You couldn't spend much time inside Dracula's castle without getting the feeling that you were being watched. If it really did have a soul, it wasn't one that enjoyed company. Despite showing no signs of disrepair, the floors creaked and groaned with even the lightest step taken upon it. The halls were flooded with red too, as if to deter the more gentle of hearts. Red carpets on the floor, red light seeping through the windows, and the faintest drops of blood decorating the walls. The final guard against intruders was the chill blowing through the air; it speared you cleanly, before latching onto your soul and tearing it out. All those left in its wake shambled within the castle no less hollow than the creatures of the night who called it home.

Luigi found himself feeling just as hollow as he bore the screams echoing throughout the castle. With only the door at the end of the hall to muffle them, Luigi could hear every tremble of the larynx producing these screeches. The sound could hardly be described as just "murderous" - if every nerve in your body was struck with the deepest electrifying pain, you'd likely make a sound similar to what Luigi was forced to listen to. The sensation triggered his most primal urges for retreat - an instinct he knew his brother would not feel - yet he knew that he could not. Instead, he merely cowered by the door, holding his ears until the screaming came to an abrupt halt.

"Ah, good lord," Wario said, buckling his pants as he threw open the door, "That was a fat shit."

"Sounds-a like you really needed to go." Luigi rubbed his ears as he rose from the floor. "Lucky we-a happened to find a bathroom then."

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah, totally. Course we did."

With nature's call answered, Wario stumbled over to the door on the opposite end of the hall from whence they came. The knob to the door, an opulent gold sculpture in the shape of a bat's head, firmly resisted when Wario tried to turn it.

"And of course it locked from the other side. I can't take this anymore."

Wario stomped on the floor in his fury, earning another creak from the floorboards.

"Be careful!" Luigi warned, "What if the floor breaks? You could fall through!"

"The floors aren't gonna break. Look at them, they're impeccable. Not like the beautiful mass of mold and mildew where I call home. We need to get back to my place pronto. It's been a whole seven minutes since I last ejaculated, and my babymaker aches for the tight embrace of vibrating silicone."

"Well-a what do we do?"

"I dunno, you come up with a plan. Didn't you say you wanted to become independent or something? Isn't that your character arc?"

"I, uh, I never-a said that."

"No, but you were thinking it, and I can read you like a book. Not a high reading level book, either; we're talking Hungry Hungry Caterpillar type shit."

Wario scratched his stubbled chin as he dropped onto the tattered old couch. He grumbled to drown out the cries of the couch's dust bunnies and mites, all crying out in pain beneath the weight of Wario's hefty cheeks. He pondered and pondered, but just moving through the demon castle was a cumbersome task, let alone navigating it. How could they get out of the building so that they could use the Telmet to teleport home?

"Oh wait, we can just use the Telmet right now." Wario ran a hand against the Telmet, which he'd yet to remove. "Huh. I guess that was easier than I thought it'd be."

"Isn't it-a too easy?" Luigi mewled, "This-a place is supernatural. Won't there be some-a sort of magical barrier keeping us in?"

"I mean, maybe, but it can't hurt to try."

"I guess. But still, can we-a really use the Telmet to just-a teleport out of here?"

Just then, Death popped out of Wario's "bathroom" with an intricate marble urn in one bony hand and a bag of Cheez Doodles in the other.

"Wait, wait, wait, what's this about teleporting?" the reaper asked, pocketing his Doodles.

"You!" Wario rolled up his sleeves, itching for a brawl, "How long were you following us!?"

"I wasn't. I was in the clock tower, like I said. But I'm automatically summoned whenever something dies."

"Who died?"

"Something you ate for lunch apparently. Literally. I'm pretty sure you consumed a small animal whole."

"I dumpster dive occasionally. Saves cash."

"Look, look, does someone wanna explain this 'teleporting' business?"

"We were-a planning to use Wario's Telmet to teleport out of the mansion." Luigi pointed a gloved finger at Wario's space transposing headwear.

