Hey, peeps. Yep, Selene here. Jus' uploadin' a little multi-chapter thaaaang 'bout what happened during the time between when Gadd captured Boolossus, and when he met Luigi--YES IT'S ABOUT GADD. If you know anything about me, you know this was coming. Yes, I'm working on the other, but... I'd rather do it in Word. This I did in WordPad. xD I don't have Word, as this is a new computer 'm doin' stuff with. Anyway, enjoy! And don't just press the back button just because it's 'bout Gadd. ;P
Deep in the depths of the cold, damp earth, where only the deceased, and burrowing creatures made their home... Life thrived, in a small subterranean pocket of habitable space. The earth was his home, sheltering and forgiving, unlike the masses of stupid people above the surface, whose prying eyes and curious hands could easily ruin a lengthy experiment, and be the downfall of an invention before it could even be 'born,' so to speak. The earth was not a chilly, dank place to be avoided for him, but a warm, dry place of solitude; just what he liked.
This warm, dry place had been filled up to the brim though, with whirring inventions and clanking machines, easily confused for unharmonious racket to the untrained ear, but heard as a continuous melody of technology and progress for he. Hell, he hardly even heard his melody anymore, after years of letting it serenade him as he worked diligently, for reasons of his own. Nearly every day he found a reason to live and be down here, creating, sculpting, some new thing he hoped one day, the world would find useful. His only real reason to be out of this wonderful place? Well, groceries, obviously, but also...
Ghost-hunting.
Was he insane? Was he short a full deck? Surely he had to be, to hunt something considered only fantasy by some, infra-sound by others, and horrible, vengeful beings by many.
No, he was not insane. Ghosts had long since intrigued him for whatever reason, and he found in himself a duty to the people--whom he believed had only a short amount of time to live, and thus, should not have had their short time compromised by the hauntings of beings who literally had an eternity to do as they pleased--to hunt these undead apparitions, and perhaps even, study them at the same time, and shed light on a subject long-held taboo by the masses.
Sixty years, since a young, trembling lad of twenty, he'd hunted ghosts. From the most common--and most irritating--ghost mice, to ghosts... like tonight; ghosts, like the dreaded, "Boolossus," the amalgam of fifteen Boos, squished together to form one, huge, intimidating Boo. But he'd done it, after a long battle; he'd caught the Boolossus.
No wonder he was dancing his way into his laboratory.
After stepping off the ladder that descended some thirty feet into the ground--into his earthy laboratory (fondly called, "The Lab"), he skipped once, bypassing a machine or two, and opened a heavy iron door into his Portraificationizer Room; the room where--if you hadn't guessed--he turned the hostile spirits he caught into beautiful portraits of themselves to be kept safe in his gallery; safe in the sense that other mortals remained safe from their hostility, and the ghosts themselves remained safe from whatever else was out there. A chortle, a twirl of the nozzle of his... vacuum? And the little man inserted the nozzle into a slot. A flick, and the enormous machine next to him began to move and groan to life.
Now, if you haven't done the math, this little man was some eighty years old, and yes, still hunting ghosts. A spry fellow, yes, but this fight had shown something to him that he hated, he deplored to admit: he was growing older, and time was catching up with him. He didn't care that his hair had faded from dark ebony to snowy white; he didn't care that little freckle-ish spots spattered his temples and hands; he didn't care if wrinkles had etched themselves around his eyes, and furrowed down from his nose, curving around his mouth. He was not a man to care for outward appearances too greatly (wearing a lab coat, even when an experiment is not being done at the moment might give you a hint).
He did care, when his back kinked, and nearly cost him his life in this last fight. He considered himself lucky; he'd escaped with only a laceration to his forearm. With a glance to his arm, he sighed, ending his happy dancing/wiggling in pure schadenfreude for his defeated foe. His labcoat sleeve had begun to stain red, and now, after an adrenaline high had begun to wear off, he could feel the merciless sting throbbing from his wound.
He remembered the moment vividly: the dodge to escape the bouncing behemoth's wake, the scramble (hobble, to be more correct) to safety as pain shot up his back, the fall against the tree (that miraculously fixed his back), and the slide of his arm down a jagged root sticking up from the ground. With no time to tend his wound, he had leapt to his feet, and in a moment of sheer tenacity, sucked that bugger up into the vacuum strapped to his back--his prized ghost-capturing invention, the Poltergust 3000.
