back at home watching the house. He needed to go back to check in with him before he thought his older brother almost got himself killed again, but that would have to wait until they stopped Bowser. Defeating the Koopa King is far more important than the previous times he's trounced him, his power increasing dramatically with the Star Rod in his claws.

"Nonsense! I'm Kooper," "Goompa" said. "My own grandson should know me better than you all."

"You're not even a Koopa!" Kooper complained.

"Ok, I'm getting sick of this pointless charade." Twilight lit up her horn, firing a beam of magic at the obvious fakes, zapping the Duplighosts back in their normal forms.

They turned to the alicorn, blinking in silence as their plan had ultimately failed. "...Well, this didn't work out quite as well as I thought it would."

"Clearly," Rarity commented. "Were you even trying?"

"We ran out of ideas!" one of the foes exclaimed. "We may be master's of disguise, but we can't come up with lots of ways to trick you!"

"That means no," Pinkie said. "I could have done a better job changing into a disguise."

"Yeah, right," another Duplighost said with a roll of his eyes. "How can you change the way you look when you clearly don't have the same skills we-" Within the blink of an eye, he froze on his words as Pinkie was suddenly wearing a white sheet over herself, her blue eyes peeking through the eyeholes cut out through them, wearing pink shoes similar to the footwear the Duplighosts wore, and a small bit of her pink mane had stuck out similarly to theirs, although it was still pretty poofy. Flabbergasted, the Duplighosts stared at the pink pony as she tried to pretend to be one of them. "...H-How...How did you do that?"

"Because I'm a Duplighost, too!" Pinkie said, lifting up her forelegs up in the air, waving them around creepily as she let out a ghostly wail. "Oooooooooh! Spooky shape-shifting ghostie-goo I beeeeeee! I turn into somepony and pretend to be them to steal their sooooooouuuuuul!"

The shape-shifters looked at each other, headaches already forming, yet they were shocked that their enemies invading the palace not even remotely shocked by Pinkie's random costume change or antics. "...You know what, forget it. Let's get out of here."

The other Duplighosts agreed and fled, admitting defeat from their failed attempt to trick the group. "Good riddance," Kooper uttered. "At least that's one way of getting through. Couldn't find a switch or lever to open the wall in a safer, less painful way, but as long as we don't run into anymore of those things, I'm good."

Continuing onward through the hole in the wall, there were two doorways to go through, along with two others on the Mirror Side. Going down to the closest door, the only thing in the next room was a big statue of a Dino, as Goombario explained to the mares after witnessing the carving of the dangerous-looking creature. This also brought more questions for Kooper, wondering what Dinos had involved with the Crystal Palace, but that would have to wait until he really explored this place like an archaeologist. They headed back to the central hall and pressed on to another longer hallway.

They found their "reflections" again on the other side mimicking their movements, having had enough dealing with Duplighosts copying them. Ignoring them, they saw a wide gap leading across to another doorway, but the switch was on the Mirror Side. Since their "reflections" could mimic them, Parakarry decided to fly over the gap, and watching his doppelganger, pressed his hands down to where the switch was, forming a bridge that moved out from the walls. They walked across and reached the door, entering a room where there was an empty space in the glass shaped like a doorway, their way forward blocked by two sets of locked doors. Preparing themselves to face the copies on the other side, they walked through the gap to the Mirror Side, Mario gripping his hammer while placing his free hand on the door handle, then slammed it open as everyone charged in to fight them.

"Time fight, you-" Rainbow exclaimed, only for everyone's adrenaline to droop when there was no sign of the Duplighosts disguised as them earlier. "-...are not...here???" Being cautious, the group looked around, but there was no way the Duplighosts could turn invisible. "...Uhhh, weren't they just here?"

"They couldn't have escaped," Goombario said. "It was a dead end back in the other room. And with both sides mirrored, it should be a dead end with a Dino statue as well."

"...You don't think it's possible that...maybe that was actually our reflections?" Fluttershy asked. "If they were those...things, would they have risked copying us to help us through?"

