Pit awoke to the sound of what seemed like a stampede stomping across a wooden floor. The angel shot up from bed, hair disheveled and temper already rising, just to open his eyes and be greeted with a resounding darkness.
"Link," he whispered in the blackness of the room, feeling around for his roommate. Damn Master Hand for being so cheap as to not provide his own Smashers with double-bedded rooms. "Link. Wake up. Do you hear that?"
His fingers finally made contact with a soft face and the Hylian groaned, tossing and throwing the cushion he had been using as a body pillow at his annoying roommate. Pit didn't react much when it made contact with its target, but he did continue to poke Link's cheek in an effort to wake him.
"Liiiiiink," the angel stretched out his roommate's name, poking and prodding at the blond male's sides and body. "I think I'm hearing things. Wake up for two seconds and tell me if you hear them too."
"Go to bed, Pit. Goddesses, it's…" Link cracked open a blue eye to stare at the digital clock that Master Hand had placed in each of the Smasher's rooms. "Three o'clock in the damn morning. Go to bed."
"I would, but I can't. There's that noise I mentioned earlier, you see," Pit tried hard not to pick Link up and toss him out the window. He had a tendency to do that when he didn't get his way, and it had already happened to the poor Hylian three times since the Brawl tournament had started. Provided that they were up on the third floor, many, many feet off the ground below… it never made for a good landing.
Link groaned and finally sat up. Pit could barely see his roommate in the darkness, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light he was just barely able to make out the telltale features of the Hylian. Most notably, his ears. There was something about pointed ears that simply fascinated the angel, and he didn't know what. Perhaps it was just the sheer superficial aspect of them; they didn't seem to enhance hearing or any other peripheral sense… what was the point of them?
His thought processes were cut off as their current function was apparently to irritatingly jab Pit in the cheek, and it was beginning to annoy the angel to no end.
"Move!" He shoved Link off the bed, and the blond male yelped as he collided with the floor.
"What the hell was that for?"
"Your ear was poking me. Don't tell me you couldn't feel it! Or maybe you did it on purpose?"
"No way." Link rolled his eyes and sat up on his knees. "So what was that noise you were hearing?"
"Shh, shut up." Pit held up a hand and Link resisted the urge to roll his eyes yet again at the motion. The angel strained his ears as he listened for the familiar sound once more; he even closed his eyes as if it would help him despite being practically blinded by the lack of light in the room anyway.
He let out a breath. "I don't hear it anymore. I could have sworn I heard something, though… Oh well. You can come back now, Link." Pit opened his eyes to lend Link a helping hand to get him back on the bed, but instead found himself face to face with a creature with glowing, almost soulless red eyes. "Uwaah?!"
His back hit the soft cushiony pillow, but his head smacked rather harshly against the wall. "What's wrong?" He heard Link scramble to his feet and pull on the covers of the bed to pull himself up when suddenly he seemed to notice the creature's presence as well. "What the hell?!"
Pit peeled the back of his head off the wall, rubbing the impacted area gingerly as he sat up to see about a hundred eyes from the back of the room. Just staring at him. He instantly broke out in a nervous sweat. "Um… hello?" He called out to the disturbingly silent creatures. The one with red eyes seemed to have vanished from the bed.
"Heh, nice little… I can't even tell what you are—" Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, as they began their attack almost as soon as Link opened his mouth. Pit's jaw dropped open as the creatures seemed to completely ignore his presence after the initial first shock and go straight for the Hylian instead, easily swarming him and pinning him to the ground.
"Link!" The angel called out dramatically, crossing the distance of the bed to peer down and observe what was happening to his poor roommate.
Link, weaponless and without any source of defense save for the rather thin threads of his pajamas, did try to fight the little beasts off. Unfortunately they quickly proved to be too much and they quickly covered the expanse of his entire body, jumping on him, pinching him, and smacking them with whatever the hell they were holding (Link's eyes could not quite adjust to the dark as quickly as Pit's could, and thus to him it felt as if they were slapping him with rubbery, dead fish).
"Pit! Get them off of me!" He shouted, and immediately closed his mouth as a couple near his face tried shoving the apparent dead fish into it. Pit acted as fast as he could, reaching down to grab a handful of the little buggers and he flung them to the other side of the room, ignoring their rather pitiful cry as they smacked harshly into the wall.
As he continued to try and free Link from the merciless assault of the little things, somewhere in his mind it clicked that he actually recognized the sounds they made. "Wait a minute," he pulled himself back onto the bed just to slide off the other side and make a mad dash for the light switch. His fingers clicked with the plastic and glorious light filled the room, and he was finally able to see just what was going on.
