A/N: Welcome back! I'd hoped to have this chapter up a few days ago, but some unexpected things came up and delayed me. In the next few days I'm planning to post the next few chapters of "Mario's Galactic Tale" as well, followed by the second annual special installment on August 25th, the second anniversary of the first installment of "MGT" being posted.

I do not own Super Mario or Harley Quinn.

A pretty low profile, as it turned out.

"Excuse me, sir," I said that afternoon as I strolled down the sidewalks of central Toad Town.

A Blue Toad approaching me stopped and asked, "Who, me?"

"No, your shadow. Listen, have you seen King Boo lately? Heard anything of his whereabouts?"

"K-K-King Boo?" the Toad whimpered. "N-no, I haven't heard anything of him. Why would a common Toad like me know where King Boo is hiding out?"

"…Because 52% of the kingdom thinks he's the scariest creature in existence? I would think you'd want to keep tabs on him so you can prepare if he's going to attack you."

"Oh, he never really attacks us, per se. All he ever does is trap Mario in paintings and then battle Luigi by either cosplaying as Bowser or rolling down a hall like a gigantic bowling ball. He leaves us Toads alone, but that doesn't mean his face isn't thee stuff of nightmares."

This place just kept seeming lamer and lamer the longer I was here. So of the two big bads the Mushroom Kingdom dealt with, it seemed like one constantly kidnapped their princess, only to do nothing with her, except on one occasion when I guess he invaded Peach's Castle, created a purple tornado around it, and left the rest of the kingdom alone, and the other had a personal vendetta against a pair of plumbers and didn't give two shits about the rest of the kingdom.

At this point if I was a Toad, I'd just kidnap Peach, Mario, and Luigi, then demand a peace summit with Bowser and King Boo to hand over the three of them in exchange for being left alone by the forces of evil for the rest of time. I mean, sure, it sounds like Mario and co. have done a lot of good fighting back against Bowser and King Boo, but there's only so much credit you can give them when they're basically the sole reason for the attacks happening in the first place.

"Well, do you know anyone else who might know where King Boo is?" I asked.

The Toad tapped his chin. "Well, there's Professor Gadd, he's always going after King Boo, but I don't know where he lives. He's what you'd call a socially inept hermit."

"Okay, thanks for your time," I said. I continued down the sidewalk, then stopped a Green Toad about a minute later. "Excuse me, sir. Have you-?"

"Sir? I'm a girl!" the Toad snapped. She huffed and shoved her way past me.

I crossed the street and approached a Green Toad staring through the front window of Toad Town Bakery. "Excuse me…." This was gonna be a crapshoot. "…ma'am, have you-?"

The Toad huffed. "What exactly do you mean, 'ma'am'? I'm a guy!"

This was, like, the tenth time this had happened to me that day alone, and it certainly didn't help that every single Toad looked and sounded the exact same. The only rule I'd seemed to find was that all Pink Toads were female, but beyond that, there was no way of knowing what gender Toad I was talking to at any given moment.

"You Toads should seriously wear name tags," I said. "Look, I just need to know if you know where King Boo is. I'm hunting him down because I think he kidnapped Luigi, but I don't have any leads on him."

"Wait, Luigi's been kidnapped?" the Toad said. "Huh. I wonder if that's why he didn't show up to his appointment the other day to fix my toilet. I stopped by his house that evening and ran into another Toad throwing rocks through his window, who said the same thing: Luigi blew off an appointment earlier in the day. Well, this makes a lot more sense now. Luigi's not the type to skip out on jobs like that. Mario, on the other hand…." He rolled his eyes and groaned.

Man, what is it with the Toads and Mario? It's not even a love-hate relationship, it's just a…hate-hate relationship.

"Well, if you want your toilet fixed, do you have any idea where King Boo is?" I asked. "Any rumors, people claiming to have seen him lately?"

