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Luigi barely pushed through the cloth-shrouded door before freezing like a deer in the headlights. The hallway stretched to either side of him, deeply shadowed, and by all appearances, peaceful. Tentatively he waved his flashlight over the wallpaper, mind full of the huge, slinking shape that had followed him from the ballroom. No shadows appeared in the light’s wake.
Behind him, he heard his new companion shift, still tangled in the purple drapes as she waited for him to move.
“Sorry—there was… sorry.” Eyes still darting around the walls, Luigi stepped out into the hallway again.
Shakilly, he glanced down at the gameboy still clutched in his hand. The map seemed wrong, and it took him an absurdly long moment to process why. Somehow the view had zoomed in, focusing on the rooms he wanted to reach. He continued to stare, bewildered. If he had done that, he had no idea how, and even less of an idea on how to change the view back.
The dark hallway pressed around him as he struggled uneasily with the device. He played with every button, pinched the device's screen, anything to coax it back to the view it had presented before, with little luck. A red icon hovered in the far corner, indicating in which direction his position on the map lay. He shuddered when the girl peeked around his elbow to see the display as well, and focused on finding his current location. But after panning two screen-lengths without locating his icon, he panned back for fear of losing the rooms too. Ultimately, he tucked the gameboy in his pocket and started walking in approximately the right direction.
The whole situation felt like a twisted dream as he trudged forward, following the beam of his light through the still hallways. Vague terrors chewed through him and he pressed Mario’s hat as he walked, squeezing it against the poltergust nozzle in his hand. He got a small, unpleasant thrill every time the red caught his eye, and he knew he should tuck it away—if only to free up his already limited handspace—but somehow he couldn’t. His anxiety grew worse every time he stopped to check the useless map, eyes darting to watch the halls and study the screen at the same time.
His companion never spoke, not that he could have carried a conversation anyways. He could hardly hear her at all as she stepped lightly behind him, and he shied more than once when he caught her movements out of the corner of his eye. She didn’t seem rattled by the halls, the dark, the silence, though she did watch him with a kind of veiled scrutiny. She had a softness in her gaze, too, a pity almost, and it made Luigi want to crawl into a hole.
The silence around them gave way as little ghosts began to appear again. Their flickering shadows drifted on the walls, following the pair in a slowly growing clump. The air became distinctly cold as their numbers grew, but they never attacked or even became visible, just hung behind, chittered, and watched.
Luigi’s eyes darted after the movements, his hands tight around the poltergust and his hair standing on end. He waited for an opportunity to drive them away, but they knew better than that and utterly refused to show themselves. Eventually Luigi turned the flashlight on them anyways. They moved like a shoal of fish before the beam, avoiding it as best they could, but they didn’t leave. Luigi began to feel hunted, cornered in the middle of the hall.
He hardly dared to look at the map anymore, not with the ghosts pressing so close. Before long he hit a dead-end passageway, and then another shortly after, that one barred by a locked door. Luigi stared, exhausted and dumbfounded. He tried to search for another route on the gameboy only to jump as the chill of a ghost brushed past his ear. His eyes locked onto the retreating shadow as it wove back into the twisting bundle of movement against the wallpaper. Then, for the first time since they entered the halls, the girl spoke:
“May I see that again?”
It took Luigi an instant to realize what she meant. With a deep breath through his nose, he finally nodded and held the device out for her to see. Her little hands wrapped around the corners, gently coaxing it out of his trembling grasp. A thrill of fear jumped through him as he realized her intention, but short of snatching the gameboy away (or some equally strong display of distrust), didn’t know how to refuse. He watched with pointed anxiety as she looked over the display, studying the map as he had and experimenting with the controls. Her thin, dark eyebrows drew down as she struggled with the device, and eventually, she too tried pinching on the screen. Only this time it responded, zooming out to a more reasonable view.
Luigi’s eyebrows dropped incredulously. She glanced at his hands and then at him.