Pikmin of assorted colors stared at him with their large and round eyes, some tilting their heads to the side as they tried to make sense of what the angel was doing. Pit froze, and sort of wished he never had the idea to turn on the lights. They're so creepy…
"Pikmin! Pikmin!" Thanks to the help of his roommate, there were finally little enough Pikmin for Link to shove the remaining ones off his body and stand, pressing himself close to the wall. Pit thought that if the Hylian could push himself even further onto the flat surface, he'd fuse himself with it. "What the hell?!"
A red Pikmin stepped up and made a weird squeaking noise, pointing angrily at Link. Immediately the rest of its 'tribe' followed suit, all chattering in their weird language and conversing with each other, speaking in tones the two Smashers could never hope to understand.
"… That's nice," Link said slowly, and immediately all of their chatter stopped. A deathly silence filled the room, and Pit shivered. For a bunch of little plants, they could sure be intimidating. Link, however, didn't seem to be as phased as the angel. "… You can go back to Olimar now."
A yellow one squeaked rather loudly and was tossed by a purple up to the height of Link's head, and promptly slapped the Hylian across the face with the leaf on its head. Well, that explained the feeling of dead, rubbery fish.
There was a single white Pikmin, and Pit assumed it was the one that had startled him earlier. It had a voice that was higher than those of the rest of its family, and it used its arms to make quirky gestures as it spoke in a scarily human sort of way. Both Hylian and angel stared at it confusedly.
"Wait," Pit said, suddenly realizing something. He looked around at all of the Pikmin flooding his room, and continued. "Where the heck did you all come from? Olimar's only allowed to have six Pikmin out at a time!"
They narrowed their eyes at him, and the angel quickly gulped and backed away, raising his arms and hands in a sign of surrender. Okay, no more asking the Pikmin questions. They can do whatever they want, including hurling Link out the window if they want to since they seem to be pissed the most at him. Just as long as they don't hurt me.
"Manly." Link shook his head, and the yellow Pikmin slapped him again. "Will you quit that?!" He grabbed the creature mid-air before it could fall back down to the safety of its brethren, and immediately it started making panicked squeaks.
And just like that, the chaos started all over again.
Except this time, Pit didn't do anything to help. Link brought it on himself this time, and so the Hylian would have to face the consequences alone. "Pit, help!" The blond screeched as the Pikmin began mercilessly assaulting him again, but the angel didn't move. He did admit that it was rather humorous seeing the holder of the Triforce of Courage fall under a bunch of annoyed plants that were the size of a Gamecube controller.
"Maybe I should get Olimar before this gets too ugly," Pit wondered aloud, holding a finger up to his chin as he mulled and pondered over the idea.
"Do it!" Link nearly screamed as five purples decided to jump off the bed and cannonball directly into his stomach. The blond choked as they made impact, and Pit winced despite not even being able to see the Hylian anymore; the one-sided battle had moved beyond his range of vision – just at the other side of the bed.
"What did you do to them?" The angel asked incredulously, wondering what the hell his roommate could have done to righteously piss the Pikmin off so much.
"Absolutely nothing!" That was also a wrong thing to say, if the immediate scream that came after was any indication. Pit waited a few more seconds before silently excusing himself and leaving to get help.
OoO
"… Ah. They weren't very happy."
"No shit, Sherlock," Link groaned, holding an ice pack to his head as he leaned back in a chair. Pit awkwardly massaged his shoulders to hopefully lesson the pain, though in the back of his mind he snickered at the thought of the Hylian being pummeled by a bunch of flowers.
Olimar looked up at the blond with a rather unamused expression on his face. "I'm sure you know why."
"No, enlighten me," Link sat up, genuinely puzzled at what could have gone wrong with the little beasts. He hadn't done anything to them directly recently that he could remember… though what he did to Olimar was—
Oh.
Suddenly it made sense.
Apparently a look of realization crossed his face as Olimar crossed his arms and hummed, "Remember now?"
"Don't get smug with me, shorty," Link groaned. "They weren't even there when that happened."
"When what happened?" Pit asked, leaning in.
Neither gave any indication at hearing his puzzled inquiry as Olimar continued, "Don't call me that. And the Pikmin are always there… even if you think they aren't."
"Call you what? Shorty? Well, it's true. I can use you as a footstool while you stand up straight and as tall as you can. See?" To prove his point, he kicked his legs up and rested them on the glass dome of Olimar's helmet. The Hocotatian frowned and took a few steps back, allowing the limbs to crash down to the floor.
Before anyone could say anything else, a yellow Pikmin (the same yellow Pikmin that had been slapping Link earlier, the Hylian was sure of it) came flying out of absolutely nowhere and started smacking him with its leaf once more. "What the hell?!"