"...It can teleport?"

"Yeah. A wizard closed off all of the warp pipes between this world and-a Nintendo World, so this helmet was the only way to-a get here."

Death slowly brought a skeletal finger to his chin, mulling over Luigi's response for a few seconds. Eventually, a dull chuckle rattled out of his neck.

"Hahaha. And you really think that helmet's gonna be able to get you out of here?"

"See, Wario!? I-a told you!" Luigi quivered as he hid behind his partner in crime, "I-a told you he has some way to keep us in here!"

How horrible Luigi felt having his suspicions confirmed. He could hardly stand to look at the spectre now that the latter had the advantage; with eyes that sunken and murky, who knew what sinister thoughts Death could be thinking?

Fuck, Death was thinking, Of course the little shitstains can teleport. My bad, right? Why would I ever expect green Mario and this two-bit John Wayne Gacy lookalike to not have a magical helmet that fucking teleports? My bad. Fuck me. Y'know, coy video game references aside, maybe this is partially my fault for trying to kidnap him with some sort of Eddie Murphy's Haunted Mansion type of scheme. A simple chloroforming would've done wonders.

"Luigi," Wario groaned with his head in his palms, "you thick-headed ingrate, that's a bluff. He's lying."

"What? But-a why?"

"Ah, gee, I know, right? Why would someone do that? Just go around, telling lies. Surely our good buddy Death - the literal reaper of souls - is above such mischief."

"Couldn't have put it better myself, my odoriferous associate!" As Death wrapped one bony arm around Wario in a chummy fashion, he slithered the other up towards the Telmet. "And since that helmet won't be doing you any favors, I might as well just throw it in the trash for you-"

"Hey, hey, hold on! Even if the Telmet's really as useless as you say it is, there's no reason to not give it one go. If it really doesn't work, you can do whatever you want with it."

"Nah, nah, you don't have to do that. It's not necessary."

"Why not? Because it works, right?"

"No, no, there's just, uh, there's just no need for that."

"Luigi, say goodbye to the skeleton man." Wario pulled himself from Death's grip and began entering coordinates into the Telmet's remote. "We're going back home. Actually, we're going to a Chick-fil-A first. I'm getting the rumblies. You're looking a little queer today, though, so you might have to wait outside."

"Wait! If you try to use it, you might break it!"

"Why do you care?"

"Because, uh…I wanna add it to my collection."

"Your collection?"

"Why of course! I...run a pawn shop. Where I sell all sorts of trinkets and souvenirs. I do have to obtain them first, though, so perhaps you and I can make a little business transaction."

"Hmm. You've piqued my interest. How much cash you got on ya?"

"But Wario," Luigi said, poking out from behind Wario's girthy form, "didn't you-a say he was lying?"

"Yeah, but now he's talking about money, so I'm obligated to see where this goes."

"Excellent!" Death pat down his scrappy robes, only to be met with naught but the crunchy crinkle of his Cheez Doodles. "Oof, uh, thing is, I don't exactly have cash on me right now, but-"

"Chick-fil-A, here we come."

"But I'll trade you! I'll trade you the most valuable souvenir in my collection! Something worth more than that stupid helmet!"

"Well that's kind of suspicious. Why would you wanna make a trade where you end up with a worse product?"

"Alright, then I'll trade you something slightly shittier than the helmet."

"And why would I wanna make a trade where I end up with a worse product?"

"You are making this a bitch and a half. Okay, look at it like this. That helmet may be a valuable piece of hardware, but can you really sell it where you're from? So what it can teleport? You people already have cars, transportation is basically covered. No market for it. But the pungent stench I can see trailing off of your body tells me that something your hometown doesn't have a market for is hygiene."

Death fluttered over to a closet down the hall. After letting some emaciated corpses roll out and digging through the closet's dusty contents, Death pulled out a bright red vacuum cleaner and held it up for display.