The Toad shook his head. "Not that I know of. He's been AWOL for the past year and a half or so. In late 2013, Luigi headed to this place called Evershade Valley, to the southwest of Toad Town, to rescue Mario from him. Supposedly Luigi sucked King Boo into this device called the Poltergust 5000 at the end of the battle-"

I'm assuming this Poltergust thing was like a proton pack from Ghostbusters.

"-but you know how bad guys work, they always find a way to come back. I wouldn't be surprised if he did break out somehow and kidnap Luigi in revenge."

In light of this new intel, it seemed like the easiest thing to do would probably be to find the Poltergust 5000. If King Boo was still in it, then that meant he hadn't kidnapped Luigi, and the Koopalings were the culprits. But if King Boo had escaped, that meant he could be to blame. And in that case, having the Poltergust would hopefully make stopping him and saving Luigi that much easier.

"Last question," I said. "Where is this…Poltergust 5000?"

"Hmm. That's a tricky one," the Toad said. Of course it frigging is. "See, no one really knows what happened to it after the Evershade Valley fiasco. Some say Luigi kept it and it's in his house, some say Professor Gadd, that nutty scientist who created it, keeps it where he lives…only no one knows where that is."

How did this guy manage to keep where he lived a secret from so many people? "Is there anyone in the kingdom who knows where he lives?" I said with an exasperated sigh. "The Interim Princess? The post office? Some friend of Mario and Luigi's?"

"How should I know?" the Toad asked defensively. "I've never seen the guy. I hardly ever even think about the guy. And I doubt the Interim Princess would know anything about King Boo. Hell, she'd be more likely to be able to tell you the exact order all the candidates were eliminated on the last ten seasons of The Bachelor-toad.

Yeah, I could definitely believe that.

"Alright, thanks for your time…sir," I said.

The Toad gave a curt nod and continued past me.

So my best shot at getting to King Boo was this Professor Gadd guy, and in a rather unfortunate coincidence, it was sounding like the reverse was also true: the only person/creature who would be able to draw him out of hiding was King Boo. Who, again, I couldn't get to without Gadd.

Or….

Maybe it didn't need to be King Boo, per se. Maybe all that mattered was that Gadd thought it was King Boo.

One quick trip to the nearest art store later, I headed down the sidewalk towards the center of town. It was late afternoon by that time. Soon darkness would fall, providing the perfect cover for my ploy. There was no way someone vandalizing the giant statue of Peach in the center of town would go unnoticed, and surely Professor Gadd, no matter how much of a "socially inept hermit" he was, would get word of it sooner rather than later.

I wondered where Mario was. On my way from Bowser Jr.'s Fearsome Fleet to the Mushroom Planet, I'd seen a whole bunch of weird-looking galaxies that I assumed Mario had already visited. One looked like it took place entirely around the trunk of some giant tree; another was basically just a single, huge, jungle-covered planet; a third was all contained inside a giant, brown sphere with a bunch of large holes in its exterior. Made me wonder what other strange places like that Mario would be coming across further on. Maybe one that's a giant rollercoaster or something? Who knows?

When I arrived at the town square, it was still too light out for me to enact my plan. Not to mention busy; Toads were constantly coming and going from the shops, restaurants, and markets bordering the square. And in the center was the statue of Peach. My King Boo Purple spray paint (I kid you not, that's the thing's actual color) would stand out well against the statue's pink dress. People would notice it first thing in the morning.

Since it would probably be a few more hours until the town square would be vacant enough for me to deface the statue undetected, I decided I'd get a bite to eat…after stashing my spray paint inside my spaceship. The last thing I needed was for someone to see me with a brand-new can of King Boo Purple spray paint and put two and two together in the morning. People were already suspicious enough of me as it was just because of how I was dressed.

So I headed to the northwest, into the woods at the back end of Toad Town Park, where hardly anyone ever goes. I'd parked the spaceship roughly in the center of the forest, behind a thick row of hedges. As I shoved aside the hedges, I saw the blue spaceship in the diminishing, orange rays of sunlight creeping through the trees.

If I was being honest, the ship was butt friggin' ugly.