“Gloves?” She offered quietly. Luigi glanced quickly at his gloved hands. That might explain it.
As his discomfort began to ease, Luigi used the lull to shoo the accumulating ghosts with his flashlight. A displeased murmur rattled through them as he drove them around the hall with the beam. Eventually, in the face of the harassment, a few did leave, but not many.
“I found a path.”
Luigi jolted and looked back. She stood at his elbow again, still scrutinizing the screen.
“Come on,” she said with a glance up at him, then stepped lightly forward, leading the way. After another thrill of unease over giving up the gameboy, Luigi gave in and followed.
As much as the arrangement worried him, it did help. The girl walked steadily ahead, consulting the map as frequently as she needed to navigate the labyrinth of halls. This left Luigi to attend to the ghosts, and none too soon. Some of the grabbers had grown bold, and one at least tried to snag him from behind. Luigi watched all sides as best he could, tagging the ghosts with the light as soon as they appeared. It never truly stunned them, most stayed too far away for that, but they vanished, and that was good enough. Luigi didn’t know if he dared to capture them anyways, for fear of what the others would do.
Gradually, the ranks of the ghosts did begin to disperse. Whether due to Luigi’s harassment or something else, he didn’t know. As the crowd thinned, he did capture a bolder one: a purple puncher who took a swipe at him. His companion jumped back at the initial wail, then watched, intrigued, as he sucked the ghost down the pipe. The remaining ghosts yowled too, and for a moment, Luigi was sure he’d be mobbed. He backed against the wall, pulling the girl with him, expression set and wild. But the ghosts only fell back further, eyeing him with stoney resentment.
With the fresh breathing room, Luigi began to calm a bit. The ghost's chill sharpened his dulled senses, and though the paranoia they induced remained, their new-found respect made things manageable.
“You’re looking for someone here?” Came his companion’s soft voice again.
Luigi glanced over at her, a different kind of anxiety pressing up inside him.
“Yes, I—my brother.”
She gave a slight nod.
“Did you come here together?”
“...no.”
She glanced back at him, curiosity in her eyes as she obviously pondered her next question.
“Why were you here at all?” She settled on eventually.
Luigi stumbled over that one, a surge of guilt taking him as he wrestled with how to answer.
“I, we… The boos, they—” he trailed off, and the girl didn’t press him.
“Have you explored much of the castle?” She asked instead.
“...no. I haven’t gotten very far. The front chambers mostly. And the ballroom, and— where we met.”
A small pause, and then almost hesitantly:
“Do you know what happened to him? Your brother.”
“I don’t know—“ It sounded more desperate than he liked. Luigi squeezed Mario’s hat again and took a deep breath. “But I will find him. I’ll find him soon. ”
She nodded again, this time more deeply.
“What- what was your name again?” Luigi finally asked.
“I’m Novi. And you’re Luigi?”
“Yeah...“
Their conversation dragged to a halt after that, but it was more comfortable this time. With the rule of silence broken, Novi gave him little bites of her navigation process, telling him which path to take ahead of time instead of just leading the way. Even if he hardly responded with more than a hum, it was nice to hear another voice.
The anxiety returned, however, when the remaining ghosts darted away all at once. Dread reared up in Luigi’s chest and he ran his light over the walls, instinctively searching for a larger shadow. Then he jumped as, ever so softly, the gameboy beeped in Novi’s hands.
Novi’s eyebrows dropped again as she studied the screen, trying to figure out what the noise ment. She glanced back at Luigi, and when she saw his frantic expression, handed the device to him.
He accepted it hastily to see a warning box flashing in the middle of the screen. A thick wheeze from up the hallway prevented him from investigating. The beeping grew more urgent, the gameboy’s yellow light flashing in time with the accelerated pace. In desperation, Luigi shoved the device deep into his pocket, under the layer of keys and paper in an attempt to muffle the sound.
