Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon

Chapter Twenty Four: Strange Crystals

Once the world stopped spinning, Luigi was able to get up and follow the Boo into the wooden shed where it had passed through the wall, via the door around the far side. It was unlocked, neglected to the point where one of the hinges actually broke off the rotten wood when he pulled it open, one of the other hinges breaking when the wind caught the door shortly after, slamming it shut behind him so hard that the green plumber jumped. There were no lit candles or crackling fires in this place, forcing him to activate the flashlight, but as the beam moved around the partially rotted wooden walls, there was no sign of Boo-ya anywhere. There was, however, half of the shed's floor missing, which Luigi nearly fell through if he hadn't spotted it with the flashlight at the last second.

His foot had been just about to step into nothing, so he grabbed onto the nearby support beam, kind of swinging around it in order to stop himself from falling into the darkness, and then shining the light down. Unlike the goal post outside, this was no quick trip to the bottom of the valley, but a long slope made of ice, judging by how the light reflected, but it went so far down that the flashlight couldn't see the end. Creeeaaaak-grrrrroooan-crack, it took the green plumber a second to realize where the sound of slowly breaking wood was coming from, but he got the hint real fast when the support beam he was holding onto suddenly collapsed, making Luigi scream as he fell sideways onto the slope, and then sliding down into the darkness.

The flashlight beam flopped around rapidly as he tried to find something to grab onto, the green plumber spinning around out of control as he went down and down until everything came to a sudden stop in the form of a snow pile at the bottom. Whump! For a few moments Luigi didn't even realize that he had come to a stop, struggling to roll over and free himself from being buried so deeply in the snow, and then he was about to shine the flashlight around again, only to realize that he didn't need it. Whereas the slope had been total darkness at the top, the bottom and the passage beyond were illuminated by a dim red light that… didn't seem to be coming from anywhere at all.

"Professor, can you still hear me?" He asked, getting to his feet. "I still don't see any sign of your assistant or the Boo, but something strange is going on. Everything's glowing red."

"Yes, I can still hear you, but the signal is very weak." The old man's voice replied. "The red color you are seeing might be from the special minerals in the mountain we talked about earlier… they have strange properties that my assistant and I were studying before the ghosts went crazy."

Not very insightful, but at least now the green plumber would be able to spot the Toad assistant more easily thanks to the glow, and maybe the rounded ghost wouldn't see him coming if he didn't have the flashlight on. Yeah, that seemed like a good idea for now, so Luigi clicked off the light, and began moving down the passageway, noticing how much warmer it was underground than up on the mountain, and soon the tunnel opened up into a much larger chamber. This place was more like a cavern, glowing much more brightly red than the previous tunnel, and filled with what looked like gigantic red crystals. Scattered among the giant gems was some kind of scientific equipment and devices, monitors and the like, some attached to the gems themselves, and others keeping track of what appeared to be large specimen tanks.

About to just walk right into the center of things, the green plumber gasped and hid back behind a large crystal when some movement was spotted farther in, and now he was looking around the side of the gem to see two figures come into view. One of them was short with a big head, struggling to walk across the uneven terrain with a big heavy crate in his hands, while the second figure, a rounded slightly bigger one, was floating closely behind. It was pretty obvious that the first one was the Professor's missing Toad assistant with Boo-ya close behind, but why was he carrying a heavy box like that?

"Come on, come on, hurry up!" The Boo exclaimed, smacking the Toad in the back of the head. "What? You think you can just lay around all day because I took a trip to the surface? Did you somehow forget we got a schedule to keep?! Move it, shrimp!"

"Oh, come on… Boo-ya… gimme a break!" The Toad replied between labored breaths, almost dropping the box. "These things are… heavy and… I'm just one mushroom!"

Apparently the rounded ghost didn't have time for the assistant's excuses, smacking him in the head again so hard that this time he tripped and broke the box when he fell on top of it. The Boo gasped in shock, continuing to smack the Toad as he scrambled to get up and pick up all of the… wait a second, what were those? Squinting to see the objects against the intense red light, Luigi could just barely see that the assistant was picking up… but that was because they were the same color as the glowing gems. In fact, the whole box had been full of pieces of the giant red jewels around them, but what would a Boo want with jewels? It wasn't like ghosts needed money for anything.

