Luigi gasped as he ran, Boo bellowing for him, Creepy giggling and promising to make it quick and painless haunted his path.
A branch slapped him in the face, and he spluttered at the sting of pain but kept running. The deeper into the woods the thicker the fog got and maybe he could lose the former king in it, but something felt wrong... How could he describe this feeling in his chest? Like something was calling to him, trying to tug his heart towards it, whatever it was.
"You won't escape little Consort! They never do!" That sounded like the former king had killed more than one Consort in these woods, fucking psychopath. If he could survive Brooklyn and Bowser's kingdom, he could survive a run-in with a crazy-ass former King Ghost.
Gasping, he stumbled as he hit a tree line he hadn't seen coming up thanks to the little hill, stumbling down it, Luigi landed hard on his knees, scraping them and his palms through his gloves. Looking up he found himself in front of a metal fence.
Luigi had been led to a graveyard...Shit, it would be easier for him to hide among the stones and try to figure out what to do next. A shout closer to him than before caused Luigi to dart past the gates and into the Graveyard proper, massive mausoleums and gravestones zooming past him as he ran.
The others had no idea that he'd gone with someone who wasn't his husband, so he wasn't going to be able to count on a rescue. Boo was going to go absolutely batshit the moment he realized his Living Bride hadn't come back when he said he would.
Fretting Luigi threw himself into a hole in the ground and he heard the mad king pass, shivering in his hiding spot, he wondered how he could get out of this. There were too many ways this could go wrong, and the former king wasn't about to make this easy for him.
Creeping towards the edge of the hole he saw Boo's back to him, still moving away. Good, he ran the other way, but now he didn't see the gate-where was the gate? He had to get out of there because this had to be where the Former King Boo had been taking him.
Was the artifact here, hidden among the gravestones to make it more difficult for anyone to find? He had to stay far away from it, there was no way he was going anywhere near it if the books hadn't been lying he would be in trouble if he did get close to it. Scanning his surroundings he wondered how the hell he was going to get out of this without being horribly maimed.
Nothing specific in those same damned books but he would guess that Boo could kill him on the stone and gain more power, enough to beat the current King Boo. A wail caught him off guard and Boo slammed into him sending him tumbling ass over head. Smacking into a gravestone, wet warmth gushed over his face and he smeared the wet away, his gloves stained red. He was bleeding, and boo was snarling-his form reverting to the one Luigi knew best. An actual huge Boo, fighting wouldn't help him escape. As strong as he was he would have to figure his way out of this, but that didn't mean he didn't have a few tricks up his sleeve.
He could feel the lighting buzzing in his veins ramped up by his injuries and surge of fear. Luigi eyed Boo wondering what his next move would be, probably capture rather than kill... He would just have to be quicker and smarter than this poser.
"You could have made this easy." Luigi snorted at Boo's words, yeah as if he would roll over and die for anyone. This world was something else and it allowed him to be something different, something better than he would have been.
"I would never allow you to gain power again, The mushroom kingdom means the world to me. I would protect them no matter the cost!" Boo sneered and just as he was about to retort Luigi flung lightning at him, Boo screamed in pain, dashing away Luigi moved towards the gravestones that had metal surrounding them, weaving between them hoping that Boo would take the bait and go between them too.
A flash of purple caused him to dive behind a gravestone and he watched purplish fire burn merrily on a few bits of dying grass between the graves and shivered if that had hit him that would have hurt.
"Little Mouse, where did you scurry off too?" Boo growled and Luigi peeked over his hiding spot and smirked.
"Here!" And he fired Lightning, catching Boo in the middle of a storm of electricity. The former king let out a scream of agony and Luigi was off, sprinting away. If he could just find something to capture the ghost, maybe he'd be able to get out of this situation before anyone realized he was even in a situation.
Shit, he dodged a blast of purple fire and fainted right going left towards a big mausoleum. Sliding to a stop he looked both ways before the mausoleum itself caught his eye. Peeking from the open doorway was a stone sarcophagus that had a boo with a crown carved into one side… He knew that symbol, oh fuck. Boo had managed to lead him exactly where Boo wanted him.
Pain slammed into him as his face smashed into the ground, a massive hand still holding the back of his head as ghostly chains whipped around him, circling his neck, arms, waist, and ankles binding him so tightly he choked and gasped for air as blood slid down into his mustache.
"Not so clever now are you!" Boo roared in his face and Luigi shivered, he was in so much trouble right now. The former King pulled him up and placed him between the two pillars in the front of the Mausoleum, chains snaking around them and holding his arms out, no longer strangling him. He spat blood and grass out of his mouth and the damned ghost looked oh so smug.
"When I'm done with you I'll have all the power I need!" And he began to chant what basically amounted to gibberish to Luigi, but the fog was rising around him swirling, and crackles of energy bright green and purple began to strike the Mausoleum like it was suddenly a lightning rod.
Luigi screamed as the pure energy struck him once, twice, three times. Panting he shivered in the chains and wondered how long it would take for Boo to kill him like this. The metallic tang of blood in his mouth and the crackle of his own lightning responded to his desperation, fear, and pain.
"Oh, look you're already changing…" There was something in Boo's tone that made Boo sound unsure, and a giant paw of a hand yanked his hair, he glanced at the hand and spotted that his hair had grown longer and turned a startling shade of white. Tilted his head up to look at Boo, he expected the ghostly former king to be elated at the sight but Boo looked horrified by what he was looking at, wasn't this what he wanted? Luigi drained of his power, the magic causing his physical appearance to change? Was he getting wrinkly too like a grandpa, was he going to turn into dust, leaving Mario to wonder what happened to him?
"No. No, I'm supposed to get the power, not you!" He frowned at the ghost who seemed to start gibbering to himself pulling away and summoning a book from thin air seemed to be looking for something…