Author Notes - Alright, we're up to the first boss. If you can call Steward a 'boss'. One of the only problems I have with the original game is that the ghosts don't get ANY lore, like they did in the first two games. So, you're left with a collection of truly fascinating ghosts with no idea who they really are or how they came to be.

That being said, it means that I can do whatever the bloody hell I want, and no one can question it. As per 'The Stories of the Last Resort', which (if you don't know) was a piece of supplementary material that dove much deeper into the backstories of all of the ghosts as they are depicted in these stories. So, you know, go check that out if you wanna know more. May include spoilers.

I chose this title for the sole reason that it rhymed. Which I think is a good reason.

CHAPTER FOUR - STEWARD GETS SKEWERED

Luigi had so many questions in such little time. Why was the professor here? How did he get captured? How long was he here for? He ran across the entire ballroom until he reached the professor on display. Polterpup looked up at the painting and whimpered.

'Oh no... no, no! How could this have happened to you? I-I gotta find the Dark-Light Device! I-It's gotta be around here somewh-'

Luigi flinched; he could hear two mysterious voices on the other side of a door to his left.

'Hey Olivia, what did Ms Gravely tell us to do with this thing, again?'

'I dunno. Hide it or something. I doubt it's important.'

His hand shaking like never before, he reached for the door and pushed it open ever so slightly. He peeped through the tiny gap, and gasped. Two more ghosts floated in the hallway, except these were not quite like the Goobs. They were long and skinny, and had yellow translucent skin instead of blue. The male of the two - Owen - held the Dark-Light Device in his hand, while the female - Olivia - peered at it.

'What does this thing do, anyway?' Owen asked. 'It's just a lightbulb! Why was that old guy even holding it?'

Olivia shrugged. 'Heck if I know! I think Ms Gravely was overreacting.'

'I'll just put it in a safe or something.'

Luigi's eyes widened upon seeing the all-important device in their grasp.

'No!' He yelled out, and immediately regretted it.

The Oozers snapped their heads to him, and gasped at once. Owen held the bulb close to his chest.

'It's Green Cap, and his cursed contraption!' Olivia yelled, before turning to Owen. 'Hide that dang thing, and get outta here!'

Giving no more instructions or any reassurance, she disappeared through the wall, leaving her partner to stare with his mouth agape.

'Don't leave me alone with Green Cap!' He cried.

He glared at 'Green Cap', and flew down the hallway. Befitting his slim physique he zoomed around the corner, still holding the Dark-Light Device. Polterpup stood by his owner's side, growling at this thief.

'C-Calm down, boy. We'll get that device back.'

Polterpup charged down across the carpet. Luigi sighed and chased after him. He followed his pet around the corner, and witnessed him jumping through a metallic door at the end. The moon shined down on him through the windows as he ran up to the door. It opened up to a storage room, with chairs and boxes covered by old dusty tarps, and shelves stacked with various knick-knacks. Luigi wrinkled his nose as the musty odour returned. On the bright side, the Oozer was nowhere to be seen.

'Arf!'

Polterpup sat by a safe embedded in the wall, his nose pointing straight up at it. Luigi approached him, eye on the safe.

'That's where the ghost hid the device?'

'Arf arf!' Polterpup replied with a nod.

The safe had nothing to twist to input a combination, but it did have a bright green light that flashed slowly. Luigi recognised it and smirked, using his Strobulb on it. The sound of gears turning could be heard from inside the safe, until it swung open like something wanted to break out. For the most part, it was empty. That was with one exception, that being the one thing that Luigi wanted to see the most.

'There it is!'

He picked up the device, and installed it by screwing it into place. With a press of the right button, the light emitted a rainbow beam that swirled around like food colouring in milk, or like oil on water.

'Arf?'

Polterpup stepped into the light. His usually translucent skin became more opaque under it. He yelped in shock as a tingly feeling overtook him.

'Oh, you don't remember this, do you? I'll show you what it does! But we gotta get back to the professor.'

So he left that dusty storage with his ghost doggy in tow... and yelped upon seeing a couple more Goobs right next to him in the hallway. One of the ghosts stuck some posters on the wall, while the other struggled to carry a whole pile of them. Wanted posters at that. They had a mugshot of Luigi, with a fair reward for his head, literally or otherwise.

'You know what kinda sucks?' The Goob carrying the posters said, his arms shaking. 'We gotta present the dude alive. Why can't we just make it easy and kill him?'

