Chapter Text
“I just never thought it made sense to sell a-da seashells right next to where you could just get your own .” He gestured, ending with a pushing motion, and Mario laughed, though not quite at him.
“It’s just a nursery rhyme, Weeg. I don’t think they put that much thought into it.” He grinned, and put his hands back into his pockets, delivering a gentle kick to Mario’s calf. “Whatever. It’s still silly to me.”
The brothers laughed, continuing their walk down the narrow sand path of Cheep Cheep Beach. The sun had just touched the horizon, setting the sky on fire with vivid oranges and deep blues following close behind. Tire tracks from the kart race held earlier that day still marred the ground, and the two followed them through the course up until they reached the overarching rocks. Luigi stopped walking, prompting his twin to stop as well and turn around in confusion. He tilted his head, and after a few seconds asked Luigi,
“Did you see something?” Luigi smiled and shook his head. “Nothing new. I’m-a gonna stay out for a little longer, though. I’ll be home soon, promise!” Mario didn’t move or react for a moment, but soon returned the smile and nodded vigorously. “Okie-dokie! I’m making carbonara so don’t wait too long to come home, or it’ll be cold!” With a repeated promise, Luigi waved to his brother as the red-clad plumber picked up the pace and sped home, the sounds of his footfalls quickly growing distant.
Luigi took in a deep breath and looked toward the sunset. The oranges on the cusp of fading away, the sky was now mostly a blackened blue, stars dusting through the inky space above him. It was pretty. He walked over to the shore, boots grazing the line where the water’s reach ended, and squatted down, sifting through the wet sand. Shells upon shells, though he doubted there was a koopa small enough to put these on. A few mostly intact ones caught his eye, and he brushed and dried them as best he could before placing them in his pocket. As the sun finally disappeared, Luigi drew back up to his full height (admittedly not much) and stretched. He had just begun a turn to make good on his promise to Mario when he suddenly turned his head full to the waves again, pupils dilating.
Something was shining just underneath the tide, giving a gentle glow distorted by the water it was trapped under. Luigi wouldn’t call himself a materialistic man, no. He was perfectly capable of letting things go, even if it did carry sentimental nature. But the sparkling captivated him, and to boot it was green, or at least seemed so through the seawater. He drew closer, before pausing and shaking his head, giving himself a gentle knock on his temple. Luigi took a step back, removed his boots and knee-length socks, and rolled his overalls’ legs halfway up his thighs before going back to the water. He jumped as he walked in, not expected just how cold it had gotten. Though he supposed he should have known, it was officially night, after all. He shivered once more before advancing, body slowly lowering as he got closer. It was definitely green, closer to being lime than forest.
As he stood just above it, hands on his knees and bottom of his thighs barely above the ocean, Luigi looked with bated breath at the item. Even so close, the water and shine worked in tandem to hide what exactly it was that had intrigued the plumber so. He brought his hand to his mouth, and bit down on the glove to remove it, sliding his hand out. Lowering his body more, barely registering the icy sea hitting his thighs and soaking the denim, he plunged his hand into the depths. Eyebrows furrowing as it hit him that he should have rolled his sleeve up, Luigi laid the small grievance aside and brought his hand down deeper, and deeper. The tip of his nose was touching the water, and yet his hand was still out of reach. With a quiet grumble, Luigi inhaled and dove down, forgetting his hat was on his head, the embroidered clothing article slipping off his head and now floating on the water’s surface. He scrunched his face a bit as the water burned his eyes and tried to focus on the shining. It was easier to see what it was now, though still vague. It was smooth, and half buried in the seafloor though the plumber guessed it was a somewhat oval-shaped sphere. Very shiny. Very pretty. His hand hit the sand, and his palm covered the glow, and a victorious smile stretched across his face as he closed his fingers around it.
Luigi breathed out a bit, his lungs starting to hurt. A fan of underwater levels he was not, always thankful for an oxygen-saving penguin suit. He dug his hand a bit deeper before dislodging the sphere from where it laid and bringing his body back up to the surface.
