Pianta Party
After a serious case of writers block, at last, the final chapter.
Luigi's Mansion 3 is owned by Nintendo.
"There you are!"
All those hours of scouring the island, getting kidnapped by theater nerds and wading the sewers had finally paid off when the two groups met each other in a clearing in the jungle. The DJ and the pharaoh hugged each other and immediately regretted it when the latter's hand got stuck to Serpci's hair somehow. Fishook and Macfrights rushed over to Morty, ready to hear him recount the tales of his group's adventure in the way only a master storyteller could.
"And so we flushed ourselves down a toilet in a tremendously successful escape attempt, where we met our mechanic friend and found the good doctor we've been searching for the entire time. Definitely the most exciting series of events I've been in since the Donut Run of 89 at Neon City."
"Bah, you all got lucky. You get ta combat and evade the authorities while all we got ta do was get kidnapped by a bunch of theater nerds. No offense ta you, of course." Macfrights said. "Offense ta him." He pointed at Marlin, who could only give a meek "Heeey." in response.
The only ones who weren't partaking in casual chit chat were Ug, Johnny and Potter. The former two were the first to ask Potter about what he had found, wanting to satiate their curiosity.
"So basically, some jagoff decided to put some halucinowhatsit flowers in our drinks instead of the delicious ones, and that's why we all somehow managed to get ourselves lost in the woods and trapped in sewers and junk?" Johnny summarized their conversation.
"Pretty much. And I'm pretty sure we're near where those flowers originate." Potter said. And now that he was finished explaining things, they could participate in casual chit chat as well. "Where are the others, by the way?"
"Jail." Ug said.
"Really now? What the heck did we do to have the local government want us jailed so badly?"
"I dunno man, Gloria probably knows, she's the one the guys tried calling."
"Well, if you want to ask her." Amadeus popped up between the two. "Then you may want to go on ahead and separate the two. Turns out hugging someone who has slept in garbage is an immensely bad idea."
The aforementioned two were now fully stuck together, and were struggling to get themselves unstuck. It took Ug calmly floating up to them, grabbing the two, and pulling them apart with an audible rip.
Gloria rubbed the part of her skin that had stuck to Serpci, redder than usual. "Yeah, that wasn't well thought out at all."
Serpci hummed in agreement. "Yes, not the brightest decision, hugging someone who has had to swim in the sewers." Once she recovered from the sting of pain, she asked the DJ. "Now, in the interest of finally getting some answers, you know where these flowers Potter has been looking for are, right?"
"Well, there's this field of flowers next to the reenactment place. That's gotta do with something, right?"
"Depends on if the field of flowers is of the Hibiscus type." Potter pointed out. "If not, then this entire adventure we just had has pretty much been us chasing a dead end."
The Shy Guy actor they had dragged with them scratched his head in confusion, wondering if he should answer their question. He swallowed the fear away, and caught everyone's attention with a cough. "Uhmm, if what you're looking for are Hibiscus flowers, then yeah, the field we happen to be next to has them. That's where most businesses get their shipments."
The gathered ghosts were delighted at the information. Finally, they found what they were looking for.
"Then what are we all waiting around for? Let's go back and get our answers we've been looking for?"
Gloria's declaration was responded to with all of the ghosts beginning to head back to the fake village. Marlin the Shy Guy was grabbed by Ug once he noticed he wasn't moving, to the actor's consternation.
The group chattered amongst each other, passing the time on their way back by talking about how everything was going to go perfectly fine, and that all their problems were going to be instantly solved. No, they were not tempting faith, why do you ask?
"You look terrible." Gloria casually said to Amadeus. "What happened to you, fell asleep in the trash?"
"No, I passed out at a pier. You're girlfriend, on the other hand."
"Yeah, I was in a hurry trying to follow Clem, so I didn't really pay attention to where I was putting her. Not my brightest moment."
"You seem to remember a lot of things more clearly than anyone else. Why is that?" The pianist asked.
"I was alive in the 70's, Wolfgeist. Do the math."
Wolfgeist 'Ah'd' in response. That made sense. "Well, given that we're here now, I may as well congratulate you on your victory last night."