The front of it was a large, spherical cockpit with a tinted windshield that not only appeared opaque from the outside, but was damn near impossible to see through from the inside, which I'm pretty sure is not the goal of tinted windows. Trailing from the cockpit was a small, blue section that was only large enough to contain a small storage compartment, which ended in a thruster that looked much too big for the rest of the ship.

I guess this universe didn't get the memo that the bad guys always get the cooler-looking vehicles.

I opened the compartment in the rear of the ship and stowed my shopping bag inside, next to my Fun Gun. I shut the compartment again and surveyed the crappy excuse for a spaceship. Why couldn't Cad Bane have had one of the cool Star Wars ones Wade and everyone else and I had used in that battle against Shuma-Gorath for the fate of the multiverse? I mean, come on, the dude was literally a Star Wars character, and this was the best he could get?

I strolled back through the park and towards the center of town. Only once I got to the square, I noticed something I hadn't seen before: the entire square was illuminated by string lights suspended between the crown atop the statue of Peach, and several posts around the perimeter of the square. So even after dark, the statue's vicinity would still be fairly well-lit. I'd have to make sure the square was completely empty before I made my move.

The center of town looked peaceful as the sun set behind the buildings on the western end of the square, and for a second, I could see why so many Toads lived here despite Bowser's frequent attacks. I shook the thought aside; there were more important things to be done, and I had to stay focused. Couldn't afford to slip up now and get arrested for vandalism. That was one thing I'd prided myself on never getting arrested for back in Gotham, despite the fact that basically every piece of graffiti in that entire city could be traced back to me.

After grabbing a quick dinner in Jack's Diner – the place was growing on me – I headed back outside. The trees lining the square swayed in a warm breeze, and their leaves rustled against each other faintly. There was still too much traffic in the square for me to leave my message yet. Toads were sitting at outside tables, coming and going from stores, walking their dogs (which I guess in the Mushroom Kingdom are called Poochies). Overall not too different from my universe, except for the squeaky, high-pitched voices and mushroom-shaped fire hydrants.

As the moon rose in the sky overhead, the activity in the square slowly petered out. Apparently Toad Town doesn't have a very active night life, which normally would be a disappointing discovery, but just this once acted in my favor.

I headed back to the park, through paths now illuminated by the serene glow of lampposts. I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that all this nice scenery I was coming across was just the calm before the storm, so to speak, and that wherever King Boo was hiding out was gonna be full-blown nightmare material. I just happened to be hiding out on the sunny, cheerful surface of this universe, and there was probably a whole world of darkness lurking beneath it.

After startling a few couples making out in the woods, I found my way back to my ship. The thing really needed a name. Maybe…Wade? The two of us are good friends. I cocked my head at the ship. Nah, didn't really feel like a Wade. And either way, I'd be getting rid of the hideous blue paint job. I get Cad Bane was blue and all, but seriously, that doesn't make it a good ship color.

I retrieved the shopping bag with the can of spray paint in it from the ship's compartment and headed back to the center of town for hopefully the last time. By now the town square was mostly empty and most of the stores were closed. Only the string lights and lampposts remained lit, but if there was no one around to see me, those being lit wouldn't be a problem. I took a seat on one of the benches on the sidewalk and waited for the last few stragglers in the square to leave. Once I was sure I was alone, I waited another minute or two just to be safe, then got up and walked towards the statue.

After I finished, I stepped back and admired my work. Now I'll have to see what the newspapers have to say about this in the morning.

The papers didn't disappoint. The following morning, I picked up a copy of the Mushroom Kingdom Herald from one of the many newsstands throughout Toad Town.

Above the fold too. Impressive.

Printed in all caps along the top of the paper were the words "RETURN OF THE KING!" And below it was an image of the bottom half of Peach's statue, with my King Boo Purple message plainly visible:

PROFESSOR GADD:

I HAVE LUIGI.

MEET ME IN THE WOODS OF TOAD TOWN PARK

TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT, ALONE,

IF YOU EVER WANT TO SEE HIM AGAIN.

- KING BOO