Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon
Chapter Eleven: Water Distribution
For a place called Haunted Towers, the eastern of the two was not very high at all, with Luigi exiting the dried out wooden stairwell on the roof above the second floor. From where he was, the green plumber was able to better see the gigantic tree growing at the center just behind the building, the plant being so large that it looked like there were stairs and walkways built right into the lower sections. There might have been more, but those were hidden by the green canopy of leaves, and other than that all there was to see from the roof was fog… a wall of billowing clouds that remained in place over the whole valley, aside from Gloomy Manor and the Professor's bunker.
As for the top of the roof itself, the whole flat concrete surface was dedicated to the water distribution system, with partially rusted metal pipes coming out of the machine next to the water collection tank, and going down in all directions to the lower levels. Thanks to the rain, the wooden barrel style tank was nearly overflowing, and… oh, there was the problem; the main valves had all been left open, allowing water to go everywhere at full force all the time. This was simple enough to fix, since there were red valve handles inserted at all of the junctions in question, so Luigi walked up to the first valve and started turning it shut. There was rust but only a little, so after a small squeak and a bit of hesitation, the valve turned causing the flow of water to be reduced.
"Whatever you're doing over there seems to be working, my boy." The old man's voice said a few seconds after the machine registered the change. "The night blooming vines blocking your way to the tree are highly adaptive, reacting instantly to the slightest changes in their environment. With lots of water they grow lush and long, but when things dry up they shrink back to conserve energy."
"Yeah, that's great, Professor." The green plumber replied, continuously looking around for more ghosts. "Oh, I met another ghost in the greenhouse; this one was kind of purple, and this is going to sound crazy, but he was wearing sunglasses."
Yes, the old man knew who he was talking about, commenting on how that phantom had been taking care of the night blooming plants for as long as anyone in Sarasaland could remember. The Professor had never seen it wearing sunglasses before, though, guessing that maybe it was the ghosts attempts to adapt to the Poltergust's latest upgrade, and if so then it meant that Luigi's quest to get this Dark Moon piece was going to get even more difficult. Well, that was just wonderful, the green plumber thought as he turned the valve handle, which stuck a bit more than the first one since it was more rusted… if these ghosts were smart enough to adapt to him, he would have to be a lot more careful.
The third valve flat out refused to move, and without ant oil on hand, Luigi was forced to head back downstairs, carefully avoiding the, uh… whatever name the purple ghost had given to the giant venus flytraps, all the way back down into the machine shop to get tools. His hope was that there was an oil can, but since the thing was empty when he found it, the green plumber had to settle for a long metal breaker-bar, which would hopefully be strong enough to convince the rusted valves to turn. For some reason the walk back up to the roof felt even longer each time, reminding him of some of the rooftop jobs that he and Mario had done back in Brooklyn before they had even heard of the Mushroom Kingdom… and of course the elevators never worked, so it was always the stairs.
Bracing the bar at a leverage point through the valve handle, some of the red paint was scraped off during the effort, but then Luigi was startled when the whole thing started free spinning, making him fall on his face while the valve was turned shut so hard that he wasn't sure that it could ever be opened again. Oh well, all he needed was for the water to be stopped, and there was only one more valve, but this one… wow, this one was almost completely rusted to the point where there was no red color on the handle, nor and visible gray metal on the pipe, at least not for a good ways down the building. First trying it with his hands, but only succeeding in having to wipe off a bunch of red dust off on his overalls, the green plumber braced the metal bar inside just like he had done with the last one, and pushed with all his might.
Pushing as hard as he could, and then changing positions so that he was pulling, this valve was just not moving no matter how much force he used. Once again returning down to the machine shop, Luigi grumbled as he located an old fashioned monkey wrench and a hand file, intent on removing the valve handle in order to manually remove some of the rust on the threads to make it turn easier. However, even after doing all this and going back up the stairs, the handle was so rusted that it just wouldn't come off no matter how hard he tried to turn it. Kwang! With an awful sound that could only be that of an old rusted mount breaking, the green plumber fell on his back as the metal bar slid partly across the flat roof… and the now freed valve handle rolled like a dropped quarter all the way to the edge where it vanished into the darkness below.
