"M-M-Mario?" Luigi asked in a timorous manner to his older brother. He wasn't sure about the question he wanted to ask but it was always bothering him and he figured his brother could give him a straight answer.

"What it is, bro?" Mario asked, in his normal reassuring and carefree tone of voice Luigi was all too familiar with.

The often apprehensive younger sibling had his gloved hands clasped together in front of him indicating that he was obviously nervous about something. He noticed that his brother was giving him eye contact, waiting patiently for his response as he sat on the red couch beside his own green chair. "I've been wondering... What if King Boo returns..."

Mario sighed. "Not this subject again, Luigi... There's nothing to worry about. King Boo has been gone for years now. I don't think we'll see him ever again. Besides, King Boo's been preserved in his own artful prison. Something he most certainly deserved after trying to trap a living host in one. If I couldn't escape from my own painting without assistance, there's no way King Boo can."

Luigi didn't respond at first. He only nodded as he listened to his brother's confident answer. Mario thought that would be the end of the conversation but then Luigi finally made a reply with another question. "But doesn't King Boo have alliances like other boos, other ghosts or even the King of the Koopas himself. I could've sworn he mentioned that he was an ally to Bowser too."

At that point, Mario was unable to answer. Luigi was right about that but there was still a strong possibility that he didn't have any alliances worthy enough to even attempt to restore the King from E. Gadd's Laboratory. He suddenly shook his head. "Even if that's the case, it still has been years. If someone could theoretically manage to retrieve the King's portrait, they would've done it a long time ago."

"I guess you're right, bro..." Luigi replied. He was still unsure but he decided to let go of the thought for now. It would only bring back the painful memories again if he continued. Mario seemed to have been convinced that the King really had no chance of ever escaping his fate but in truth, Mario wasn't really assured of his own response himself. He just didn't want Luigi to panic over the whole prospect of King Boo striking back after all these years of absence.

Luigi awoke from his slumber with a jolt. He didn't know that he even fell asleep. The last thing he remembered doing was healing his bruises with an ice pack and he probably ended up dozing off in the process. That one memory flooded back to him while he was asleep and just thinking about it gave him more anxiety. "What if King Boo is the cause of the Dark Moon shattering? Could Mario be wrong...? Did King Boo really return after all these years...? There's no way..." He shook the thought out of his head and stood up from the couch he was previously sleeping on.

All of a sudden, he heard the Professor call out for him. It was already time for his next mission. Luigi only sighed in desperation. "Let's just get this over with... As soon as this is over, the quicker I can go home... I just hope Mario is doing alright..."

"Luigi! There you are! Ready for some more action?"

"I'm not really sure I'm really looking forward to this but I don't think I have much of a choice if the world is at risk..."

"Ah, you're a courageous lad. You know, you remind me of myself at your age, feller. Ho ho! Those were the days..."

"You mean... The days when you were afraid of ghosts too?"

"Precisely, my boy. Anyhoo, we need to start searching for the rest of the Dark Moon. Luckily, I've got just the invention to make our job easier! I call it the Parascope, a tip-top device that detects and measures distant paranormal signals. In fact, I just used it to scan the Gloomy Manor, and I found some strong activity in the north rooms. That's where we'll start our search."

Luigi bit his lip. "I really have a bad feeling about this. It is most likely going to be easier said than done..."

E. Gadd only chuckled to himself in response. "Ho ho! You haven't changed a bit, my boy. There's no reason to be scared now that you're equipped with my mighty Poltergust 5000!" The Professor assured him but Luigi was still not too convinced. These ghosts seem to be a lot more intelligent than the fake one Van Gore made in the mansion back in Boo Woods all those many years ago.

Suddenly, the same extra monitor went down in front of their faces, only this time showing an image of some gears. "Now, details. There's a mechanism that controls the access to that section." He turned to his keyboard and typed some information on it before turning his attention back to Luigi. "The access mechanism is in the Foyer. I'll give you instructions once you get there."

"Alright. Let's go then..." Luigi replied, not really looking forward to going back in the manor but he knew he had no other choice.

"Got all that?"

Luigi slowly nodded, still a bit nervous though.

