In a tiny, dark concrete room, Sim Bankshot watched a screen, his hand on a toggle wheel. He watched the security cam view of Hayzee's apartment buildin'gs upper landing. It was a playback of the previous night. Bankshot passed through the feed quickly. An apartment super stood at the doorway behind him, counting money.
"All working girls, yeah?" Bankshot asked the super.
"This whole block," nodded the super. "You want to see those too I can arrange it."
"I do," said Bankshot. On the screen, Hayzee came home and picked up her daughter from one door before heading into the next. Bankshot kept scanning and a second later, Waluigi came into the screen, climbing the stairs as Bankshot slowed the playback. "Hello, Luigi." Waluigi went up to the window, his back up against the wall. He watched Hayzee through the window for a long time and Bankshot watched him just as intently. Then, very suddenly, Waluigi headed down the stairs, shoving the Poltergust away. Then, Waluigi vanished in a swarm of pixels.
Slim Bankshot emerged from a passage into a parking lot. He looked up at Hayzee's apartment door and then down into the street. A few drops of rain fell on his face.
Oddly quiet, Waluigi walked down the side of Chauncey's nightclub towards the side entrance. His face was uncovered, but he didn't care. He stopped a bit of a distance from the entrance by a garbage can. He drew his gun and leaned over the garbage can to drop the Poltergust into it. He let it dangle in his fingers and he tried to remember Shokora, but the closer he held the Poltergust to the trash, the cloudier she became. When the Poltergust was hanging at the tip of his fingers, Shokora's face was almost gone from his memories.
So, he clutched the Poltergust tight instead.
Bean smoked in a cigarette, taking in a deep joyful drag. She set the lighter on her palm. It floated about a foot in the air, floated and then dropped back into her hand. "That's pretty good," noted Luigi, standing in the doorway as she lay on her bed.
"In the city, young guys would hit on me floating quarters," she said. "I wouldn't tell them I was telekinetic but I'd keep their quarters down. One guy busted a blood vessel in his eye trying to get it up." She paused for a heartbeat and looked him in the eye. "He's you. The Nanbi. You lied to me." She didn't' seem angry, just curious. "But you protected Peasley and I know you're not lying that you're going to kill this guy, your future self. Even though he's protecting your future."
"He's protecting his future," clarified Luigi. "Not mine."
"When I came back, after my sister died," said Bean, "Peasley was just sitting on the front porch. I remember seeing him for the first time in two years. Saw him on the porch. I drove up crying and I had been at a party in the city when I had got the call, I was wearing this ridiculous party dress. All my ridiculous stuff. I don't know if he remembered me but he looked at me. I abandoned him. I abandoned my baby." She took another drag of the cigarette. "Maybe I can't be a mother to him, is that something I can't get back? When he looked at me then, on the porch, he was mine again, he was my son. I seen so many men in the city, who I look in their eyes and they're lost. Whether he loves me back or not I'm gonna love my son I said. And he's never gonna get lost."
Luigi walked beside Bean and stood still. He didn't know exactly what to do. He didn't know how to comfort her. He'd never imagined he'd be a parent, especially after he'd lost his heart. He couldn't imagine how she felt. He couldn't even imagine how Peasley felt. His mother had died when he was a baby. So, he touched her hair, maybe it comforted her. It used to comfort her.
She headed down the stairs before him.
Waluigi kicked open the door into Hayzee's apartment with all of the violence in the world and swept through the room with his Poltergust drawn. Hayzee ahd been cooking in her robe and she opened her mouth to scream. "Don't," demanded Waluigi. "Don't wake up your daughter." He trained his gun on her and she remained silent. "Sit down." Quivering, Hayzee sat down at the kitchen table and he kept the gun on her. "Do you know me?"
"No," she shook her head. "I don't know you. Who are you?"
"I need to tell you why I'm doing this," said Waluigi. "I need to say it out loud to someone so I know."
"Why you're doing what?"
