"Why don't you kill an hour, Luigi?" smiled Popple as he led Luigi out. "On the house." After Luigi left Popple's sight, the old man exchanged looks with Slim Bankshot. "Call the surgeon."
Luigi walked off to the bordello entrance, suddenly sober as if he could have willed it. Several girls walked past, none of them Hayzee. "She's just getting off," said Cackletta. "Doubt she'll want to talk to you." Yet, Luigi still pushed through the velvet curtained door and a pianta walked past him. At the end of the hall, Hayzee leaned in a doorway smoking a cigarette. She saw Luigi and was about to say no, but then she saw his eyes and felt that she couldn't. He watched out for her, when nobody else did. Exhaling a plume of smoke, she withdrew into her room and Luigi followed her inside through it.
Hayzee sat in front of her vanity while Luigi lay on her bed, half asleep, remembering all of the terrible decisions he had made since he arrived in Dinohattan. All of the people he had betrayed. All of the lives he had ruined. Yet, he was still trying to do a good job, wasn't he? "I can't remember my mother's face," laughed Luigi. "I can't remember her touching my hair. Like this?" And he combed through his own head. "Do you want to go overseas?"
"Do I want to go overseas?" she asked. "With you? Now?"
"I have a ship. Soon, maybe," he nodded off.
"Baby, that's sweet," she smiled. "You're a sweet guy. You've got to be careful, it's easy to think you know someone once you've been like this. What's in here is services rendered."
"It that how it's supposed to be?"
"What, in nature?" she asked. "You know, I get this a lot. I must have little sister eyes, well… for you at least. You won't look anywhere else.." His face clouded as she held up crushed Gold Flower in front of his mouth.
When Luigi got to his apartment, everything was dark and quiet. Everything was in place and so, when he went to the rug and opened the safe, all of the gold was there. Just no Harhall. One bar jutted from the side, knocked out of place. Luigi picked it up and sighed when he saw the smear of fresh blood on the side of the bar. He'd done this for her. He'd sacrificed Harhall for her.
The hunched figure of the fifty-five year old Nanbi that was once Harhall sprinted through an abandoned lot towards a train yard. He limped up to a razor-wire fence bordering the train yard. He hadn't thought much since he'd gotten here. He'd tried to lay low. He'd thought of escaping to Mekanos. He'd thought of joining up with Tatanga's legions. He hadn't thought of his younger self at all, that was his first mistake. Instead, he surveyed the sharp wire, ripped the lining from his jacket and wrapped his hands together with it.
Then he stopped and for the first time since he'd ran away, he thought of Harhall as he noted a large weathered scar on his right hand. It was in the shape of an arrow and pointed down to his wrist. Harhall squinted at it as confusion began to cloud his mind for when he pulled back his sleeve, his arm was bare. Then, out of nowhere, more intricate scarring appeared along the length ofhis arm. The scars clearly spelled out: 'YOU KNOW WHERE TO BE, 15 MINS'.
The Nanbi's breath returned in a jagged fashion but he pulled his sleeve up and hoisted himself up the fence, climbing its length fast. He reached the top and got a good grasp on the wire to hoist himself over, but then he stopped. His right hand was missing its ring finger, the stump was worn with age. Would Tatanga's legions still accept an undead monstrosity like him? As the Nanbi stared, his middle finger vanished next and it too was gone as if he'd gone the years past as if it had never even been there in the first place.
A freight train whistle moaned. The cars before him seemed warm and inviting. They would take him all the way to Dinohattan, he remembered. Behind the Nanbi was Buoy Base. Terror and indecision seized Harhall's chest, so much that it took him a moment to realize that his breathing had become a ragged whistle.
He lifted his now two-fingered hand to his face and gently felt the smooth scarred hole where he now had not had a hole for years on end.
The train yard was far in the distance as minutes passed, with the Nanbi running back towards town. His right hand was fingerless now, just a thumb left. When the Nanbi tried to think, all of his memories had him with one thumb but a few. Those faded as soon as he remembered them. The Nanbi sped up with desperation and as he cut through an alley, his right hand was gone. There was only a stump again. Mental pain hit him as his memories were rewritten once more.