"Your offer is a vacuum cleaner?" Wario asked.

"Not just any vacuum cleaner, my friend! It's the very same vacuum Courtney Love used to clean Kurt Cobain's brain matter out of his carpet." Death tapped a glass tanker jutting out of the back of the vacuum, filled with a gurgling green slime. "It even comes fully loaded with rare limited edition...um...let's call it 'ectoplasm' for now."

"Huh. It's got history, it's got functionality, it's got goo; it's got everything I could ever want. Tell you what, Skeletor, throw in those Cheez Doodles you're pocketing, and you've got a deal."

"What?"

"You heard me. I'm starving here! If I'm not getting out of here anytime soon, something's gotta hold me over."

With a heavy heart, Death relinquished his cheesy snack over to Wario in exchange for the Telmet. The spectre had won, but at what cost? Death vanished, leaving the vacuum in Wario's grubby hands.

"Wait here," Wario said as he unbuckled his pants, "I'm gonna try something real quick."

Wario waddled over into the bathroom again. A split second whirr roared into the hall, followed by a pained mechanical crunch and the snapping of fabric fibers. Soon, the room went silent, and Wario stepped back out.

"Nevermind, this thing is useless. You can have it."

Wario tossed the vacuum Luigi's way. Luigi reached out, yet missed entirely, letting the machine crash into the ground and split into pieces.

"Wow, Luigi, you're just fucking completely incapable, aren't you?"

Luigi bent down and scurried to pick up the vacuum. As he scooped up the dislodged scrap, however, he noticed a familiar sigil; the visage of a curly haired old man emblazoned upon a broken latch.

"Hey...I-a recognize this logo! This-a vacuum is a Poltergust!"

"Polterwhat?"

"Poltergust! It's a line of vacuums made by-a Gadd Science, Incorporated. I'm-a friends with the founder, Professor E. Gadd. This is his logo."

"Oh, Gadd Science! Yeah, I've heard of those guys! I bought a Gadd Science brand cock sleeve before. Gave me a rash, but I tend to get rashes down there anyway, what with the smegma. Did you know people with diabetes are more likely to contract balanitis, Luigi? It's because the sugar in your urine collects under the foreskin. Crazy shit, I know."

After he was done recoiling from Wario's comment, Luigi mashed the Poltergust together with its loose bits.

"If it's-a like the other Poltergust, it-a should have some shoulder straps."

Luigi tugged on a belt hanging out from the bottom of the Poltergust. On cue, the glass tanker on the back was released, cracking open and spilling out its green goo.

"No! The goo!" Wario cried, "That was 33% of the reason why I wanted it in the first place!"

"Maybe we can-a just put it back in?"

Luigi pressed his hand into the goo, preparing to usher it into the broken tanker. As he dug his hand in, however, the slime rumbled and swelled. Its volume ballooned exponentially, forming a solid mound rising out of the center of the pool. Luigi screeched as he ripped his hand away. Instantly, the goo deflated back to original size. Luigi inspected the palms of his hands, but found them only to be a bit damper and now smelling of ground coffee. The plumber gently dipped his hand back into the goo - trembling as he did so - prompting the slime to grow once again. As the mound continued to rise beyond its former height, it began to take the shape of Luigi's own hand. Luigi clenched his fist inside of the goo; following suit, the goo's hand clenched as well. As he moved his hand through the green slime, the hand moved in a mirrored synchrony.

"E. Gadd, I knew you-a had some tricks up your sleeve."

"Ooh, that looks cool, lemme touch it!"

The goo gurgled harder as Wario dove his hands inside. As he scooped the goo off of the ground, he unintentionally yanked it out of the splits in the floorboards through which it had begun to exude.

"Ew, it's-a seeping through the cracks like phlegm."

Luigi's own observation planted an idea in his head. He swiveled around and analyzed the space beneath the locked door; there was more than enough room for what he had in mind. Still, what if it backfired, and made things even worse for the unfortunate duo?

