#Luigi wins the throne by doing absolutely nothing

[kunosoura]

Theophaneu is so funny

[anomander-dragnipurake]

Haunted Castle Chapter Four: Secrets

They had to fight through more ghosts on the way to Kamek’s lab but despite that it didn’t take them too long to reach it. It was an absolute mess; books and magical objects were all over the tables or stacked semi-haphazardly on the floor. Even the bookshelf wasn’t immune to the random object or piece of paper placed on top of or in front of its books. Other than the large empty cage off to the side, pressed against a wall, it reminded Luigi of E. Gadd’s lab; messy but in a way the owner probably knew where almost everything was.

“There shouldn’t be any ghosts in here,” Bowser Jr. said as he closed the door behind him. “He’s got spells and stuff to keep people out. You two could only enter because you’re with me. Though uh… I guess I don’t know if it works on ghosts or not.”

Gooigi was already checking things and tidying other things, they’d begun the moment they’d entered. Luigi joined them, starting on the other side of the room. It never hurt to make sure that there were no ghosts about. Bowser Jr. groaned and probably rolled his eyes again but made no proper complaint.

 -

Turns out Kamek’s protection spells either didn’t work on ghosts or they’d found a way around them. A couple ghosts had found hiding spots amongst the clutter in the room. Once they were dealt with, Bowser Jr. led way through another hidden door into a room that contained nothing but three wardrobes. “That one leads to outside,” he said, pointing to the one on the left, “that one leads to the throne room,” the middle one, “and this one here leads to Papa’s room,” and finally the one on the right.

Luigi walked around to see that there was nothing on the other side of any of them so… “Uh… how do they work?”

“Magic. You step in, close the doors, and then when you open them, you’re on the other side.”

“So, like the warp pipes then?”

“I guess so yeah.”

Luigi hadn’t even considered that that kind of magic might be used on other things but there was no reason why it couldn’t be, right? But… “Why does Kamek have one leading to your dad’s room?” That was kind of odd, wasn’t it? Bowser didn’t seem the type to be comfortable with someone having easy access to his private space.

“He set it up when Dad was a hatchling to make it easier to keep doing stuff in the lab and tend to him at the same time. Which is weird to think about because like he’s my dad. But speaking of that, let’s go save him and beat up King Boo… hopefully anyway.” He open the appropriate wardrobe’s door and gestured for Luigi and Gooigi to step in before him. Upon stepping in after them, he reached up as if to pulled the doors closed but paused instead.

“These secret passages and stuff are super-secret,” he said, “no one’s supposed to know about them who isn’t super important in the castle. I would never even dream of showing them to you if it wasn’t for everything going on so don’t you ever tell anyone else about them. And don’t let my dad know I showed you them to you either, he’s uh… not very understanding about things sometimes so it might make him mad.”

“Uh… I promise I won’t tell, neither will Gooigi.” Luigi was good at keeping secrets and Gooigi was even better due to the fact that they rarely spoke.

“Cool… thanks.”

After a beat or two of silence, Bowser Jr. pulled the doors closed, waited a few seconds and opened them, revealing another secret room.

After stepping out, Luigi grabbed hold of Gooigi’s arm to turn them around with him before Bowser Jr. could order them to this time. It’d be easier if he knew the secret to opening the walls but there was no use arguing about it especially since it seemed Bowser Jr. was likely to stick with him throughout this whole adventure whether he liked it or not anyway.

Before the sound of the false wall opening finished Bowser Jr. let out a small squeak that was echoed by another being. Luigi snapped around to see another group of ghosts in the room, stronger ones this time, one of which was directly in front of the opening wall.

Even while flinching Luigi managed to press the button on the flashlight that made it flash, stunning the ghost. Gooigi hopped into the room to start vacuuming it immediately, leaving Luigi room to recover from the scare and Bowser Jr. to step back behind the two of them again.

Stronger ghosts or not, they quickly proved no match for Gooigi and the Poltergust. Honestly this ghost busting business might’ve been fun if it was anything other than ghosts they were hunting. But once they were all cleared out it was pretty obvious that Bowser’s portrait was not in here.

There were signs of a fight between King Boo and Bowser, stuff knocked over and burn marks on the walls but that’s all that remained. A bit disappointing but Luigi really hadn’t expected much anyway because things could never be easy, could they? Just like the prior three time’s he’d have to fight his way through the entire castle’s worth of ghosts before reaching King Boo.

Before he could do more than sigh about that his phone started ringing. It was E. Gadd’s tune.

“How goes the ghost busting?” E. Gadd said with an almost grating amount of joviality in his voice as soon as Luigi answered it.

“It’s scary but nothing new.”

“Good, good. Be careful though who knows what King Boo might have up his sleeve this time. But anyway, I’ve arrived. The castle gates are locked though so I had to set up my mobile lab outside them for now. Whenever you have a minute stop on by to let me in and drop your ghosties into the vault.”

The Poltergust was almost full to capacity by now so… “We’ll head down there now.” And hopefully he’d be able to drop Bowser Jr. off with E. Gadd, probably not but it was worth a try.

He hung up and pocketed his phone as he turned to Bowser Jr. to tell him where they should head next. Bowser Jr. spoke up before he could do more than take a breath though. “You think my dad’s okay? Like… you know more about the portraits and stuff right, being trapped in one isn’t like… torture or anything, right?”

“Uh… Mario and the Toads all say they don’t remember anything about their time in the portraits so it’s probably like sleeping or something. And therefore, you dad and everyone else is fine, we just got to rescue them.” Luigi gave him his best encouraging smile; Mario had always been better at those but his was pretty good if he did say so himself.