There was a bell like ding behind the Nanbi and he turned to see a wedding ring lying down on the ground. He turned and lifted up the wedding ring with the four fingers left on his left hand, dropping it in his jacket pocket. At least they had allowed him to keep sobbing.
He burst out of the alleyway, limping straight into the street, barely even noticing the headlights of the car that rammed into him. The physical pain was practically a welcome relief. The car screeched to a half, its white light shining over the missing ear of the Nanbi.
The Nanbi used its monstrous strength to throw open the driver's side door and then throw out the driver. The Nanbi jammed on the gas and drove through the streets of Buoy Base, hands slipping on the wheel. It didn't take long before the car hit a pole and the remains of the Nanbi crawled out. A mangled face, right arm down to the elbow and a missing foot, the Nanbi tried to run the small distance left to make it. He ran. He fell. He howled and his tongue was gone. Then his right arm was gone. His leg went to his knees and he now crawling, bellowing like the ghost he was.
Finally, after what seemed like decades, for it had been decades in his memories now, he'd made it to the edge of a steel side door and slammed down on it. He slumped against it, heaving in the pain of the new bad memories of his new life that flooded his mind like a burst dam. After a long moment, the door swung open. With no hesitation, a Poltergust blasted from the darkened doorway and the Nanbi's head misted open as the Gold Flowers within were extracted. Harhall's Nanbi slumped to the pavement, finally at rest.
Slim Bankshot stepped from the doorway and dragged the body inside.
Luigi awoke with a start in his bed, his eyes red and eerily focused. Like a drone, he found himself waiting patiently in the waterway not even an hour later. It was almost as if he'd been sleeping the whole night. His head felt weird. Nevertheless, a hog-tied Nanbi with a sack on his head appeared kneeling before Luigi, who raised the Poltergust and shot the Nanbi in the chest without hesitation. He walked over to the body and flipped it, the Nanbi's hands were green. This was a devolved being. Luigi put his hands next to the Nanbi's hands… they were of a similar shape. Could it be? No. That was impossible. It had to be.
Luigi flipped the Nanbi onto his back and stared long and hard at the shape of the Nanbi's face underneath the sack. He tore the sack off and it was the face of an older kremling fellow. Luigi smirked and as the spell was broken, his face hardened. For some reason, Luigi felt he personally had to watch the Nanbi's body slide down the incinerator railway line. He squeezed the Gold Flowers in his hand the entire time, though, as if he could feel something was trying to take her from him.
He was handed a letter off by a Mafioso. Another one? In one day? That was unprecedented. Nevertheless, Luigi rode back out to the waterway and readied his Poltergust.
Luigi kept his hand on the Poltergust and his breathing was shallow, but something was wrong. He sensed something incredibly familiar. Two minutes passed by and seemed like an eternity and then, there was the ghost. Except it wasn't. This being wasn't kneeling, he was on his side so he flopped over to straighten himself. The man's hands were untied. Oh no. Luigi raised the Poltergust, unsure if it would even work on something alive. For the first time in nine years, he felt scared. Time practically slowed and Luigi's finger tightened on the trigger. That was when he noticed the man had no sack on his head. The face that stared back at Luigi's was his own.
Except this man was many years older, he seemed to be in his late fifties, but Luigi was a God, this being could be so much older. Luigi's eyes fixed on his older self and for just a split second, his face slackened and his finger eased on the trigger. It was all the hesitation that the older Luigi needed. The old man threw his body into a spin. Luigi snapped out of his trance and pulled the trigger, hitting his older self square in the back, the impact of the Poltergust's blast launching the old man forward. Instead of blood, though, several Gold Flowers spilled out, caught in the blast.
