[C#%$o?$l%^!o?:$s!;#s&!?u#$s]
[[]]
Ruby was terrified at Madame Clairvoya at the current moment. The only ghost in the entire mansion that has been kind to her had suddenly, though subtly, threatened her.
It was then that Ruby noticed Clairvoya's spectral heart was exposed as the ghost leaned back in her chair.
She then began laughing, not maliciously, no this was a kind hearted laugh, though she soon began to cough, "I really should laugh more." Clairvoya muttered, "Now don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you… Well not intentionally Ruby, but I am still not letting you leave this room without capturing me. And if I do let you, that key will not be leaving with you."
Ruby gulped as she looked at the key Clairvoya gave her, "A-alright. But before I do that… Thank you." Ruby said holding out her hand and taking Clairvoya's hand, "I really mean it, even if the local spirits weren't as helpful as we would have liked."
"You're welcome Ruby, and thank you as well." Clairvoya said, "Had you not come I don't want to think what would have become of me here. So thank you as well."
The two let go of each other's hands as Ruby aimed the Poltergust at Clairvoya.
The fortune telling ghost closed her eyes and offered no resistance to the Poltergust turned on.
When the lights turned on Ruby finally let go of the suction button and looked around the room with the Dustboy Horror in her hands, determined to find the Boo in the room and quickly found it in one of the dressers.
"Hi I'm Ruby!" The Boo declared before cracking a grin at Ruby, "I mean, Boo-by!" The Boo declared, emphasizing the 'Boo' in its name.
Ruby practically turned catatonic- Not only did this random Boo turn her own name into a pun, said pun resulted in a rather childish and inappropriate term that Ruby had long since grown out of. After all she was fifteen. Though she may be innocent she did know the medical terms for the various body parts, after all every Huntsman and Huntress needs to know about their own body for one reason or another and how it works.
Ruby knew what needed to happen.
"NO!" Ruby shouted, her eyes practically glowing with rage toward this Boo.
Said Boo froze up at how 'Not scared' Ruby was and was sucked into the vacuum in an instant.
Once the Boo was sucked into the Poltergust, Ruby took a moment to take a few deep breaths, "I hope no other Boo turns my friends' names into bad puns." Ruby muttered, "I think even Yang would find that one to be a bad pun."
Ruby then noticed a Fire Elemental Ghost floating up to her, "Don't worry, I'm fine." Ruby said patting the fire spirit on the head out of instinct, like she would pet Zwei. Much to her own surprise Ruby didn't get burned from touching a ghost made of fire.
"Huh… Cool." Ruby muttered, then she noticed the Ghost floating around Myrtenaster, "What are you… Oh!" Ruby then unsheathed Myertenaster and opened the Dust Cylinders, "You're attracted to the Fire Dust aren't you?"
Looking inside the chambers, one could see faint specs of each element's dust remaining in the chambers. And surprising Ruby was the fact the Fire Elemental Ghost stuffed itself into the chamber where the FIre Dust used to be.
Ruby couldn't help but coo at the sight of the cuteness of the little fireball.
"Okay, you can stay in there for now." Ruby relented as she closed the cylinders and sheathed Myrtenaster and pulled out the Dustboy Horror to see where the key went.
It actually unlocked the first door on the third floor, to which Ruby nodded and left to the third floor.
Passing by the the room with the frozen bucket, and making sure the Poltergust was full on Ice (And an Ice Elemental Ghost stuffed itself in Myrtenaster as well surprisingly) Ruby arrived at the Third Floor, and noticing two doors, she double checked the Dustboy and noticed one of the doors was not real, so she made sure to unlock the real door and found herself in the Safari Room.
Cheetah skin rugs, with stuffed Cheetah heads, were spread across the floor, deer heads mounted on the walls, and the chair in the room was even covered in leopard skin.
"Whoa." Ruby said looking around the room, "I feel like there ought to be some big game hunter ghost here or something." Ruby muttered.
"WOOOOOH!" A ghost declared appearing behind Ruby.
"Yah!" Ruby cried out as she turned around to face the ghost. It was by far the largest of the non-Portrait ghosts she had seen so far, and she even noticed an orb of water over it's spectral heart.
"Glad something in the back of my mind was telling me to grab some ice." Ruby noted. Before the ghost slammed his hands to the ground, creating a shockwave that Ruby barely jumped back from before spraying ice at the ghost, freezing it solid.