Ahead of him, the heavy, chugging rasp came again, this time mixed with the unmistakable chitter of boos. Luigi glanced desperately down the passage. They had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Novi looked down the hall too, then glanced at him as she retreated anyways, calmly walking back the way they had come. Luigi followed her lead, backing away with his flashlight off and the poltergust ready.
A wash of livid pink lit up the hallway ahead as a massive, flabby form phased through one of the doors. It gave a wheeze of effort and sagged, all but sinking to the floor with its tiny head bowed. With another wet gasp the monstrosity slugged up the passage, almost dragging its chunky tail along the carpet. Two or three boos followed close behind, whipping around its head in an agitated storm.
Luigi watched in horror as the spectacle ozzed along the passage, desperately hoping that none of the ghosts turned around. After an agonizingly slow progression, the whole procession turned down the next branch in the hallway.
Gradually, the beeping from inside his pocket slowed and then died, leaving the hall again in silence. Luigi let out a low, shaky breath. Novi looked at him questioningly, but he had no answer to give.
“Is—is there a different way we can go?” He asked finally.
“I think so.”
Luigi fished out the gameboy and looked at the screen again. The warning had vanished, so he gave the device back to Novi.
“Yes, this way,” she said, after a moment of scrutiny. With that, she turned, leading him back the way they had come then down a new set of passages.
The rooms weren’t far after that. Within a few more turns the hall gave way to plane furniture and green carpets. Novi didn’t seem to need the gameboy from there. She glanced back and forth along the passage eagerly, eyes bright. When she saw a partially open door she darted ahead and slipped inside without hesitation.
Luigi bolted to join her before she was mobbed by the ghosts waiting inside. Despite his worry, no ghosts had appeared, at least not yet. The room itself looked the same as any other he had explored so far—old, dustly, maybe a little damaged. But other things lay in the room, too: toothbrushes on the nightstand, a stack of muddied clothes folded on the floor. His flashlight beam fell over two bed rolls, slept in and messy, and against the back window, a stack of duffle bags. Luigi hung in the doorway, unsure of what to do. It looked like a lived-in bedroom, and entering felt like an intrusion.
Novi stood in the middle of the chamber, looking over every detail. Then she went for the bags and began to dig through them, filling her own pack with what looked like fresh supplies. For an instant, a tindrel of doubt crept through Luigi’s mind. Was this the only reason she has led him here? But the though didn’t last long. She very well could have heard something from this room. Mind mostly at ease, Luigi waited patiently for her to finish.
• • •
Being here again felt surreal. The room seemed to absorb what Novi had left behind, claiming it as its own. She could hardly imagine curling up in those blankets, actually expecting to sleep through the night. It felt like it belonged more to the mansion now than to her: something old, abandoned, and long untouched.
A few key items were missing. The lantern had disappeared, as had Comet’s pack, evidence that at some point she had managed to come back and collect her things. It filled Novi with a relief she didn’t know she needed. These details offered little information on where Comet had gone—probably into the halls again to look for her, or maybe outside to find the dragons—but at least she had a light.
Novi pawed through the duffel bags below the window, loading fresh supplies into her pack. She took a few things for her companion, too: food, water. He hardly seemed to have anything other than that vacuum and a map. When she found a flashlight tucked between the clothes, she took it too. She had seen the way Luigi fought ghosts; a direct beam of light could prove useful.
Luigi hung in the doorway, a dark silhouette behind his flashlight. He seemed anxious, but then again, he always seemed anxious. Not that Novi blamed him. He still had the red hat in his hand, wrapped around the hilt of that bizarre, ghost-sucking vacuum. The hat, or at least the concept of the hat, made Novi nervous. She wondered what had happened to his brother. Between her earlier talk with Luigi and what the “fortune teller” had said, the situation didn’t seem good.
Her train of thought soured as it went back to Madame Clairvoya. The way she had toyed with him, gleefully wringing him despite his distress... At least Novi managed to run her into the ground before they left. She had almost definitely made an enemy, but in this instance, Novi was okay with that.