He shook his head as he breathed heavily, thankful for the strain on his lungs being released. As he began to exit the water, however, time seemed to slow down and race forward all at once. The end of his wrist and beginning of his hand hit the air and hurt, and yet before he could stop and process that pain it was out of the water entirely, and as air hit the surface of his sparkling find, the light emanating from it rapidly grew brighter and brighter, and his palm and the fingers holding it burned. His eyes widened. His muscles tensed. And as he felt as though his hand was melding to the object, Luigi screamed. The sound of the waves grew, and it was as though they were crashing against his eardrums as his sight was consumed in the nearly-lime green light. He fell backwards, back into the sea, and felt a familiar yet completely foreign experience of his body changing.
He and Mario loved the Mini-Mushroom. Both of them already great jumpers, getting more airtime was a blast, and besides that there was a whimsical type of humor to shrinking so much. And so they used it whenever found, and so Luigi was vaguely aware of his body losing its mass. Different. Different different different, something felt different, something felt wrong, and something hurt. Clothes. His left glove wasn’t changing with him. Nothing was, and if the process wasn’t so fast and so painful, Luigi would have felt a flood of embarrassment and the heat of his face turning red.
He had been kicking in panic, flailing when the pain had blossomed and doing so even more when hitting the water. But as the world seemed to grow, Luigi had another sense of something being very wrong as his legs no longer moved separately, and then didn’t move how he wanted at all. His screams had long been muffled by the waves at this point, and it didn’t cross his mind how he still had air to spend.
The sound of the waves dissipated, and the light grew dimmer and dimmer until going away completely. The ovular sphere had changed with him it seemed, though much more disturbing was that it was soldered to his palm. He flinched at the sight of it and tried to dig it out, to no avail. At least his fingers were free and not also soldered to the thing, though that didn’t do much to comfort the man. Waves pushed him around, and it was then he noticed the lack of burning in his lungs. He screamed again, curses in Italian warbling out in a swarm of bubbles.
And then his eyes hit the tail.
Luigi was no stranger to tails. Raccoon, kitsune, cat, and flying squirrel, he had embodied them all throughout the years, those powerups all coming with a tail of some sort. He loved it, always a fluffy appendage that moved with him, adding more to his emoting. That was fun. That was cute and endearing and fit Luigi all too well.
This was horrific. Lower torso and legs nowhere to be seen, and something resembling the lower body of a fish or some other undersea creature taking the place. A milky silver coloring to the thing. It moved, and Luigi screamed again, and the tail flailed wildly in tandem. That didn’t help the matter, drawing more muffled screams out from the plumber. Waves pushed him further, and Luigi covered his ears, scrunching his eyes and bubbles flowed from his mouth. This was a nightmare. He passed out on the shore, exhausted from the long day of kart races and playing with Mario on the beach after the fact. He’d wake up any second now from the waves hitting him in the face, and then he’d get up and go home and have carbonara with Mario and then he’d go to bed properly. Whimpers left him as he felt water push him again and again, but he did not let any other sense be used, curling into himself yet shrieking and pulling away when feeling something so unlike human skin touch him. Just a nightmare. Just a nightmare. He’d never stay at the beach after a race again.
Time passed, though Luigi couldn’t tell if it was minutes, hours, weeks or maybe just seconds since he had shut himself off from what was happening. It was harder to ignore now, rushing waves passing through the shoddy barrier of his hands into his ears. Closer to the surface now. He cracked one eye open and screamed, closing it tighter when he saw the tail right in front of him. Still dreaming, please please be dreaming. Though the hope of that was rapidly slipping out of his grasp.
He moved his hands from covering his ears to holding his head, biting his lower lip as more high-pitched whimpers escaped through them. What now? Even if he had any semblance of what just happened, Luigi still wouldn't know what to do. He should have called Mario before going into the water. No. He should have just went home with his brother in the first place. He could have stayed and brought the shells home with him, and just leave without the stupid shiny green thing. He shouldn't have stayed at Cheep Cheep Beach after the race. He shouldn't have raced at all. He shouldn't have left the house this morning, he should've...
Something hit the water, the force of it moving the waves from their original path and straight back to Luigi. He yelped, covering his mouth shamefully at the sight of the bubbles and his eyes shifted to the leg that had caused the displacement. Bellbottom denim that was so navy blue to the point of looking black, and orange shoes with pointy tips. Ah. Ah no.
