Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon
Chapter Six: The Strobulb
Clamping his own gloved hand over his mouth to stop any more noise as soon as he was through the door, Luigi passed the beam of his flashlight around to figure out what his options were at this point. The green and blue phantoms had been captures, leaving only the red and yellow ones left, not that this thought was very comforting with Mr. Hammer chasing after him again, so the green plumber went through the first door he came too on the right, leading into a bedroom. Dusty and lit by one or two candles like everywhere else, Luigi had to push some groupings of cobwebs out of the way after walking right into them, but this effort was stopped after hearing the door out in the hallway slam open.
If the red phantom hadn't preferred to use doors for some reason instead of floating through walls, there would have been no warning that it was catching up with its prey, but thankfully the green plumber had just enough time to run around the other side of the old fashioned bed, diving underneath and clicking off his flashlight just before the room began to glow red. The knob on the door turned slowly before opening with a long, drawn out creak, and now the red phantom's yellow eyes were moving back and forth as entered. For a moment Luigi got a sinking feeling when he saw that his footprints were visible in the heavy dust, but luckily Mr. Hammer didn't seem to notice them as it started looking around.
"Are you in here, Luigi?" The red phantom asked, looking around behind a full length mirror. "Boss says I gotta whoop you, so come on out."
Coming back around the mirror, Mr. Hammer cried out in shock as he saw something horrifying, only to chuckle to himself after realizing it was his own reflection, only to punch the mirror, shattering it into a dozen pieces on the floor before continuing on. Searching on top of the bed and then beginning to slowly work its way around, the green plumber realized that the bedroom door was open, meaning that this might be his only chance to escape. So while Mr. Hammer was moving around the bed, Luigi crawled out the opposite side, staying low and expecting to be spotted all the way out into the hallway, but it didn't happen.
"Ha, I found you!" The red phantom shouted, making the green plumber's mouth run dry. "You're in the… closet!"
It wasn't until he heard another door being slammed open that he realized that Mr. Hammer hadn't spotted him at all, he was just continuing to search, so the green plumber moved away from the bedroom, opening the first door across the hall that he came to, and closing it behind himself just as quietly. Turning on the flashlight again and looking around, this room seemed different than the rest of the manor, well aside from the fact that it was a total mess. Books and papers were scattered all around the surprisingly dust-free floor, chalkboards with professional looking notes had been written over with a few phrases that made degrading comments about Professor E. Gadd's mother, and some machines similar to the monitoring equipment inside the bunker were smashed on the floor as well.
"You've done it, boy!" The old man's voice crackled through the earpiece, startling him. "That's my lab you're in, and… and those ghosts really made a mess of the place, huh? What does that say on that board over there? E. Gadd's mom likes to… oh, dear me."
"Professor, that red ghost's still after me." The green plumber replied urgently, trying to stay quiet. "Where's that upgrade thing you were talking about, and how does it work?"
The upgrade in question, which was apparently called the Strobulb, was supposed to be on the workbench over toward the right side of the room, but aside from some of the scattered papers, there was nothing on the bench at all. Sure, there were some drawings of a device along with the word Strobulb on the chalkboard right above the bench, but no actual device. In reaction, the old man assumed that it must've been knocked onto the floor when the ghosts went all crazy, instructing Luigi to start looking all around the floor and under the tables. The device itself was actually supposed to be pretty small, looking kind of like a green sparkplug that was inserted into the hole at the bottom of the Poltergust, but… but where was it?
Picking up books, pushing papers around, and crawling underneath tables, the green plumber just couldn't find the thing, picking up another handful of papers… just in time to freeze as the door was thrown open. Slowly floating in through the open doorway, Mr. Hammer kept looking around, but thankfully Luigi was crouched down behind a moved bookcase where the red phantom couldn't see him. However, the big ghost was right between him and the door, so how was he supposed to escape if Mr. Hammer found him before he found… oh, mamma mia… over across the room, where there was absolutely no cover… the Strobulb was laying over there in the corner.