But.. now was the time to tend his wounds, as little spirits began to sink into the large containment chamber, filled with a clear liquid of some creation. Gadd could see their tiny tear-drop bodies through the window of his machine, and around and around they swirled, like clothes in a washing machine (of which this curious machine resembled greatly). He slipped off his lab coat, tossed it over the railing of some machine, and went to retrieve his first-aid kit (an essential for any inventor) as the ghosts were tumbled, turned, flattened, shocked, and framed in his machine.
When his wound had been cleaned (damn, that stung), he took a roll of... duct tape? Yes, duct tape (it solves everything, don'tchya know), ripped off a slice with his teeth, and slapped it over the red slit on his arm, before winding gauze around and around the length of the wound until the duct tape could no longer be seen. Once more, he grabbed an end with his teeth, and dexterously tied a knot in the gauze, to hold it in place on his arm. If one could be there to watch, it might have been a curious sight, to see a little old man tending a wound that any other would have gone to get stitches for, with duct tape and gauze.
He almost smiled as he flexed his wrist and arm, testing the extent of the damage to his right arm--nothing too terrible, especially for a left-handed man. He enjoyed being so self-sufficient, so independent of society. It gave him a sort-of pride, that really, didn't help his ego too much. A smart man he was, oh, most certainly. But knowing this gave him an ego of almost monstrous proportions.
Well, if you do great things, you must be great, right?
Mumbling something irritable to himself about his wound, he walked to the end of his Portraification machine with a nonchalant air, grinning widely at the painting that awaited him at the end of the conveyor belt. And angry, tremendous Boo snarled back at him from the painting, looking as if it could leap out, and attack its merciless captor any moment. But the little man found nothing frightening in this image at all; in fact, he looked to be bathing himself in pleasure at seeing his foe so unhappy, and so unable to do anything from its prison of canvas and oils.
"Yeah, tha's whatchoo get, ya friggin' little Boo-bastard, draggin' me around like that," the little man chortled, throwing his head back as he took the painting out of the Portraificationizer room, and into another room, far quieter than any other. Two angels stood in quiet, reposeful sentry over the gallery-halls, where more paintings of blue beings with tails, in almost every shape and size, slept quietly in oil-paintings adorning the grey, stone walls. He looked around for a few minutes, trying to find an empty spot, that perhaps might look good with an enormous, raging Boo in it--Ah, there! Next to a skinny ghost with a pool-stick! A hammer, some nails, and up the painting went, to keep a fellow named Slim Bankshot company.
The little man looked up at his prize, standing akimbo like a valiant hero, returned from his quest. But he certainly didn't have a hero's composure, as he shifted his weight to one leg, and gave a sassy, three-snap display of dominance with the obligatory head-movement.
"Hah ya like m' now, hmmm? Tch, uh-uh, bitch, uh-uh, you bettah not mess with Professah Elvin Gadd, mm-mm."
One can only imagine what that Boo might have been thinking.
"Ffffffff... Ugh, I'm waaay too white for that crap." The apparent professor paused, listening to a hungry growl rumble from his stomach. "Whup, and reeeally hungry too."
Night continued, stars filling the skies above the eerie green-hued forest, called home by the ghost-capturing man. Creatures of all kinds had already ventured from their hiding places to forage and hunt, surviving by their own means in a forest no "civilized" creature would dare live by.
But in the tiny shack, above the dark underground lab, long after empty stomachs had been filled and lights had been turned out, the little man lay sleeping, resting a tired old body after a long day of adventure and tire. The little shack didn't have much above-ground, unlike the lab--a bed, a kitchen-ish area, a couch, a hatch leading to the ladder slipping into the lab, etc.. Nothing stirred, nothing moved, besides the quilt covering the good professor as he breathed in placid dreaming.
Until... something shattered. Not just glass... but an entire world, in only an instant...
Without hesitation, he had shot up, throwing the blankets and snatching up his enormous, round glasses to set on his round, button-nose. Even not quite fully awake, his mind was racing and turning over itself to what could have happened, down in the Lab he'd guessed, from the noise emanating from the... open hatch?! He'd left that closed when he'd gone to sleep!
He was certain now...
Something... was horribly wrong.
Unheeding that he still wore his blue nightgown and cap, he neglected his slippers, and almost threw himself down the ladder into his precious laboratory. Who, what, when, where, and most of all, why, thrummed his brain, tormenting him as he tried to adjust to the darkness of his lab. Even as he flicked the switch on the wall, no light came to his aid; the lightbulbs had been smashed.
Hee hee hee hee heea ha ha ha ha...
Gadd froze. He froze completely, certain his heart had stopped as every hair on the back of his neck stood on end--not only in fright, but as a signal that--he knew, from years of ghost-hunting...
