Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon
Chapter Sixteen: The Fog Recedes
For a moment all other sounds were drowned out by the rushing of wind that came along with falling from a few hundred feet up, with Luigi's body actually separating from the wooden staircase a little bit because of the weight difference as the darkened world below rushed upward to meet him. Suddenly, it was like the rushing world decided to take its time while the plummeting staircase flew down as fast as it could to make up for it, confusing the green plumber until he noticed the feeling of something pulling on the back of his overalls. Turning his head back as far as he could to see what it was, Luigi was both surprised and relieved to see that it was the little ghost dog.
The white glowing phantom had bitten down onto the straps of his overalls and was pulling back upward while its little ghostly legs were flailing around like it was trying to back up, and this… this was actually slowing the fall. Apparently the green plumber was too big for the ghost dog to lift completely, so they were still falling toward the darkened ground, just at a much slower pace than the wooden staircase, which exploded upon impact. Pieces of old, dried wood were blasted upward into the air in all directions, with much of it still raining down even after Luigi did a rolling tumble onto the brown grass and mud, laying there a bit dazed and struggling to sit up while… while something else was also moving nearby.
At first everything was quiet, but then one of the larges pieces of what had once been the staircase began to move around, being pushed aside as a brightly glowing white, rounded figure began to rise up. It was another Boo, the green plumber realized, coming out of the broken staircase just like what happened in the basement of Gloomy Manor, but this one didn't look so good. While starting to float upward, the white ghost rocked back and forth like an airplane with a damaged wing, falling back to the ground and rolling a bit as if it were dizzy. Was that what happened? The crash had been so hard that the Boo had been stunned? If so, then there wasn't much time to mess around, so Luigi stayed on his hands and knees, crawling toward the still rolling ghost, hoping that the Poltergust would still work.
Still a little shaken from the fall, himself, the green plumber moved as fast as he could, getting the hose ready and waiting until he was right behind the stunned Boo, before hitting the switch. Letting out a massive sigh of relief when the vacuum activated, sucking up the white ghost's tail just as… just as black smoke started coming from the Poltergust's main unit, leaving the scent of burnt rubber in the air as the stunned phantom tried to get away. However, the Boo's struggling was about as good as its flying ability at the moment, causing Luigi to be rolled and dragged a bit through the grassy mud, but nothing like this part usually went… and more black smoke was coming from the vacuum.
It was anyone's guess which of them would give up first, the Boo or the Poltergust, but thankfully it was the white ghost, vanishing down into the hose and being locked into the containment unit just seconds before the motor sputtered to a stop, leaving the landscape quiet once again. Besides the wreckage of the staircase and the ghostly dog that was sitting there wagging its tail, the only thing left of the white ghost was a shiny purple gem on the ground, crackling with black energy like the others… corrupted by whatever caused this whole mess in the first place. He had to get it back to the Professor.
Picking up the gem and then leaning on a nearby tree to get to his feet, Luigi realized that he would be defenseless if any more ghosts attacked right now, so he started walking, heading back through the pinwheel gate and away from the Haunted Towers, back toward the research bunker with… with the little ghost dog running around his feet while barking happily. Well, it might as well follow him for now, since it did save his life, and it wasn't like the white phantom could be captured right now even if he wanted to. Now leaving the cover of the massive tree, the green plumber was open to the full wind and rain, and the storm was actually picking up a bit, making the falling water soak him almost instantly.
Yes, by the time he arrived back at the research bunker and handed off the broken vacuum to the old man, who had finally woken up from his nap, Luigi was a soaked, exhausted wreck who just wanted to get some sleep, himself. Sort of shambling over to the couch and sitting down, the green plumber was startled awake when the ghost dog jumped onto his lap, barking loudly while licking him in the face. Meanwhile, both Daisy and the Professor were both shocked by this, having trouble believing that he had captured and domesticated a ghost dog to be his pet, and even more so when they tried to get a closer look, causing the white phantom to growl at them before going back to licking the green plumber's face.
"All right, let's get the Poltergust emptied before we do anything else." The old man said, holding his nose away from where some black smoke was still coming from the unit. "I swear, boy, diving off a three hundred foot legde just to catch a ghost… one of these days you're devil may care ways will destroy both you and my research."