Eventually she stood up from the duffles, weighing her freshly filled bag on her shoulders. As an afterthought, she slipped her socked feet into the boots laying at the end of her bed then made for the doorway. Luigi stepped aside as Novi came. She nodded lightly and joined him in the hall, eyes drifting over the dark passage before her.
“I don’t know where the yell came from, but it sounded close.” She pointed up the passage. “Somewhere there, I think.”
Luigi nodded.
The going grew slow after that. Luigi walked ahead, assessing the passages as they went, though he found little of note. When they passed the single downward stair he tried to take it, but Novi remembered it distinctly and steered him away:
“I went that way, there’s nothing there.”
After a few moments of persuasion, he relented and they moved on.
But aside from the stairwell, they had few other places to look. The vast majority of the doors here wouldn’t open, and the few halls that branched from that passage lead to dead ends within a few feet of the split. The longer they explored, the more certain Novi became of where this search would lead. Her suspicions were soon confirmed as they hit the end of the passage to find the parlor door adjar, creaking softly on its hinges.
Luigi noticed her pause and stopped too, eyeing the sliver of darkness beyond the door with deep suspicion. When she edged forward to check the room, he moved faster, stepping forward and sweeping his light over the chamber. Novi’s heart fell at what she saw.
The once quaint room lay in shambles. Much of the furniture was tipped over on the floor, some of it smashed and almost all of it seared over with ugly black burns. The walls and floor had them too, as if someone had tried to light the room on fire. Novi couldn’t wrap her mind around what happened here, but she had little doubt that the scream came from this room.
Luigi stood rigid, eyes wide as he took in the mess before him. Stiffly, he bent down to observe the burns and the slurr of boot marks across the floor. He seemed detached as he worked his way around the chamber, shaking hard and expression wild as he inspected every corner. After a while, he backed away toward the door, as if he couldn’t bear to be in the room any longer, again crushing the red hat between his hands. Novi looked up at him, wishing she had some words of comfort to offer, but nothing came to mind that she could honestly say.
“He—can’t have made it here,” Luigi said softly, voice cracking. “There’s no way he could make it all the way here from the front door…”
A rue feeling welled up in Novi’s stomach.
“The kitchen door was open.” She said softly.
Luigi glanced at her.
“What?”
“The kitchen door downstairs leads into the yard. It was left open.”
“Will you—show me that too?”
Novi nodded.
Silently she led the way through the double doors on the adjacent wall and down the elegant, bowed stairs. From there they walked crossed the large, high-ceilinged chamber, Luigi eyeing the web-slicked doors suspiciously as they went, and down the little passage beyond to the swinging kitchen door.
Novi pushed past it without hesitation, only for the gameboy to beep half-way through. She froze when she saw what lay beyond and ever so softly backed out again. Luigi heard the beep too, judging by the terror in his eyes.
“In there,” Novi offered calmly. “The pink thing from the hallway…”
He nodded, and after another moment of hesitation, pressed by her to peek through the door himself. Then, much to Novi’s surprise, he actually slipped inside. She followed his lead, but not before smothering the gameboy inside her backpack.
She bumped him with the door as she entered, and he startled horribly, choking back a yell. Novi squeezed through the crack hastily, retreating into the shadow beside it, and Luigi pressed against the door again.
Before Novi lay the darkened kitchen, stretching out into the window-lined dining chamber beyond. The destroyed door gaped onto the yard, still clinging to its half-hynge, guarded by a new lattice of glowing vines strung across the door frame. But that was the least of their worries. Between them and the exit hung the massive, flabby ghost, boos and all. Its sickly pink glow stained the whole kitchen, reflecting off the stone counters and casting odd shadows across the room until the color trailed off into the vast darkness of the chamber.
The monster had one hand in a cabinet, rummaging blindly inside as it tried to peer around its own thick arm. Its other hand waved above its head clumsily, batting away the three boos scolding at it like a pack of angry seagulls. It pulled a can of something out of the cabinet and stuck the whole thing in its mouth, biting down hard with the popping sound of crushed tin. With a horrifying slurp, the ghosts sucked out the contains and spit the remains of the can into the floor.
