Work Text:
We Don’t Need No Explanation 1
(Deleted Scene)
“Hey, uh, where did the Clubba ghost go?” Dane asks suddenly.
Luigi and his partner share a bemused look. “What do you mean? Gooigi caught it.”
“Well, yeah, but his Poltergust is see-through, and I don’t see the ghost. So where is it?”
Luigi blinks owlishly. “Uh…”
“Now that I think about it,” Dane continues, “Gooigi’s ghost-catcher isn’t a machine; it’s organic or whatever. How does the flashlight even work?”
“Bioluminescence,” Gooigi replies easily.
Dane nods slowly to himself. “Okay… that makes sense, I guess, but what about the air-jumpy-thing? Where does the air come from? And how does the vacuum part function without a motor?” a
“I…” Luigi trails off uncertainly. “I don’t know.” He looks to his partner for answers, but they don’t offer any.
“…wait a second,” Dane murmurs, studying Gooigi’s face. “You don’t open your mouth, not even when you speak out loud.” His gaze falls to the green wand. “There’s an opening at the end of the vacuum’s hose.” His eyes trail up to the bulk of Gooigi’s Poltergust with a mix of horror and morbid curiosity. “…the vacuum is part of your body. The ghost is gone…” Dane gasps. “Stars above. The nozzle is your real mouth, and the canister is your stomach! You totally ate the Clubba!”
Luigi chokes on a sharp inhale, absolutely flabbergasted. “What?! No! That’s not—!” He buries his face in his hands with a groan. “Good Grambi, kid. I may not understand the science behind it, but Gooigi catches ghosts. He doesn’t eat them.”
“Not all of them, no.”
“Right, not all—” Luigi’s brain short-circuits. His head snaps toward the ectomorph so fast the vertebrae in his neck pops. “I beg your pardon?”
Gooigi shrugs. “The professor gets mad if I eat the rarer and more interesting specimens. I try to only consume corrupted or non-sapient entities, anyway.”
“…What?!”
“Everyone’s gotta eat, bro,” Gooigi signs. “How do you think I’m able to regenerate?”
Luigi thinks he may be having a stroke. “I—I don’t know! I just assumed you absorbed energy like a spirit!”
“I mean, I do, but it’s not enough to regenerate parts of my body; not at the rate I lose it. No, that requires ectoplasm.”
A strangled sound escapes Luigi. He presses a hand to his forehead and runs it back under his hat, fingers tangling fretfully in his damp hair. Dane looks between the two ghost hunters in quiet fascination. Pepper side-steps until they are hidden behind the teenager. They dare to peak out at Gooigi, a fearful look in their wide eyes. b
After a beat of uncomfortable silence, Dane clears his throat. “So… did you eat the Clubba or…?”
“Please,” Luigi interjects, “don’t answer that.”
Weegi Needs No Thought Control 2
(Unused Scene)
“Magic and the paranormal can be very dangerous; it’s not something to be taken lightly,” Luigi tells them, tone grave. “But summoning such powerful entities, even by accident, is no easy task. There’s a good chance you have wizard ancestry."
Dane blinks. “Hold on. Are you telling me..."
“Wait. No. No, I take it back, let me rephrase—"
“You’re a wizard, Larry."
Luigi turns to his partner, a betrayed look in his eyes. “Did you really just waste energy to make that stupid joke out loud?"
Gooigi grins. As much as his mostly static face would allow, anyway.
“I regret inviting you."
No Dark Sarcasm in the Dungeon 3
(Alternate Scene)
Dane sinks to his knees, staring wide-eyed at the magic circle and its contents as the glow begins to fade. The Doogan giggles, a touch hysterical. “Stars above… that actually worked.”
Luigi and Gooigi share a look before dashing over to the kid. Dane waves languidly at them with a tired smile. “Eyyy the gang’s all back together. For real this time! Isn’t that nice?”
Luigi takes a knee by the kid, carefully avoiding the magic circle. “Dane, how are you feeling?”
The kid’s brows knit together in consideration. “Everything tastes purple for some reason and I’m kinda tired. Why?”
“Uh…” Gooigi warbles. “Maybe because you just performed sealing magic? On a very powerful ghost?”
“…is that a big deal or…?”
Luigi’s forehead meets his palm. “It’s highly advanced magic—one that normally requires a lot of discipline to execute without consequence.”
Dane’s brows furrow. “What kind of consequence?”
“Well… uh… " Luigi grimaces. "If Merlich had been able to resist the spell, you would have…” he trails off, uncertain how to put things tactfully.
