Stripped to the waist, Luigi sat on the front steps of the porch with Bean as she claned him of dirt and ash from the devolution gun's blast. Luigi surveyed the fields with mistrust as he cleaned his Poltergust. "We're surrounded by the corn, that leaves us blind," he told her. "He can get within fifty yards of the house without a hawk spotting him. What makes sense is we burn the fields. Level them."

"No, you cannot burn down my corn fields," said Bean.

"What kind of equipment's in the barn?" asked Luigi.

"Farm equipment."

"Nothing that shoots?"

"No farm equipment that shoots. No," she said as Luigi finished assembling his Poltergust. "You use what you need, set up anywhere. But one thing, I don't want you talking to Cid. I watch my son; you watch the field. That's the deal."

"Good by me," agreed Luigi and he hissed as she applied medicine to his arm.

"Hold still," lectured Bean. "Easy for things to get infected on a farm and start falling off." Caught off guard, Luigi smiled. If only she knew.

"If I'm out here and you're in the house we're gonna need some way to communicate," Luigi told her.

"There's a dinner bell down by the barn, ring that if someone's coming, I'll hear it," she said.

"Dinner bell," he whispered as Bean noticed Peasley standing at the screen door.

"Peasley," she muttered and went to the screen door to take him inside and away from Luigi. "How's the math coming?"

"I want to help the man," he told her.

"Help him what?"

"I could help him with my toys."

"Baby, listen," she started. "I need you to stay away from that man. Okay?" Peasley weaseled away from her grasp and batted at her with a light but angry slap. She only grabbed his arm stronger. "Let him do his thing, but you stay with me."

"Is he not good?"

"Well we're gonna see what he is. But you stick with me. Yeah?"

In the drainage tunnel, Waluigi violently washed his hands clean in a little trench of water. It hadn't bothered him in the future, in his own past, doing something like that, taking the Gold Flower from somebody as innocent as that. So why did it bother him now? He slumped back, his eyes blood red as streaks of tears blazed down his face.

The reddish light from above was fading to blue as all he could think about was her, not Shokora. How this was all her fault. If she'd just come to him at the end of the ten years, just come to him instead of abandoning him like Kalypso did Rool… it would all have been okay. He never would have even met Shokora!

He ran his fingers across his forehead and spread the cool water. His eyes closed and his breathing shallowed. In one hand, he held his rolex and in the other, the Poltergust with the maps beneath it. He closedhis eyes and entered an induced sleep. He couldn't think on this any longer.

Luigi awoke with a start, slumped against the steps, noticing Peasley's hand on his head. Peasley stepped back quickly and put his hands to his lips. Luigi got the message and followed the boy inside to the kitchen table, on which an arrangement o toys were laid out. As a child himself, Luigi had usually only ever played with Mario's hand me downs. He'd gotten a few new toys on birthdays and sometimes somebody from school would give him something. It was never like this, though.

With the deliberateness of a man at work, Peasley clicked on a flashlight and set it on the table. He began working on several toys, cracking open cases and cutting open wires. His hands were moving fast and with a plumberly intuition that he hadn't used in nine years, Luigi watched the kid. "Hand me that screwdriver," requested Peasley and Luigi did. "Tell me if you hear her coming."

"What are we doing here?" asked Luigi.

"Communication," answered Peasley and he pushed a button on a small plastic box in his hands and an identical one next to Luigi lit up. Smart, he used repeater signals, thought Luigi and the way he looked at the boy changed. "But I need to make it stronger."

"Do you know how to do that?" tested Luigi.

"Bigger battery."

"Smart."

"Do you kill people?"

"Not if they're alive."

"With your Poltergust?"

"Yeah," answered Luigi and Peasley looked back at him with no fear in his eyes, going back to fitting the backing on a toy. The silence was broken by a piercing noise and they both jumped as one of Peasley's toy trucks started making a blaring fire rescue siren imitation. Luigi fumbled with it and Peasley reached over and switched off as they both froze and looked up at the ceiling. Thankfully, there was still silence in the house. "How long have you and your mom been on the farm?"

"She's not my mom," said Peasley. "My mom was killed when I was a baby. Someone bad, bad men got her."

"I'm sorry," sympathized Luigi. He was also a baby when Kamek killed his mom.

"Bean thinks I don't remember because I was a baby," elaborated Peasley as he started to cry. "But I remember my mom. I couldn't stop her getting killed. I don't remember it all but I remember. I was a baby. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't stop it. Cause I was a baby." Luigi felt funny right there, for all of his Godly powers, he felt helpless sto stop a young child from crying. He didn't remember his mom, he could barely even remember the pictures of her.

"I'm sorry," repeated Luigi and he fumbled with the buzzer as he started to retreat. "You should talk to your mom about this."

"She's not my mom," repeated Peasley. "She's a liar."

With one last look at Peasley in the darkness, Luigi retreated to the outside.

Waluigi ran hard through the streets in the early morning. Sirens flashed behind him. He'd hardly realized he was being chased. He zig zagged through an alleyway and a pursuing car crashed behind him into a wall. He burst out onto the street and was nearly hit by another car and as he saw he was being surrounded, instead of fighting, he ran. He'd hardly had time to look for his next target, but he'd taken a quick glance at the map, it was at some cheap apartment building.

Bean chopped at the dead tree trunk in the field. Luigi walked over and noticed that it was greatly diminished, but it was still there. "Can't you pull that out with a plow?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered and kept on chopping.

"I found parts in the barn and I… made a thing," said Luigi and he pushed one of Peasley's plastic buzzers into her hands. "If you see anything, just push that." Bean regarded the toy for a second and then looked at Luigi coldly. "It's important."

"When?"

"Last night," answered Luigi. "He woke me up. Don't tell him I told you." Bean rolled her eyes and turned away, getting back to chopping. "You said you were his mom. He told me you're not."

"He said that?" asked Bean, trying to cover up how hard that hit her by chopping harder.

"Is he your son, or is he not?" pressed Luigi.

"He's my son," answered Bean and she paused for a heartbeat. "I had Peasley when I was twenty two. But I didn't want to give up my life. In the… city." She spoke that last word softly, it must have meant volumes to her. "So, I dropped Peasley with my mom, here. And my sister. And they saw how I was living and they took him. My sister raised him here, she loved him. He called her mom."

"How'd she get killed?" asked Luigi and Bean turned to him, staring daggers at him.

"Peasley told me about it, you have to talk to him," said Luigi.

"I told you one thing, I told you to stay away from my son," said Peasley.

"He asked me about my gun," explained Luigi. "You think this is going to go away if you don't talk to him about it but it's just going to grow."

"Stay out of it," said Bean, "and stay the hell away from my son." She went back to chopping. Luigi lingered for a bit and then left as she hacked away.