Luigi gulped. The other Goob looked at his friend, rolling his eyes while pinning up another poster.

'Ms Gravely's orders.' He said. 'She wants that man alive. Speaking of which...' He turned to the aforementioned green dude, glancing at him and then back at the poster. This process was repeated a few times until he got it. 'Yep. That's him.' He said, calmly. 'Aight Greg, let's grab him and impre-'

'RUN AWAY!' The first Goob screamed, sending the posters flying everywhere as he flew out of the room.

The other Goob grunted. 'Ya wimp.' He turned to Luigi. 'Look bud, if I want the money I gotta bring you to the boss. You okay with that?'

'Uh... n-no?'

'You hesitated. That means yes. Get over here.'

The Goob's translucent skin disappeared into thin air. Polterpup bowed down and growled with his teeth bared.

'Huh.' The ghost said. 'The ghost dog is the disloyal one. How's that for irony?'

Luigi switched the nozzle over to the Dark-Light. He aimed his flashlight right where Polterpup was growling, and shined his rainbow light. Slowly, the glowing blue skin of the Goob returned. He looked down at his body and gasped.

'Okay, now you're cheating.' He said. 'How does that even-?'

Luigi cut him off with a Strobulb flash.

'Uh... can we think about this?'

A few quick slams into the floor later, the Goob vanished into the Poltergust like he wasn't even there to begin with. With that out of the way, Luigi peered at the wanted posters tacked on the wall. The ghosts made it very clear how desperately they wanted his head, considering that they had at least twenty plastered on that one wall alone.

'L-L-Let's just save the professor.'

He returned to E. Gadd's portrait, half expecting it to have disappeared or something. Thank those in the Overthere that it hadn't. Polterpup watched with anticipation.

'You wanna see what this can do? Watch this!'

He enveloped the portrait with the rainbow light of his newly-recovered doohickey, and the swirly pattern of the painting came to life and moved around. The professor emerged from the portrait.

'Arf?'

'Yeah! It can do that.'

Upon being fully separated from his tapestry prison, E. Gadd immediately fell flat on his face. Polterpup yelped, and jumped back. Luigi flinched and rushed to the old man's side, rather nervous. The fears were put to rest when E. Gadd dusted himself off and stood up.

'Ooh, I never thought I'd be on this side of the portrait-ification process...' He muttered as everything came back to him. 'No wonder King Boo was so keen on-'

His bespectacled eyes met Luigi, and lit up visibly behind those big glasses.

'Professor, I-' Luigi tried to explain before getting cut off.

'Ah! If it isn't Luigi! And that mischievous spectral puppy too. You are precisely the last person I'd expect to find here.'

The plumber rolled his eyes. 'Professor, we-'

'Hold that thought! Now isn't the time to catch up.'

Luigi grumbled, but stayed silent.

'What matters is...you'll do nicely!' E. Gadd said. 'Come on, Luigi. Get me out of here now! The hotel is filled to the brim with ghosts! Let's make a run for it!'

Luigi's eyes widened. When E. Gadd tried to make a run for it, Luigi grabbed his arm. He didn't pull him in too hard; he didn't want to hurt him.

E. Gadd looked back at him, perturbed. 'What're doing sonny? We must get out of this hotel, posthaste!'

'N-N-No! M-M-Mario! The princess. T-The other princess. The T-Toads!' He stammered.

'What was that?' E. Gadd asked, distress clear in his eyes. 'All of your friends have been captured?! And you can't just abandon them here, you say?'

Luigi nodded. E. Gadd promptly hung his head all the way back and sighed, his arms hanging down.

'You're the same as ever, I see.' He said. 'A bit of a handful...'

The plumber blinked at him. 'You... you serious?'

'OK. I'm not thrilled about it,' E. Gadd continued like Luigi had said nothing. 'But I, Professor Elvin Gadd, have an idea! First things first, Luigi. We have to get to my car! Will you take me there?'

Ah. He knew that old car seemed familiar. E. Gadd peered around his back, and saw the device hooked up onto him.

'Hey…' He said, grinning. 'The new Poltergust G-00 you're wearing... You took that out of my car, right?'

'Poltergust G-00?'

'We've got to get back to the underground garage.' E. Gadd continued. 'Let's go!'

E. Gadd ran towards the doors to the lobby, while Luigi watched him, confused, and staying in his spot.

'Uh, but I've already got the Poltergust.' Luigi said. 'Why do we have to-?'

'Hurry up, sonny! The more time you waste, the longer it'll take to get my ghost collection back.'

