Luigi was very good at catching ghosts. He was proud of this, since it was really the only thing Mario couldn't best him at. (Well, other than cleaning.) He reveled in walking past the cowering victims that called him up for help and seeing their fear turn to relief when they laid eyes on him. Countless times, they would hug him and tell him how they wished they were as brave as him. There was only one thing wrong with that of course- Luigi wasn't brave at all.
Far from it! This is what Luigi was trying to explain to Mrs. Higgly, the latest client. She was a squat little mushroom lady (actually they're all a bit squat, but she was significantly squatter than average) with a purple mushroom cap and a pair of round glasses that had a habit of sliding down her nose-less face. "Nobody can outrun me when I'm fleeing for my life." Luigi said with a thick Italian accent, and noticed a hint of confusion pass behind Mrs. Higgly's eyes. "So, therein lies my secret, I suppose. I am so scared while I work; my senses are heightened to extraordinary levels and I can do anything." It was quiet for a few moments. "You can get rid of that ghost, right?" Mrs. Higgly said eventually, and pushed up the glasses that had slid down her face once again. "Of course he can! The man is a lean, green, ghost-catching machine! Literally." laughed a voice from behind. A little koopa troopa was standing outside a truck just a few feet away.
The side of the truck displayed a company logo that said, "MUSHROOM KINGDOM PARANORMAL RESEARCHERS: Haunted Pest Control Unit. The best in the biz since not that long ago!" The koopa was holding a clipboard in her claws as she walked from the truck. She smiled at him and then patted Mrs. Higgly on the head saying, "Don't you worry, ma'am. Well have that thing out of there in no time," her glance shifted to Luigi again, "Unless of course, you screw up for the very first time tonight." The koopa winked. Luigi nodded shakily and tightened his jacket around his shoulders. It was cold...unusually so for a summer evening. "Yeah..." he mumbled, and turned towards the site of the haunting. Mrs. Higgly's mansion sat on a nearby hill, and the lights shining though the windows shimmered warmly on the lawn. The scene looked very mundane to him.
Luigi didn't notice the shadow move across the=2 0lawn. It was the shadow of something unseen. He didn't see it slither around the side of the mansion and into one of the windows, and he certainly didn't see what happened a moment later that caused all the lights in the house to shut off, leaving the house and the lawn in darkness, aside from the soft glow coming from the headlights on the truck. The koopa and Mrs. Higgly looked as puzzled as Luigi when darkness suddenly surrounded them. The koopa was the first to speak. "I guess it wants to play with the lights now. Remember to try and turn them back on when you get inside- it's a good chance that the ghost only shut them off because it doesn't like them."
"But they all went off at the same time, Nessy. What if it messed with the fusebox?" Luigi grumbled. "Then you'll have to use your flashlight!" The koopa hissed, and then pressed the clipboard she was holding into Luigi's hands adding, "Oh, I almost forgot. Here's Mrs. Higgly's report." She turned back to Mrs. Higgly and smiled sweetly. "Why don't you go and sit in the back of the truck while you wait for us to get started. There are several comfortable seats, magazines, television, and an expresso machine!" she said in her most professional voice. Mr.s Higgly who had been standing there, occasionally repositioning her glasses, nodded, and headed wearily for the truck. Nessy returned her attention to Luigi. "So. ..looking at her description of the entity, it seems to me that it's most likely a grabber-ghost."
"Great. I hate those things! They're so...for lack of better words: grabby."
"Nobody likes them, you nut! Now go get your gear and let me wire in your headset. We're stalling here!" Nessy spun around and headed for the truck once more while Luigi gathered together his Poltergust 3000 and prepared for the trek into the mansion. "Oh mansions," he sighed, "Why is it always mansions? Dark mansions at that!" he finished strapping the heavy vacuum to his back and picked up his headset from the truck, and then headed towards the great house on the hill.
At the front steps, Luigi heard Nessy's voice through the headset. "Working?" she asked. "Yeah, loud and clear, partner." Luigi's ghost hunting gear was a lot more advanced nowadays. He had a camera with him that he could use to snap pictures and immediately send them to the truck so Nessy could analyze them. The headset allowed him communication with both Nessy and Professor E. Gadd, the head of the research team. ( Unfortunately, the professor was only available to chat on Tuesdays.) Luigi placed his hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly, stepping inside the house. A lamp sat on a little table in the cramped mudroom. He eagerly hurried over to it, accidentally bumping a coat rack and a painting on the way. He reached for the little button that turned it on and clicked it twice. Nothing happened. With a little snort of frustration, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his trusty flashlight, which he had carefully checked to make sure it had new batteries.
Beyond the mudroom was the foyer- it was small, but elegant, and as clean as could be. He rubbed his finger against one of the banisters near the stairs. Not a speck of dust. Luigi liked. He looked around and held his hand to his ear, hoping (or rather not hoping) to hear any sign of ghost activity. He tried flipping on the other lights in the foyer, in case the one in the mudroom had a busted bulb or something along those lines, but these lights didn't work either. Luigi moved onto the kitchen and the dining room, which were sort of connected to each other, and finding nothing, decided to head for the basement. He figured it would be best if he could fix whatever the ghost did to the fuse box and get some lighting, instead of wandering aimlessly in the dark and wasting precious batteries.
