If it weren't for the sudden call from the professor, Luigi might have never left his spot by the kitchen wall.

"Hey now, Luigi, how are you holding up?" E. Gadd asked in a friendly way.

Staring at his image on the Game Boy's small screen, Luigi felt his thin resolve falter. What he would have given just to trade places with the old man...

"I... I'm still alive," he finally managed, quivering visibly.

The professor felt a pang of pity at the sorry sight, but quickly averted it. It would only make the boy feel worse.

"Well, I just wanted to call and warn you," he went on carefully. "I thought you should know about this... strange ghost that likes to dwell near that area you're in."

Shivering at yet another tendril of terror, Luigi swallowed. "What about him?"

"He's not anything like the other ghosts around... I've seen him, but never managed to get up close. I call him... Elh."

Luigi tilted his head. "L?"

E. Gadd nodded. "He's a creature of manifest fear and doubt itself. To be honest I'm doubtful that he even is a ghost at all."

Luigi took a feeble breath and shook his head. This was exactly what he needed to make his night. "Well... I guess I'll watch."

With a slow nod, the professor offered a weak smile. "Don't give up, Luigi. The Poltergust 400 may as of yet be his match."

~

Somewhere in this area... Luigi thought as he proceeded forward through the door beside the dishwasher. It was one stressful thing after another... and this time it was not a new room, but a small back side yard of some sort. Out the kitchen's back door was a little fenced off dog pen, with a low stone wall surrounding an ancient doghouse and the remains of a garden. Pausing for a moment to look around in surprise, Luigi frowned. Was this where...

His thoughts were cut off by the dog's low growling filling the air like thunder. It was recognizable, but still odd somehow; as if...

Another sound, louder and more demanding, snarled in the air behind him, jerking Luigi around. Ghosts!

As he backed into the middle of the yard, they appeared; one after another, several glowing spirits without any trace of human descent. These were the ugly ones; large noses, larger fangs, and a single train of thought.

Filling the air with their faint white and purple hues, they advanced towards him with the most weird, unnatural sounds Luigi had ever heard.

But it was not entirely unfamiliar.

Raising his flashlight in fright, he activated it and cast his beam; as all ghosts did, they froze as if petrified by his light. Then came the Poltergust's job.

In their moment of shock, Luigi turned his vacuum on one and it was sucked away, caught as if by a skillful hand. Another minute and they all were gone, devoured by the unlikely ghost hunter.

Staring at the empty air he had created, Luigi took a quick breath. That was what he'd become.

A sudden lightning strike startled him out of his thoughts, rousing the dog again from his silence. Luigi turned with a gasp, seeing an old stake in the ground move by the doghouse; and there he was.

A giant grey and blue pit bull, enormous snout bared angrily at his trespasser. A spiky collar and chain kept him pinned; but he was still well within striking range.

Luigi wasted no time. He had liked dogs; he did. But this one had no intentions of being friendly.

At another warning bark that almost made Luigi want to scream, he turned and ran for the far wall. It was near Luigi's head, but that didn't matter: fueled by adrenaline, he put his hands on it and rocketed over in one bound.

Tumbling head over heels, Luigi landed on the ground beyond the wall. Crashing to a hard stop when his Poltergust bumped into a large stone, Luigi moaned and slowly rose to his feet.

Brushing off his already dirty clothes, he took one glance around and his heart stopped in his chest. This place... A cold wind swirled through the yard and surrounded him, chilling him to the bone and deeper.

This was a graveyard.

Unmarked but scarred ancient stones lay crooked and scattered throughout the enclosed place, as if to show the hurry with which they'd been placed; and on the far side of the yard, a larger one rose above them all. Squinting, Luigi slowly and painfully started closer.

He didn't know why his feet moved or why he did what he did. He only knew that something was here; and as he crossed some sort of invisible threshold in the dirt, it rose before him.

Small at first, as if it had been packed tightly within a small underground space, the ghastly shape rose from the earth before him. Unfolding slowly into a tall, hulking creature well over Luigi's head, it grew to its full form; and at the sight of the horrifying being Luigi shrieked.

And shrieked. His lungs had plenty more to give; and so he shrieked some more. And kept on shrieking.

The creature at first only stood there idly as if in standby, staring at him completely expressionless - if it was capable of showing any. For indeed that was the main reason why Luigi screamed: this creature had no face. It was only a slight lump for a head, and no recognizable features aside from stocky legs and overly-long arms that stretched like stalactites almost to the ground. His in-between body was not solid, but composed of four separate branching parts that twisted and intertwined around before joining his upper section. The entire thing was greyish-white, and appeared to be cast in shadows; its silence and its stance spoke more to Luigi than its actual appearance ever could.

For twenty seconds or maybe more the thing let Luigi scream. Then, when it seemed to have grown tired of listening to his panicky fit, there was a brief, single flash of light; and then in an instant the graveyard was gone.