Whether it worked or not was hard to tell, Bowser Jr. still looked worried, maybe slightly less though? “I hope so,” he said. “Let’s go talk to E. Gadd though I guess since I assume that was him on the phone.”

~

Getting to E. Gadd’s lab was made very easy through use of the magic wardrobes. The one that led outside led all the way outside the castle walls, making it a simple trek to where E. Gadd had set up his mobile lab. Polterpup greeted them just outside it with an excited bark – he certainly got around quite a bit.

“You have a spare Poltergust?” Bowser Jr. asked as soon as they were inside and Luigi was emptying the Poltergust into the mobile vault. “I want to help hunt ghosts.”

“Hmm… I probably should’ve brought one, huh? Just in case.” E. Gadd replied with a slight grimace before shrugging it off. “Oh well, too late now. But even if I had, it probably wouldn’t fit well on your back.”

Bowser Jr. frowned. “Can you make one that would fit then? … Though I guess that’d take too long, huh?”

“And you don’t need to be hunting ghosts anyway,” Luigi cut in. It felt weird taking such a hard stance on it, normally he preferred to just role with whatever people wanted to do because that was just easier but Bowser Jr. was a kid and at this point Luigi was basically babysitting him – with help from Gooigi of course but there was a very real chance they didn’t know what a child was – so he was responsible for his wellbeing and therefore felt the need to insist he stay out of harm’s way. “And speaking of that, I think he should stay in the lab with you E. Gadd.”

“No, no, no.” Bowser Jr. stamped his foot, proving his childishness beyond any shadow of a doubt. “I’m staying with you. I’ve already proven I can be helpful.”

“Yeah, but…”

“But nothing, I’m staying with you and Gooigi and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. You’re on my side on this right, Gooigi?”

They looked at him and then at Luigi and then back at him before shrugging. Either not wanting to take sides or not really carrying either way.

“What about you E. Gadd? You agree with me, right? Ghost hunting’s too dangerous for a kid.” As far as Luigi was concerned it was too dangerous for him and he was full grown adult.

“Well, while I agree that’s true, I don’t think there’s any way you can convince Junior not to tag along with you. Also, he’s a Koopa so he’s tougher than your average child and thus as long as he’s with you and Gooigi he should be fine.”

“Ha, I win!” Bowser Jr. crossed his arms triumphantly. “Now, what all can you do in this lab that can help us save everyone and stop King Boo?”

~

Counter to Luigi’s hopes but not expectations, E. Gadd’s lab scanners still had no way to sense where the portraits were. It also still couldn’t detect the difference between an energy signature that was a large group of ghosts or a small group of stronger ghosts or even one big ghost, meaning there was still no way to pinpoint where King Boo was for sure. It’d still be helpful though and that’s about all Luigi could ask for; going around without the option to call E. Gadd for advice if needed hadn’t been an issue so far but it easily could’ve turned into one.

Before heading back out to hunt more ghosts, E. Gadd set Luigi up with his latest communication device. Like all the other ones, it was mostly a tracker so E. Gadd would always know where they were at all times. Why he kept changing the design was beyond Luigi but a lot of what E. Gadd did didn’t make sense so it was excepted at this point. With it in hand, their unfortunately short respite from the ghosts was soon over.

Stepping back into the secret room in Kamek’s lab, Luigi flinched and flashed his light at the boo floating in the middle of the room. All it earned him was an annoyed look because the flash didn’t affect them. It was fine though because thankfully it was the flag boo again. Luigi didn’t trust him still and probably never would but at least he wasn’t an immediate threat.

“Young sir,” the boo said, his eyes shifting to Bowser Jr. as he stepped out of the wardrobe behind Gooigi, “we’ve found Kamek’s portrait. It’s in the throne room. It’s well guarded though so be careful.”

“Awesome,” Bowser Jr. said, far too eager. “We’ll head there next. But from here on out, you’re going to report to E. Gadd. He can contact Luigi remotely so you won’t have to come find us next time you or your squad find something important. E. Gadd’s lab is in the trailer just outside the main gates, Luigi will call him to explain what’s up.”

“No offense young sir but I’d rather report to you directly. I’m not sure how well we can trust these people.” He glanced at Luigi with a slight glare before returning his gaze to Bowser Jr. Ah yes, he’d said he was aware while in portrait so he’d been witness to Luigi’s attempt to prevent him from being freed, whoops. It had still been the right thing to do though; something turning out fine didn’t mean it had been worth the risk.

“Too bad, as long as my dad’s in danger, I’m in charge and I trust them. We’ve dealt with E. Gadd several times before and he’s never betrayed us, Luigi’s too much of a goody-two-shoes to even think about it, and Gooigi is made of goo and that’s cool so I trust them the most. If you disagree then you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

Apparently pleased by the compliment, Gooigi formed their hand into a thumbs up. Bowser Jr. returned it with a grin. Flag Boo frowned at them both before sighing.

“Okay, you’re the boss for now,” he said. “I’ll report to E. Gadd from here on out.”

“Very good! Now get back to work trying to find everyone. And you,” Bowser Jr. said, turning to face Luigi as the boo vanished, “call E. Gadd again and tell him to trust and listen to what Captain Boo says. And I don’t care if you still don’t trust him, we need him and his squad to help find the portraits.”

Luigi couldn’t exactly argue with that, it made sense. Even if the boos couldn’t hide from other ghosts as well, they could travel through walls and floors/ceilings and were thus better suited for searching for the portraits and King Boo himself than anyone living was. And so Luigi kept quiet and didn’t protest as he pulled out the communicator. He wasn’t even going to ask about that the supposed prior dealings with E. Gadd thing because E. Gadd was in it for science and would sell his talents and/or inventions to anyone willing to buy them to fund his ghost research or anything else he wanted to work on. The sooner this adventure was over, the better.