Another leg entered the water, and before Luigi could even start to brainstorm on how exactly he was meant to move around—he can’t imagine it’d be similar to any way he swam, considering the reliance on kicking—a shadow overtook the area and he was promptly swooped up with a large opaque metal bowl. He shrieked and flailed around before hitting the side of the bowl and flinching from the cold surface. His hands were trembling and Luigi brought them back to his head, pulling at his hair for some sort of stability as he felt motion, water sloshing with each step. Luigi hunched his shoulders, brought his head down to his collarbone, and froze when his stomach touched the gross appendage that had replaced his lower half. He tensed up, looking at it only so he didn’t have to look up. There were small, somewhat thick fins around the beginning of the tail, about where Luigi estimated the joint connecting his legs and hips would be. Still silvery, though more of a dark steely gray that reminded Luigi of a seal, if it wasn’t a mammal. Scales that measured maybe the length of his index’s distal phalanx at their biggest around his waist. He looked at the side of the bowl, a blurry reflection looking back at him. Luigi then took a breath, shut his eyes tight, and curled further into himself.
Every noise above him was muffled, and while he’d initially tried to focus on his breathing, the strange way it sounded as water was filtered mostly through what felt like holes on his neck made Luigi decide he’d rather pay attention to what was going on than what exactly his body had just went through. Through barely opened eyes he could see Waluigi’s pointy face was above him, and he was talking. He was lightly smiling and every few seconds the grin would grow wider, and what almost sounded like laughter rang out. Luigi grumbled. He hated to sound like the lanky man, but nothing good ever happened to him, did it? Of course he doesn’t have legs anymore, and of course he was put in what seemed to be a bowl from an electric mixer by the one guy who continued to hate him long after he’s proven himself capable. Maybe doing so made it worse, seeing as Waluigi was always rambling about being better than him whenever Luigi bothered to tune into what he was saying. Probably bruised his ego. Heh.
Luigi shook his head a bit. Focus. He’d stopped moving for the time, and his eyebrows furrowed. A warbled click sounded out, and Luigi was moved for a few seconds before the bowl was laid down on what he could only assume was a counter from how little time it took to descend onto it. A light came on, and Luigi hissed, looking down again. Quick and heavy steps faded. Something crashed and a nasally shriek followed it, as well as Luigi giggling, before the same steps came back. The sink ran, and a glass was set down next to him.
“Hey. Hey!” Oh Grambi Waluigi was talking to him. The bowl was tapped rapidly, pushing it back and moving Luigi. He growled and looked up. Waluigi was wide-eyed, head resting on his right hand. His mouth was closed, not smiling, and though distorted in Luigi’s eyes he could make out that the man seemed to be chewing on the inside of his cheek. His lips parted, showing his tongue being bit, before he got closer, his mouth opened further, and he talked again.
“Can you hear me? Is that actually you?” Luigi stayed still. Maybe this wasn’t actually that bad. Whatever was wrong with Waluigi, he wasn’t that stupid, he’d know well enough to not draw Mario’s ire by keeping Luigi here. Right? Right, that’s right, Luigi wasn’t even going to entertain the thought of anything else. This would be cleared up and he could brainstorm ideas with his bro.
“I̴̛̖͚͈̣̟̗͉͖̻̹͖͆͛̍̉̒͜͜t̷͈̤̟͎̪̼̣̦̱̪̐̀̐̿̈́̈́͂̄͒͘͜͝ͅ'̷̢̛̭̜̫̬͇͋̅̀̀̒͠s̷̡̨̭͚̙̮͈͙̈́͋̀̄̉͑̄̊̒͒͗͘͜͠ͅ –” Luigi stopped, missing Waluigi stepping back above him in surprise. Duh. Of course.
Anything he could say wouldn’t be very understandable, would it? He grimaced, then after thinking for a moment decided to just nod his head. Waluigi didn’t respond or react, and Luigi got worried that maybe that was somehow distorted through the water as well. Just as he landed on the decision to nod again with more emphasis, he caught a smile.
Then Waluigi stepped out of view and a sharp, loud laugh flooded the room. Luigi’s eyebrows furrowed together and he had to hold himself back from clawing at his face. No, this was going to be as bad as he thought. Worse, probably. Just his luck. The laughter slowed down as Waluigi caught his breath and tried to speak, and Luigi just made out a “That’s so funny” before the laughter stopped completely and the purple-clad pain-in-Luigi’s-back was visible again.