Olimar whistled (come to think of it, how did the little guy use that thing in the first place? Unless he liked shoving his hand through his helmet…), and the Pikmin obeyed. It slinked off of Link's body and slowly walked backwards into the depths of the hallway, staring at the Hylian and giving him an evil glare the entire time.
Pit coughed. "Mind filling me in on what the heck is going on here? I kind of was involved in this too, since, well… I live where the attack happened."
"Certainly, dear Pit," Olimar smiled at the angel ("Oh sure, be nice to him," Link muttered) and clasped his hands together behind his back. "I believe this was about three days ago…"
"Does it matter?" Link groaned. Pit slapped the back of his head. "Hey!" But he grumbled before falling silent.
Olimar tilted his head to the side before deciding not to comment on the matter and just continue his story instead. "Anyway… Link here apparently thought that it would be a fun idea to go around and start taunting the… ah, smaller Smashers."
"Like Kirby, Pikachu, and the kids?"
"Exactly," the Hocotatian held up a finger dramatically as if to emphasize the points he was about to make. "I do not specifically know the details of what he said or did to the others, I've only heard second-hand from their roommates about what happened."
"You make it sound like I beat them up or something," Link muttered. "I just said a few words, is all. Besides, Marth and Ike were with me!"
"Then they're equally as guilty of bullying them. As for me, it was just you." Olimar shrugged. "Though why you said what you said to me and not the Pikmin themselves, I can't even begin to find an understanding for."
"… What?" Pit blinked at the oddly worded sentence. He knew English wasn't near Olimar's first language, but the Hocotatian was usually on top of that kind of stuff. The angel had no idea what he was just trying to say there, however. "Say that again?"
Olimar blinked, and shook his head. "… Right. My apologies. Anyway! I guess Link was hungry or something – it was around lunch when this happened – and I was the only one with him in the hall to the dining room when he made a rather odd remark about eating me."
Then it was Pit's turn to blink. "But… the Pikmin are carrots, aren't they? Wouldn't it make more sense to eat them…?"
"That was the point!" Link threw his arms up in frustration. "Goddesses, talking about me as if I'm not sitting right here. I made that joke because the Pikmin are carrots, but they weren't with Olimar at the time. So I thought it'd be funny to joke that, since the obvious food source wasn't there, I'd just have to eat their master instead."
"… That's it?" Pit felt as if there was more to it.
He was right. "No," Olimar frowned.
Link made an odd face and looked off to the side. "Well… I may have gone a little too far in my joke. I picked up Olimar and acted as if I was really going to eat him, you know, since I was hungry."
Pit blinked again. "What is wrong with you?"
Olimar coughed awkwardly. "The Pikmin are always around, even if you don't see them. I can't ever seem to escape them, anyway… not that I particularly want to. They may be a bit protective over me, I fear, but you're the one who made a joke about eating me. … Which is something they won't take lightly. They have experience in dealing with hungry predators that would stop at nothing to eat them, or even me if given the chance. Obviously they didn't take your joke very well," and there was a hint of a sly joke in his voice.
"So their solution is to ambush me in my sleep and slap me with dead fish?"
"… What?" Now Olimar was horribly confused.
"Don't mind him, he's insane," Pit shoved his hand over Link's mouth and laughed. "Sorry about all this, Olimar. I'll be sure to keep Link locked up in our room and make him write an apology letter to all the Pokémon and kids he made fun of… and I'll be sure to get Ike and Marth, too."
"I don't really need one, but I appreciate the sentiment," Olimar smiled. "Well… it's still quite early in the morning, so I'll let you two get back to your sleep. So long!"
He turned on his heel and left their bedroom. Almost immediately after, a giant mob of Pikmin poked and scrambled out of their hiding spots at various places throughout the room as they moved to follow their captain. Link made a horrified noise and Pit nearly tripped and squished some of them as they scurried by his feet. They came from the drawers, the closets, the window, underneath the bed, holes in the wall, and odd cracks in the floor they never even knew were there as they all filed out of the small room.
Link felt violated.
"I'm going to bed, and I'm never waking up!" He took the ice pack off his head and hurled it at the closet, where it just barely missed a blue Pikmin that had been too slow in untangling itself from the piles of clothes that were undoubtedly piled up and ready to be washed. Poor thing.
It squeaked and pointed an accusatory finger at the Hylian before it finally scurried off to catch up with the rest of their brethren. Link held his breath, hoping they wouldn't come back to pound on him more for attacking one 'on purpose' (he had no way of telling it was even there, but he figured that they'd find a reason to want to kill him again sooner or later).
Pit smiled. "Thinking about it, they're really cute. I wonder if Olimar will let me keep one when the tournament ends."
Link smashed his face into the wall.
OoO
A/N: Better watch your step from now on, Link. the pikmin are everywhere