Super Mario Sunshine

Chapter 37 - Il Piantissimo and the Shell's Secret

   The mauve waters of the surface began to wane only shortly after Mario's departure to the undersea city. As if his very presence had somehow soothed the savage beast below, the darkened poison that had held the bay hostage all day now at once started to abate, the waterfall's steadily churning flow only helping to flush the toxic terror out. In a matter of minutes, the improvement became visibly apparent to the two nokis at the surface.

After sending the boy with the water pump to do his deed, Aldo's grandpa had descended the cliff to rejoin him on the floating platform at the tower's base. A few times it had seemed to them that the entire bay trembled with an earthquake from beneath, but the roar of the neighboring waterfall prevented them from being certain.

   That was, until Mario himself emerged from the lilac surface, gasping and thrashing like a drowning animal.

   "There he is! HEY MARIO! OVER HERE!" Aldo hollered from their buoy, waving his arms above his head in excitement. "He made it!"

"Yes, yes," his grandpa snorted next to him, seeming rather disinterested. "I wonder if the water is safe to touch then...?"

"I should sure hope so," his grandson remarked, watching the human splash recklessly through the bay towards them. The purple waters seemed almost to tear as he swam through it, dissipating like fading memories of last night's disaster.

Mario had breached the surface, but apparently he was still very much at a lack for air. Powering along the water with his hover nozzle as engine, he made a final desperate lunge towards the floating rock, grasping it with a soaked glove. Then, struggling over the side like a fish trying to grow legs, he rolled his weight along with the heavy air tank and plopped himself, face-up and sopping, on the stone platform. But the struggle wasn't over yet: it was only a few seconds later, after his hands had found the rim of the air helmet around his neck and pried it over his head at last, that he laid back on the concrete and gasped in relief.

Panting and dripping like a half-drowned rat, the boy merely stayed there sighing like he was almost faint for a good thirty seconds or more. The glass bowl he had thrown off rolled to a stop at the elder's feet, causing the old man to finally look up from the fishing hook he had placed tentatively in the water.

"Well, Master Mario, you truly are something!" he said, seeming not at all concerned for the human's lack of air.

"You did it! Thanks to you, our bay is growing clean again!" Aldo exclaimed, kneeling down a respectful distance away from the recovering human. "...Are you alright?"

"I..." Still finding himself breathless, Mario just nodded, sitting up straight and rubbing a hand across his eyes.

"That poison didn't hurt you, did it? You swam all the way through, so I wondered..."

The noki was pleased to see Mario shake his head. "Oh, that's good! I guess this means the bay will be back to normal soon!"

"And look! The fish are already surfacing!" the elder nearly screeched, pointing to a random spot close to the waterfall. "Did you see them jump??"

Mario, ignoring him in a bid to rise to his feet, felt for Fludd's handles, taking comfort to find them still there. Blinking against the daylight—it was a harsh change despite no direct sun—he took another deep breath. Boy, oxygen felt good.

He hadn't thought he was seriously in trouble—at least, he would never convince himself of it—but he would admit he had been more comfortable in underwater situations before. Even after surfacing, the tank had remained empty, rendering Mario basically in a stale carbon dioxide chamber until he took off the helmet.