Luigi rolled his eyes. 'Come on boy...' He said as he went after him, his pet following close behind.

Once through the door, E. Gadd ran to the elevator. Turns out, the second storey had another place to board it, at around the same place Luigi saw that maid. On the way there, Luigi noticed another door. Even if E. Gadd would let him, he couldn't get to that door through all the cleaning stuff put in front of it.

'Chop-chop, sonny!'

Luigi then realised that E. Gadd had already reached the elevator while he was just staring at a door he couldn't access.

'Oh. C-Coming, professor!'

E. Gadd pressed the button the moment his assistant arrived, and said assistant rubbed his hands nervously as the elevator began approaching them.

'Um, professor, t-there's a small problem with this elevator...'

'Oh, don't fret.' E. Gadd said. 'I'm sure there isn't a fire.'

'N-No, there's-'

*DING*

The elevator arrived, and opened up. E. Gadd ran in without delay, and Luigi followed him with delay. Polterpup chose to jump through the walls to get in instead.

'S-See,' Luigi said as he entered. 'The buttons are-'

'Of all the... someone has removed all the other elevator buttons!'

The plumber sighed. That's what I was trying to... never mind. E. Gadd peered into the lowest hole, looking for anything that he could tap into to get things moving without the buttons. There was nothing in there.

'What's going on here?' He asked.

'Um, m-maybe a ghost-'

'Hmm... A mystery for later, I suppose.'

Luigi whimpered in frustration.

'It didn't seem like any of your friends were trapped on the second floor with me.' E. Gadd said, pacing around. 'They must have been taken to one of the floors higher up in the hotel. Which means... yeah, we're going to need those elevator buttons.'

'There... aren't any stairs?' Luigi asked, finally getting his voice into this two-person conversation.

E. Gadd chuckled. 'Like anyone would want to walk up all those steps! Oh ho, I never tire of your silly little ideas.'

Luigi whimpered again, far more audibly.

'Oh, don't be like that, sonny. Go ahead and give the B1 button a push.'

Though Luigi was still annoyed about having to find the buttons, he relaxed and paced around aimlessly. He took great solace in the fact that the elevator would give him plenty of time to unwind in-between the levels of his personal hell. He felt something moving against his leg. Polterpup licked his overall leggings gently, whimpering quietly. Luigi gave him a small smile, knelt down, and stroked him.

'I'll be fine, boy. I promise. I've got you here with me.'

Though Luigi didn't believe the words coming out of his own mouth, Polterpup seemed pretty convinced. He yipped and wagged his adorable little tail, and gave his owner a quick kiss on the cheek.


The elevator arrived at its destination far sooner than he would've hoped. The doors opened up to the basement, and compared to the well-lit mezzanine the place seemed even darker now. The musty air felt worse after the clear air of the upper floors.

'Hurry, sonny!'

Luigi stepped out of the box like he was stepping in-between spikes, darting both his eyes and his flashlight all over the place. Polterpup stood by his side, snarling at every single air particle, just in case something leapt out at his best friend.

'Why do you worry so much, Luigi?' E. Gadd rhetorically asked. 'Hundreds of aggressive and dangerous ghosts are no match for the trusty Poltergust G-00.'

Luigi gulped.

*CRASH*

'AHH!'

A painting fell off the wall and plummeted to the ground with a fairly loud CRASH, and Luigi's blood pressure spiked the moment that crash hit his eardrums. It took several seconds of deep breathing to calm himself down. He heard E. Gadd laughing at him, and it made him blush, both in embarrassment and in frustration.

'Stop fooling around, Luigi!' E. Gadd said. 'What part of 'posthaste' did you not understand?'

With a sigh, Luigi continued to walk down the hallway. After what felt like a while, they finally arrived at the door. E. Gadd reached for the handle, and turned to Luigi.

'Now sonny,' He said. 'I'm sure you've been wondering why I wanted us to return to my car.'

'Actually, yeah, I-'

'You need not worry for much longer now!' He announced, opening up the way. 'For once we're on the other side of this door, we'll find the- CRIMINY!'

Luigi jolted, and rushed to the open door. He had to cover his mouth in order to contain his high-pitched yelp: he recognised that blue ghost, as the bellhop who didn't seem especially happy to be carrying people's luggage. Steward, his name was. There was one major difference; he no longer had those uncanny eyes and mouth, and now looked far more like the Goobs from before.