Luigi was caught so unawares that his breath failed and he stopped screaming. Staring in shock at the world all around him, he found himself in an entirely different place; gone was the mansion and the yard surrounding them. Now they stood, face to faceless, on a small stone platform surrounded by sharp metal pikes; and in all directions the forest extended forever. They were nowhere.

Trembling just the slightest, Luigi finally brought his gaze back up to the creature before him. He understood, but he didn't want to do this at all.

Elh wanted to fight.

Luigi wasted no time. Taking the nozzle of the Poltergust in hand, he took a deep, albeit shaky breath. So it was his task.

Carefully edging away from his opponent, knowing that there was ultimately nowhere to run, a sudden thought occurred to him; something the professor had mentioned a long time ago. Couldn't he ride the Poltergust?

Glancing for just a second at the smooth stone arena, he quickly made up his mind. In a sudden move Elh had likely not counted upon, Luigi shrugged the straps off his shoulders and let the big tank to the ground, wheels first, like some miniature truck. Then, with only a moment's uncertainty, he plunked himself atop it and ignited the engine.

If the hulking creature was surprised it had no way to show it. After a short pause he suddenly started forward, slinking across the ground with legs still motionless and great, clumsy arms flailing as if he were swimming. There was almost nothing as terrifying as the sight of that great lanky creature lumbering towards him that Luigi saw then.

Heart in his throat as Elh drew near, Luigi took the vacuum's end in hand and propelled himself forward. Instantly flying towards the other end of the small arena, he gasped and quickly pulled the all stops as an explosion lit the air in front of him, glittering like fireworks and flame.

Just missing the burning spectacle, Luigi snapped his gaze up to the silent creature waiting for him. Elh was wreathed in orange and flame.

For half a second Luigi almost panicked; but then the answer hit him. Water nozzle!

Immediately scrambling for his pocket, he produced the blue-ended nozzle and, working almost faster than possible, stuck it onto the Poltergust, replacing the former vacuum. There was no time to test it; it would have to work on the job.

Elh was nearly upon him now. Holding his breath and trying to ignore the enormous arms that swooped downwards towards him, Luigi turned on his attacker and let it go.

In a huge torrent of water almost unheard of for such a tiny machine, Elh was instantly bathed in his spray, and the crackling fires that lit the air around him went out. Staggering back, still silent as ever, he seemed almost to shrink towards the stones.

Suddenly Luigi saw his chance. In a deft, skillful motion likely fueled by fear he switched out the nozzles again, seized on it in an instant and turned on the monster like prey.

Sucked by his sudden attack, Elh collapsed like jelly, surprisingly drawn easily by the Poltergust's power. Activating the engine to slowly circle his capture, Luigi had soon made quick work of him.

With the departure of the mysterious Elh Luigi felt a change. It was not necessarily any warmer than it had been before; but somehow Luigi did not feel the bitter sting of the darkness. It was as if in capturing the beast of shadow and dark, he had dispelled some of that in his heart.

As the Poltergust died beneath him and the world began to calm, Luigi was jerked from his musings for a moment as the wheels of the vacuum slipped and skidded across the arena, bumping into the wall with a crash. Looking down in surprise, he found the entire ground surrounding him frozen, covering Elh's 'tracks' with a layer of ice.

~

Feet moving numbly, Luigi treaded down the dark hallway without much thought for where he was going. He didn't know, and he almost didn't care.

He had been wandering these halls for what felt like years; far away seemed anything - or anyone - that might bring him relief. True, he had caught a few ghosts; but what did it really matter?

The defeat of Elh had been a surprise to Luigi as it would have been to anyone else; but still he couldn't entirely erase thoughts of the scary creature from his mind. It was not a ghost; it was even worse than that.

With an irrepressible shudder, Luigi rounded a random corner and halted in his tracks. He hadn't found this place before; trailing before him up into the darkness was a staircase.

Stairs! he thought, coming forward in surprise. He almost couldn't believe his luck. Another floor, another chance - perhaps Mario had been taken to the highest floor. The highest room of the tallest tower? Luigi wondered dryly.

Snorting at his own thought, he proceeded up the spooky stairs. It was so wrong, really - Mario was never one to be in trouble. Not this kind of trouble, anyway. After all, he didn't strike anyone as a very good damsel.

Had he really been kidnapped? Some of the ghosts had mentioned... or they had said...

Faltering to a halt, Luigi searched his brain. Mario had been in this house, surely... and then he had just disappeared?

What could have happened to him then?

Subconsciously wrapping his arms around himself, Luigi headed further, trying not to think about any of it. The situation was darker than he had realized; Mario was missing, and right now everything was unclear.

That was what terrified him.

"BAAAAHHHHHH!!"

Jumping a mile as if to try escaping his skin, Luigi screamed and slammed backwards into an end table. At this, a big blue antique vase sitting atop it toppled and hit the floor, shattering with a sound like death.

Sitting against the molding, heart pounding as if demanding to be let out, he stared at the purple ghost.