"Staring at the door's not gonna get it to open," Wario said.

"Huh? Oh, sorry. I-a just had an idea."

"What is it?"

"It's-a nothing. It was probably a bad idea."

"Well I don't have any ideas, so we either sit here and die, or we do whatever stupid bullshit you've got brewing in your head and then die. There's no difference, ultimately."

"Yeah...yeah, you're right! Help me squeeze this goo underneath the door!"

And so Luigi and Wario compressed the goo into something similar to a ball and hauled it over to the locked door. After dropping it with a splat, they crammed it beneath the door, leaving just a portion of the slime hanging behind. Luigi pressed his hand back into the ghostly concoction, watching through the space beneath the door as the goo's hand reformed on the other side.

"I have a little control over the gooey hand. Maybe I can-a use it to unlock the door. I-a just need to know when I'm actually touching the knob."

Luigi waved his hand through the goo, waiting for some sort of reaction. No matter where Luigi moved his hand, though, nothing seemed to change; he could only faintly hear the wet thump of the gooey hand smacking against the door. To make matters worse, the goo started to recede, escaping Luigi's grasp as it was sucked away beneath the door.

"No! We're-a losing it! Why is it going away!?"

"Hold on, I got you!"

Wario dropped to his knees and tried tugging the goo back with his burly hands, but only managed to slow down its secession. As he and Luigi frantically waded through the goo, however, Wario noticed that the goo's rumbling had once again intensified. He held his hands still, and the goo promptly calmed down.

"Wait, that's it!" Wario said, jumping to his feet.

"What is!?"

"The goo reacts when it touches something that's moving!"

Wario gripped the door knob and began jiggling it violently.

"Now, Luigi! Start reaching around! Look for when it starts bubbling!"

Luigi shook his hand as fast as he could. His heart pounded harder with every smack of the goo against the door, like a war drum playing in the back of his head. Just as the goo was about to slip away beneath the door, it burst into froth and foamy growls; they'd found the knob. Luigi clenched the last drop of goo he had to turn the knob, and with a gentle click, the door drifted open.

"Haha! We did it!" Wario cheered.

"Yeah! Let's-a go! Nothing can stop us now!" Luigi pumped his fist in the air as he ran through the door, carried weightlessly by the high of their victory. "It's-a Luigi time!"

Luigi time ended approximately one second later, as Luigi beheld the current state of the goo. The hand had grown into a full human form; specifically, that of Luigi's. The gooey Luigi had replicated the original down to the pore. Every strand of moustache hair was identical. The goo had even made itself a copy of Luigi's Poltergust. And yet with how complete of a copy the goo had begun, its eyes couldn't be more desolate. You could hardly say that it was staring at Luigi. More likely, it was staring at the all encompassing void that surrounds all of us, and it only happened to be faced Luigi's way. Luigi's face went a ghostly white as he stumbled backwards and fell over. Upon toppling onto the floor, he broke clean through the floor, descending into a pit of shadow and hitting the ground with a crash. Wario peered into the murky abyss, bug-eyed with shock.

"Luigi! Ah shit, that nit-witted beanpole was supposed to be my ticket out of here! I guess if I hope to ever fill the old cum drawer back home, I need to save him."

Wario gripped the rim of the hole Luigi had left behind, readying himself to dive in.

"It's time, Wario! It's time for you to complete your own character arc and become a better person! It's time for-"

"It's-a Luigi time!"

Wario paused and turned towards the warbled voice. The gooey Luigi was staring back down at Wario, rocking back and forth on the heels of his shoes.

"What did you just say?"

"It's-a Luigi time!"

Wario crawled out of the pit, eyeing his new partner in slime as an idea crossed his mind.

"Do your best Luigi impression."

"It's-a Luigi time!"

"That sounds...believable. Bonehead said his boss needed Luigi, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that Luigi, right? You get what I'm saying, uh...Gooigi?"

"It's-a Luigi time!"

