There have been some weird signs coming from a cave just near the mansion. Things like weird whooshing sounds, roaring, maniacal laughter, etc. Of course, Sakurai and the fighters are aware of Dharkon coming back to destroy them, so they were pretty suspicious of what was going on nearby.

Because of this, the mansion had sent out scouts to go check out what was going on there.

"How'd I get roped into this?" Scout said.

"You're getting paid for this, that's why." Sniper reminded him.

"Oh yeah."

Scout and Sniper were picked to help with the scouting, along with Lucina and Luigi. Sniper stayed in the backlines with his sniper rifle to alert everybody else if they found anything concerning.

"Mama mia, this place is spooky…" Luigi shuddered as they approached the cave.

"Didn't you have to go into a mansion filled with ghosts?" Lucina asked him.

"...yes," Luigi said, shuddering even more. "I did…"

Dharkon paused, returning the Giratina to its Pokéball; he has been trying to train for a while now. However, he still hasn't been able to do so yet.

"Did you hear that?" He asked Merasmus, who was flipping through more spellbooks.

"Hear what?" There were faint footsteps near the entrance of the cave, slowly getting louder. Dharkon's eye widened.

"That."

They both panicked silently, both of them frantically floating around.

"What do we do?" Merasmus whispered.

"Hold on, let me think…" The footsteps were getting closer…

"Think faster!"

"Shhh! Just, turn into a chair or something again!" Merasmus nodded and did just that.

"What are you going to do?" Merasmus whispered back. "You can't turn into a chair!" Dharkon looked around nervously, only to find there was nothing really big enough there to hide behind. He squeezed his eye shut, dropped to the ground, and tried to camouflage his tendrils as he could against the cave floor, trying to hide them behind things on the ground.

The fighters entered the cave, looking around with Luigi's flashlight. They found multiple spell books, old-fashioned Ultra Balls and multiple burned piles of ash. (most likely from failed spells, but the fighters don't know that.)

"What the…" Lucina said. "Who has been in here? And why is no one in here?" Scout and Luigi shrugged.

"D-do you guys think D-Dharkon was in here? W-What if it's someone else?" Luigi asked both of them. Lucina put a hand to her chin.

"I'm… not sure," she said. "There isn't anything here that would prove that it was specifically him that was here." Scout took a look at the books himself as Luigi shined a light on the books. After getting a closer look, he actually might have recognized something.

…too bad he can't read.

"I have no idea what this is." Scout said.

"So… what do we do with all this junk?" He asked the other two. Both of them thought about it. "How about we…" they started.

"-take some of these things and see if anyone else recognizes what they are?" Luigi suggested.

"-burn it." The other two turned and looked at Lucina with surprised expressions. "What?"

"Wh- why would we do that?!" Luigi said.

"Why not? This could be a villain's hideout." Luigi opened his mouth to say something, but he sighed and gave up trying to argue. "They could still be in here right now! Ha ha…" She laughed. Merasmus and Dharkon sweatdropped as they listened.

Luigi frowned. "...can we at least take some of these things back to the mansion..?" he asked, to which she nodded.

Luigi pulled out his Poltergeist G-00 and sucked up a couple of things he thought were important. Scout was confused on where he pulled it out from.

"Do you just… always have that with you? Like, in your pocket?" Luigi nodded. "How do you keep that with you?"

Luigi rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not sure… How do you keep all your weapons in your pocket?" he said, flipping the question on Scout.

"Uh… I dunno, I'm not a big science guy." Scout shrugged. Luigi turned off his vacuum after taking a few more books.

"Alright, are you done?" Lucina asked excitedly. Luigi frowned and slowly nodded. "Alright, let's burn this place!"

"Oh, wait!" Scout exclaimed. He pulled out his walkie-talkie. "Sniper!" Can you get Pyro to get over here? Why? We just need him to get over here, hurry up!" He lowered the antenna of his walkie-talkie. "Ah, you know what, I'll get him myself." He sped off towards the mansion, dropping his device..

"I… never took you as a pyromaniac," Luig said, looking at Lucina.

"I'm not," she chuckled. "I just thought it was funny, heh."

"…mama mia." he said again. He picked up the walkie-talkie and raised its antenna. They both could hear Sniper on the other end talking.

"Wh-what the bloody hell? Scout! How the hell did you get here, you were talking to me from the cave just a second ago?! Hey, wait- Oof!" The sound of rocks crumbling and Sniper falling and screaming sounded out from the walkie-talkie.

"Um, if anyone is listening to this, Sniper is gonna be ok! Alright?" Scout's voice came from the walkie-talkie this time. "He has that stupid backpack on that heals him for some reason or something… Uh, at least I hope it does." They heard him drop the device on the ground and take off running.

"Hold on- Sni-, I'm fu- comin'!" Scout said in the distance, the walkie-talkie barely picking his voice up.

They both stood there in silence…

"Did he just fall down a cliff?" Luigi asked.

"...yup." Lucina said, flattening her lips as she glanced at him.

Surprisingly, it only took a few more minutes for Scout to come back, with Pyro and a very injured Sniper in tow.

"Agh, you-!" He gripped his bleeding shoulder, which appeared to be limp… At the very least, he seemed to be healing and getting back some feeling in his arm. "What the hell are you doing here, you wank-" He looked at Pyro.

"...Why'd you bring Pyro… with a can of gasoline… What do you think you're doing?"

Luigi nervously chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "We're… uhm-"

"We're gonna set this place on fire!" Lucina exclaimed. Luigi rubbed his temples with a gloved hand.

