The opening of the elevator doors unionized with the Invadion of sea air. Though pirates are nowadays portrayed as goofy, or kindhearted, that simply wasn't the case in actual history. They were criminals, who looted and pillaged passing vessels, and whom don't take very kindly to any opposition to their line of work. The entirety of the room our heroic duo entered was floored with wooden planks, and had the overall theme of a pirate ship down in spades. The sound system even occasionally played a gentle creaking sound effect, to make it that bit more authentic. Though only lit by the wall-hung lanterns, Luigi was thankful that this room still seemed pretty safe.
"From what I've heard, this floor was modeled after the armada of the legendary king of the sea, Cortez. That said, I'm not exactly very confident in the fact that this floor has a giant pool of water that houses Vincent's ship. All it would take is one hole in the right place, and the floors below would be flooded." E. Gadd thought about it a moment. "Yeah, I'm honestly surprised Maxill could afford all this stuff. Don't get me wrong, he was doing pretty swell when I left, but this is straight up bonkers. Bonkers, I say it is!" The duo then walked across the room, and didn't get far before they saw a huge fake ship hull lazily built over a part of the wall, as if built there just tonight. "Um... shouldn't there be a door to another room up there?" Peach inquired. Vinny felt the flimsy boards holding the thing together. "There is. But it's behind this monstrosity. Holding a guest captive is one thing, but straight up blocking us out? I do commend them on their persistence."
Luigi tried to use his poltergust's suction to destroy the construction, but while it did make it wobble, it ultimately didn't budge. "Sorry, feller. But it looks like that thing can stand up to a little air. Luigi was simultaneously disappointed that he couldn't get to his Daisy, and relieved that it meant he didn't have to contend with Captain Vincent for now. Vinny furrowed her brow in concern. "Well, what are we gonna do? We've come too far to give up now." There was a brief silence, as E. Gadd gathered his thoughts. "Hmm... well lessee here... Oh! Luigi, my boy. Can you go inspect that thing on your left?" Luigi faced the direction Gadd instructed, and saw a strange looking electrical outlet in the wall. One that had a light green hue, in the plug holes. Luigi walked over to it. "Ah, I was right. It's a power conduit. Glad to see my technology is still being implemented here."
Peach then spoke up. "What does it do, professor?" They heard some clicking on a keyboard. "Back in my glory days, I made those things to power my inventions wirelessly. In fact, I was planning on adding a new feature to the poltergust G-00 that would utilize that kind of power." Vinny tilted her head, "Can it help us in this situation?" More clicking. "Yes. It's a part that allows a thing I call 'super suction'. That term is trademark by the way, so don't steal it. Anyway, it should give the poltergust a huge boost in sucking might. But ehehe... I happened to get captured before I could install it." Vinny folded her arms. "Why didn't you say anything about it until now?" she asked. "I'm old. My memory isn't what it was. But fortunately, my scanner has managed to trace the energy signature of the part we need. And it appears to be down in the basement levels."
Vinny frowned. "Oh great. Then we're likely to bump into Clem." Luigi raised an eyebrow. "Clem is our handyman. He's a redneck who does his job just fine. The problem is, he's got a big mouth. And he loves to run it on pretty much everyone who isn't the President. And I swear, he NEVER uses deodorant on those nasty stained pits of his." Luigi cracked a smile, thinking about how that sounded pretty similar to Waluigi. "All the more reason to retrieve it quickly. The basement floors are connected to the sewer system, right?" Vinny nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. I'll send you the fee for washing the stink out of my uniform when this is all over." They both headed on back to the elevator, and pressed the button for the basement floor. "If it's any consolation, maybe I can use this to pay my respect to my pet goldfish...? Given that you're a plumber, I suppose this won't be so harrowing for you." Luigi didn't think they'd find any goombas to stomp down there, but regardless, a sewer was a sewer.
(The music "Lila's Theme (no voice)" from Scooby-Doo and the Spooky Swamp plays)
Ding. The elevator doors opened once again. A few ghost rats scurrying away at the sight of them. The walls were decorated with metal plates, and pipes. Some exposed brickwork was also plentiful. Luigi was taken aback when he started hearing static on his Joyconnector, instead of sound. "Don't fret, it's very difficult for any frequency to travel down here. That said, it probably means we're gonna have to track this part down ourselves." She sighed. "Guess we might as well get started." Luigi nodded, and they journeyed into the tunnels ahead. The place was about as sanitary as one would expect. Mold, rust, mucus, all those things that would make a germaphobe queasy. There were a bunch of discarded items that littered the basement. Rubber duckies, black banana peels, etc.