“Your soul would have been sucked out and sealed away instead.”
“Gooigi!”
“What? It’s what would have happened, isn’t it?”
Luigi drags a hand down his face. “Yes, but you could have been more delicate in your delivery.”
“How do you delicately tell someone they almost trapped their own soul in a pepper shaker?”
All in All You’re Just Another Ghost in the Hall 4
(Missing Scene)
The knight had stared at the empty circle for quite some time after its inhabitants had vanished. They remember slowing their assault on the circle’s barrier, watching the human in quiet awe as he had looked upon Merlich with defiance. As he had summoned the element of lightning in his free arm and unleashed it upon the unsuspecting wizard as the spell was executed. How careless the wizard had been, to restrain the mortal so laxly. How foolish the mortal had been, to attack a spell caster in the throes of teleportation magic. The break in concentration, the collision of opposing magic, could have rended them all asunder. For the human, this would prove a more merciful fate than what the wizard had in store for him.
But it is not to be. The knight feels the tether tying them to Merlich, strong as ever. Merlich still exists on the mortal plane. The human must as well, otherwise the wizard would have returned by now. To gloat. To punish. Merlich is either toying with his new prize, or the human is giving him more trouble than anticipated. The knight hopes it’s the latter. They hope the human had heard their warning and took it to heart.
The knight’s hands curl into fists. They had gotten close, so very close to subduing their master. The closest they’ve gotten in literal decades. And yet—and yet—the wizard still got away. The fickle tide had turned in Merlich’s favor once more. If the human falls, so do the knight’s odds of ever besting the dark wizard. Their master will have learned from his errors, his guard will not waver, but most crucially, he will be stronger. Merlich seemed particularly interested in this human; this… Star Child. A mortal imbued with great power; blessed by the Stars themselves. The knight wasn’t particularly impressed by the human, but Merlich clearly knew something they didn’t.
Eventually, the knight had resumed their assault on the magic circle’s barrier. It’s a futile endeavor, they know this, but waiting helplessly in silence is maddening. They unleash their fury over an uncertain future. An hour goes by. Or has it only been five minutes? Time has little meaning when you are dead.
How ever much time passes, the knight soon finds that he’s not alone. A distant barking goes unnoticed at first, lost beneath the clanging of constructs against barriers and the grunts and growls of frustration. The yapping registers only moments before a thrumming presence teases the knight’s senses. They cease their assault, bemused, and turn to the rapidly approaching… something.
The knight turns around in time to spot a white blur cresting the stairs. With startling speed, the entity closes the distance between them. It leaps, colliding with the knight’s chest before they can react. For it to not simply pass through them, it is spectral in nature, whatever their attacker’s identity may be. The knight is forced back where they crash rather solidly to the dusty floorboards. Their unsolicited shift into a corporeal form is the first observation the knight processes. The second is what is currently pinning them down.
Upon their breastplate sits a… hound. A spirit hound, not the ghost of a hound—an important distinction, Merlich would say. It gazes down at the knight with large, glowing eyes. A pink tongue lolls out of its luminescent maw. Curiously, beyond the initial lunge, the beast shows no signs of aggression. In fact, judging by the wagging of its tail, it looks almost… playful? As if to confirm their observation, the spirit canine promptly drags its long tongue up the beak of their helm.
The knight is suddenly grateful they are wearing armor (as irritating as it will be to clean later).
With a cheerful bark, the spirit hound hops off the bewildered Vitiate, landing a short distance away. The knight lies there for a moment to collect themselves. When they remember they are an incorporeal being not bound by the laws of gravity, they rise from their supine position on the floor. It is then they make a shocking discovery: they are now inside the magic circle. The knight looks from the hound to the circle’s perimeter in stunned silence. The spirit… pushed them through the barrier? How…?
The knight scrutinizes the spirit as it trots around the circle, snout to the floor as if in search of something. A bone, perhaps? The knight gently shakes their head, feeling foolish. Unless the owners of this property partake in some highly morbid practices, there shouldn’t be bones beneath the floorboards (sometimes they forget not everyone is like their vile master). No, the hound must be searching for someone.
That’s when it clicks. This is the spirit that was traveling with the human; the one that the Duplighost had impersonated. The realization has the knight feeling unusually slow (did the unnatural breaching of the barrier mess with their cognition?). With Merlich absent and unable to maintain his claim on the property, all his wards and enchantments have vanished. His “house rules” no longer apply. The human’s companion, once barred from the second story, is now free to roam where it pleases.
Why had Merlich wanted the spirit kept at bay, again?