"Right…" Sniper said. "Did you guys take anything that could be-"

"We got all that stuff already," Scout cut in. "Now, let's blow this popsicle stand!" Pyro nodded happily as he went in deep into the cave and poured gasoline all over the place. He led the trail back to where everyone else was standing.

"So, now we light it?" Sniper asked.

"Uh-huh." Pyro muffled. He reached into his pockets and felt around for a box. He kept patting around, looking for it.

"Whaaaaat? Pyro without matchsticks?" Scout remarked. Pyro kept frantically looking for his box of matchsticks. "Where's your emergency supply?" Pyro put a hand to his chin.

*earlier*

Villager looked in horror as he saw his garden set aflame, with a whistling Pyro waltzing away from the scene. His eye twitched when he did a heel click as he walked away.

*now*

Pyro shrugged.

"Well, who's gonna light this now?" Luigi shuddered. Lucina looked at him and shoved his back a little. Everyone else looked at him.

"I-I guess I could…" Luigi said. "Everybody has to stand back, though."

Everyone got behind him while Luigi pulled out a Fire Flower and (reluctantly) ate the flower part of it. His Team Captain (which he dyed green) and his shirt both turned white, while his overalls turned green. "I hate the taste of that…"

He cracked his knuckles and made a claw with his left hand. He threw a green fireball towards the trail of gasoline. It instantly ignited when it touched the liquid, the flame illuminating more of it as it quickly traveled in. They all watched in awe as everything inside got engulfed in flames.

"Wow…" Lucina said, putting on a pair of dim sunglasses just so she could take them off dramatically.

They took a moment to watch the flames incinerate everything inside and see if something would come out, (probably screaming).

…Nothing did, and the heat was starting to reach all of them.

"Well, at least we got something," Luigi picked up his Poltergeist. They all turned around to head out.

"Alright, did anyone have a map?" Sniper looked at all of them.

"Oh, yeah," Scout turned around towards the cave. "I left… I left it in there." He clicked his tongue and flattened his lips.

"Great." Sniper sighed. "Does anyone know how to get back then?" Lucina and Luigi both nodded, and they led the way back. Well, more like Lucina, since Luigi kept falling behind.

"Are they gone!?" Merasmus said with a crazed look in his eyes. Both him and Dharkon were both getting scorched alive.

"AAHHHHHH- I THINK- THEY ARE- AHHHHHHHH!" Dharkon mentally screamed and the both of them got out of the cave, screaming and trying to put the fires that caught onto them.

After a couple moments of rolling around and screaming, they finally put themselves out.

"AHHH-! OKAY- Okay… I think we're alright now…" Merasmus patted the fire out that was lingering on his coat. "Well, ah…" He was breathing heavily. "-there goes my books."

"Damn." Dharkon closed his eye in frustration.

"What are we going to do now?" Merasmus asked Dharkon.

"Maybe we could, no… or we could-" He caught sight of Luigi falling behind the rest of the group.

"Wait! Hold on…" Dharkon said. "That fighter… he's lagging behind…" He suddenly got an idea… "Maybe… Maybe we could trick him into helping us."

Merasmus thought for a bit. "Wouldn't they notice that he disappeared though?"

"We just need to get new allies a little faster then… Also, how good are you at performing hypnosis?"

"Well, I'm not very good at it, but I assume there's something about hypnosis in my spellbooks." He looked back at the burning cave. "At my own library, of course."

"That should work," Dharkon nodded. "But we need him to get over here…" He pondered for a moment. "Let's see… Can you create small skeletons?"

"Oh… actually, I can!" Merasmus said.

"Can you make them look like they were turtles?"

"Wh- why..?"

"It just tends to scare that particular fighter." Dharkon mentioned. "Just conjure them so that they will lure him over here." Merasmus nodded while his hands started to glow.

"Wait up for me!" Luigi yelled as he slipped again on the rocky cliffs. He sprang up and grabbed a ledge. "Agh…" Someone grabbed his hand to help him up. "Ah, thank you." He pulled himself up and got onto the ledge.

He realized that the hand detached itself when he looked at his own… "What the- WAH!" He was face to face with multiple Dry Bones, startling him. He ran away, screaming while they started to chase him.

"MAAAARIOOOOOO!" He kept running back towards the direction of where the cave was. He ended up in a forest and saw that they stopped chasing him a while ago. He put his hands on his knees and caught his breath.

"Oh… huff… puff…" He looked around and saw that he was alone, making him shudder… "Okay… I'm.. ah, going to find a different way home now…"

He started to run, but he was quickly hit by something that made him… sleepy…

"What- what was that…" He said while spinning. "Ma.. rio…" He collapsed and landed softly on the grass.

Dharkon and Merasmus both floated over his unconscious body.

"Alright, all we need now is your new spell books and a new place to hide." Merasmus nodded.

"Right," He whirled around… towards the burning cave. "Ahaha… that might take a while." Dharkon stared at him.

"Are you serious… How many times have you performed that spell already?"

"Hey, it's very hard to memorize all of these spells!" Dharkon sighed internally (and technically externally) and closed his eye in a disappointed manner.

"Do you at least have one hypnosis spell?"

"Uh-" Merasmus hesitated. "Why, yes, actually. I think I might!"

"Good, I guess.." Dharkon watched as Merasmus made Luigi levitate off the ground, following Merasmus wherever he floated. "Come on, let's get out of here.."