The boos wailed in frustration then raided the cabinet themselves, snatching up more cans and waving them in front of the ghost’s face. It made an unhappy sound and grabbed at them, but the boos were too fast. They darted away down the length of the dining room and disappeared through the wall. For an instant, it seemed as though the pink ghost would go after them, but after a single earnest float in their direction, it went back to the cabinet and plunged its hand inside again, searching for anything the boos had missed.
With a shuddering, jerky movement, Luigi handed Novi the red hat. She hung back by the door as he skirted the kitchen table, creeping up on the monster with his head ducked low and eyes wide. The ghost’s rummaging abruptly stopped as Luigi drew near, and Luigi froze, cowering in the pink glow. Slowly, steadily, he raised the poltergust nozzle and tensed for a last dart forward only to hesitate with a contorted expression.
Novi’s eyebrows furrowed as he lowered the poltergust again.
“Excuse—excuse me,” he choked, in a very small voice.
The ghost turned its big, heavy body, blinking owlishly. Luigi started to fall apart as it peered down at him, a few half-stutters slipping out as he tried to speak again. The ghost cocked its head to the side and slugged forward. Luigi backed away, tripping over his own feet in his attempt to put the table between himself and the monster.
The ghost lurched forward again, more eagerly this time. It made a poorly aimed snatch at him, clipping Luigi’s side and knocking him to the floor. Novi gasped as one of the chairs propped on the table fell on top of him then clapped her hands to her mouth in horror as the ghost knocked the chair away and pressed him to the ground with both massive hands. Luigi screamed, whether in pain or fear Novi couldn't tell. He squirmed wildly as the ghost worked its chubby fingers up underneath him and lifted him off the ground. Somehow he managed to free an arm, and in desperation, lasered the ghost in the eyes with his flashlight. The monster made a startled sound and lost its grip, dropping Luigi with a thud.
Luigi gasped and coughed, struggling to get onto his hands and knees. The ghost shook its head and peered down, leaning forward to take him again. Then it shrieked as Novi darted forward and stuck it in the tail with her sword. She bounded out of the monster’s reach as it rounded then yelled and dropped to the floor as a hot ball of magma whizzed by her head. With another horrible shriek the ghost charged after her.
Novi tried to roll away, going for the kitchen table as Luigi had. Somewhere in the room, she heard the whir of the vacuum. The ghost jerked away from her, falling onto its face then scrambling backward across the floor on its hands. On the other side of the table, Luigi knelt on the floor, white as a sheet, looking down at the poltergust like it had betrayed him.
When he didn’t move, the ghost changed course, lunging at him with a red glow building in its chest. Luigi cried out and dove to the side as the shot of magma came then tried the poltergust again as the ghost blew past him. This time it took. The ghost’s eyes widened as it felt the pull, and it lurched away towards the dining room with so much force it pulled Luigi down. But Luigi didn’t let go. He managed to swing his legs forward as he slid, bracing as best he could against the floor. The ghost began to panic as its retreat slowed, whipping back and forth wildly. A white blur dove for Luigi’s head.
He dropped the poltergust nozzle on instinct, hands flying up to protect his face. The suction broke with a pop and the pink ghost rolled across the floor, sucking down massive, gurgling breaths. Two more boos joined the first over Luigi’s head, whipping around him like biting insects. Luigi cried out again, this time definitely in pain. Novi realized in horror that the boos weren’t diving at him, they were diving through him, his body spasming at each contact. She dropped her weapon and fumbled out her flashlight, catching the boos in the face and driving them away like Luigi had done with the other ghosts. They squealed and scattered, one of them cowering and covering its face with its little white paws.
