Both Yoshi and Birdo looked at the soil-coated figure that grabbed the screaming Luigi.
"Help me!" the plumber screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Oh, no!" Yoshi gasped. "That...soil-thing creature got Luigi!"
"What is that creature, anyway?!" Birdo asked.
"I have no idea."
"I don't suppose you've seen a glimpse of it somewhere in your adventures with Mario?"
"Nope, only now—I haven't seen that thing around Yoshi's Island either."
Luigi cleared his throat. "A-look, you—if you two are gonna talk and talk like that, then sure as heck I'll be a-dinner by now!"
"Birdo," Yoshi said to his pink dinosaur friend, "we need to find a way to save Luigi."
Birdo nodded. "W-ell, for starters, we need to be able to make that thing let go of Luigi."
Yoshi looked at the thrashing plumber for a fraction of a second, and then nodded in agreement. "I second the motion."
The green dinosaur studied the being, all while looking for a way to make it let go of its hostage. The creature's entire frame seems to be entirely coated in soil, and it was huge. Yoshi didn't have to look from head to toe to determine its size—its arm alone was fifty feet long!
"Where's the rest of its body?" Birdo asked. "The way I see it, Luigi's being grabbed by a giant arm, and—"
An eye mysteriously appeared on the ground by the spot Birdo was standing, causing the pink dinosaur to stop her sentence cold and jerk away.
Yoshi stared after his pink friend, and blanched. "Where'd the eye come from?!"
"I don't know!" Birdo gasped.
The eye immediately closed just before Yoshi could even take a step closer to fully examine it, causing the dinosaur duo to look at each other in confusion.
"What was that all about?" Birdo asked.
"I...I'm not...really sure...," Yoshi answered.
"Can I say something?"
Both Birdo and Yoshi looked up to see Luigi looking down at them with his eyes wide with both shock and realization.
"What is it, pal?" Yoshi asked.
"I dunno about you, Yoshi, but from up here, I have a feeling we're not dealing with a giant arm."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that when I saw that eye open near Birdo the Funnel-Snout—"
"Watch it," Birdo seethed, disbelieved that Luigi could still take a chance to insult her even at a time like this.
Yoshi facepalmed himself.
"—I'm a-starting to wonder: Could it be possible that this whole area is the bad guy? I mean, when you a-put it together, Yoshi, it makes sense. 'Among the forest mass and its trees you must be, to engage so the next destination you will see.' A-don't you get it, Yoshi? I think that riddle meant in order for us to a-figure out where we'll be headed to next, we need to fight among the forest mass..."
"...which happens to be this area of the forest itself," Yoshi gasped in realization. "The one we need to fight is right here! And we're stepping on him! He's beneath our feet!"
"I don't know if I should feel happy that you two figured out something or weird that a bad guy is beneath our feet," Birdo commented quietly, for Yoshi's ears only.
"Trust me on this one, Birdo, after everything Luigi and I went through, everything is weird."
Suddenly, the eye that had opened and closed earlier opened again, then the iris wheeled toward Yoshi.
Yoshi gulped.
After a beat of a second, another massive arm appeared, the soil-coated and tree-lined fingers of the hand closing in on the green dinosaur.
"Look out, Yoshi!" Birdo warned with a shout.
"Huh?" Yoshi turned around just in time to see the hands move toward him, ready to capture him; however, he managed to narrowly move out of the way just before the fingers could ensnare around him.
"That was close," Yoshi panted.
"Uh, Yoshi...?" Birdo called.
"Yeah...?"
"I have a feeling this guy has more than one pair of eyes," the pink dinosaur said in a shaky voice, looking at the multitude of "rocks" that opened to reveal they were actually eyes.
"Oh no," Yoshi mumbled, looking at the eyes that all centered on Birdo.
The same arm that had grabbed Yoshi earlier tried to take a swipe on Birdo as well; luckily, with just about the same luck, the pink dinosaur managed to take a narrow dodge on its assault just before it could have her.
"That was close," Birdo quoted the very same words Yoshi had panted under his breath just less than two minutes ago.
Yoshi studied each of the eyes that looked around (some of them were closed) and noticed something on an individual eye—it popped out of its socket, sprouted wings, and flew close to the green dinosaur.
Yoshi tensed, and, as soon as it was just inches near, he opened his mouth, and using his tongue, he took in the flying eyeball in his mouth.
Yech, Yoshi cringed internally. His mouth was screwed.
"Ew," Birdo muttered, shuddering.
Sparing no time, Yoshi laid an egg out of the eyeball he swallowed, and shot it at the arm that held Luigi captive.
The arm swayed at the blow, and then it loosened its grip on the green plumber.
"Luigi," Yoshi called, "can you be able to move now?"
Luigi squirmed a bit, and nodded. "Pretty much, yeah..."
Then he punched at the fingers of the hand that had him, allowing the hand to let him go...
...and as a result, he fell off.
"Help!" Luigi screamed, falling from fifty feet off the ground.
Alarmed, Yoshi ran toward the spot where Luigi was bound to land, and then, with his arms wide open, he caught the thin Mario brother mid-scream.
"Got you," Yoshi whispered to Luigi.
The green dinosaur carefully set Luigi down.
All three of them looked up at the giant arm that was twitching, then recovering from the blow afterwards.
"We have to stop that guy—not only might we be able to get a clue to rescue Mario and the others, we just might also be able to save Yoshi's Island," Yoshi said.
Luigi and Birdo were speechless. Then Luigi actually looked at Birdo directly for the first time in a long while, and said, with no meanness or cruelty, "Hey, Birdo, you think you'd be better off out of this mess?"
Birdo gave Luigi an even look, and said with no hesitation, "No, I'm in this—I'm not going anywhere."