Luigi gasped. They were ghosts this whole time?! I KNEW there was something off about them! … I could've put a stop to this before it even began...

Steward had a luggage cart with him, far more rusty and worn than the last one. It only now dawned on Luigi that these suitcases were not at all familiar to him. In fact, they seemed to be worn away by years worth of age. He gulped. Who else was here before us? Steward grunted as he hoisted a green suitcase into his arms, and chucked it onto the cart. He looked over at all the other suitcases on the floor, and growled to himself.

'We're packing up, she said.' He muttered. 'Time to finally get rid of all those old suitcases, she said. No one needs them anymore, she said! Well thanks, Ms Gravely! Hey, you know what would be nice? Actual HELP!'

Despite him being on the enemy's side, Luigi couldn't help but feel bad for the guy.

'Be careful, sonny.' E. Gadd whispered. 'If we're careful, we should be able to get to my car without provoking... where are you going? Lui... Luigi!'

Luigi ignored him, and walked towards the ghostly bellhop.

Steward chucked on another suitcase. 'Yeah, what a brilliant idea! We'll lure these idiots to our hotel, so we have to deal with all their garbage. Love it!'

It was at this moment that Luigi realised that he was probably making a big mistake.

He gulped. 'Uh... h-hi, S-Steward. Y-You want help?'

E. Gadd slammed his hand directly into his forehead. Steward gasped and spun around. Luigi smiled like someone had him in their crosshair.

'You!' Steward cried. 'You're that green guy! Ms Gravely told us about you.' He gritted his teeth. 'You're the one who's gonna ruin everything!'

'I-I just wanted to help.'

'If I present you to Ms Gravely, she might give me a better job than this.' The ghost clenched his fists. 'Get over here so I can...!'

He paused for a few seconds, then sighed. His head and arms hung down like he was being hanged by his back.

'Oh, forget it.' He said. 'Do what you want with me. I'm just so SICK of this stupid job!'

Luigi blinked at him. He lifted up his flashlight, just in case.

'I used to like this job, you know.' Steward ranted, flailing his arms around. 'It was kinda fun at first, helping out the guests with their crap. But after doing the same job for decades or even centuries - heck if I know how long it's been! - it's gotten tedious fast.'

Luigi, taking care to walk as quietly as possible, approached him with a charging Strobulb.

'But you wanna know what really sucks? You'd think that after all these years of lifting these heavy suitcases, you'd get stronger, right? Wrrrong-o! Guess what? Unless you were all muscly to begin with, ghosts can't gain muscles at all!'

Totally oblivious to the approaching man, he held his spindly arms out.

'I mean, look at these noodle arms! I could've been the guy who just handed out drinks. But nooo. I had to be the guy who had to carry all these stupid people's stupid lug- HEY!'

Despite what his heart was telling him, Luigi flashed Steward in the eyes.

'S-Sorry.'

He wasted no opportunity to get him, so he grabbed his tail with the Poltergust and did not let go. Steward got over his stunned state quickly and dragged the plumber all around the carpark, through every puddle and into every traffic cone.

'Hey hey hey!' The ghost yelled. 'What are you doing, buddy?!'

Luigi's feet slipped all over the place as he was pulled through another puddle. 'But I-I thought you - GAH!'

Steward rammed him right into one of those old suitcases, making Luigi squeak out in pain. His face slammed into the ground, and his grip on Steward broke. Taking a moment to groan, he pushed his face off the concrete floor and unhooked his legs from the luggage. Steward grabbed a red suitcase, and struggled to lift it up any more than an inch. Luigi took this chance to get back on his feet.

'B-But I thought you, uh, wanted to be captured?' He said. 'Or... s-something.'

Steward pulled on that old trunk with so much force, his arms began to stretch and he huffed and puffed all over the place.

'Hey, look.' He managed to say between grunts. 'Just cos I... said it, doesn't mean... I meant it. No matter what... Ms Gravely puts me through, I will obey... her until the very... end!'

Somehow, the weak little ghost managed to get the suitcase into his shaky arms. He gave Luigi a glare that told him to 'watch out'.

'Steward, I-I mean it!' Luigi pleaded, holding both his hands up. 'I just wanted to help you.'

'Heh. A likely... oh Jaydes... story!'

He lifted the suitcase even higher, and gave it a good - if incredibly slow - overarm shot. Though not very quickly at all, it approached our timid hero.

'Watch out, sonny!' E. Gadd yelled from the sidelines. 'If that suitcase hits ya, it'll really sting!'