"Good. Now get a move on!" E. Gadd told him, pressing the big red button on the joystick to activate the Pixelator. With that, Luigi was dematerialized into pixels again and sent through the Pixelator.

                                          ***

Luigi landed on the floor of the Gloomy Manor's entrance, once again on his rear. He quickly turned and scanned the area with his flashlight for any danger. "No ghosts here... Phew... That was close..." Finding out that he was alone in the room made him quickly relax. He adjusted his cap and got back up on his feet.

He went through the double doors again into the dreaded Guard hall where the haunted knight armor were standing. He took a deep breath and exhaled deeply, knowing he was going to have to run for his life past them again.

He caught his breath once he made it to the other side and then opened the double doors to the foyer for the mechanism Gadd was talking about.
Soon, he came upon a set of gears surrounded by a metal box, but before he could do anything, a large red, beefy and intimidating ghost with muscular arms, and a zigzag-like tail arrived on the scene, phasing through the wall near the gears. It began yanking out the gears like they were nothing! The buffy ghost then tossed three of the gears to the other red ghosts that were identical to it, keeping the fourth for itself. One of the red ghosts managed to catch two of the gears but another one wasn't having it. "Move it, you lunkhead! This one is mine!" It grunted giving an angry expression to the one that thought it could take two.

They started butting heads at each other like two angry bulls. "What did you just say to me?! You move it!"

"You wanna fight!!"

The third one was just staring at them from behind with a surprised look on its face holding its gear with both hands protectively. The one next to the box noticed the fight and quickly turned on them, punching them on the head with one large fist. "Knock it off you two! Let's scram outta here before that little green weakling can catch us!"  After breaking up a disagreement between two of its friends, the leading red ghost jerked their thumb upward, and the quartet floated off, each phasing through the wall one by one.

On cue, Luigi received another call from his DS. He quickly answered it and was immediately greeted by E. Gadd's frustrated voice. "Dagblasted Slammers! Luigi, those brutes just stole the gears from the access mechanism I told you about."

"I know it wouldn't be that easy..." Luigi thought to himself while listening to the Professor.

"I'll use the Parascope to find 'em. Then you can use the map on the DS to hunt 'em down! Ho ho! The terrified look in your eye just gave me a rest idea."

"Oh no..."

"From now on, I'm going to call the DS—This is genius— the Dual Scream!"

"The Dual Scream?"

"Ho ho! Oho! Dual Scream! Hooo...."

Luigi rolled his eyes in annoyance.

Gadd seemed to not notice Luigi's reaction as he continued talking. "Interact with the map on the Dual Scream to locate the brute ghosts in the west wing. The map has a whole slew of features, so be sure to mess around with it later."

"Got it, Professor!"

"But for now... Get those gears back! Look lively!" The Professor hung up after those words.

As he did, however, Luigi suddenly heard a distant cackling coming from inside the coat room on the right. "W-where is that coming from?" The adrenaline kicked in as Luigi's heart nearly skipped a beat.

He slowly decided to investigate it out of curiosity but as soon as he entered the room, he noticed that the mischievous laughter was coming from the bathroom. He still didn't give up on finding out who was making that creepy laughter so he sat on the toilet that was the key to the secret entrance and the wall turned around into the bathroom. Atleast he never felt like using the bathroom before he knew about the secret entrance or that would have been a humiliating moment if a ghost saw him from the other room. Who thought about making the toilet seat like that anyway?

Luigi tried his best not to think too much about it as he finally found where the giggling was coming from. It was right below him.

He pulled up the rug and revealed a different colored Greenie. It wasn't green like they normally were, this one was golden and it was a speedy one but Luigi was faster as he quickly blasted it with the Strobulb's light and sucked it up instantly. It dropped a few gold bars and dollar bills once it was captured within the mighty power of the Poltergust 5000. After collecting his treasure he went back into the foyer and noticed a door was slightly open on the other side of the room. He ran to the other side but before he could touch the door knob and go through the door, it slammed shut seemingly on its own. Startling the young man as he jolted away from the door in shock.

The room darkened, and he saw a Greenie flying overhead, holding a key in their hand. The Greenie laughed and taunted Luigi with the key before disappearing into the guard hall.
"He's got the key! Guess I have to go after him.." The man in green sighed before taking off after it.