Peeking his head around the corner of the moved bookcase, the green plumber could see that the red ghost was moving around just like it had in the bedroom, hoping that it would leave, but no with each passing second Mr. Hammer got a little bit closer, so if Luigi was going to do something without being captured, he needed to do it right now. Against his better instincts, the green plumber waited until the ghost was looking away and then ran out of cover, diving for the small device and grabbing onto it after sliding right into the wall. Scrambling to get the vacuum off his back, Luigi flipped it around and started trying to screw the Strobulb into its slot, a task that was made a lot more difficult when Mr. Hammer's voice was heard declaring that he had been spotted.
"Hurry, Luigi, that ghost is approaching!" The Professor's voice said over the radio. "If Mr. Hammer gets a hold of you, he's gonna pound you into something that looks like…
"I know!" The green plumber yelled, fumbling with shaky hands while trying to screw in the Strobulb. "Come on, just tighten down already!"
"All right, I caught you." Mr. Hammer declared, grabbing Luigi by the ankle and lifting him up into the air upside down. "Now let's go outside and get to some whoopins."
He almost dropped the vacuum when the ghost lifted him up, but the green plumber managed to hold onto one of the straps, dragging the Poltergust along as the red phantom floated them toward the door. Pulling the vacuum back toward him, Luigi twisted the device again and again, screwing it down into the hole until it tightened, and then he was suddenly falling onto the floor as Mr. Hammer passed through the wall. The red phantom chuckled to itself, apologizing for that as it came back around through the door, saying that it forgot that the green plumber couldn't go through walls… and then the device clicked into place.
The top of it blinked green a few times and then the flashlight started to hum with growing intensity, only to erupt with blinding light just as Mr. Hammer was about to grab him again. For a moment it was like the sun came up, filling every inch of the room with white illumination, causing the red ghost to cry out in surprise, rubbing its tightly closed eyes in pain while the burst of light faded. There was no longer any light coming from the flashlight, but the vacuum came on when he pressed the button, causing the red phantom to gasp in surprise when one of its big arms was sucked into the head.
"Let go of me!" Mr. Hammer exclaimed, flailing its other arm. "Let go!"
Because the ghost was still dazed from the light, its other arm came nowhere close to grabbing Luigi as more and more of its massive body was pulled in, but it was easily able to drag him and the vacuum around the room so that they crashed into pretty much everything where was to hit… although Mr. Hammer was still moving just as slow now that he was startled. Somehow they made it back out into the hallway, the ghost desperately charging back and forth with no plan in particular, at least until the last of it vanished down into the vacuum hose, leaving Luigi to come sliding to a stop in the middle of the floor, and he was not in a hurry to get back up this time.
Well, apparently the device worked, but now… now the flashlight wasn't coming on no matter how many times he clicked the button. Looking down into the lens, the green plumber was starting to worry that maybe he broke the bulb, when he was suddenly the one closing his eyes after the flashlight suddenly came to life. Whatever the issue was, the bulb was working fine now, and there didn't seem to be any other ghosts in the hallway at the moment, so he put the Poltergust onto his back, leaning against the wall immediately after to catch his breath. As far as Luigi knew, there was only one ghost left inside Gloomy Manor, and then he could get that other piece of the Dark Moon.
"Good job, Luigi, well done." The old man's voice said. "I wasn't sure if the Strobulb was going to be enough to stun the ghost of Evershade Valley, but you proved otherwise… and remember that it uses a lot of power, so your flashlight might not work for a while after each use, so be careful with it."
"Yeah… wonderful." The green plumber replied. "I just need… I just need a second… is that other ghost, the yellow one… is it anywhere near me?"
Thankfully no, that last ghost with the big head wasn't anywhere near where Luigi was sitting, but the Professor was getting a strong paranormal reading coming from the library back down on the first floor… apparently the ghost with the big brain wanted to do some reading. It took him a while, but the green plumber was able to pull himself to his feet, slowly walking back toward the stairs in order to go down to the library. Just one more ghost, he told himself, just one more ghost to deal with and then he and Daisy could go back home. Upon reaching the main hall, Luigi stretched out his foot and tapped the stairs just to make sure they weren't going to vanish again, and then leaned heavily on the rail just in case he needed to get on top of it if they did… sliding down didn't sound that fun, but it was better than falling.
Gloomy Manor seemed even more quiet now that three of its resident ghosts were contained in the vacuum, but the green plumber wasn't about to relax just yet… he had a feeling that the one with the big brain was more dangerous than any of the others he had faced so far.