Ruby waited a moment, seeing as the heart was frozen over, and once the Ghost broke free of the ice Ruby blinded the ghost with her flashlight before vacuuming up the ghost, which gave a fair bit of resistance, so far matched only by the green banana eating ghost among the non-Portrait Ghosts.
Once it was caught another of the same ghost appeared, and thus Ruby repeated her tactic from before. However the third ghost that appeared was the same, but this time accompanied by two of the aforementioned Green Ghosts.
Ruby quickly iced all of the Ghosts, then flash freezing each of the ghosts when they started to move, though as the water hearted ghost vanished first, Ruby's job was made all the easier… Though it did help the two green ones were close together.
Once all the ghost's were gone the lights came on and a blue chest appeared, to which Ruby quickly opened and took the key, which lead to a door at the end of the hall of the third floor, which seemed to lead to the Balcony, which admittedly was an educated guess on Ruby's part, nothing else made sense as to why there was such a large room on the third floor.
Stowing the Key away Ruby looked around the room, looking for the Boo in it and finding it hiding in a fur covered chest.
"Little Boo Peep lost her sheep!" The Boo declared, making it's voice sound high pitched and girly… As in a man trying to do a high pitched girly voice.
"Now even nursery rhymes?" Ruby cried out as she vacuumed up the Boo, which took twice as long as the previous Boo' was rather thankful the lesser Spirits were keeping the Boo's trapped in their rooms, otherwise this would have been a nightmare.
Once that was done Ruby left the safari room and entered the rather short hallway, walking towards the end of the hall and unlocked the door to step onto the Balcony.
Despite the statues of the pegasi with unicorn horns on the balcony being the real main focus of it, Ruby's attention was drawn elsewhere.
Mainly the Boo Radar of the Dustboy Horror going absolutely ballistics.
"What the…" Ruby said looking around the balcony, and then noticed a ring of Boo's all holding hands.
Ruby slowly approached the ring of Boo's prepared to start capturing them as fast as possible.
"That scaredy-cat Ruby has made it this far… Oh we're so frightened." One of the Boo's announced sarcastically, causing Ruby to lock up.
"I guess it's our turn then." Another said.
"Alright Boo's. Let's assume our real form." A third Boo said, "But first, how about giving her a little scare?"
At that moment every Boo in the ring turned to face Ruby and laughed before vanishing one by one.
Before Ruby could blink she was surrounded by the Boo's.
"YEEEEEAAAAHHH!" Ruby cried out as she fell onto her butt, and started to look around her as the Boo's started to move around her in a perfect circle, going faster and faster as they got closer. Ruby couldn't help herself as she covered her entire head with her hood in fright right before the Boo's reached her.
[]
A chill, an unusual chill was what brought Ruby out of her hood, and she gasped. The entire balcony had been brought into a pocket dimension, and the unicorn statues had frozen over, a pair of ice elemental floating around the horns of the statues.
A deep cackle brought Ruby's focus out of her surroundings.
Ruby squeaked before she looked upwards and saw the source, a giant Boo was falling right toward her.
"Whoa whoa whoa!" Ruby cried out as she dove forward and the entire balcony shook when the boo landed.
When the dust cleared Ruby got a look at the sheer size of her opponent. Boolossus, fifteen Boo's in one.
[Luigi's Mansion OST: Boolossus battle]
Boolossus began to bounce it;s way toward Ruby, who quickly reacted the only way she knew how to deal with Boo's.
Suction.
Whipping out the Poltergust, Ruby aimed at the gargantuan Boo and began to suck.
Only for the bare minimum to happen. Boolossus was caught in the suction of the Poltergust, they couldn't escape it, but in this world they were too powerful have their strength drained from the Poltergust.
"YOU ONLY DELAY THE INEVITABLE!" Boolossus shouted as they struggled to escape the grasp of the Poltergust.
"If they're too powerful to suck up like this then I need to split them apart. But how." Ruby muttered.
It was then one of the Ice Elemental's floated up to Ruby's face, almost distracting her into letting go of the suction button, before floating back toward the statue, the back in front of Ruby.
"Take him to the statue?" Ruby asked, the Ice Element bounded up and down before quickly floating back to the statue it came from and quickly floating around it's horn.