When entering a particular section of the sewer, they saw a control booth in a spherical area. It was pristine, standing in star contrast to everything else. However, saw something else. Someone else. His skin color being the same purple-pink hue that many others in the hotel had. His greased up hair extended down to his shoulders. His lower jaw jutted out slightly, and a single tooth in the bottom row was bigger than the others. He wore yellow leather gloves, a white sleeveless shirt that had clearly never had a wash, and a baseball cap. He was playing a banjo, and leaning back in his chair, perched outside his control booth. And due to a lack of hiding spots, he spotted them almost instantly. "Wehl wehl wehl. Look who decided to come on down to see me." He had a country accent.
Vinny tried to stall him as she thought of a plan. "It was a real challenge trying to decipher the source of that rank odor: the sewer itself, or you." Clem laughed as he placed his banjo at his side, and stood up. "Issa smell of adrenaline, lil' girl. I thank of it as the sign of a job well done. You shood try it some tam. It ain't exactleh hard to walk people up an' down the joint." Vinny saw a motorboat in the water, which made her grimace at the thought that Clem drove around this nasty place. "I'd prefer not. At this point, you must have head lice, or a fungal infection somewhere on you. So yeah, no thanks." He then looked at Luigi. "Lemme hazard a guess: you want that fancy maguffin that science guy mayd, raight? WELL TOO BAD. I alredi strapped that doodad to a lil' somfing I made." Luigi confidently aimed his poltergust, as he charged at him, but Clem spun a valve attached to a nearby pipe, to send a burst of water splashing Luigi in the face.
Vinny of course floated over to apprehend him, but he floated into his control booth, and started fiddling with the gizmos inside. Through the speakers, he continued speaking. "This is my ticket to the big leagues, and I ain't lettin' it pass me by. I kin get meh hands dirty in more ways'en one." Seeing that she probably wouldn't be able to stop him from what he was doing in time, Vinny flew over and turned off the water flow hitting Luigi. "Still kicking, greenie?" She asked. Luigi got up on his feet, and rang the water out of his hat before giving a thumbs up. But then the alarms started blaring! "ALERT! FLOOD CONTROL SYSTEMS COMPROMISED! PLEASE EVACUATE IN A SAFE AND EFFICIENT MANNER!" And then Clem flew off through the tunnels with a smug look on his face."Y'all be good fer me!" The ground started to shake, as the alarms continued to screech. "No time for second guesses, Luigi. Get to the raft, hurry!" Luigi rushed over and hopped in, Vinny following suit.
Luigi tried to use the nozzle of the poltergust to paddle, as Vinny desperately tried to get the engine started. And then, they saw a cascade of water heading straight for them! "Come on, come on, start! Just start, darnit!" Just as she got it running, they were only seconds away from a very undignified wet demise. Well... Luigi was, anyway, since Vinny was already a ghost. They only got a few precious inches before the tide caught up to them. "Brace yourself!" They were sent surging forward, propelled forward by the immense force of the wave. And after a minute or two of pure terror, they finally came to a complete stop. The two of them laid there for a bit, wanting to drink in the relief of making through all that. "Ugh. It's like this entire place wants me to lose my lunch..." After their short breather, they started steering the raft around to try and find Clem, or the part. "Just look for something shiny. Chances are, it'll be what we're looking for."
After a short session of wading through the filthy water, nothing of interest was coming up. But then, the water started getting choppy. Vinny looked at Luigi. "Didn't Clem say something about an invention of his...? This isn't good." They started going faster, as something was echoing through the halls behind them. Fear was starting to take hold in their hearts. "Luigi... something's in the water...!" Luigi looked back to see some sort of metal behemoth swimming towards them. It had glowing spotlight eyes, and a huge jaw. "I'll take the wheel! You keep us as far away from that thing as possible!" Luigi started using the blow function on his poltergust to make them go faster, as the scaly monstrosity reared its horrifying mechanical head. It was a giant robotic alligator! Easily putting an Animal Planet show to shame. Snapping its jaws intimidatingly, with the intention of tearing them apart!