While evading those dreadful suits of armor, Luigi vacuumed up some mice attempting to nip at his feet but when he ran past them they scurried off. However, the mice wasn't really what he was worried about so he mainly ignored them. His main concern were the knights that tried to attack him again and that Greenie that took the key. He continues to pursue the Greenie into the manor's entrance. He found the green ghost swinging on the chandelier, completely oblivious to the impending vacuum and Luigi wasted no time stunning it, hanging on for a brief ride as the Greenie dragged him around the entrance room, desperate to escape the Poltergust 5000's mighty suction pull. Once Luigi got a better grip on the vacuum, along with some better leverage, capturing the Greenie was a cinch. He was already getting used to capturing them.

"I got it!" cheered Luigi as he picked up the key the Greenie dropped. He returned back to the foyer, where he unlocked the door to the common hall. After vacuuming up some coins under the carpet, he entered a lab— presumably Professor Gadd's lab before Gloomy Manor became dangerous. Machines beeped around him, he noticed a weird looking flashlight object on a table to the right of him, but he leaved  it alone for now. He noticed a trio of golden mice scampering around the room, and immediately stunned them, which yielded him some extra treasure. Then he noticed next to the table with the flashlight looking device, was a blackboard with a sketch of a flashlight on it drawn with chalk. Maybe it was the object that he just saw. However, he felt that it looked jarringly out of place as if it had the ability to spin around to another side. Luigi sensed that he wasn't alone as he felt something stalking him from the other side of the blackboard. He used the vacuum to twirl the blackboard around—
...whereupon a Greenie was flung out of it, briefly dazed, before they snapped out of it and grinned at Luigi.

This Greenie was joined by another
Greenie, and the two of them floated leisurely around the green-clad ghost-hunter, who studied them, Poltergust at the ready, waiting for an opening. He gripped onto the nozzle firmly and tightly until his knuckles hurt. He breathed in, charged the Strobulb—and as he exhaled, he released the Strobulb on the first Greenie he saw! That was when he noticed that he didn't just grab the one, he grabbed both of them!

The battle was on, Luigi wrestled with the two Greenies into the vacuum. It wasn't too hard to catch them both. The Poltergust 5000 was really stronger than the first one. The Poltergust 3000 could catch multiple ghosts at once, but it made the job harder when both ghosts would go in different directions, causing it to be more difficult to control. Luigi noticed that when he had the two greenies, the new Poltergust's suction was pulling the ghosts near each other. Looking behind him at the vacuum, he smiled, "this thing is very impressive! It'll be a cinch clearing out the ghosts here with the power this possesses." He froze when he suddenly heard a low growl and whirled to see one of the red ghosts glowering at him. "Uh oh..." Luigi swallowed. This ghost was more aggressive and engaged Luigi right away. "Come here you little green wimp and let me pulverize ya'!" The red ghost began to attack Luigi with forceful punches and clapping attacks.

When Luigi managed to stun it, they were a lot stronger than the Greenies. It took a lot more pulling back strength and double the surge power to bring it down. Leaning against the wall and gasping for air from exhaustion, he realized why the professor called them Slammers. They sure did crack a punch. Luigi rubbed his aching shoulder wincing in pain from the attacks he sustained. The Slammer managed to punch him into a nearby wall with great force.

Luigi noticed on the other side of the room lay the first gear, he shook off the pain and scooped it up with a triumphant laugh. One down, three more to go.

Luigi consulted his map and made his way to the next room— it wasn't really a room though, it was actually just a secret pocket, to find it though, he had to remove the torn sheet to reveal it. Once he entered it, the secret pocket was, unsurprisingly stuffed with all sorts of treasure, but it was also full of a lot of dust, which Luigi observed with a look of disgust. "Eww... What a mess..." He hated dust, needless to say, he was a clean freak. He couldn't help but clean the place up and at the very back of the room was a key. "Huh... I guess that work paid off then!" He remarked, grabbing the key before peering through a crack in the wall. Luigi glimpsed at two sky blue, slim ghosts in a studio, they looked kinda like swords. One of them was doing poses while the other one did the painting. "A little more here and perfect! Just stay still!" The painter told the poser. "Okay!" The poser did a flexing pose. "How's this pose?"

"Good. Now don't move!"