Fluttershy's question only brought so many questions for Kooper and Twilight, making them both eager to explore this ancient building and discover what secrets that has been forgotten by the locals. It was too bad they had to force that eagerness to learn about the ancient culture, no thanks to Bowser and his growing strength threatening the peace of the Mushroom Kingdom as the days passed. Wondering where their mirror selves were in this hall no more, they hurried on and backtracked to the other room and checked the adjacent doorway with the Dino statue.

This room had a smaller Dino statue instead, and there were scratch marks on the floor beside it. "And, yet again, no sign of there being a key to nab," Bow commented.

"Maybe we can move this statue?" Bombette asked. "It looks like it's been moved frequently in the past."

"Let's give it a go." Applejack volunteered, being the physically strongest member of the party outside of Mario and the magical strength enchantment he willed to use in combat. Getting behind the statue, she shoved her shoulder toward it and pushed with an exerted grunt, making it move across the ground, and if this was like the statues of the White Clubbas, she could have also moved the larger Dino statue in the opposite room. "There we go-WHOA!"

Applejack didn't notice the hole the statue covered up and fell down. Luckily, there was a spring that broke her fall, springing her up a bit before plopping to the ground with a grunt.

"Applejack!" Twilight shouted, she and the other mares running up to the hole and looked down. "Are you alright!?"

"Ah'm fine," Applejack assured, grabbing her hat after falling off her head during her short plummet in the room and fixing it back on her head. "Didn't think there was gonna be a hole. These here springs sure are helpful, though."

"Are there any Duplighosts, Swoopulas, or White Clubbas down there?" Lakilester asked.

"It's safe. No baddies down here." The others leapt down, making sure everyone was all together before entering the next hall.

At the other end was a room with a chest, holding another badge that was similar to the other one they had found, only the badge was red and the arrows spiraled counterclockwise. Figuring the key was in the Reality Side's hidden passageway, they backtracked all the way around to where the big Dino statue was.

"Ok, backtracking is really annoying!" Pinkie commented. "It's not fun, and it's tiring! Who thought this was a good idea to put into a game to get back to something and fight more things to exhaust us!? They are not geniuses and should be put in the corner of shame!"

Ignoring Pinkie's rambling, they reached the big Dino statue, their hunch correct as it had moved just like the smaller Dino statue had, covering a hole just like its mirrored counterpart. Mario decided to go down on his own to check if the key was down here, finding a chest with said key, returning, and answered the code phrase when Twilight asked to be certain it wasn't a Duplighost. Now with the key, they made their way back to the locked door, Mario unlocking one of them, making both locks open and clatter to the ground.

"Please let there be no more glass," Rarity pleaded. "The climb up here was tiring, and wandering around is hurting my legs. And I think my hooficure I just got is already ruined."

Thankfully, the next room was actually very spacious and wide, no glass to separate the halls or rooms into two mirrored sides. There was a doorway up ahead, but it was suspended in the air with no staircase reaching it. Before them were three Dino statues on their left, and on the right, to their surprise, were living Dinos, their scales white with red spines.

"Whoa! Actual Albino Dinos!?" Goombario exclaimed.

"Albino Dinos?" Twilight asked.

"Albino Dinos have white scales, but regular Dinos are green," the Goomba explained.

"And...they're alive," Kooper noted as he saw their eyes looking in their direction and calm breathing. "How long have they been here?"

"You cannot go through here unless you solve the puzzle," the three Albino Dinos said simultaneously. "Once you solve the puzzle, we'll let you through."

Despite how scary and threatening they seemed, Fluttershy didn't care, flying over to one of them and hugging them as she tried to get to know them. The Albino Dinos were stoic, the one being hugged barely showing any emotion or movement, almost as if it had been trained for decades to stand at attention, being as still as the statues on the opposite end of the room. Letting Fluttershy be, the rest of the group looked around the room to figure out what the puzzle the Dinos mentioned that they should solve.

The Albino Dinos and their statues were placed on a slightly lowered section of the floor. There were three floor panels in the center of those two sections, which must have been the answer to solving the puzzle. And since there were three Dinos, living and statue, they had to stand on those panels in order to create the solution.