Luigi snatched up the poltergust and turned it on the cowering boo. It yelped as it felt the suction and tried to dart away, but Luigi followed it with the wand and it disappeared down the pipe. Then, shaking so bad Novi hardly believed he could stand, he dove after the pink ghost slugging away across the floor. It wailed horribly as the suction caught it again, its whole mass twisting and squelching into the impossibly small holding tank.
Novi cried out like she’d been hit, ducking and covering her face as the kitchen lights burst to life. She opened her eyes a crack to see Luigi shaking in the middle of the kitchen, eyes closed and swallowing repeatedly.
“Oh, well done, green,” said a high, mocking voice.
Luigi’s eyes flashed open and he whipped unsteadily around to see the two other boos floating near the ceiling. Novi could hardly make them out in the yellow light: half-visible, one half-conscious and dazed and the other squinting.
“Just remember, someone will pay for this, even if it isn’t—“
“Where’s Mario?!” Luigi screamed, not even trying to control his hysteria. The boo snickered
Before Novi could register what happened, one of the boos had vanished into the poltergust. With a shriek, the other boo turned tail, diving for the halls. Novi leaped into its path, shining her light into its eyes again. It squealed and turned, plunging through the opposite wall and into the yard.
Somewhere between their entrance and now, the web over the doorway had died. Luigi tore through the remaining black wires without hesitation, plunging outside in pursuit. Novi followed more slowly, picking her weapon from the floor before slipping between the black strings.
• • •
Luigi stumbled down the steps from the kitchen door and squelched into the mud, legs wobbling and vision blurred. The boo flitted ahead in a dazed sort of way, fleeing for the scraggly trees beyond the kitchen garden. Nausea pounded through him with every step and his ribs ached from the pink ghost’s grasp, but he couldn’t let it escape: couldn’t let it go back to the boo with the crown.
With a desperate burst of speed, Luigi lunged forward and caught it in the poltergust’s suction. The boo squealed and tried to vanish into the air, but too late. It went down the hose as Luigi pitched forward, tripping over the low garden wall into the wet grass on the other side. He tried to stand, but groaned as the nausea bit into him again. Instead he shuffled to his knees and leaned against the stone wall, breath coming in haggered gasps.
The roar of trees filled his ears, and fine, chilly rain fell around him, rippling across the puddles. He looked back at the castle, huge, dark, its black windows peering down at him like eyes. Why had he come here? Mario wasn’t here. What had he hoped to achieve?
The cold gnawed at him, sharpening his senses as the worst of the ghosts’ drain began to fade. He felt so weak, so tired… He forced himself to his feet and wandered back toward the mansion.
As he walked back, he found himself scanning the ground anyways, looking for any signs that his brother had passed. Sure enough, almost as he reached the door, he saw a line of familiar boot prints tucked under the eves. This explained why Luigi had never found signs of him in the foyer or the front rooms. Mario had never been there at all.
But the information didn’t help. What was Luigi supposed to do now? Wander the mansion until he stumbled upon him? Thoughts of what could have happened to Mario—what could be happening right now jumped through Luigi’s mind and he jammed his eyes shut. He took a shuddering breath. He needed to go back to that parlor again, look for more clues about where the boos had taken him: find a way to go down, to the dungeon, to the lab...
Luigi’s eyes snapped open and he glanced frantically around, searching for the girl. She stood on the tiney stone porch, Mario’s hat pressed to her chest in an attempt to protect it from the rain. She looked rattled, cold, and very small. He couldn’t lead her back in there. Finally, his slow mind came to a solution. He would take her back to E. Gadd.
With a sigh, he went to fold the poltergust nozzle away but stopped as he noticed a yellow light flashing on the handle. He had no idea what that meant, and he assumed it wasn’t good. Maybe it had something to do with why the poltergust hadn’t latched onto the pink ghost the first time. It seemed he needed to go back to the lab anyways.
Not trusting his voice, he walked to meet Novi on the steps. She looked up from the muddy ground as he came, and her face pinched with concern.
“I—” he took a steadying breath. “There’s a safehouse beyond the front gates.”
She eyed him warily.