"Hurry up, you little pipsqueak!" Boo-ya continued once the Toad had all of them picked up. "Our guest is gonna be here any minute now, and we gotta have these losers ready, go, go, go!"

"I'm goin', I'm goin'!" The assistant yelled back, carrying the box toward the specimen tanks. "Geez-louise, gimme a break, we've been goin' all day!"

Sliently creeping around to the next large gem so that he could get a closer look, Luigi watched as the Toad carried the box of gems up to some kind of console that was set between the three specimen tanks. Once there he set the box down and opened a large panel to the left side, Boo-ya smacking him again as the Toad struggled to lift the box high enough to dump the gems into the open doorway, closing the door and trying to catch his breath while the rounded ghost floated over to the controls. Boo-ya pushed a series of buttons and pulled a lever, causing the machinery to hum and beep for a few seconds before something happened to the specimen tanks.

Sort of like feeding fish, little bits of red, grounded up crystals began to pour into the water, or whatever the fluid was inside of the specimen tanks, slowly filtering down onto… onto ghosts? Through the thick glass, the green plumber could see that there was a single phantom inside each tank; a smaller one, a long skinny one, and a big blocky one… yeah, they all looked like the ghosts Luigi had seen back in Gloomy Manor, but what was being done to them? As the red pebbles filtered down around them, each ghost seemed to react by becoming more animated, moving back and forth around the tank rapidly as they got visibly angrier and somehow stronger looking while… while some kind of strange glowing pattern appeared across their whole body.

This pattern and aggressive behavior both faded away once the red pebbles had finished, uh… I don't know, being absorbed into the captive ghosts, if such a thing was even possible, and now Boo-ya was smacking the Toad again to get him moving. As much as Luigi wanted to jump out and stop this treatment of the assistant, as well as whatever the Boo was doing to those other ghosts, right away, he realized that the two of them were coming in this direction this time, meaning that they would have to go right past where he was hiding. So, the green plumber waited, hitting the button the charge the strobulb as the rounded ghost got closer… and closer… and closer…

"Luigi!" The Toad exclaimed as soon as he saw him. "You've come to save me!"

Having passed his hiding place first, the assistant shouted and jumped for joy just as the green plumber was standing up to blast Boo-ya in the face, his short arm hitting the Poltergust and causing the strobulb flash to go wild. Covering his eyes in reaction, the rounded ghost took off back toward the console, bouncing off a couple of the red gems along the way, but there was nothing Luigi could do about it until the vacuum cooled down. Thanks to the Toad's enthusiasm, an easy opportunity to capture the Boo had been missed, and now the rounded ghost was pushing more buttons. Suddenly the whole cavern vibrated, bubbles traveling up through the specimen tanks as the water drained out of them, and then they started to open.

The first two ghosts waited to move forward until the tanks had opened all the way, but the big blocky ghost simply charged forward and smashed its way out of the container, raining glass and metal down on the ground as it joined the others. As soon as they were free, the glowing pattern reappeared across their bodies, as did the visible signs of anger and aggression even as Boo-ya floated over to them. The rounded white ghost began to give them a kind of pep talk, going on about how this was their chance to prove to King Boo that they weren't just a bunch of worthless tourist attractions, but then the Boo's words were interrupted when the big blocky ghost turned and uppercutted him.

Crying out as he spun out of control, Boo-ya went flying right through the stone wall on the far side of the cavern, and did not immediately reappear. A few seconds later the three ghosts floated their way over toward Luigi, but thankfully the strobulb was already charged. FLASH! Clashing against the red color or the chamber, the whiteness was blinding as it went off right in all three phantom's faces, but when the light faded the three ghosts weren't bothered by it at all… in fact, they hadn't even blinked their glowing yellow eyes. They just floated there, staring at Luigi until the big blocky ghost backhanded him.

Suddenly flying backwards, the green plumber was sent right back into the first passage, and sliding up the slope, not all the way, about a third of the way before sliding back down into that snow pile again. For a moment he just laid there partially buried by the snow, until being pulled out to a sitting position by the Toad. He tried to help him up, but that hit had dazed him to the point where the green plumber just sat back down when he was almost to his feet.

"Come on, Luigi, we gotta go!" The assistant exclaimed as the ghosts floated after them. "We gotta get the Dark Light device, it's the only thing that can stop them, but it's not down here! Luigi, come on, we gotta get back up to the surface!"