"What victory?"
Her answer gave the pianist pause. "What do you mean you don't remember? You beat me at the drinking contest?"
"No I didn't, we dropped the whole thing after a few drinks when we saw Clem leave. Neither of us won that thing… wait." The DJ pointed an accusatory finger at him. "You've been moping all day about last night, have you!"
"What? N- no, no I haven't!" Amadeus desperately tried to defend himself.
"Oh my god!"
While the two musicians remained in the background, the more modern one taking absolute joy in mocking the more ancient one, the ghosts finally arrived back at the reenactment site. The field of flowers was now clearly visible, on account of some of the fake huts having been moved away. It was a fairly breathtaking visual.
"Yep, those are the flowers alright." Potter confirmed. "We are now one step closer to solving our problems somehow."
"Yep, just gotta find the rest of our friends, and everythin will be fine and dandy goin forward." Clem added, coming to Potter's side and staring at the field in admiration. "Given how lucky we've been, I bet ya the others are gonna show up right about now."
The Shy Guy's suddenly dropped everything when they were startled by the sound of sirens, sending them in a panic. As if on cue, a police car crashed into the area, landing right in front of the ghosts.
"Mmm, no, that ain't right."
More police cars continued to show up, crashing into each other for a good minute until the area in front of them was fully blocked by a pile of police cars.
"Stiiiiilll waitin."
Smashing the door open, one of the pianta's got out of his car. He walked to the passenger door and opened it, causing a pile of ghosts to pour out of it.
"Okay, there we go, I was right." Clem said, satisfactorily. The other ghosts reacted in a more logical way, nervousness to be precise at the sight of all that police.
The door of a different police car opened, this time letting out some members of the Hotel Delfino staff out, including the bartender from last night. "There they are officers! Those are the criminals that defaced our beautiful beach!"
"It appears so! Thank you for your help. We'll be sure to make your sentences shorter than your accomplices by a day. Two if you behave well." The police pianta said to the pile of ghosts, shocking the other group. Betrayed by their fellow coworkers?
"You betrayed us!" Amadeus yelled, his finely coiffed hair now in disarray. The rest of the ghosts all had glares on their faces as well.
"Wait, wait." Kruller desperately called out. "Before you jump to any conclusions-"
He was interrupted by the Poltergust wielding pianta appearing on top of his car, aiming the flashlight at the ghosts in a threatening manner. "Haha! We have you now, crooks!" He jumped dramatically in the air towards his targets.
That went nowhere when Amadeus simply grabbed the pianta with an enlarged hand, and tossed him into the horizon.
Morty stared at the scene in awe, while Serpci stared at the scene in anger. "You couldn't have done that at any earlier point in our adventure?" She growled out at the pianist, who simply shrugged in response.
"Attacking an officer of the law! That will double your life sentence!" The officer threatened.
"Not if we destroy you all in combat!" MacFrights rushed to Amadues' side, drawing his sword in preparation for battle.
"And threatening bodily harm to innocent civilians? You people are just asking for punishment!"
The two groups now began to yell at each other, tension ready to boil over into an actual fight. That would definitely not end well for any side. Well, mostly for the police side, they really couldn't compare to the ghosts in terms of actual power.
Regardless, Chambrea floated in between the two groups. "Everybody calm down now! Let us explain first!"
That declaration actually got everyone to lower their guard. With that said, Chambrea began her explanation. "The reason why we told the police where to find you is because that way, they could make finding Dr. Potter easier."
Nikki floated over towards the doctor, handing over his prized book. Potter immediately grabbed it and hugged it close to his chest.
"He happens to have an idea of what happened last night. We thought that when we found him, he could end up explaining exactly what happened to us last night." Kruller said, wandering into view.
The police piantas all mulled over the idea. After a good minute, one of them stepped forward. "Alright, we're listening."
Finally given a chance, Potter made his way to the flower field, opening book to the particular page he needed. "Ahum. Last night, we had the Delfinean Odd Punch, a particular drink on Delfino Island."
"Yeah, we know. I served that last night. Thanks for the pay by the way." The bartender said, casually holding up the bag of money he was still carrying around for some reason. That definitely earned him some stares from everyone present.
