Alex walked closely behind Mr. L, holding his notebook and quickly writing down every single thing Mr. L had been doing. 

"Do you have to write down everything?" Mr. L questioned, looking down at the kid. 

"Test subject asks me, 'Do you have to write down everything,'" Alex muttered to himself, still jotting down notes.

Mr. L let out a slightly annoyed huff and faced forward again.

"Test subject seems slightly annoyed with my note taking... though I cannot tell why, exactly. It seems a strange thing to be annoyed about," Alex breathed.

"Okay, JUST SHHH!" Mr. L yelled.

"Sorry," Alex breathed. "I talk when I'm nervous. Are you nervous too, or is it just me? If anything, I feel like you should be the more nervous one. You've literally got your life on the line. Granted, I've got my job on the line, which in some ways is worse, but still."

Mr. L wanted to ask why the teen was worried but refrained from speaking aloud. If there was something frightening nearby, he thought it best he didn't know. That way he could put on a brave front for as long as possible. However, the thought of not knowing was rather unnerving. 

That's when as if on cue, a spiked ball fell from the top of the wall. Mr. L would have surely been crushed if Alex had not quickly shoved him to the side, just barely saving them both. Mr. L clenched his fists to stop them from shaking, then looked up to see yet not a dark soul, but a ghost.

"Do you even work here?!" Alex asked, pulling out his spear and clenching it tightly, narrowing his eyes up at the round ghost. "You're not in uniform!"

The round ghost cackled to himself. Mr. L couldn't help but look at the purple gem on the ghost's crown in awe.

He recognized the ghost. Not from his own memory, but from Luigi's. The image in his mind was fuzzy, but he remembered the feelings of terror Luigi had felt whenever this ghost appeared before him. 

"King Boo?" Mr. L questioned.

"Luigi!!" Kind Boo chimed, sticking his tongue out and laughing. "I didn't expect to see you down here! Did you die? Why wasn't I invited to your funeral?!"

Mr. L rolled his eyes, feeling even more annoyed than before. He knew he really did look like Luigi, but he wasn't a part of that man in green anymore. The Mr. L within Luigi died when Dimentio snapped his fingers and set that execution box off. 

"It's Mr. L, actually," Mr. L breathed. "What are YOU doing here? You have your memory, so you're clearly not a dark soul. Though you probably deserve to be..."

"PERKS OF BEING A GHOST! I get to go wherever I please! Jaydes lets me in and out so long as I do 'Community service,' once every three months. So here I am, clocking in!" The ghost king chimed, making another spiked ball seem to fall from the sky, nearly hitting Mr. L once again.

"Ghost marshmallow boy is throwing spiky balls at us," Alex muttered, jotting some notes down in his book. "Is that his only attack? Seems odd... side note: subject and marshmallow ball seem to know each other-"

Mr. L interrupted Alex's train of thought by snatching the back of his collar and breaking into a sprint. The kid gagged for a second then stumbled a little before catching himself and running as well. The pair could hear maniacal laughter trail behind them and could feel the vibrations from spiked ball after spiked ball falling onto the ground with a loud thud.

They continued running until they found themselves at a dead end. Mr. L brought his hands to the wall, then turned around and bit his fist. They were cornered, and King Boo was right on their tails. 

It seemed like the end of the line when one end of a rope suddenly hit Mr. L's right shoulder. The man in green gasped, then looked up.

"QUICK, GRAB IT!" D-4913 cried, sitting atop the wall and holding the other end of the rope. "We haven't all day."

Mr. L didn't even hesitate. He quickly shoved Alex forward, making the kid climb first just in case. Luckily, the D-man was fairly strong and able to quickly get to the top of the wall, giving Mr. L just enough time to climb to safety before a spiked ball crushed him.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" King Boo asked, casting a confused look at the dark soul who had helped them. "You're not supposed to help."

D-4913 smiled through his visible eye, then pushed Mr. L and Alex over the opposite side of the wall they just climbed, making them both shriek and land on the ground with a thud. 

"I'm not helping," D-4913 stated, carefully hopping down after them, somehow landing on his feet without even hurting himself.

King Boo let out a small huff and turned away, clearly annoyed. Perhaps he could have continued to try to kill the man in green, (again,) but if a dark soul was cheating and helping them, then it clearly wasn't worth the effort.

He would be having a word or two with Jaydes about this, though. The situation ticked him off, and he wasn't one to be shy about things that made him frustrated. 