In what seemed like one fluid motion, the old Luigi grabbed several of the Gold Flowers and spun again. Handfuls of dirt and diamonds were jettisoned into Luigi's face with alarming speed. Whoever this older Luigi was, he wasn't anything like Harhall's Nanbi. He… he'd used and mastered the powers that Luigi was so hesitant to even touch. Yet they were weakened, this older Luigi was almost just as powerful as Luigi, just more experienced.
Nevertheless, Luigi had still flinched for just a half-second. When his eyes steadied and he gripped his Poltergust, it was too late. His older self was on top of him, with a heavy blow knocking the gun aside and an even heavier one swinging down on Luigi's head, knocking him out.
When Luigi awoke, he knew it had bene hours later. He didn't have to worry about brain damage. His heart would heal him, but he knew it was hours later and that scared him. Gold Flowers were scattered in the dirt, but there was no older version of him. There was no car for him to get back with. Luigi staggered to his feet, shaky, his head feeling thick. He was late to his own funeral, he realized.
Luigi ran, still shaky, towards town. He pulled out the phone from his pockets and tossed it into a field to the left of him. He considered summoning the Flying Krock, assembling the Kremling Krew and just going to war with the Bob-Omb Mafia. No. Cackletta knew who he was. She'd prepared Popple, even if he didn't know who he was. If he made for the Krock, then his entire Krew, everyone in Buoy Base, would be put in danger. He knew that they wouldn't actively join the hunt that was sure to come against him, but the mobsters and gangsters vastly outnumbered them. This wasn't the open sea.
When Luigi made it to the street across his apartment, he huddled behind a car, breathing hard before looking up the lit window. No. they were already there. They were taking his stash. The voice in the back of his head screamed at him. Rip the building apart to teach Popple a lesson, it said. Luigi walked silently towards his apartment door and stopped when he saw it was ajar. He shouldn't enter, he knew he shouldn't.
Nevertheless, he edged in. His entire apartment had been ravaged and torn to pieces. The floorboards had been ripped open, exposing the safe, with about half of the Gold Flowers within missing. Exhaling, Luigi worked quickly and ripped a stock of Gold Flowers out from the vault and a heavy wrench from the closet. His eyes darted as he heard a thumping and ducked into the bathroom just as Slim Bankshot entered the room with a pianta. Luigi crouched as Bankshot piled the pianta's arms full of his precious Gold Flowers.
"That's twenty-four, there," said Slim Bankshot. "I'm keeping count. Two more trips should do the trick."
Luigi gently lifted himself off of his haunches and when the pianta exited, Slim Bankshot stayed crouched over the safe hefting out Gold Flowers. Then, Bankshot's head perked up as he heard a gunshot in the distance. In all likelihood, itw as probably some old military veteran having a party of a vagrant that stole a gun. Yet Bankshot could never be too careful. With a crack, Luigi emerged from the bathroom as quick as his Godly speed would allow. Slim Bankshot twirled with a Poltergust in hand but Luigi was already sprinting at him at full speed, Luigi smashed Bankshot in the arm with the wrench, sending the gangbanger tumbling into the floor safe. With a sickening crack, the safe door collapsed onto Bankshot's fingers, which the gangabger withdrew with a bellowing howl.
The electronic lock rigged the safe to lock and it whirred off. Panting, Luigi got to his knees and shouted clearly and genuinely for Slim Bankshot to hear, "Bankshot, I'm sorry, Bankshot. Tell Popple I'm going to fix this. Tell him to keep my Gold Flowers safe because I swear I'm going to fix this! I'm going to find my older self and I'm going to kill him!" There was a crack then as the wood paneled floor above the safe exploded upwards as Bankshot shot his Poltergust up out from within the safe. Luigi fell back as Bankshot let out more shots, attracting the footsetps of a pianta from down the hall. Luigi sprinted across the apartment as a pianta emerged from the doorway and started shooting at him. Luigi didsn't stop to turn back to face the man, instead he leapt out of the window and hit the fire escape, barrelling downwards as the pianta pursued him.
Somehow, Luigi slipped and rolled away, grabbing at thin air while he was falling. When Luigi hit the ground, it was like the world went away.