"... Anyway, the most important ingredient of the drink is a particular Hibiscus Delfinae flower petal, commonly used as flavoring in a lot of foods and drinks. However!"
The botanist pointed a finger towards the flower field, specifically the section of field featuring red and blue flowers. "Blue petals are the ones used in those drinks. But last night, the petals in our drinks were red ones!"
"Which means."
Everyone turned to look at the bartender, who looked confused as ever. "Uhmmm, what?"
"It means." Nikki pointed at the culprit. "That you put the wrong kind of petals in our drinks on purpose!"
Every single being, both alive and undead, gasped.
"Is what these ghosts are saying true?" The police pianta immediately began interrogating the bartender, who was now sweating profusely. "Did you deliberately poison their drinks?"
"I, uhmm, the thing is, uhh…" The bartender hemmed and hawed, desperately trying to come up with a proper answer to the question. "I- I didn't know what flowers we had. I just grabbed them from the first box I found and added them in. It was an accident, promise!"
"Well that can't be right." Marlin the Shy Guy pointed out, catching everyone's attention. "I'm pretty sure it's not allowed for anyone to take the red flowers. We had that explained to us when we set up here."
"Just because it's not allowed doesn't mean they can't be taken." Serpci pointed out. "I wouldn't be surprised if the hotel workers here had access to their own storage of red flowers just in case they felt the need to drug some unruly residents of theirs. Standard procedure for the particularly vengeful types, like with me in my early years of rule. Good times."
The law enforcement pianta's all began to murmur amongst each other, discussing the information they had just received. As they did, the two separate ghost groups united together, chatting with each other.
"Ah, what a genius idea you had. Using the enemy to solve two problems at once. Why I don't think even a genius of cinema such as I could have come up with something like that." Morty complimented the prison groups plan.
"Oh, it was nothing complicated." Chambrea chuckled. "These people are remarkably easy to influence. We just told them where we thought you were and they immediately believed us."
"Now all we have to hope for is that they believe this thing. Then we'll finally be scot free." Steward said as he looked on to the chattering police piantas. "Honestly, I would have been happier just paying off the bail. Would have involved paperwork. I'm good at that, heck, I would have loved that."
"I'm sure there's a big stack of paperwork lying on your desk back home for you to work on." Kruller patted the bellhop on the back. "Speaking of bail, who actually made that giant glitter bomb from last night? The triplets say they didn't."
Thinking it over for a bit, everyone automatically looked at Clem. The mechanic ghost was scratching his back when he noticed the stairs. "What?"
"What did you do last night, Clem?" Chambrea asked him, hands on her hips.
"Hmmm, lemme see… Oh yeah, the kiddos over here wanted to pull a prank on the hotel staff, and I think to myself "Hey, it's vacation. I should let the kids have their fun." So I go to the nearest store, grab me an industrial size tub of glitter, and with some good old mechanic magic, I make myself a glitter bomb. Course the triplets start getting sleepy, and I hear somethin bout Potter going missing. So I take the kids to their rooms, and I go on ma own adventure chasing after the doc. Now that's a crazy story of its own too. See I met this chuckster who offers me a ride on his dolphin named Jimbo-"
"That's- that's enough Clem. We don't need the whole story." Chambrea quickly shut Clem up. "Well that answers that. I guess we have to tell the cops about this, right?"
Everyone remained silent, looking at each other. Then they broke into quick little utterances.
"Meh." "I dunno." "I hate them." "Well." "Why?" "Let's not."
A unanimous no, it seems.
"We've come to a decision!" The cops announced to the ghosts. "We are going to head back to the hotel now. We need to verify your claims with the hotel."
The cops began to usher the ghosts into their cars. Unfortunately, the dynamic entry that they had done left only one actual car usable.
There were a lot of complaints, mainly from those who were closest to the shark pirate with the giant hook.
A crate full of red flowers was slammed on the counter of the bar, in the presence of the ghosts, the cops, and most importantly, the local hotel staff, who looked on nervously.