"Professor, where do those ghosts go?" Daisy asked as the unit was connected to the downward hose. "When the vacuum gets emptied, I mean, what happens to them? Are they put into portraits like you did in the Mushroom Kingdom?"
The old man gave a quick explanation about how this hose put the captured phantoms right into a machine just like the one used in the mansion Luigi owned, pressing them into portraits that hung on the vault's walls, a prison that only the most powerful of all spirits even had a chance of escaping. Once the unit was empty, the Professor took it to his workbench and used tools to open it up, releasing more trapped black smoke that made him and the Princess cough a little, but thankfully the problem was a simple one. The impromptu overlead of the Poltergust's systems had caused a couple of the internal fuses to burn out, as well as nearly melting the motor's main drive belt, but thankfully he had spares of each.
"This will take a couple minutes to fix." The old man explained. "Daisy, be a good girl and put that piece of the Dark Moon on the scrubber while I handle this."
"Good girl?" The Princess scoffed while putting the gem onto the machine and pushing the button. "I swear, I'll never get used to old people."
Over the next couple of minutes the Professor replaced the damaged parts of the vacuum while the purple gem was scrubbed clean of the mysterious dark corruption, causing more of the fog covering Evershade Valley to recede on the monitor. As before, another one of the valley's historical buildings was revealed, this one looking like some kind of really old factory that sat on top of a much rockier area with higher elevation, consisting of mostly one floor, but with a tall clock tower built up from the center, the face of a clock built into every side so that the time was visible to all parts of the valley… not that ghosts really cared much for what time it was.
"Before the valley was filled with ghosts, that factory was pretty famous." Daisy explained. "It produced some of the highest quality time pieces in the world, and sold them to this kingdom, the Mushroom Kingdom, everywhere, but then the ghosts came, and it was hard to keep workers, so what can you do?"
"There, all fixed." The Professor declared, putting the back panel onto the Poltergust. "Now, if we can just keep Super Dave Luigi over there from diving off any more cliffs, it might even hold up until we have the whole Dark Moon back."
"The whole Dark Moon?" The green plumber asked. "Wait a second, you mean there's even more of those pieces? I thought that was the last one."
In response to this, the old man just laughed and shook his head, reporting that his instruments definitely picked up another piece somewhere within the Old Clockworks, and that Luigi was the only one who could retrieve it. The green plumber grumbled something only partly coherent about taking a nap, and then he was snoring before anything else could be said. The ghostly dog turned around on Luigi's lap a couple times before curling up and closing its own glowing eyes, leaving the Professor and Daisy just standing there. The old man shook his head, starting to say something about the green plumber's self-destructive ways catching up to him, but stopped in mid-sentence when the Princess picked up the vacuum.
"Um… Daisy?" He asked as she put her arms through the straps so it was sitting on her back. "What are you doing?"
"Luigi's been at it all night, he needs a break." The Princess replied, connecting the straps and adjusting them since she was smaller built than him. "So, I'll get the next piece of the Dark Moon."
Naturally, the old man protested, saying that the green plumber was a hardened veteran of ghost hunting with tons of experience and training, and that this kind of thing wasn't anything like fighting Bowser and Wario in the Mushroom Kingdom. Daisy argued that she had been watching Luigi on the cameras the whole night, and that working the Poltergust wasn't that complicated; this button for the strobulb, this one for the vacuum, this one for reverse, and all these for a desperate overload if something bad happens. After that just reel in the ghosts like a fish, and be real careful each time you enter a new room.
"Well… that is the basic idea." The Professor replied, moving in front of her when she started toward the door. "But there's a lot more to it than that, and… and these aren't your average ghosts… you could get hurt."
"I appreciate the warning, Professor, but I'm not Peach, okay?" Daisy said while putting in a radio earpiece. "I'm not just gonna sit around and look pretty while my man does all the work, and besides, I need to show Luigi that I'm just as brave and adventurous as he is, and that… and that no matter what happens, we're in it together."
The old man gave one more warning, but the Princess didn't listen as she stepped outside into the falling rain, turning down the path and heading toward the Old Clockworks in the distance.