Right away Luigi recognized it - it was the same from downstairs, or at least dreadfully similar. The gleeful purple basher; More like the scare-the-crap-out-of-you ghost, he thought disdainfully. As he picked himself up, it vanished back into the darkness from whence it came, probably to lurk the halls and come back for him later.

That's just sadistic, Luigi thought wearily, pressing on down the hall. He was becoming tired of all this; so tired he almost found it hard to be concerned over the broken vase, or even keep up his screaming. He knew that it probably attracted everyone else in the house, but it was the only way to vent his bucketloads of fear.

Passing by the threshold of another boarded door, Luigi suddenly felt a strange cold wave sweep over him and he paused. Now that didn't feel right at all.

What...?

"You disturbed my nap time," a voice hissed.

Freezing in pure terror, Luigi felt his flesh crawl before slowly raising his gaze upwards. He didn't know how he had known she'd be there, but she was.

A little girl in a nightgown lay on the ceiling.

Her orange hair was braided and her pale face was covered in freckles; she couldn't have been more than ten years old.

Well, ten years old in appearances.

Luigi could find no words to say to the girl who glared down at him. He only knew that the sight of her there was one of the most creepy things he'd ever seen in his life.

"You touched my lanterns," she went on accusingly, anger obvious. Sitting up, her upper body hung down near him, sending her braids dangling near his head.

At this Luigi stared at her as if she'd just signed his death warrant. Her lanterns... that hung by her grave?

Suddenly it flashed through his mind like lightning. Out by the path... he had found... of course!

Freshly terrified at this revelation, Luigi reached for the Poltergust. Someone had been buried there...

"I'll give you a restless night!" She scowled, reaching towards him.

In an instant's fright, Luigi suddenly found his voice. "I didn't destroy it! I already found it like that!"

"Well someone has to pay the price, it might as well be you," the girl growled gleefully, ignoring his plea.

Quivering in his own sweat, Luigi brought up his vacuum in the nick of time. Bringing it to life, he closed his eyes and tried to drown out her screams as she fell to its snare.

"I'm sorry," he murmured brokenly as he leaned against the wall, panting.

He stayed like that for several long moments. It was only disrupted when the radar on his Game Boy began to beep again, growing louder and more frantic with each passing second; jerking up, Luigi almost felt ready to explode before the thing's agitator showed itself.

There in the hallway was a boo.

It was not just any boo; this one, unlike the others in the mansion, was full sized; maybe even a little bigger. His eyes were clouded over with dark shadow and piercing red; and on his head rested a giant ruby crown surrounded by gold.

It was the king.

Clutching his vacuum protectively, Luigi rooted to the spot and stared. His wide, tired eyes spoke of much torment and little left to give; almost as if even the one last Boo might be too much.

With a low, growling chuckle, the Boo came forward.

"Well, there you are!" he exclaimed. "My, if you aren't a slippery little thing. I've been wondering about you all night."

The young man watched him with frightened eyes that missed nothing. Shifting just a tiny bit at the boo's approach, he still said not a word.

"Finally found you," the boo went on with a cocky smile. "You know, it's not wise to waste time. I've been waiting for you forever! And it's rude to keep us waiting." Pausing to pace about in a little circle, he cast Luigi a sidelong glance from dark eyes and added, "Your brother is just as impatient as I am."

Drawing in a sharp breath, Luigi stared at him in shock. The king got the reaction he'd been hoping for.

"I was going to let you find him yourself, but I have gotten tired of waiting," King Boo informed him. "That's what I told him initially, after all - twenty four hours. I'll give you twenty four hours to find us." Shaking his body, he went on, "But you will not make it in time at this rate."

Pausing for a moment as if planning what to say, he finally continued, "But I will leave it to you. Do what you will - but remember that winner takes all."

Floating further away down the hall, he turned back and fixed Luigi with glowing red eyes in the dark.

"Your timer is ticking."

And then he plunged through the floor and was gone.

Luigi, left staring speechless at the ground, was petrified for a moment in shock. That was him...? The one who...

But this was no time for that. His timer was ticking... whatever that meant. Luigi had a heart-stopping feeling it wasn't good.

He was just about to head forward, go... somewhere, when he spotted something on the wall opposite him. And further down along the moldings... and there on the floor...

Frowning, Luigi slowly crept forward as if in slow motion. The stain streaked across the wall for several feet; no, it continued further that way for a good ways too, and actually...

It was black everywhere, smeared on the carpet, the walls... suddenly he noticed it all around him. What...?

It appeared black at first; but suddenly, under his flashlight... it was a bright or crimson red.

Luigi knew what this was.

Heart in his throat, Luigi crept backwards in sheer horror. That wasn't... that just wasn't...

Covering his mouth, Luigi shook his head desperately. This did not mean anything. Nothing at all...

But it was overwhelming. The bitter smell reached him then, filling him like a toxic fume; and it was too much. Sliding down the wall where he stood, Luigi crunched into as tiny a ball as he could and cried.