“We need to go there,” he said helplessly, not sure what to make of the expression.
Novi’s deminor softened again, and she nodded.
“Okay.”
She slipped gingerly off the porch into the mud, then stopped, turned back to offering him Mario’s hat. Luigi felt a choking surge of emotion and closed his eyes. He fumbled the hat into his pocket and stepped into the mud himself, leading the way toward the front of the castle.
The grounds near the mansion rolled gently in a landscape of little green hills and dark puddles, dotted with a few scraggly trees. The building blocked most of the wind, and the moon poked through the clouds here and there, its silver light shining through the banks of mist and reflecting off the ripple-filled pools. It would have been picturesque under different circumstances.
Luigi trudged ahead, holding his ribs with one hand. Novi stepped behind him lightly, lifting the hem of her dress as she stepped through the shallowest pools. Just beyond the garden, little regular stones dotted the turf. They lay on the hills and peeked up from the puddles: little plaques, unmarked, covered in moss and crumbling. Eventually Luigi recognized them as grave markers. They radiated from the graveyard’s fence, spilling out of the dense woods almost up to the castle itself. For once in his life, Luigi was too exhausted to be afraid. He wondered what had happened here.
His eyes followed the stones then snapped to a clump of trees beyond them, his heart-rate spiking. He could have sworn he saw movement: a dark shape among the thicker trees. All of a sudden the lab seemed very far away, the yard very bare and open. Eyes still searching the spot, he unhooked the poltergust nozzle from its holster and quickened his pace.
“Hurry,” he hissed when Novi glanced at him quizzically.
A wavering growl escaped from the treeline, and Luigi’s eyes snapped to it to see a large dog prowling towards them, half its body fading into a twist of smoke. It looked like a massive bulldog, squat, heavy-set, with bright white eyes and teeth hanging out of its mouth. Luigi grabbed Novi’s hand and ran.
The nausea bit into him again almost immediately, causing him to gasp and stumble. His foot hit one of the little stones and he fell into the mud with a plop. Scrabbling to get up, he turned to face the oncoming dog. Its head bent low as it galloped through the water, the pools rippling gently in its wake. It snarled again as it came up on him, and Luigi scrambled back, raising the poltergust nozzle and pulling the trigger. The dog couldn’t care less. It lunged forward at Luigi’s flailing legs and bit down hard.
Luigi yelled out and clawed at the ground as the dog pulled, dragging him away towards the trees. Teeth grit against the pain he fumbled out the flashlight and waved the beam back at it, trying to catch the dog in the eyes. It yelped and let go, shaking its head. In an instant it had lunged at him again, but Luigi drew his legs back sharply and flashed it with the light a second time. Finally it snarled and broke away, but the relief was short lived. With a strike of horror, Luigi realized it was going for the girl.
He turned frantically to see her standing firm, her own light already grasped in her hands. She slashed the dog in the eyes as it came, driving it back with the beam. Luigi struggled to his feet and desperately hobbled to reach her. He wouldn't get far like this—definitely not to the lab. Teeth still grit, he waved his hand at her, trying to get her to come to him.
She seemed to understand and darted back, the dog on her heels.
“The kitchen,” he said as she ducked behind him, holding the dog at bay with his own beam. They let it drive them back towards the kitchen garden. But it seemed to catch onto their intentions. When they tried to break away for the door, the dog cut them off, snarling and snapping. They tried to press by it, force it away with the lights, to little avail. It drove them further and further back into the trees, away from the castle until it had them up against the graveyard fence.
It only seemed to grow more frantic as they went. The dog snarled and lunged, but for some reason, it didn’t seem to want to approach the fence. Novi calmed quickly when she realized this. Luigi felt her hand slip into his and she guided him along the pickets, going for a half-open gate.
The dog let out a horrible, desperate snarl as they slipped inside. It bounded back and forth in front of the gate, its eyes full of rage. But it refused to cross the threshold.
Previous Index
Notes:
Mr. Lugs is nasty.
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