(The music "The Smorgs" from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door plays)
Vinny skillfully maneuvered the raft to avoid the mounds of garbage floating around in there. But the robogator wasn't gonna just idle during its menacing approach, and launched some mines out of its mouth, in an attempt to destroy them. Water was exploding into the air around them, and the raft was now essentially a waterborne bronco! Turning a corner, they saw Clem on the other side of the hallway holding a remote. And attached to it was what was unmistakably the part E. Gadd was talking about. "Havin' some fun yet, kiddies? WOOOOWEE!" Vinny groaned loudly, as she and Luigi ducked under the robogator's laser eyes. "This is about the WORST possible time for you to troll us right now, Clem!" Clem dawned a mocking grin as he saw them speeding his way. "Purdy thing, I know. But I keep forgetten tuh feed 'er. Dinner's on! And don't you go fergetin to protect your bellyache bulge, Molly!" He said, before gleefully running off.
Vinny would make a joke about him giving his creation a pet name, if she wasn't in a death race with it. "I'll stay on him!" The robogator kept up its hot pursuit, and launched a few missiles from its shoulders! Vinny jerked the wheel to the side to avoid the attack, as the missiles struck the wall ahead of them, causing debris to be sent flying. Seeing that direction was about to be buried, Vinny steered them down an alternate route. The robogator wasn't able to react that quickly however, and ended up getting brutally busted by slabs of falling concrete, but was still kicking all the same. Speedily jetting across the water, they eventually saw Clem up ahead. Still in the process of trying to ditch them. "Get ready, Luigi." Vinny instructed, as they zoomed closer to the grease monkey. Clem turned around, and was shocked to see them catch up so quickly. "Awright, yer startin' to get on ma ding darn nerves!" As soon as they were close enough, Luigi directed his poltergust at Clem, successfully latching onto him.
(The music "Country Boy" from Fairly Odd Parents: Breakin' Da Rules plays)
"Hey! Git your stewpid vacuum thang offa me!" Clem demanded, as he pulled away like an aggressive fish. The poltergust locker on, but unable to start pulling him in yet. All the while, the robogator continued its frenzy toward them. In Clem's escape, he tried tanking the raft towards danger. Somewhere further in the tunnel, Corporate Paraplonk, Sergeant Guy, and Private Goomba were carrying a pane of glass. All of a sudden, Corporate Paraplonk paused. "Hey guys...?" He asked. "Yes, Corporate?" Sergeant Guy asked. "Remind me why we're carrying a pane of glass in a sewer in the middle of nowhere, again?" Private Guy held the glass up with his head, since he lacked hands. "Don't you remember? We got a letter from some Blaeshood Sarephym person to do it. Said something about it being a throwaway gag, or something like that." Paraplonk sighed. "Are you sure it's not just that O'Chunks fellow pranking us again?" Then out of nowhere, Clem, Vinny and Luigi, and the robogator plowed straight through the glass. Shattering it into a thousand pieces. The three of them just stood there in complete disbelief. "Huh... Well that's uhh... a thing... anyone for tennis?" Goomba asked. "Yeah." Guy answered. "Sounds great." Paraplonk added.
The robogator was mere inches away, as Clem grabbed a mine out of the water. "Eat this, suckas!" But Luigi got an idea that very instant, and swung the poltergust's vacuum towards the robogator. Clem was send flying into his own creation, as it tried to back up, exposing its red underbelly, no doubt the bellyache bulge Clem was referring to. Luigi slammed Clem into that red spot, causing the robogator to explode into a pile of scrap metal. "My baby! Why I oughta...! Ai'll capchure you two, er my name ain't Clem Rusty-!" But before he could finish that sentence, Luigi sucked him up. Ironically sending the dirty hillbilly into the containment of a cleaning product. And with his invention in pieces, and the remote in their hands, they had won. "This whole ordeal has been more disgusting than an Adam Sandler movie. I'm glad it's over. Don't think I'll be touching that remote, we have no idea where Clem's gloves have been." Thankfully, Luigi was already wearing gloves. So he removed the piece, and attached it to the poltergust.
"Glad this wasn't all for nothing, but... how do we get out? The floor is still flooded." Luigi thought of something, and took control of the raft. As luck would have it, they had enough fuel to make it to where Luigi was thinking. He brought them to a part of the tunnels with a power conduit in it. "Ah! I see. Very clever, Luigi." Luigi smiled, as the energy from the conduit flowed into the poltergust. He pointed it at the water, and started sucking. A typhoon erupted from the poltergust, chaotically sucking up all the water. In minutes, it was back to its normal level, and they made their way back to the elevator. "That was a very trying ordeal. But somehow, someway, we made it through without getting wet." Vinny stated. A split second later, a dead fish fell from a pipe perched above them, unintentionally knocked off by a ghost rat. And it just so happened to land in Vinny's hair. Vinny didn't even have the strength to be angry about it, instead finding it mildly annoying as the fish slime made her skin crawl. "I just had to jinx myself, didn't I?"