There were ghosts in his lab. And they were not in paintings...
He raced for a corner of the lab, where his dearest ally now, his Poltergust, lay, shining in the dim light like a beacon of hope for him. He leapt for it with a yelp...
And never met the floor.
Something, some invisible, horrible thing, had grabbed him and suspended him in the air as he writhed desperately, with every ounce of strength he still had. "'Ey, ya bastards, lemme go!" he hollered, but no one paid attention to him, over the maniacal laughter echoing in his Lab.
"Ohhh, we can't do that, good Professor..." a hateful, rasping voice tauntingly commented. Gadd was certain the voice was only inches from his face, from the volume, and cold, dry breath upon him. How he wished he was wrong, wrong wrong wrong, when the voice finally appeared... coming from a face far too akin to Bolossus to be comfortable.
This Boo, whose fangs gleamed pearly white against a blue tongue, floated a good half-size larger, at least, than the other dozen Boos who had appeared moments after himself. While the other Boos flew and zipped with beady, scornful black eyes... the eyes that narrowed on the little man just before them bore a crimson tint... like blood, Gadd noted, along with the golden crown, and ruby jewel balanced precariously on this orbous creature's... head... or was it body?
In the darkness, Gadd's face paled to nearly the ivory white of the Boos around him. His brown eyes quivered, looking over what he was certain to be his death, just in front of him.
"Ohhh... don't tell me ya weren't expecting some kind of retaliation for capturing my Boolossus of Rhodes, hm?"
Ugh, what a horrible joke, the Professor winced.
"Well, Professor, Boo on you for not seeing this!" The enormous Boo threw back his head-body to cackle, as Gadd's face only continued to fall further. Until something inside Gadd began to awaken; some indescribable, primal urge to survive, that gave him the strength to continue to writhe and worm, despite the iron hold on his little body from the Boo he couldn't see behind him.
"God-dammit, let me go!!" he nearly screamed, jerking himself. Breathing hard, he happened to look up, and hear a sickening noise.
His Portraification machine was being run.
"What're you doing? What're you doing?!" Gadd yelped, trying to jerk himself in the direction of the Portaification room. The royal Boo in front of him sneered mercilessly as he floated close to Gadd, grabbed the little man's head with his fins, and turned it toward the room.
"Just... helping yer ghosts find a new home." The enormous king let go of Gadd's head, and went cackling into the room, out of sight, but not out of ear shot of the professor.
The little old man...
Lost it.
His work--his precious years of work, was at stake, and he could do absolutely nothing as this floating jackal continued to shred his pride to pieces. He flailed and kicked and punched and screamed with all his strength, and for all his efforts, nothing was accomplished. He struggled; struggled with all his might... until he could struggle no more, and lay limp, wheezing in the nameless Boo's arms.
When he'd stopped... he thought he'd gone deaf. He couldn't hear anything; no sound of machines going against his will, no sound of clanks... not even the cackle of those damned Boos who tormented him so...
He only remembered a Boo had been holding him, when it dropped him to the floor.
He lay, panting... and broken, on the earthy floor, listening to the blood throb in his ears... feeling his muscles sting and ache... feeling the tear, rolling down in temple onto the floor.
"Ohh, did I upset you, Professor?" that awful voice taunted. Gadd closed his eyes, but knew the voice was floating, just above him.
"Well, don't worry! They'll be close by! You'll just never see them again is all. You and that vile machine tat's been a thorn in my side for years."
Gadd curled up, covering his head with his arms. He didn't want to hear it, any of it; he didn't want to believe any of it, though it loomed in his face just as that wretched Boo had only minutes before.
"Just remember, Professor: Don't mess with King Boo!" Dozens of cackling, sinister voices filled the air of the Lab, like a cold, ivory whirlwind slowly evaporating as Boos disappeared from the underground lab. The great Boo lowered himself close to the trembling man's head, soaking himself... in schadenfreude of his defeated foe.
"Oh! And... have a nice night, Professor... Happy ghost-hunting... Hyeh heh..."
The hairs on Gadd's neck fell back on his skin, and he knew the ghost had left.
But what had he left?
He'd left a cold, empty room for Gadd... silent and unforgiving to its poor inhabitant, whose pride had been dashed to the jagged rocks below, the moment he'd hit the floor. So tired he lay, unable to move--only breath; breath in the smell of dirt on the floor. He opened his eyes... and closed them again, finding no more comfort in the darkness of the Lab than the darkness behind his eyelids.
The very thought of checking the damage... sent his stomach into nauseous twists.