"That's gonna get old mighty quick."

And so, Wario and Gooigi continued down the hall, leaving Luigi behind.

"Hopefully, this 'Count' guy is a man of reason."

The well before Ganondorf's throne room was supposed to reveal any secret the mind could hunger for when used by a proper diviner. As Medusa hunched over its mystic waters, however, she was faced with nothing but a cloudy murk. Her assault on the prison should've been a complete success, but she merely succeeded in alerting Meta Knight's crew of her presence. It was more than a failure; it was an embarrassment.

Medusa's sulking was interrupted as the gold gilded doors to the throne room swung open. The dark lord Count Dracula strolled out, his lifeless aura exuding just a bit less misery as he laid eyes on his cohort.

"Good evening, Lady Medusa." Dracula gently bowed his head before the Underworld Goddess.

"Lord Dracula. What brought you here?"

"Ganondorf asked for an update on the status of the Mirror."

"You couldn't have explained that over the transceiver?"

"Admittedly, I had removed my transceiver to avoid overhearing Ridley's outbursts. Still, it is irritating to have trekked all this way for something so trivial."

"I have some reserve troops on hand. Next time, I could arrange to have you carried."

Dracula let a brief snicker escape his pale lips. He covered his mouth as quickly as he could, but Medusa's smirk made it clear he was too late.

"Well what of you? How go your exploits against Meta Knight and his lot?"

"Not great. I had them all locked up in a prison, and then I blew up the prison. But my spy on Isle Delfino says that they survived."

Medusa bashed the tip of her staff against the floor, ripping at the greasy black locks that interrupted her serpentine hair.

"Curses. I told everyone I had this under control. If I don't have Meta Knight's head on a stick soon, I could become the laughing stock of this organization."

"Patience, Medusa. Patience is a virtue. Given enough scrutiny, they will falter, and you'll have your opportunity to strike them down. They are mortals, after all. Higher beings such as us simply need time."

"I suppose so. Thank you."

"Of course. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get in and out of here before I run into-"

"Dimentio!" Dimentio declared as he materialized in Dracula's path, "That's the name, and superb comedic timing is the game!"

"Oh hell." Dracula stepped back, rubbing his now pulsing temples with withered fingers. "Dimentio, didn't I warn you about following me around?"

"I didn't follow you! I was just summoned here by Lord Ganondorf. Our convergence was entirely to my surprise."

"Right. Well, while we're together, I suppose I should inform you that Death managed to wrangle your friend Luigi into my castle. Whenever you wish to proceed with your plans for him, you may come retrieve him and-"

"Ooh, you found Luigi!? Wonderful! I have a special mixture prepared just for him!"

"Yes, that's all well and good. Now if I could just get back to my-"

"Now then, the next step in our plan is to administer this mixture to Luigi. I assume Death can take care of this too? Maybe he can prepare a fine five course meal, and slowly dose every course of the meal; starting with the spinach puff appetizers, then moving onto-"

"Take caution with your demands, wizard. Chatter stokes my bloodthirst."

Dracula's scleras began to crack, seeping with a bloody red light. The hall was swiftly plunged into darkness centered around the vampire king.

"As much as I hate to disappoint, Lord Dracula, I'm afraid I don't have a drop of blood to spare! Unless you're suggesting you'll drain the pulp from my paper body?"

"I'm suggesting that unless you step out of my way within the next half second, I'll suck every mortal in this world dry. Once you have no one left to latch onto like the fungus you are and smother with your inane ramblings, then I'll finish you."

Dimentio opened his mouth to retort, yet nothing trickled out. After a moment of hanging in the air silently, the jester gave Dracula a little curtsy, jingling the bells on his cap before zipping away into Ganondorf's throne room. Dracula clutched his chest and let out a sigh, lifting the shade on the hallway.

"And here I thought patience was a virtue," Medusa teased as Dracula slithered out of the hall.

"Any virtues I have left would be wasted on him."