"Luigi!" called Bean, indicating for Luigi to come down the stairs from where he had lingered. He came down the stairs, lost in thought about his own mother. He'd seen what she looked like in pictures, but it wasn't the same as actually seeing her. He could go to Dark Land, make General Koopa tell him about her.
Bogmire held Bean at gunpoint, looking at Luigi with a cool lack of malice. "Hello, Luigi," he nodded.
"Hello, Bogmire."
"I threw my gun away, once," Waluigi told Hayzee. "To get Shokora's love and I was going to do it again, now. Because I know she'd want me to. I was going to do it and then I saw her vanishing like how life probably goes to die. That's what she was asking me to give up this time."
"Who are you?" asked Hayzee.
"And if I picked up the gun," stuttered Waluigi. "If I made this sacrifice. Life, my life. Absolution. Given back to me. My love. Given back, just like we were and she wouldn't know what I did to get it back."
Luigi stepped into the living room to face Luigi and Bean.
"I'm unarmed, Bogmire, you can let her go," Luigi told him. "Bean, Bogmire here's the best shot with a devolution gun that I've ever seen, when he lets you go, you sit on the couch and don't do anything stupid." Bogmire let Bean go and then quickly trained the devolution gun on Luigi.
"He's coming here, Bogmire," said Luigi. "My… future self is going to come here."
"I've got to take you in, man," said Bogmire.
"I've got eighty large in pure Gold Flowers," said Luigi. "I take my future self in and get right with Popple, whatever he gives me back I'll split it with you."
"That's your plan?" scoffed Bogmire.
"Okay," paused Luigi. "It's yours. All of it."
"Are you delusional?"
"Everything set right," gasped Waluigi. "Everything fixed. Through this sacrifice."
"What are you going to do?" asked Hayzee. He stood and walked toward the back hall as Hayzee screamed, running at him. He pushed her back hard, practically belting her.
"I know you've got no options," sympathized Bogmire. "You take the one you've got Luigi but you ain't getting right with nobody. Future self or no, you're beyond saving. As long as Popple's got one gangster or mobster standing, Cackletta's going to make sure that he'll be hunting you until his dying day."
Waluigi kept his Poltergust ready and walked down the darkened hallway to the door with a rainbow on it. He slowly put his hand on the knob. Then he put his hand to his temple to remember.
"We're going now," said Bogmire. "We're going to go to my truck." There was a creak on the stairs as the sleepy eyed Peasley moved down. As if on instinct, Bogmire trained his devolution gun on the boy. Peasley made a strange screaming noise and fell.
When Bogmire realized that he'd aimed at a child, he lowered his gun, but time was slowing down. Luigi could feel it. Through all of his Godly senses, he knew that one second had been lengthened, somehow, it had been lengthened. Peasley's foot missed the step and he tumbled down the stairs as time bent even slower. Able to see past the time dilation, Luigi ran for the stairs to catch the boy, with Bean running behind him, caught in the dilation as the room darkened, as if all of the light was being sapped from it.
Objects around the room rattled and then lifted into the air. All of them. They began floating, spinning and rising as the dilation started to fade. Time was returning to normal.
Just before Luigi reached Peasley, Bean shoved him from behind towards the front door. Peasley hit the hardwood floor of the foyer, his face contorted with rage and hand, palm outstretched, raised toward Bogmire. His scream was louder than it should have been. Bigger things in the living room began to rise. First the chairs, then the couch and then Bogmire himself.
Bean pulled Luigi through the front door and he looked back, seeing Bogmire suspended in the air and Peasley screaming like an animal. Then, just as they crossed the threshold, Bogmire exploded in a bright red fan of blood. The front door and windows exploded in a burst of splinters and glass.
Waluigi's eyes lifted, remembering the death of Bogmire the moment after it happened. "Fawful," he muttered as he opened the door to Hayzee's daughter. Yet, there was no little girl in the room, instead, it was Slim Bankshot, who lay in wait for his prey. He shot a taser at Waluigi.
Waluigi hit the ground, mouth foaming, paralyzed. He knew the answer now. He knew the who of it all. He know the how of it all. Yet he was helpless and defeated. Slim Bankshot kicked him right in the face.