The poser didn't listen and moved forward to look at the painting. "Is it done yet?"

"Hey! No peeking! I told you not to move!"

"Hurry up then!"

"Be patient! A masterpiece takes a lot of time!"

"Then paint me like one of your French ghouls!" With that remark, Luigi drew a shuddering breath and shook away the incoming flashbacks of Vincent Van Gore, the starving artist. He was a French artist that brought his paintings to life. He was the one responsible for the common ghosts in the mansion back in Boo Woods. All of the gold ghosts, purple punchers, garbage can ghosts, grabbers, blue twirlers, bowling ghosts and ceiling surprise ghosts were designed by him and summoned from their portraits to attack Luigi. He was a faithful ally to King Boo, who offered to help weaken his prey to make it easier for them to overwhelm him, capture him and trap him in a painting alongside his brother. Luigi shook his head again, trying to escape the nightmarish scenes that haunted him from that night. The midnight thoughts seem to never want to leave him alone.

However, some much-needed levity arose once
Luigi noticed how the model enjoyed aggravating the artist. Luigi walked out of the secret pocket, stifling a chuckle from that.

Unfortunately, the key he acquired didn't unlock the door beside the secret pocket where the two ghosts reside, so Luigi went back into the foyer, but not before he spotted a pile of dollar bills sitting on the table, greedily he took all of it and put it in his pocket. "What are the ghosts going to use it for anyway?" He wondered to himself. He then noticed a strange looking poster of a block of cheese on the wall. Out of curiosity, and a bit of experience from investigating strange things and getting awarded with treasure for it, he decided to pull the poster back, revealing another poster but of only a slice. He rolled his eyes as he pulled that poster back, revealing yet another poster of a happy fat gray rat that seemed to have eaten a bit too much cheese. He grunted to himself with a bit of annoyance. Pulling that poster back, it finally revealed a hole in the wall. "All those posters just to cover one hole in the wall? There's multiple holes in the walls of this place. What makes this hole more important to cover up?" He looked through the hole and noticed a Library with five books hovering in the air. "O-okay... There has to be a ghost in there... But why would they take that much work just to hide that? It's not like I've never seen floating books before." He turned away, deciding it was time to move on and left the common hall and back into the foyer. He hoped that the key would unlock one of the rooms upstairs.

Halfway up the staircase, however, the candles on the stairs railings turned blue before the stairs dropped out from under him all of a sudden, sending him sliding back down. He scrambled back up, brushing the dust from the floor off of him quickly as one of the thin ghosts smirked at him, chuckling in mischief, "you're not going anywhere until you find me!" The ghost said before finding somewhere to hide.

These ghosts liked to hide. Perhaps they could be called Hiders. That sounds like the perfect name for these ghosts.

As Luigi searched desk drawers and vases for the Hider, it caused more nuisances by lobbing a variety of projectiles at him. "Hey! Over here! Hurry up and find me!" The Hider remarked with a chuckle, throwing an apple at the back of Luigi's head. Luigi winced from the cheap shot he received, rubbing the bump on the back of his head.

Whenever Luigi uncovered a Hider, he had to act quickly before they dove into another hiding place. By the time he managed to capture it, he was winded, sweaty and badly bruised. Mainly from the first Slammer. He was already not looking forward to fighting the other three.

"Now that playtime is over, let's try this again," Luigi breathed, once again heading upstairs.

He reached the top without incident but that's when he noticed a fish tank full of strange looking fish swimming around what seemed to be a gem shaped like a star inside of it. Ignoring it for now, since he had no idea how to get it out, Luigi unlocked the door to the Master Hall, which was covered in cobwebs.

Luigi made a disgusted face, he hated spiders. He hoped he wouldn't encounter the spider that made that huge web that blocked off the other half of the hall from him. He decided to not worry about it for now and continued on his way.
After flashing his Strobulb at some spiders that crawled down from the ceiling and finding even a few golden spiders that rewarded him some money, Luigi slipped into the parlor room.