Ruby smirked and began to drag Boolossus toward the statues.
"TRAITOROUS SPIRITS!" Boolossus shouted, "THAT WON'T BE ENOUGH TO STOP US! IN THIS WORLD EVEN SPLIT WE CANNOT BE CAPTURED SO EASILY!"
"Maybe! But this is a start!" Ruby shouted, slamming Boolossus into the horn of the statue, to which she noticed a mass of icy energy surge into Boolossus and with a pop Boolossus had split into 15 little Boo's.
"Now what?" Ruby muttered as she tried her best to keep as many Boo's in her eyes as possible.
However one of them tried to tackle her from behind, one she didn't know was there.
But it never made it, because Boolossus wasn't fighting just Ruby, but the Elemental Ghost's as well.
When the Boo tried to tackle Ruby, an Ice Elemental Ghost flew out of the statue and slammed into the, causing a frozen Boo to roll in front of Ruby.
"Huh?" Ruby said looking down at the Boo, then at the Ice Elemental Ghost's and smirked, "Thanks guys." Ruby said.
Quickly sucking up the frozen Boo, Ruby aimed her Poltergust and began to spray ice at the rest of the Boo's in the area, several of them tried to charge Ruby, but she steadily turned and managed to freeze most of the ones that charged her, resulting in 5 more being frozen and captured.
Now down to nine, the remaining Boo's came together once more and formed a, smaller, Boolossus.
"YOU WILL ALL PAY FOR THIS!" Boolossus shouted as they charged, only to be caught in the vortex of the Poltergust again.
Ruby smirked as she pulled Boolossus back into the statue and popped him once more.
This time the nine Boo's were more wary of Ruby, making feint's toward Ruby only to back off the moment they were in range of the Poltergust, while others tried to tackle her from behind.
Ruby had to be much more careful with her ice, though she did fire a few ice orbs from pulling the trigger too hard, she managed to hit a couple unaware Boo's with the ice, rushing over quickly to suck them up, and managing to ice a few that had charged her.
By the time Boolossus had reformed, it was down to only 4 Boo's left and it was significantly smaller.
This time Boolossus was bouncing much further and faster, and Ruby wasn't having an easy time catching them in the Poltergust's vortex, however Ruby was all too happy to employ a tactic Yang used when the two were children and Ruby had first played tag with her Semblance.
Standing in front of an obstacle (In this case the statue) and making yourself an 'easy' target.
"You will perish Silver Eyed fool!" Boolossus shouted, their voice no longer as deep due to the smaller amount of Boo's in them, and lunged toward Ruby.
Boolossus's eyes went wide with shock as Ruby seemingly vanished in a cloud of rose petals and the collection of Boo's popped once more.
This time however they were extra careful, if Ruby had the Poltergust even aim at one of them they wouldn't even attempt to go near her.
It was then the Ice Elemental's popped up again, this time they were actively out to tackle the Boo's, hitting two of them before the other two wised up to the tactic and began avoiding the Ice Elementals.
Ruby quickly sucked up the two frozen Boo's and focused on the remaining Boo's.
'They're avoiding everything we throw at them.' Ruby thought as she watched the Boo's dance around the Ice Elementals.
Then Ruby remembered that she could touch the Fire Elementals without getting burned, so likely the same could be said for the Ice Elementals. As one of the Ice Elementals passed her, Ruby reached out and snatched it from the air and began to speed toward one of the Boo's.
It looked at her and only saw she didn't have the Poltergust at hand, and naturally charged at her, only to become a victim to momentum as Ruby threw the Ice Elemental at the Boo, freezing it solid and them Ruby slammed the nozzle of the Poltergust onto the ghost and sucked it in.
"Last one." Ruby muttered as she grabbed another Ice Elemental and charged at the last Boo.
Only it had seen what Ruby did and wouldn't go near her. "You will fall here!" The Boo shouted, "Even if I just need to wait until you starve!"
Out of pure irritation Ruby threw the Ice Elemental onto the ground, which resulted in a large sheet of ice covering the ground.
'Great, it's not going to come at me, and it's going to try to stay as far from me as it can, and it's avoiding the Ice Elementals…' Ruby listed off in her head, 'I've got to do something to cut off it's vision.'