The advice wasn't necessary. Luigi was already stumbling out of the way. The suitcase collided with another one, and both fell to pieces almost immediately. Even thrown by a weakling, they were still boxes of leather packed to the brim. Luigi gulped, unable to see the rubble as anything but what could've been his bones.

Steward grunted and clenched his fists. 'Sweet Gravely, make like a deer and let me get you!'

He picked up another trunk, struggling with it even more than the last. Luigi mentally searched for any kind of opening, but the suitcase blocked the ghost's face.

'Hey buddy, I really don't wanna do this.' Steward said, sounding like he was seconds away from passing out. 'But I think you wanna suitcase to the - YOWCH!'

He dropped the suitcase as his body seized up with pain. Luigi stared in confusion until he saw that Polterpup had clamped his jaws around Steward's tail. Upon getting a mean stare from Steward, he dropped it and looked up at the bellhop with an innocent smile. Luigi grinned, and charged up his light-based weapon.

'Bad dog!' Steward yelled, shooting a finger at him. 'BAD dog! Don't mess with my attempts at pleasing the boss.'

He turned around to return to smashing the literal life out of the plumber, and before his mind even registered his eyes meeting him, Luigi greeted him with a full on blast of light.

'GAH! Green guy, I'm gonna-!'

Luigi didn't wait a single second, and grabbed his tail with the Poltergust again. Like before, the bellhop flew about in an attempt to shake him off, except this time Luigi did a much better job at hanging on. Now, possibly due to exhausting himself trying to lift heavy objects, Steward could hardly fight the vacuum at all. His struggling slowly came to a stop as the realisation of his inevitable defeat came over him.

'I-I'm sorry.' Luigi muttered.

Even though half his body was already gone, Steward managed to turn around to stare directly into the mortal's eyes.

'Hey bud, I got a couple of words for you!'

Luigi gulped, but Steward dropped the glare and smiled softly instead.

'Thank you, so much.'

His simple thanks were his last words before he was sucked inside the ghost-capturing machine. The last part of him that Luigi saw was his spindly arm reaching out and grabbing his hat, before nothing of him remained.

'Arf arf!' Polterpup cheered.

'Ya did it, sonny!' E. Gadd said, approaching him. 'I only doubted you for a moment.'

Luigi stared at the nozzle, only one thought in his mind. Why... why did he thank me?

His Poltergust nozzle began shaking, snapping him back to reality. Two golden lights flew out, hitting him with nasty recoil. Both the lights bounced against the floor a couple times, before coming to a gentle stop. He picked them up and peered at them for a few moments, and grinned when he realised what those numbers were. E. Gadd readjusted his glasses and gave the lights a closer look, then grinned as well.

'Professor, I think these are the-!' Luigi tried to say.

'Ho ho! Those are definitely the elevator buttons. I never would've guessed a ghost had taken them!'

Luigi sighed.

'But...there are only two.' E. Gadd said. 'Maybe there are other ghosts out there with the rest of the buttons?'

Luigi's eye twitched.

'No matter. Let's go to my car. I've got something very interesting that I want to show you!'

Trying not to think about the inevitable torture in his future, Luigi packed the buttons away into his pockets; it was time for E. Gadd to finally show him this very interesting 'something'.


STEWARD, THE FRUSTRATED BELLHOP

AGE - 26

GENDER - Male

CAUSE OF DEATH - Crushed by luggage

Out of all the employees, Steward has been working at the Last Resort for the longest, thanks to being the first hired by Hellen Gravely. He hates his job with a burning passion, but he didn't always. Back when he was still alive, he actually loved working as a bellhop for a hotel in the BeanBean Kingdom, even after he lost his life in a tragic luggage cart accident. It was being hired by Ms Gravely that made him loathe his job so much.

Author Notes - So... Steward ended up having some long-term effects on the rest of the project. I had intended to reveal the 'everyone hates Hellen' thing near the end, but I just wrote a massive rant from Steward by complete accident. So then the Grand Ghosts' relationship to their awful boss ended up being revealed a lot earlier than intended. And I think the story is better off for it, honestly.

I find it kinda funny that, at first, I was doing a 'name begins with the same letter the species does' thing going on with the generic ghosts. Minus Charles and Sam, of course. Greg and George for the Goobs, Owen and Olivia for the Oozers, Harold for a Hammer... then I proceeded to drop this silly gimmick all together later on. I mean, giving them names at all is interesting, seeing as most other adaptations of this game don't do that.