He searched top-to-bottom throughout the room for something—anything, to investigate. He vacuumed the record-player, but the song had just started playing when out popped a Greenie from it, jump-scaring the young man in green causing him to leap high into the air. By the time Luigi gathered his bearings, there was no time to rest for a ghost hunter, as a Slammer appeared right after. At first, it seemed to have jammed itself into the record player's sound tube, ending up having to squeeze through with force. The Slammer was prepared for a tussle with Luigi as he dragged him all over the parlor, trying to escape the Poltergust's snare, which he managed to for a little while, knocking Luigi to the ground. As he tried to get back up to his feet, the Slammer landed a few blows on him in the back of the head, yet Luigi still prevailed all the same and the Slammer soon succumbed to the power of the Poltergust. He finally achieved the second Slammer, sending him into the vacuum to join the others and acquired the second gear.

He was now halfway through his quest of finding all four of the missing gears, and spun the ceiling fan around to reveal more treasure and flashed a panel on the grandfather clock, revealing another Anethyst gem.

Finally, he strode down the master hall into the next room, a bedroom. He spent some time exploring the area, uncovering more treasure and even found a mushroom shaped gem inside a small secret compartment that he wasn't sure how to get yet so he ignored it. He moved some coats out of the way and peered through another peephole in the wall and peered into it to see another room, where he could see one of the missing gears in plain sight. He put a finger on his chin, "those are one of the two gears I still need to get but how do I get in there?" He noticed a door but of course it was too good to be true. Unfortunately for him, he just discovered a fake door which violently slammed him against the wall.

"Oh no! Not those again! I hate those things," he hissed, rubbing his now throbbing face.

He picked himself back up and at that moment, noticed a tassel cord and pulled on it to reveal a wall bed. A smile quirked at his lips as he ran a gloved hand along the mattress. It felt so soft—
"Maybe I should take a little bit of a break," he insisted after a while of trying to fight the urge to rest. He just couldn't resist the feeling any longer.

Luigi hopped onto the bed and sat there for only a moment before something he didn't expect would happen. The bed shifted and shook then suddenly yanked upward, chucking Luigi backwards right into a wall. Unexpectedly, he just entered a study of sorts!

"Another secret passageway," he mused.
"Clever."

Picking himself up yet again, Luigi looked around the study, he noticed the gear piece was in a small compartment on the wall, ready to be nabbed. He attempted to grab it, only to be startled by a Greenie which slammed the door of the compartment shut, putting a purple barrier around it, before turning on Luigi, punching him square in the jaw! But Luigi retaliated, angrily with his Strobulb and vacuumed up the troublemaker.

Three more Greenies and some mice in the room, and Luigi licked his lips, shifted his grip on the vacuum and confronted the group of ghosts. Luckily for him, the ghosts dropped a varying amount of treasure upon capture, and the more ghosts he tangled with, the better he became at fighting them with the new and improved Poltergust 5000. After the Greenies, came a very angry Slammer finally showing itself, and Luigi found himself battered again by the strong red ghost, getting thrown against a nearby desk.

"Looks like I've got a worthy opponent! You look like a scrawny little wimp. You think you're so tough. It takes a lot of guts to try and mess with us!" The red ghost huffed, punching its fists together. Luigi slowly stood back up, barely missing another attack from the slammer. Heart pounding, Luigi focused on the Slammer, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, he finally took his chance of stunning the strong ghost and vacuumed them up, emerging with the third gear in hand.

Just one more to go. I just hope I can last that much longer...

"Now how do I get out of here?" Luigi asked himself after pulling a set of curtains to reveal a painting of a gem and acquiring some more
treasure.

He got his answer when he rolled back the carpet to reveal a switch. Stepping on it extinguished the fireplace behind him. "I guess that's my only way out of here... I just hope it doesn't reignite on me..."

Carefully, Luigi climbed inside. "Hello?"
Seconds later, he heard—and felt something below him, the fireplace flooring suddenly gave out and dropped him into the studio. Those two Hiders were still there, scattering upon his entrance. However, Luigi vacuumed up a clump of dirt obstructing the door before worrying about the Hiders.

Projectiles began flying at him from different directions as Luigi attempted to uncover his sneaky opponents. Still, he managed to maintain his grip on the vacuum while dodging apples and banana peels. And of course, Luigi had to deal with a Slammer hiding in the same room as them afterwards.  Luigi was already getting very exhausted but that didn't stop him. The final battle paid off when he saw the fourth and final gear clatter to the floor next to him. He picked it up, cracking a small smile and made a satisfied laugh.  "Mission accomplished!"

