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10,000 Pokos! Incredible! Had I found this first, I could have paid off the entire debt! Of course, I'm not complaining. After all, I was able to build this ship.

As you have no doubt deciphered, Captain Olimar was quite impressed with the value of the last treasure. About a year ago, Olimar had crash-landed on a strange planet, one with plenty of life-giving nitrogen, but also with a large percent of fatally toxic oxygen. His ship, the S.S. Dolphin had sustained heavy damage; in fact, most of the crucial components had broken off entirely. Olimar had made the most fortunate discovery of an organism with both plant and animal traits, which he named Pikmin. With them, Olimar was able to repair his ship, and return to his home planet; Holicate.

The return was far from happy, though. When Olimar returned to his job, he was informed a new employee had accidentally lost a huge shipment of Pikpik carrots (In reality, the hiree, Louie, had eaten the shipment), and the company was in massive debt. The Dolphin was sold, and still 10,000 Holicatan Pokos remained. When Olimar revealed a valuable treasure from the Pikmin planet, he was accompanied by Louie back to the planet to recover more. The pikmin were the obvious choice of muscle. The debt was eventually repaid, but Olimar went back to the planet anyway, partly because more treasure remained, but mainly because Louie had managed to get stranded. Louie was found, and the planet was cleaned out.

Olimar couldn't resist spending a few more days on the planet, though. He had the great fortune of finding a remaining piece of treasure, one which had evaded earlier detection. When he eventually returned, he found a technology company who was very interested in the treasure, and paid a great deal for it. Along with compensation from his employer, he was able to build a new, better, Dolphin, using new technology supplied by the company he sold the treasure to.

--

"Systems ready. Initiating gravi-flux," The ship's computer, Anna(Artificial Neural Net Algorithm), reported. Unlike the old ship, in fact, unlike any other ship in existence, the Dolphin X303 reflected the planet's own gravity to navigate in a planetary setting. The gold-plated ship rose with incomparable grace. Olimar actually enjoyed the experience. The first Dolphin was pretty good, but compared to this, it might as well have been a prison ship. Or worse, the piece of junk I had to ride in last time, Olimar joked.

"Good. Take us out of orbit. Set a course to XZ99-2360," Olimar commanded.

"You want to return to the Pikmin Planet?" The Anna replied, "Don't you want to see our family some more?"

"I've had a month to see your mother and siblings. I consider the Pikmin part of the family as well. To bring the two together is partly why I'm going."

--

The Dolphin X303 navigated to the edge of Holicate's usable gravitational field, and the interstellar engine ignited. The Dolphin sped faster than Olimar had once thought possible, without loosing a bit of stability. Then the hyperdrive engaged. For all of the advanced tech Olimar had put into the Dolphin X303, he had left out the expensive quantum stabilizer feature, necessary for a smooth jaunt through hyperspace. The ride was therefore very bumpy, but as Olimar had predicted, it was too short to have been any major problem. Olimar was at XZ99-2360 in a fraction of the time of the last trip.

"Alright. Anna, there's a continent who's center is near the equator. Located at the southeast shore of it is a large island. I want you to land there," Olimar instructed.

"Found. Switching to gravi-flux engines, and plotting... WARNING! PERSONAL DISTRESS SIGNAL DETECTED!" Anna declared.

"What!? Take us there!" Olimar ordered. The ship immediately broke off course, and swiftly traveled to a continent in the northern hemisphere of the planet. A continent we know as North America.

--

This had not been Mia's day. She was happy at her desk job, designing new technologies, testing them in computer simulations. There was never any need to leave home, as she could simply E-mail her work to Ligence. Of course, there were always the pleasure things that you just can't bring home to you; vacations, manicures, shopping for clothes with Deb, but the only time she had left Holicate was with her ex-boyfriend.

'Great. Not only is this monster trying to eat me, it also has me thinking about Dick(head)' Mia thought, dodging one of the octopus-like beast's tentacles. The thing was smart. Right after revealing it wasn't a rock, it closed off her exits with tin lids. If she dodged forever, she would die. The thing hadn't even waisted energy trying to kill her until she struck back. Her simple fighting skills had kept it at bay for a little while, but it had managed to adapt. And, of course, the thing was twice as tall as she was.

Mia finally decided to give up. She was about to undo the hosing of her suit, allow the lethally reactive oxygen to enter her system, when a large ship entered view. A Nova Blaster had been drawn, ready to fire.

"Now!" Olimar said. In a fraction of a blink of an eye, the beast had exploded.

"Oh, thank you God," Mia though. Then she took a closer look at the ship.

"Wait," She realized, "I know that ship!" The Dolphin X303 landed on the sandstone arena, dorsal side up. Olimar exited the ship via a tube on the ventral side, lowered by the gravi-flux engine.

"Olimar! Thank you... thank you" Mia said, unsure how she should word her gratitude. Olimar's eyebrows scrunched in a classical confused look.

"Do I know you?" Olimar asked.

"I-I doubt you would," Mia said, "You retrieved the Memory Shard from this planet."

"The Memory Shard? Shard... You mean that piece of plastic? What was that thing?" Olimar asked. Seeming to have the upper hand, Mia regained her composure, and even grinned

"You still don't know what it was?" Mia asked, "You sell a strange device to a company, they pay you thousands for it, and then they ask you to beta-test technologies you have never heard of before. And the Great Mind of Olimar still can't figure it out. Let's go to your ship, and I'll show you."

This was certainly a surprising encounter. If anything else, Olimar resolved to study this newcomer's physical appearance. She was somewhat short, even for a Hocotatan, with the top of her space helmet just below Olimar's head. Her head was eliptical, but more circular than Olimar's. Her eyes, which were somewhat wider than Olimar's, fully contained pupils, and even the iris was small enough to allow the sclera to be visible. She was definitely a younger woman, and seemed to have a fair degree of athleticism. Her build was well-complemented by her spacesuit, which Olimar couldn't recognize as a Hocotatan design. The helmet was standard – a glass ball with an antennae attached – but the rest of the suit... it was composed of several rigid plates, more like Samus Aran's Power suit than the cloth-y suit Olimar wore. The suit color sheme was also unorthodox, purple and pink, though pulled off tastefully.

As to who this new Hocotatan actually was, Olimar would have to wait and pay attention.