I've Got the Strangest Feeling This Isn't Our First Time Around

1

 "Luigi Turner, you are aware of the severity of the accusations against you, aren't you?" the professor asks, looking at the man in question, who's so engrossed in what he's doing with a circuit board, he doesn't even look up.

"I was aware the second I was dragged in here." Luigi says flatly.

"Then can you put that down and talk to me for five seconds?" the professor snaps.

Luigi's mouth presses into a thin line, but does as asked, covering the circuit board with his hand.

"That's better. Now do you have anything you'd like to say to your classmate?"

"Gladly." Luigi looks in Spike's general direction next to him. "Why would you think for one second I'd ever stick my nose in that crap you have the nerve to call a prototype?"

"What I tell you?" Spike crosses his arms. "He's been like this since the moment we met."

"I'm not an asshole!" Luigi protests. "Spike doesn't take the mechanical engineering program seriously, and that shows in his work."

"We share living quarters, where he could've easily gotten a peek at my Sogno Apparatus blueprints, on top of wanting to be the star pupil, so he clearly has a motive. I want a complete investigation, and an expulsion pending suspension."

"This wouldn't have anything to do with the leftovers I forgot on the counter, would it?" Luigi asks, bored.

"Are you kidding?" Spike glares at him. "You really think I'd get you expelled just because your leftovers are growing mold?"

"You sure acted like it."

"Well, now that you mention it, is it really so hard to clean up your leftovers so they don't turn into Darwinism?"

"Is it really so hard to keep it down when you invite your frat buddies over?"

"One time for initiation!"

"Both of you, stop it!" the professor interrupts. "Academic suspension would be a last resort. Let's see if we can't find a way Luigi can prove your accusations false."

"How about finding your way to the simpler answer: Spike made all this up just so he could get rid of me."

"Wanna bet?" Spike moves closer, which is really uncomfortable. "Lie detector test. You and me, right now. Who's gonna pass?"

"Not me." Luigi so does not care about any of this, but of course he can't be so lucky as to dip out when Spike says smugly,

"You heard that, right? He just admitted he did it!"

"You know damn well I can't take any kind of lie detector test, much less one that's so easily manipulated."  Luigi rolls his eyes again.

"Right, your condition." the professor flips through Luigi's record. Oneiric..."

"Disorientasia." Luigi finishes for him.

"Well isn't that a coincidence." Spike quips.

"Luigi, our code of conduct here at Cornell is very strict. Until our investigation is finished, you're on academic suspension."

A phone goes off, and the professor pulls out his phone.

"You're welcome." Luigi lifts his screwdriver from the circuit board, then walks out.

"Luigi Turner?" a police officer stops him as he leaves the building.

"Yeah?" Luigi asks.

"NYPD." The cop says, showing his badge. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your foster mother is dead."

A beat, then Luigi nods once, letting the cop lead him to the cop car.