“How’s that even happen?” He laughed at Luigi again, though not as intensely, and slid the glass closer. His gloved hand entered the water, and Luigi froze for a moment. He was grabbed, and he pushed against Waluigi’s hand trying to escape his hold. That only got more laughter out of him. Luigi was debating biting his finger when he left the water and found he was unable to inhale any further. He breathed out, only to find he was still incapable of bringing any air back in. His panic didn’t last long and he was unceremoniously dropped into the glass bowl. Luigi brought his hands to the sides of his neck, shivering at his own touch and the feeling of thin layered skin. Gills. Gills! Laid flat by gravity and weight when out of water. Just perfect, another problem to add to his predicament.
Waluigi took a seat, laying his head in folded arms on the counter. Still laughing. This must be so funny to him, Luigi thought with a bitter look. He turned his head, and in the process his whole body, tensing up and letting the look of surprise grace his features only for a moment before steeling himself. He wasn’t going to give Waluigi any more to laugh at, that’s that. With a sick feeling in his stomach, Luigi focused on the tail. His tail. His tail.
…Hhng. Gross. Scary. Focus.
Hands brought to the sides of his face like horse blinders, Luigi thought of it as his moving his feet. The end of the tail, with uneven wavy fins, moved in a similar manner. He breathed out quickly, a smile creeping onto his face. Not that difficult. He could do this. He continued up what he decided were still his legs, just wrapped around a tail. That was believable, that was his story and he was sticking to it. It didn’t work exactly. The movements were jerky, there was no separated movement, there were joints where there wouldn’t normally be and he wasn’t exactly sure where his knees would land, should they still exist. Luigi tried to emulate taking a step and the tail snapped in one direction, launching Luigi into one side of the bowl. Waluigi’s hand slapped the counter as he burst into laughter, and Luigi’s hands curled into tight fists. The fin ending his tail twitched in what Luigi realized was a clear show of irritation. While still incredibly different than any power-up he’s ever used, it was similar in showing his emotion. Neat, he guessed.
Waluigi rubbed at his eye with the heel of his palm, mumbling into his arm. He swirled the chair around and strided over to a wall, and to Luigi’s dismay the light went off. He may have nearly blinded himself earlier, but he’d take that over pitch black! A drawer was opened, some shuffling before it slammed closed (making Luigi flinch, hard ) and a flashlight turned on, set down next to the glass bowl but turned away. At least Waluigi was nice enough to not blind Luigi, all things considered. But then he called out what sounded way too close to a “ G’night, Eyeballs. ” over his shoulder and walked to the doorway that revealed the start of a stairwell.
Luigi’s jaw dropped. Maybe there wasn’t a bed down here, sure, but was he seriously going to be left alone? By himself with only a flashlight? In Waluigi’s house!? As Waluigi passed through the doorway, Luigi knocked on the bowl, yelps and warbled shouting causing bubbles to erupt from his mouth. No way. No way! And yet, even with a sudden outburst of muffled giggles coming through where the man had just been, Waluigi went up the stairs and didn’t return. Yes way, it seemed.
Luigi, dumbfounded, stayed in place for a few minutes. As well as you could stay in place when you were floating underneath the water, anyway. Then, slowly, he removed his hands from the glass, his shoulders slumped, and he let out a long sigh. Fine. At least it wasn’t dark. And he wouldn’t be laughed at. He looked down, and with a slower and more careful approach, the tail went one direction, and he went to the other side of the bowl, more gracefully. Like he knew what he was doing. He huffed. Luigi turned his body to face the oven and squinted at the glowing green digits displayed on it. 3:49. He registered the heaviness of his eyelids and the soreness that was… well, everywhere. It really wasn’t like a power-up. He looked down. He’d gotten the gist of moving, and that’d probably work for swimming up, but how was he supposed to go down? He frowned and tilted his head to one side. Eh. Glass wouldn’t be a very good bed anyway.
Wiping the sleep away from his eyes and ignoring his muscles’ protests, Luigi opted to properly learn how to move around. He wasn't giving his self-proclaimed rival anything to laugh about, after all.