"Oh- oh my. We were not aware there just so happened to be a crate of the specific type of flower known to cause effects similar to inebriation in those who drink it, just in the event that we wanted to get revenge on people we may or may not like. Bartender person, I cannot believe you have done this horrible, horrible thing somehow." The hotel secretary said in a completely robotic tone of voice.
The bartender was not impressed in the slightest. "No wonder you failed acting school."
Unfortunately for them, law enforcement was smart enough to not fall for the excuse. Handcuffs were slapped on their arms, and were soon escorted to the cop car.
"Yeah, we're sorry about this whole 'imprisoning you without evidence' thing. Tell you what, you don't tell this to anyone, and we pretend this never happened. What do you think?"
Steward stared the officer right in the eye. "We're suing."
The officer "Oh'd," walking away awkwardly, and leaving the gathered ghosts to talk with each other.
"Well then, guess we can chalk up this entire vacation as a complete waste of our time." Amadeus said, calmly admiring the still glitter covered beach of Sirena. "What do we do now, then? Because I'm certainly not staying in this place. Especially in the state Clem left it."
"Ah regret none of my choices." The aforementioned mechanic casually said. "We may as well go exploring the island fer the rest of the day. Should still be some stuff we haven't seen yet."
"Umm, if it helps."
The ghosts all turned their attention to the Shy Guy actor that they had dragged into their ordeal. Marlin awkwardly rubbed his mask as he said. "Our group was supposed to stay in this motel in Pianta Village. Since we're leaving, you guys can stay there. You know, as an apology for the whole kidnapping thing."
Everyone considered that suggestion. Sure, a motel was a downgrade. But anything was an upgrade to a hotel that actively tried to hurt you. Really, what kind of staff would actively go out of their way to attack their esteemed guests in such a way, anyway?
One full day later, a Monday to be precise, a goob groaned as it lifted a lampshade of it's head. The hotel lobby was a mess from their weekend long party. The window curtains were made into makeshift togas for the hammers, a few slinkers were stuck to the roof, and an oozer was spinning around in midair for whatever reason.
Luckily for them their employers weren't going to come back until later in the day, so they had all the time in the world to clean everything up and make it look like nothing ever happened.
The goober looked outside to see the bus the boss ghosts had taken approaching the hotel.
Correction, they had a few minutes.
Once the bus arrived, the boss ghosts all began pouring out. They all looked tired, still reeling from their relatively insane adventure they had had. Thankfully, they were finally home, sweet home. Perfectly clean and not at all in a state of destruction.
The door was opened for them by a goob, welcoming them into the pristine clean hotel lobby.
"How was your vacation, boss?" The goob asked, ushering them in and definitely not distracting them from the desperately shoving a stack of junk under one of the lobby sofassofa's.
"Terrible." "Mediocre." "Was great." "I slept in trash. Figure it out." "Got kidnapped by theater nerds." Came the resounding responses of everyone. Clearly, most of them didn't want to talk about it, so the goob didn't press on.
Everyone but Steward entered the elevator, the bellhop deciding to go towards his natural element: the receptionist desk.
At least things would end up being normal for a while before another crazy adventure would end up happening to them. And really, normal was the best kind of vacation any of them could ask for.
Steward sat down at his desk, a loud squelch echoing through the lobby. "Who filled the receptionist desk with cheese dip?"
Yep, back to normal.
I won't lie, this story feels meh to me. I definitely feel like it could have been much better than what it ended up being.
Guess that's what happens when a good chunk of time was lost due to a broken keyboard and writers block. Oh well. Hopefully you all garnered some enjoyment out of this.
Now, you all may be asking: what's next? Well, this story is one I'm very excited to work on. Have a sneak peak.
"Hmmm, Dimension 35. Let's see if this one has anything worthwhile for me."
"The population is comprised of a very wide variety of species, a good chunk of which is fungus based. Interesting."
"Power granting flowers and mushrooms? Oh, very nice."
"And most of the universe is inhabited too! I really like where this is going. But is it missing the one thing I'm looking for?"
"..."
"... Yes. No bandicoots in sight. Muhahahah. MUHAHAHAHAHA!"
See you all Monday.