The basement w as quite small, and about as clean as the other areas in the house he had visited. Luigi really liked. The fuse box sat in a corner and he flipped open the cover to begin. He had to look again to make sure what he had seen was correct. The box was completely untampered with, and everything seemed to be in working order. He poked it for good measure, took a picture of it, and then whispered into the mic, "See that? I tried turning some of the lights on, but I got nothing. If the fuse box is untouched, that means one of a couple things. Either there's been a power outage or this ghost is doing something weird that I have yet to understand." Nessy did not answer him. She seldom did unless she had a question about the information he sent her. Shrugging, he turned around and left the basement, still snapping photos as he went about. He decided to go into the living room.
Luigi stood in the entranceway to the living room, frozen in place. His hand was on his camera, finger ready for snapping pictures, but he couldn't bring himself to move. Sitting on a sofa that was resting awkwardly in the center of the room, was a grabber-ghost. The grabber-ghost was as still as Luigi, with wide, glowing eyes oddly staring into space, and its mouth was hanging open in a contorted way- like20a mouth that was screaming. Most ghosts glowed brilliantly, but this one was dim, and it had yet to move. Strangest of all in the situation, was the fact that it wasn't the ghost that had Luigi frozen to the spot, but the image floating just above its head. There were words hanging in midair that seemed as though they were almost scratched into the air itself. They were dark, slightly vibrating...barely readable...but Luigi could make them out. They said, "Go Away."
Terrified, Luigi pulled his arm up and clicked the button on his camera to take a photo of the startling scene. He was sure Nessy would ask about it, but she was silent. Luigi wasn't sure he would have been capable to form words even if she had. Edging closer to the ghost, he noticed the grip it had on the armrests. The ghost's long arms were stretched out to full length, and the fingers curved halfway into the upholstery. Gathering all the bravery he had, Luigi walked up to the ghost and reached out to it only to feel ice run through his knuckles as he submerged his hand into its chest, despite having gloves on. He recoiled and looked hard at its face. The ghost was definitely showing an expression of fear, perhaps even greater than Luigi's. "Nessy..." he squeaked into the mic. He awaited an answer but there was still nothing. "Answer me..." he said, fearful and angry. Silence. There must be something wrong, he thought to himself as he stared into the empty eyes of the frozen ghost.
Not knowing what else to do, Luigi turned on the Poltergust 3000 and vacuumed up the ghost. To his dismay, the lettering also vanished when the ghost did. He had been hoping to get a closer look at it, for it was unlike any ghost-magic he had ever encountered before. As soon as he was done, he decided he'd do just as the floating words had demanded and hightail it out of the creepy mansion. He hadn't made it past the kitchen when he heard a voice that made him drop his flashlight on the spot and cry out sheer terror. The voice was loud and sudden, and it seemed to surround him rather than come from any one direction- it was the most horrible voice Luigi had ever heard in his life. "Should have moved on long before now!" it resonated through the building, and then a laugh erupted from the ceiling. Luigi jumped out of his skin and pointed the end of the Poltergust 3000 upwards to see a shadow engulfing the ceiling...a shadow that seemed to belong to no one.
Like it was climbing out of a pool of ink, a figure emerged from the shadow. First there came an arm- a long lanky one with t hree fingers tipped with claws. Then there came the body, round and shaped almost identically like a boo's, but the eyes glowed white and whereas a boo had sharp little fangs, this creature had tusks and other teeth jutting out of it's mouth at strange angles. The other arm emerged, and then, floating right above him, was a creature that Luigi could not recognize. It was black as the shadow from which it had crawled, and it was still laughing. It reached for him, and he only just managed to dive from it's clutches as it swiped. Standing up, he had only a second to dive yet again, as the creature howled with wicked laughter and tried to snatch him up yet again. Luigi was so frightened that he was on the verge of tears. He spun around in circles, looking out for the creature, but it had vanished. He listened carefully, trying to hear where the thing might have gone, but his heart was hammering in his ear, deafening him. He noticed something move at the top of the stairs and saw two huge potted plants floating just over the rails near the top...right over his head. He booked it for the front door just in time, as the plants fell and the pots shattered into a million pieces directly on the spot he had previously occupied.
In all his years of hunting ghosts, he had been attacked before. Once he had a book thrown at his head. Another time, he had a ro w of sinks blast water at him. Yet another time, he had a ghost give him a wedgie. (He tried very hard to forget that one.) Never had a ghost ever tossed something so huge at him before. It was apparent that this spirit was trying to kill him. Luigi dived into the mudroom and desperately grabbed the handle to the front door, but it wouldn't budge. The evil laughter rang from behind him. He spun around screaming into his earpieces, "HELP! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!" The dark ghost picked up the lamp that Luigi had tried to switch on earlier and chucked it violently at his head. Luigi cringed and felt it smash inches from his face. His ear stung moments later and felt something warm drip into it. The ghost looked aggrivated. Still screaming and kicking at the door, Luigi didn't see the ghost pick up the table that the lamp had been resting on. It lifted the table above itself, the skinny arms clearly more powerful than one would think at first glance, and with an amused chuckle, tossed it at Luigi.
Luigi hardly felt the impact. His vision went blurry and he sank to his knees. Above him, the shape of the dark ghost loomed, reaching out for something. It lifted a piece of splintered wood from the table and raised it's arm to strike.
Suddenly, a round, brilliantly white blur appeared, and the dark ghost snarled with rage. They dove at each other, each shape becoming fuzzier with each second... Luigi could hear them shouting, but didn't understand what was being said, while his consciousness slowly slipped away. He noticed the dark shape backing off, and then finally disappear after a few moments. All went black.
Moments before, however, he could have sworn he heard a strange voice say, "Have no fear, friend."
END OF PART ONE.