“Spirit,” the knight rasps. “I’m afraid you are too late.”
The hound pauses in its scenting. It looks back at the knight with an inquisitive tilt of its head.
“You are searching for the human, are you not?”
The canine hops in place, barking happily in what the knight assumes to be the affirmative.
“I am sorry,” they say sincerely, “but he is gone. My wretched master took the human, as well as the child and slime golem, to his domain.” They gesture tiredly at the runes beneath them. “This magic circle is what he used to flee, but without a spell to activate it, there is no way to follow them.”
The spirit stills. Its wagging tail slows to a stop. The rest of its body seems to sag, a distressed whine catching in its throat. The knight regards it with pity.
Again, they wonder why their master had such an aversion to the canine.
“Spirit, my master went through great lengths to separate you from your favored human,” they say, watching the hound carefully. “He saw you as a threat. Why?”
What are you?
The knight doesn’t know why he asks. The spirit clearly understands their words, but it has yet to demonstrate any capacity to speak. Even if it knew the answer to the knight’s question, how could it possibly respond? They meet the canine’s eyes, searchingly. The hound looks back. Its face is deceptively neutral, but there’s something in its intense gaze that sends a prickle of unease along the knight’s spine; something calculating. The air is thick—heavy—with an unknown energy.
And suddenly, the tension vanishes as quickly as it came. The spirit’s face lights up in a dopey smile. The knight watches the canine in absolute bewilderment as it darts to the center of the magic circle and begins to chase its own tail. Playful growls fill the gobsmacked silence. The knight sighs irritably; they don’t know what they were expecting to gain from that line of inquiry.
They definitely don’t expect the magic circle to start glowing.
The knight watches, wide-eyed, as the circle’s magic flares to life. Their gaze snaps back to the canine and its seemingly simple-minded game of chase. This doesn’t make any sense. A vocal trigger is required for this specific magic to activate, so why is the circle responding? The knight wracks their brain, desperately searching for an explanation. Nothing about this is logical. It’s preposterous. It breaks every rule they know (and several more they don’t). It goes against the very fundamentals of magic, and to defy the laws of the arcane is to invite nothing less than pure and utter—
…chaos.
They remember, with abrupt clarity, what Merlich had called this entity: a chaos spirit. The knight has heard of them but has never seen one personally. Do they all take on the appearance of hounds? Can they look like anything? What is their true form?
The knight decides it doesn’t matter. This chaos spirit, whatever it is, appears to operate according to its own whims. If it is not bound by the laws of magic and natural order, it is no wonder Merlich fears it. How can one expect to anticipate the actions of an entity that lacks defined parameters?
The knight closes their eyes as the magic’s light grows brighter. Teleportation magic requires the user to know their destination—to picture it in their mind’s eye. They don’t know if it’s even necessary in this case, given that nothing about this execution is conventional, but the knight focuses none-the-less. They think of the dark, twisting halls of Merlich’s lair; the misery laden tomb they, as well as so many others, have been forced to call home. For the first time, they are eager to return.
The knight only hopes they are not too late.
How Can You Have Any Payback If You Don't Eat Yer Meat?! 5
(Bonus Scene)
Luigi squints at the postcard. There's no name or return address, but he immediately recognizes the subject in the (surprisingly high quality) photo on the back; it's the Dark Koopa Vitiate from that fateful mission all those months ago. The knight is seated at a fancy dinner arrangement. An artfully seared and garnished steak lies before them. Knife and fork in hand, they are poised to cut into the tender slab of meat, but wait patiently as a ghost Luigi doesn't recognize adds a final dash of seasoning: pepper.
Luigi's brain flatlines. He stares, blankly, at what is undoubtedly the pepper shaker housing Merlich—one of the most dangerous ghosts he has ever faced. Luigi shakily turns the postcard back over, searching for a note, an explanation, anything that may assuage his fears. He finds one word written in neat, loopy cursive.
Delicious
Luigi blinks at the caption. He won't claim to have gotten the best read on the knight, but this dry sort of humor seems more like something from King Boo's arsenal. If Luigi wasn't on the verge of a panic attack, he may have actually found it funny. Luigi takes a deep breath. His heartbeat begins to slow, terror ebbing in favor of vexation. He silently wonders if leaving Merlich's vessel with the Dark Koopa had been a bad idea after all.
Luigi shrugs to himself. Eh, still less risky than if he had given it to the professor.
Luigi turns from the mailbox and strolls back to his house. He is in the process of making a mental note to laminate the post card (Gooigi would certainly want to keep it) when a new thought freezes him in place.
"...how did they know my home address?"