The Dual Scream abruptly rang.
"Hello?" Luigi answered.

"Luigi! How goes it, my boy?" asked Gadd.

"I have the gears," reported Luigi, "but it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be."

"You could all four gears? That quick? Ho ho..." gushed Gadd. "Well, you got there in the end. Good work, sonny !"

"Thanks," said Luigi. "I almost didn't think I would get them all but I did."

"All that remains is for you to head back to the foyer and put the gears back into the access mechanism."

"Seems easy enough. Ciao."

The Professor hung up and Luigi began to head back to the Foyer, but that was before he noticed something in the mirror. Another Amethyst gem stuck in a web on the window. He stepped behind the window curtain and sucked up the web that covered the gem before catching the gem in his gloved hand and putting it in his pocket.

He then noticed a sheet covering the painting. "I wonder why the ghost covered his painting up like this?" He removed the sheet and noticed a black mustache, similar in style to Luigi's, painted on the model ghost's face. "I know drawing mustaches on painting's are supposed to be humorous but I don't find it that funny..." He muttered to himself. "Best not to think about that too much. I got more important things to do anyways..." With that, he headed back to the Foyer.

                                        ***
Luigi attempted to put the gears back into the mechanism but to his dismay, they wouldn't fit. He sighed in disappointment. "But why don't they fit anymore... They used to before. Perhaps those ghosts didn't treat them very well and they've gotten bent out of shape."

As expected, he received an incoming call from the professor. He quickly picked it up. "Why the long face, Luigi?" Gadd asked. "Well, genetics, I suppose..."

"The gears won't fit..."

"Criminy! The gears don't fit into the mechanism? Those brute ghosts must have bent them or something."

"That's what I was thinking." Luigi added.

"I suppose I'll have to repair them in order to make 'em work." The elderly professor muttered. "Well, atleast you recovered all of them! And it looks like you captured some very interesting ghosts. I can't wait to check 'em out. I'm bringing you back now." The Professor added before hanging up the call.

"I'm so glad to hear those words. I'm exhausted..." Luigi groaned.

                                         ***

"Good work, Luigi!" Gadd said when the plumber arrived back into the Bunker. "I knew I should have called you first. Ahem... Now let's have a look at those gears."

Luigi carefully turned over the gears to his mentor, who looked them over.

"Hmm...I'll come up with something to make them work again," he said after a while of viewing the condition of the four gears.

"Now, let's unload the Poltergust and see what kind of ghostly goodies you've gathered." The Professor pointed at the hose that stuck out from the ground again. "Now remember, put the Poltergust nozzle in there. Put it in."
Luigi put the nozzle in the vault hose, emptying the Poltergust into the contraption.

"I was right," Gadd said when Luigi was finished. "These new ghosts are very interesting, indeed! Such spectacular specimens! And they won't be making any more trouble for us now that they're in the Vault."

The Professor continued, "In the Vault, you can review all the types of ghosts that you've captured. And while you're there, feel free to read my research notes on their ghostly behavior. Analyzing the paranormal signatures of ghosts also helps me fine-tune the ol' Parascope! Now, skedaddle! I need to figure out a way to make those gears work again.

Oh... and leave the Poltergust here with me for a bit, I have a new upgrade to add to it to make it easier to catch those stronger ghosts. I plan to upgrade the Power Gauge to make the meter charge longer. That way it will weaken ghosts easier since I noticed those Slammer ghosts seem to be more hostile and aggressive." E. Gadd explained.

"Oh! I'd gladly take that. It sounds like a very useful upgrade." Luigi replied, taking the Poltergust off and handing it to the Professor.

"This'll take some time, Sonny, so go run along and take a break."

_________________________________
Chapter 5 is at last finished. It actually took a bit longer than I thought but I hope you enjoyed. ^U^ More will be coming... I actually planned to update this on the 27th but as you can see it didn't really work out and it turned out to be a day (almost two days) late since I got busy and also went to watch the FNAF movie. Next update will hopefully be Chapter 1 of Haunt on Halloween so look forward to that coming out. It may be a day late if I get busy again though but we will have to see.