He just sat there in disbelief for a few seconds, eventually able to get up enough to crawl his way over to the edge of the roof and shining the Poltergust's powerful flashlight down over the edge… but seeing nothing except tall grass. As if losing the handle wasn't bad enough, Luigi discovered that its whole mount had been snapped off by his previous efforts, meaning that there was no way to reattach the handle even if by some miracle he had been able to go down and find it. All right, maybe there was another valve under the collection tank… nope, it just free flowed down toward the valves… or maybe he could break the wall of the tank itself and just drain out the water… nope, unlike the old dried out stairs, this tank was too solid for any of his efforts to work.
"All right, Professor, I've tried everything." Luigi admitted, leaning against the distributor while catching his breath. "The last valve is broken and I can't destroy the tank, so…
"Oh, is it the one all the way to the left?" The old man's voice answered, partly drowned out by the latest thunder crash. "That pipe supplies the swimming pool and other facilities inside the west tower, so I wouldn't worry about that. The plants should have reacted to what you've done already, so stop trying to be such a perfectionist and get down there."
Again grumbling to himself as he started back down the dried out old stairs, the green plumber took his time on what was hopefully the final trip down them, and stopping at the machine shop's generator to see that, in fact, all of the pipes except one of them were running dry. He only wished that the weather outside was equally dry after stepping back through the wooden door, but hey the Professor was right; the vines that had overgrown the path leading to the giant tree were shrinking back before his very eyes, leaving an old metal gate and some kind of pinwheel decoration visible. There was no other kind of latch or handle visible when he approached, so the pinwheel must've been what opened it… and unlike the valves on the roof, this thing spun freely several times when pushed so that the gate started to swing open.
Suddenly everything was bathed in a dark yellow glow as a massive hand reached over his shoulder, making the green plumber gasp and jump back as the gate was roughly slammed shut with a clang that was perfectly timed to match more thunder. Reacting to being closed, the pinwheel object spun itself back in the other direction until locking shut, but as for the dark yellow hand… it was attached to a dark yellow arm that led up to a ghost that was so large it even dwarfed Mr. Hammer. It's eyes weren't noticeable since they were the same color as its rounded body, and… and instead of floating like literally every other phantom Luigi had ever seen, this one was actually walking as it moved closer to the gate.
"You trying to go through there?" It asked, almost in disbelief as its big hands ripped the whole pinwheel latch off the gate. "Denied!"
Turning its body slightly toward the western tower, the walking phantom let out a grunt of effort as it tossed the pinwheel upward like it was a frisbee, the latch arching slightly to the left as it went higher and higher, before it could be heard landing somewhere up toward the top of the tower, near the roof. The green plumber didn't like the idea of having another massive ghost chase him around while he searched for the pinwheel, so he was already charging the strubulb before it landed, unleashing the bright flash just as the walking ghost was turning back toward him, and this one wasn't wearing sunglasses like the one he had captured back up in the greenhouse.
Like all the others, this large phantom cried out in pain and surprise when the light blasted, putting up a big arm to protect them, and allowing the green plumber to quickly activate the vacuum head. Quickly attaching itself to the rounded yellow body, the Poltergust sucked and pulled, but… but nothing was happening. The vacuum had latched on, the mechanism was working, the phantom should have been trapped, but it just wasn't. And now the walking ghost just looked down at Luigi, chuckling to itself when its eyes finished recovering, and then swinging one of its massive arms right toward him.
The vacuum lost its grip, and the green plumber's feet left the ground as he was backhanded, sent rolling and bouncing back the way he came as if the walking phantom had been swatting a fly. It took him a second to shake off the dizziness, and a few more to be able and get up, but now the ghost was approaching, and… and moving really, like… really slowly about it. Each step that the massive ghost took shook the ground a little, and also looked really weird since it didn't have legs, just a ghostly tail like the others, and now the phantom actually seemed to be getting out of breath. Was it even possible for a ghost, something that didn't even have to breathe, to get out of breath?
"Hold on, I'm coming." The phantom said, leaning on the wall for a minute. "I'll get you, I just… I just need a minute."
But Luigi was not interested in giving this big ghost a minute, since he had to go get the pinwheel back before he could enter the giant tree and get the remaining piece of the Dark Moon. So he ran right at the walking phantom, charging the strobulb, and flashing it right into its eyes, stopping it from grabbing him as he went past. Now the green plumber was headed for the entrance to the western tower, hoping to be able to get in and retrieve the pinwheel before this big ghost was able to corner him.