The red pikmin gripped the reins, urging his glistening black glorp onwards as he shoved the bloodied bronze sword back into its scabbard. His friends Telk and Rabaz were dead now, killed by the very same Toadmin that minutes before he had helped cut to pieces. There had been ten of them, not quite a match for a red pikmin in single combat, but these had used the element of surprise and overwhelming numbers to counterbalance that. He'd killed three of them himself; Rabaz had killed four, the die-hard, before they'd buried a crude arrow in his throat.
Ten Toadmin. Enough to overpower three red scouts. But even that was an incredibly small group in this day and age. They were obviously just a picket defense, or part of a larger force sent to clear the way for the real army, the real threat. There'd be thousands of them, tens of thousands. But the burning question was... where? Where were they?
The red soldier spurred his glorp over a hill and dropped to the side, leaving his sword and scabbard on the mount. He left the glorp there and ran up the slope, ignoring the burning pain in his side and the uncomfortable clumsiness of his leather armor, which was made for riding on glorpback, not for moving on foot. Armor on the outsides of the legs, on the thighs for the most part, and on the shoulders and entire torso. It kept his upper-body joints free, sure, but running was a task that required practice and endurance.
He crouched before he crested the hill and slowed, eventually forcing himself to belly crawl despite knowing that sand might get in his wound. He came to top and lay there, feeling the reverbrations in the ground and hearing the noise in the air of an army on the move.
Yes, ten thousand Toadmin, at the very least, were moving through the valley less than a few hundred span away. He could see their faces, their individual weapons. Even their blank, soulless eyes. The very ground they tread upon seemed corrupted, even the forestland miles ahead of them. They marched without order, a veritable Horde. Bronze mingled with flint, wooden cudgels, even simple stones for weapons. A few Toadmin here and there rode glorps, the majority of these riding on the flanks as if herding their less lucky comrades. But here and there, groups of fifteen to fifty would break away and move into a thicket, or a grove, and begin to devour everything therein.
The red pikmin had never felt so revolted, and so... terrified. It was no strange occurrence for the Toadmin to attack from the valley lands, as they were fertile and could accommodate armies. But this was much too small an army; they usually came in hordes that numbered close to a hundred thousand... but here there were too few. Where were the others?
The scout lay there silently for a while, until the itching pain in his left side finally forced him to back away from the crest of the hill and roll over. He did so, lying on his side as he parted the leather torso armor, where the chest piece met the stomach piece. The toadmin blade had cut him there, deep enough to bleed more than enough to weaken him over time, and hamper him significantly. Already the bandages he had wrapped himself with in haste were soaked red. The sand was like razors on the messy wound.
Suddenly something moved in the red's peripheral vision. Reacting on years of honed instinct, he rolled left, narrowly avoiding a spear thrust. Three toadmin had him surrounded; one swung a wooden cudgel while two others hefted flint-tipped spears. One of the spearmin screamed and thrust his weapon at the red pikmin's chest. Still on his back, the red pikmin reached up and crossed his arms into an 'x', catching the spear with his bracers and rolling hard right. The spear snapped off as he came to his knees and threw himself forward, ramming his left shoulder hard into the cudgel toadmin's chest. It grunted and flew backwards down the hill, nearly cuffing the scout on his long stem as it rolled bodily to the bottom of the slope.
The pikmin ignored the toadmin with the second spear and ran down the hill to his glorp. He could see it there, still unmoving, and cursed himself for leaving his weapon behind. All he had was a small knife, but he'd be damned if he could find it in time to...
The red stumbled and tripped, flying headfirst down the steep hill. Fuzzy stick-tites on the plants gathered in his armor and on his skin, scratching as he rolled and bounced. He felt himself slam into the first toadmin, felt it's ribs crunch beneath him. He rolled, gripping it around the waist until he slid to a halt twenty feet from his glorp.
"Hotor!" shouted the red pikmin, calling for his mount. It gave a harsh cry and began to canter in his direction.
The toadmin stirred at the red pikmin's knees. In an instant he had his knife out and was stabbing, puncturing, unable to remember where he'd found the tiny blade. He came up to his feet but felt his left leg give, pain shooting up into his hip. The red pikmin cried and fell to his knees, but forced himself to get back up. His glorp had stopped a few paces away.
Thak!
"Aaargh!" the pikmin screamed, arching his back as an arrow pierced his armor and entered his spleen. He screamed and tried to scramble to his glorp, Thakthak! as two more arrows struck him in the back Thak! another in the right shoulder.
The red pikmin felt himself leave the ground, almost weightless, flying even, before coming to a stop against his glorp's broad right side. He reached across the saddle, wrapped his fingers around the pommel of the bronze sword, felt rather than saw an arrow punch through his mount's shoulder just inches from his own. He felt himself sliding, weak, and finding nothing to grip with his left hand. He fell left, feeling weightless, and then suddenly heavy, dragging his right hand down the saddle and the saddlebags before he dropped to the ground with a limp thud.
The glorp shrieked and danced away to the side, pawing and tearing at the ground as it sought to relieve itself of the sudden pain in its shoulder. It bolted into the trees, a frightened animal, carrying away the bronze sword and the red pikmin's only hope for salvation.
He lay there, wheezing, knowing that one of the arrows had punctured his thoracic cavity, so that he could not seem to breathe. The pain in his right shoulder was phenomenal, but barely there... blood was running down his right arm, he could see. He could feel it pooling under his armor. Slowly, his eyelids began to fall, feeling like one who is sleepy and cannot keep their eyes opened. He was dimly aware of several toadmin hemming him in.
It occurred to him that he should move.
By then he was already dead.
Part 1 of 3
DISCLAIMER: I do not own or pretend to own Pikmin. I also don't need to put a Disclaimer here but I do anyway out of common decency.