"I think I figured it out," Kooper said, snapping his fingers as he approached one of the Dinos. "Let's push these guys on those panels and see what happens." He tried to shove the closest Dino over to the nearby panel, only for the stoic creature to turn around and face him, his statue turning around as well to face where Kooper would have been on the opposite end. Kooper yelped and leapt backward, waiting for it to attack him for being to rough, but the Albino Dino didn't move. "Ok...Guess pushing them around won't work."

"That is so strange how the statues face the opposite direction the real ones are," Rarity noted. "It was just like those Clubbas in that one hallway."

"Then maybe we can move the statues." Twilight lit up her horn, surrounding her aura around one of the Dino statues. But as she tried to lift it, she grunted, unable to even pick it up. "Huh?" The alicorn poured more magic into her levitation, but no matter how much she struggled, it barely even budged an inch. Giving up on lifting it, she tried pushing it. Sadly, she tried ever direction, just about to give up until it finally did move when she pushed it in the same direction it face, causing the Albino Dino it was connected to to move and follow its mirrored direction. "Ugh! Finally!"

"Wait, Twilight, push that Dino forward!" Kooper said, noticing something interesting as he watched Twilight's struggles. The alicorn obeyed, moving the statue forward a bit, making the Dino move as well. "Ok, now try pushing it back where it was."

Twilight nodded, but as she pushed it backward, the statue didn't budge. "What the hay? Why isn't it moving??? It moved before."

Mario had noticed what the Koopa Troopa had discovered. Running up to a different statue, he pushed in the direction where he was facing the Dino's gaze, no movement whatsoever. Then, he walked around and got behind it from the direction it faced, and with a small push, it moved forward. It clicked with the others when the plumber helped explain Kooper's discovery: the Dino statues are able to be moved, but only in the direction they're looking in, and the only way to change them around and move them onto the three panels was to making the living Albino Dinos turn to face a direction.

Figuring out the puzzle, everyone split up and worked with a Dino, one side teasing the Dino to turn to them while the other side pushed the statues around to maneuver them onto the panels. Fluttershy tried to ask one of them to turn in her direction, but they only responded to physical touch instead of a verbal command. After a bit of work, they got the Dinos and their statues to stand on the special panels, making the stairway roll out from the doorway, giving them access to climb up and continue onward.

"This place is just plain weird," Applejack commented, climbing up the steps, Fluttershy chasing after them after saying goodbye to the Dinos. "Everythin' bein' symmetrical, mirrored creatures and rooms. How is this related to the Stars?"

"It is strange," Lakilester commented. "Not sure if we'll get much out of Bowser's cronies with them messing around here."

"Not to mention the Crystal King," Kooper added. "I have a bad feeling he's going to be a lot tougher than anything else we've faced before."

"We've got the strength in numbers and awesome skills!" Rainbow reassured, pounding her hooves together as she psyched herself up for the battle against the Crystal King. "There's no way we can lose, especially when you have the six of us!"

"Yeah! Rainbow power all the way!" Pinkie cheered. "One easy blast of friendship and one less baddie to deal with!" Just as she began to celebrate using their powers of the Elements of Harmony, Pinkie stopped as she looked out to something with a leer. "Unless of course somepony wants to draw out the boss fight for a whole chapter while adding more story at the end, or transitioning back to what's been happening in Equestria."

Parkarry grew confused, looking around him as Pinkie seemed to be looking at him. "...Uhh, were you talking to me?"

"Not important," she quickly said before lifting a hoof, pointing at her eyes, then pointed it at what the others couldn't see.

Letting Pinkie be Pinkie, Parakarry shrugged his shoulders. They were getting close to what seemed like the end of the temple, which only meant that the last obstacle standing in their way of retrieving the final Star Spirit was beyond the next room after the large puzzle room with the Albino Dinos. Mario took the lead as the party walked through the final set of doors, reaching the back of the Crystal Palace as they prepared to face the Crystal King, the last of Bowser's strongest henchmen.