Ruby began to look around the Balcony, trying to at least find a place to hide, right before she tried to take a step back and slipped on the ice.
Ruby stopped at that once she regained her balance, before a grin spread on her face as a plan formed in her mind.
"Freezerburn!" Ruby declared, grabbing more of the Ice Elementals and began to freeze as much of the floor in ice as she could.
"You think a cold floor is going to help you!?" The Boo shouted.
"Yeah, it will." Ruby said before pulling Myrtenaster from her hip and pulling the Fire Elemental out of it.
The Boo's eye's scrunched up in confusion right before Ruby threw the Fire Elemental at the ground between the two of them as hard as she could.
The ice instantly melted, creating a smokescreen of steam.
"Oh no!" The Boo shouted, turning around to escape the cloud, only for the Ice Elementals to lunge at him, forcing him into the steam cloud.
The Boo began to strain it's eyes looking around the smoke cloud, trying it's hardest to find Ruby.
What it saw however was a large chunk of ice slam into it, freezing it solid.
Hearing the clunk of ice hitting the ground, Ruby was quick to start sucking in the steam cloud and find the Boo. And seeing as she fired forward and heard the clunk she only moved in that direction until she heard the pop of a Ghost getting caught.
"YES!" Ruby cheered as a white light filled her vision.
[]
When Ruby could see again she found that the Balcony was back where it belonged, and the Ice Elementals were gone as the statues were no longer frozen.
Ruby sighed in relief as she turned to face the golden chest that appeared. Ruby opened the chest to-
"LET ME OUT OF HERE! I'LL FIND A WAY TO KICK YOUR ASS IF YOU HURT- RUBY!" Yang shouted from her portrait, her anger turned to shock and relief as she saw Ruby.
Ruby let out a tear of happiness as she saw Yang, "Don't worry Yang, I'm fine." Ruby said as she lifted up Yang's Portrait, and the Diamond headed key that was in the chest too.
Yang smiled from her portrait and attempted to give Ruby a hug, only to bounce back as though she hit a wall.
"Oh right… I'm nothing but oils at the moment…" Yang muttered, then she noticed what Ruby was wearing, "Is that my scarf? And Myrtenaster?"
"You finally said the name right." Ruby joked, "Now let's get back to E. Gadd."
"Wait, who is E. Gadd." Yang asked, then her eyes widened, "Wait you-"
"Yang I do NOT want to hear another pun from you tonight!" Ruby shouted with more emotion than she had intended.
Yang lurched back in surprise, "Yikes, I would have thought you'd be relieved to hear one of my awesome puns."
"Yang… Please… Not tonight." Ruby begged as she left the Balcony and began to run back to the Professor's Lab.
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So, apparently as I was writing this I was informed that there were a number of people unaware of the fact you could actually grab Boolossus with the Poltergust and swing him into the statues. All the same I was unaware Boolossus could actually just bounce into the statue without being grabbed.
Just goes to show I'm still learning things about one of my favorite games on the Gamecube.
Now to be honest this chapter had two moments of hesitation for me.
Booigi's name change to Boo-by… For obvious reasons, let's be honest. Though with how many 'suck' innuendo's I end up belting out writing this you'd think it wouldn't affect me as much.
The second was actually Boolossus themself. Anyone who has played Luigi's Mansion knows for a fact that this boss is not difficult, but extremely repetitive and annoying. Because once the Boo's start trying to avoid your ice then this becomes that boss that takes more than three rounds to defeat- Which is actually a fairly common Nintendo trend back then, Three Rounds of damage is usually all it takes to beat a boss, which is actually still true in Luigi's Mansion 3.
But fighting Boolossus can result in you going a 'round' without doing any 'damage' to the Boss, thus extending the fight, especially when you get down to 3, 2, or god forbid, that last Boo.
Oh and that comment in the Safari room- Apparently there was meant to be a Portrait Ghost in that room of the stereotypical Australian Hunter, but was removed because he was deemed too scary, as he was basically saying he'd shoot Luigi with his gun and hang his pelt up as a decoration… Yeah, Nintendo… You guys are fucked up when you want to be creepy. (Seriously have you seen whatever happened when Nintendo involves aliens? Look up Mario and Luigi Partners in Time, or hell even any of the Metroid Games/Manga. Child friendly company my ass!)
Anyway with that done I will see you all next time.