Luigi had returned to the room where the ghosts had assaulted him, his eyes gazing around the room. They stopped and fixated on a few gold coins laying around on a table and the floor.
Luigi nervously looked at the monsters inhabiting the room. They were scary, for sure. A violent shade of yellow, they growled at Luigi, waiting for him to get closer. Indescribable and hideous, they watched him, and Luigi watched them, keeping his distance. He was scared. Terrified. He did not want to get too close to the monsters, knowing they might hurt him.
Luigi avoided going anywhere near the coins, and eventually reached the back end of the room, where he used the Poltergust to extinguish the candles.
Luigi was enthralled by the cake set out before him, and blew out the candles. Sure, it wasn't his birthday, but who ever said it was a birthday cake?
Floating oranges, not unlike the ones from earlier, floated into the room. Excited, Luigi grabbed and ate one. It was delicious!
The other orange ghosts watched in horror as the man in green stoically sucked their friend into the nozzle of his Poltergust. He then turned, his eyes piercing their ghostly bodies, before they too were dragged screaming into the nozzle, never to be seen again.
"Those were delicious!"
Still hungry for more fruit, Luigi entered the next room, where he was pleased to see there were no monsters, just a few more oranges and two pink strawberries. Luigi ate this new flavor.
The Purple Punchers, pink slender ghosts who were known among the mansion for their heavy punches, rarely had anything to fear. It was on this day that they found themselves falling to a mere human, one of their favorite types of living beings to pick on. Luigi stood stock still, finishing off the ghosts, before marching on into the next room.
Luigi was pleased to meet another new floating fruit, this time a nice large green apple. He also opened up a cabinet to find a blueberry.
The Speedy Spirit, small and blue, was the fastest ghost in the mansion. It also bore a huge amount of money, and had Luigi chosen to suck it up he would have made a financial boon.
Luigi didn't like blueberries, so he let it float away, focusing on the others. Once he felt satisfied, he returned to the foyer, resuming his mission.
One of four Toads sent to look for Mario sat crying in the dark foyer. He had seen Luigi enter, and had called out to him, but the younger brother of Mario ignored him, as if he couldn't even see him.
Luigi was never as fond of mushrooms as his brother was, so he chose not to eat the large one growing in the foyer. He instead went over to the next door and opened it.
Hideous cracking sounds filled the mansion as Luigi smashed down the locked door before him, kicking the remaining portions off of the hinges before walking into the hallway. Here, ghosts had set up a trail of coins to one of their favorite tricks; a fake door that would slam anyone who tried to open it against the wall.
Luigi shuddered in horror at the row of monsters sitting on the ground, growling at him. It seems not even here was free of them. Avoiding them, he entered the nearest room, where a cheerful-looking man sat in a chair.
It had been a long time since Neville had seen a human. True, he had just seen a similar man in red just recently, but he meant it was a long time before that. This one was different though. Neville tried to ignore the man, but the moment he yawned he felt himself suddenly being dragged toward a nozzle the man was holding. He scrambled to escape, and much to his surprise he did, as if the man had given up. All of a sudden he started again, and once again let Neville escape. Neville backed up, not quite able to just phase through a wall and escape at the moment.
The cheerful man giggled.
"Wow, Luigi, you sure are good at this!"
Luigi and the man had been playing assorted games. Jumprope, hopscotch, catch, you name it. All things Luigi enjoyed. Eventually, they played their last game, and Luigi won.
Neville let out one last scream of panic as he was dragged through the nozzle, his last thoughts beforehand consisting of his wife and three children, and what would happen to them.
Luigi exited the room, used the vacuum to move several of the coins out of the way, and entered the room at the end of the hall. Neville's wife, Lydia, had heard her husband, and was on edge, watching the foreign man with terror.
"Wanna play?"
"Sure!"
Lydia was given the same treatment. Pulled in and then released, repeatedly, rather than being pulled in in one gulp. It was as if Luigi was just toying with her cruelly, not caring about efficiency or the pearls dropped by ghosts so much as drawing out their suffering. Once he was finished, a baby's cry caught his attention, and he followed it to its source.
Chauncey cried. Even as a baby, he knew something bad had happened. He cried even more when the cold man entered his room, but became too scared to even cry when the man marched up to his crib and leered down at him, his eyes emotionless and empty. Chauncey quickly did his favorite trick; shrinking down humans to a much smaller size than him, and trying to crush them in his crib.
Luigi adored babies, and playing with this huge one was fun. Luigi sat and watched as the baby sprinkled confetti on him.
Chauncey wasn't expecting it to be this easy. The man didn't even move out of the way of the attacks, allowing himself to be battered and hit all around. He didn't seem to care, and not the slightest sound of pain escaped his lips. All of a sudden, once he was "weakened", perhaps "weakened enough as to get only a bronze" if this were a game, the man retaliated, launching Chauncey's own bouncy balls back at him and sucking him into the vacuum with scarily efficient ease.
Luigi returned to the igloo, and hugged the cow. He then looked over at a fancy machine he hadn't noticed, all sorts of candy-like ornaments decorating it. His joyous feeling changed to horror, when he saw what the machine did.
It was creating clones of the Dark Lord. Three clones popped out of the machine, each adorned with bronze armor, before disappearing down into a hatch. So this was his plan. Luigi knew he couldn't stop the machine or deal with the clones, so there was only one solution. Find the Dark Lord himself, and thrust him into his own machine, to stop them both.
Professor E. Gadd looked at the three bronze-framed portraits in confusion. Certainly, the boy seemed much more promising? His competence with the machine was unparalleled, as if he himself were just another machine part hooked up to it. Come to think of it, the man was like a machine, cold and precise. So why was he toying with the gallery ghosts and taking such a beating against Chauncey?
Gadd looked at the man again, but he was already climbing the ladder to return to the mansion. What was his issue...?
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