D-4913 looked up, waiting until the boo was gone before letting out a small sigh of relief. Meanwhile, Mr. L looked at the dark soul with a confused expression.

"... What's your deal?" Mr. L questioned.

"Pardon?" D-4913 teased, his cheery, amused tone returning.

"You just saved us," Mr. L pointed out. "I thought you said... who are you?!"

"Test subject asked dark soul D-4913 who he was," Alex whispered, already taking notes. Mr. L rolled his eyes and quietly shushed the kid, which he ignored as he continued muttering and writing things down, basically relaying everything that was going on. He was not one to be shy about details. Jaydes gave him a job, and he was putting the maximum amount of effort into it.

"Have you lost your memory? I already told you," D-4913 chuckled, placing his hands on his hips and looking up at the top of the wall. "Huh... it's weird to look at it from down here instead of up there."

Mr. L chuckled slightly, rolling his eyes. He knew there was no point in asking the soul who he really was since he clearly didn't know. Still, Mr. L was curious. 

"Then just tell me why you saved me. Please? You seem to go back and forth between being on my side and being on the maze's side." Mr. L pointed out.

"I'm on my own side," The soul stated. "The reason why I saved you is simple. I- uh... thought it would be in my own best interest to watch you try to navigate through the rest of the maze. It's the only form of entertainment I ever get, so I wasn't about to let the show end like that."

Mr. L smirked, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head slightly.

"Are you sure it's not because you're starting to like me?" 

D-4913 drew back, his eyes widening slightly as if the question caught him off guard. He quickly shook his head no, though he seemed slightly more nervous than before.

"Like you?! No, the very idea of that is absurd! I'm a dark soul! I have sinned in my life. There's no way I could ever feel such things! Perish the thought!" D-4913 exclaimed, making Mr. L burst into a fit of laughter. The soul's reaction even made Alex look up from his notes and cast him a suddenly interested expression.

"Whoa... you mean dark souls can still feel?" The kid asked. "I'm not sure why, but I thought when they erased your memory, they erased all your emotions as well..."

"Well, technically speaking, dark souls keep their emotions and lose their memories, that way they can still feel pain. SHAYDES are the ones who've lost their emotions, but they keep their memories. That way they can reflect on their lives without feeling depressed. Not that this matters, because I don't like anyone." D-4913 explained.

If anything, his reaction was only making Mr. L further believe that this soul liked him. It was funny if he was being honest. Even so, it made the man in green's heart flutter slightly. He hadn't felt that kind of heart flutter since-

....

"D-4913... do you know anything about your life before you died?" Mr. L questioned, slowly frowning.

The dark soul let out a short sigh of relief, grateful for the topic change. 

"No. All I know is that I was really bad. Oh, and that D-21221 and I died around the same time. He was my... not quite my friend, just someone that annoyed me for a while, ah ha ha. But he's been assigned to a different section, so I haven't seen him a while." The soul explained.

Mr. L frowned for another moment, then took a shaky breath. That laugh only made him that much more suspicious. He was honestly surprised the thought had never crossed his mind beforehand. The voice sounded slightly different, yes, but it was similar. If anything, D-4913's voice only sounded different than the voice he was thinking of because it felt like his true voice, not his masked actor voice.

".... Permission to try something? I promise I won't hurt you or anything."

The soul frowned, but shrugged, so Mr. L moved closer to him, reaching for the jet-black hair covering his left eye. 

"Your shoulders are tense. Are you afraid?" The soul asked, clearly noticing the small signs of fear on the man in green.

Mr. L wasn't a fan of D-4913's ability to tell when he was afraid.

"No," Mr. L lied. "Just nervous." 

Before the soul could ask why, the man in green brushed his hair aside, revealing a glowing yellow eye. 

Mr. L's eyes went wide. He recognized the glowing yellow immediately.  It was the same glowing yellow color that he saw in his very last living moments.

Mr. L's first thought should have been to be angry. After all, this was the one who sent him down there. However, instead of being angry, he was more curious as to why this man was down there in the first place. What happened to him after Mr. L died? He had heard bits and pieces of the story but didn't know what had come of any of his former teammates. 

"Dimentio?" Mr. L quietly asked, pulling back and clenching his fists slightly.

The soul frowned more and cocked his head to the side in a curious expression.

"Who?" D-4913 asked. "Who's that?"