Another morbid day went by as tired pikmin returned to their onions. More than fifty-six had been reduced to fertilizing sludge by wollywogs, and that meant that fifty-six families will grieve tonight. Steve almost increased the casualty count to fifty-seven with his near suicidal actions. He attempted to lift a carcass on his own back to the onion, while the other mindless pikmin followed Olimar. In the red pikmin's mind at the time, he thought he was being a hero to his own relatives. Now, inside the onion, he felt stupid. When not in battle, pikmin operate the enormous interior of the onion and live in compacted apartment complexes that stack on one another. As usual, the crimson "city" had been crowded with crying red pikmin. It wasn't fair that the more grown up flower pikmin had to go first, but they were considered the best, and had no choice. The onion wouldn't allow it, "she" was dedicated to helping Olimar retrieve the remains of a previous civilization of beings gigantic enough to squash the empress bulborb. Steve shuddered at the thought while he snuck into the major control tower where the flight could be controlled manually and "talk" to the onion. Pikmin seeds were also counted, sorted, and placed in the artificial uterus in that same building.
Steve leaned his head onto his tiny hand trying to ponder the meaning of it all. Why couldn't pikmin give birth to their own instead of storing them? Why weren't pikmin of other colours allowed in? Why do albino and purple pikmin lack onions? What do pikmin live for? Does life still have pleasure or meaning even after the leader leaves them for good? What did the previous dominant civilization look like? After being shoved out of the way by the usual gang of control, Steve brushed himself off and followed them up the spiralling ramp that lead to the room with a giant screen, innumerous buttons and levers, and a few seats that could spin around.
It was not unnatural for red pikmin to be so aggressive, but it was unusual that Steve didn't decide to pick a fight with any of his red buddies. The supposed reason why red pikmin have noses is to detect pheromones, which were important in communication in red pikmin. Red pikmin were notorious for not being able to recognize faces and the slight differences in a pikmin's appearance. Each pikmin had its own unique smell and set of pheromones which would tell the others how the individual is feeling. The smell of hard work was strong in the room, one could say it is like sweat and sugar. Steve hopped onto an empty seat and gazed up at the screen. It displayed the amount of food that had been collected and the other red pikmin squeaked over how to divide the rations. There has to be a balance of protein, sugar and fibre in a pikmin's diet, otherwise they'd have to stay behind and suffer nasty complications not known outside any of the onions.
Steve pushed a few buttons with curious fingers and popped up a screen showing the interior of the control rooms in the blue and yellow onions. In the blue onion, there was a very dismayed and pregnant blue pikmin. She appeared to be hiding after refusing to give up her seeds after pollination. Steve's pupils enlarged, then he looked down and began to wonder where the first pikmin came from. If not from the onion, then when and how did the onion come into the lives of such strange creatures? The blue pikmin skittered up very close to the cam and blinked a few beads from her large eyes. The other red pikmin turned and shrugged at one another, for they did not know what to do. They didn't know what was happening or why, and thus they didn't care. Steve did care, though, but one of the less obvious reasons would be pollination. He wasn't ashamed that he wanted to pollinate her, but then worried what the offspring would be like. A different kind of purple pikmin, perhaps? He shook his head. Pikmin are pikmin, so why couldn't these guys Steve worked with get along with others?
Just then, he realized something about that blue pikmin, she was not born a blue pikmin. Her mouth was smaller and there were nubs where ears should be on a pikmin. She was a yellow-to-blue transfer whose transformation wasn't all complete. Steve's hostility towards his ignorant companions increased and their noses twitched with the presence of hostility pheromones emitting from Steve. He was only a leaf pikmin in a room full of bulb pikmin who may or may not be direct relatives to those who died today. Just then, the reception for the blue control room was lost. If only they weren't flying into orbit, Steve would've gone inside the blue onion to see what went wrong. He tried another sequence of buttons to check the population of pikmin in other onions. Maximum capacity in each onion is one million, but the population in the onions never exceeded two thousand due to casualty rates. The numbers showed no suspicious drop. All pikmin were doing fine in each little society. The window displaying the yellow control room popped up unexpectedly and some red pikmin fell out of their chairs upon seeing an angry looking yellow pikmin. Steve slapped himself, it was only now that he remembered there was a chat box that could be popped out. Immense guilt of not talking to the blue pikmin weighed down on him, and the stem on his head flopped over.
After a lengthy chat complicated by small difference in language, Steve squeaked to the red pikmin that the yellow pikmin known as "Larry" knew a few conspiracy theories going around. Steve believed them, why wouldn't he? Pikmin were reduced to slaves and segregated, those were true. Another theory was about the onions, but Steve wasn't all that sure about what it was about. He booted up the "Onion-Brain" program which allowed him to talk to the onion "herself".
Big, square shaped letters flashed on the dark screen in orange, "Yes, Steve?" Steve typed up a lengthy paragraph explaining what happened, much to the disgust of his colleagues, who got up and left.
"Sorry Steve, that's just life." Colder words had never been seen from the onion, ever. Pikmin had no medium to spread the word other than talking.
"Screw the rules, life is different from that, goodbye." Steve typed before setting the flight pattern to auto-pilot and left.
His room was red, just like the others. It had a fridge and a few windows, just like the others. It had a number and letter, just like the others. If it wasn't for the code, he would've gotten lost or dizzy but most likely both. He had a couch to sleep on, but he just laid in it staring at the ceiling until morning.
Red pikmin of all stages of development crowded in the metropolis square, awaiting the announcement from the loudspeaker. How many pikmin were going, today? There were more than on hundred flower pikmin, so Steve had to push through and break the rules if he wanted to help that troubled blue pikmin. It was ironic that pikmin wanted to jump into candypop flowers and scorned those who did jump in. The speaker called for fifty red pikmin, and Steve bolted for one of the "legs" of the ship. It was just like sliding down a fireman pole, except you enlarged on the way out.
As soon as Steve touched the ground, he ran for the blue onion and crawled up a leg. Olimar hadn't seen it happen, and wondered if the onion had glitched or something. The troop of red pikmin saw and were horrified. It was possible to enter another onion, but it seemed like a scary idea.
Steve had regretted his action already, for he heard punishment is severe. The blue onion was colder and more humid than the red one, but not as cold as the stares from the blue pikmin. Those triangular mouths they had were always set in a frown, it gave him the creeps. The only option Steve had was to run like a maniac throughout the grid layout of the streets to look for the distressed trans-coloured pikmin. He did not find her, but she found him.
After much squeaking, Steve fully understood the problem. She wanted to have her own family, but a few loyal and stubborn blue pikmin were trying to destroy the seeds she carried because she got sticky with a yellow pikmin. If Steve had a visible mouth, he'd frown. This entire situation reminded him that most societies that seem advanced were still horrifically backwards in ethics and tolerance. All the blue pikmin stared at the scene, they did nothing to hurt or harm. Apparently, the trans-coloured pikmin didn't like this either, so she ran for the exit with Steve close behind.
"Are you nuts? There are pikmin outside who might kill you!" Steve thought. This blue pikmin reeked of fear pheromones that smelled very salty. But there was no time to think about smells, because they were already sliding down the leg of the onion.
If the rules weren't broken, if double standards didn't exist, and if Steve wasn't so sympathetic, this wouldn't be happening. But in more conventional means, this wouldn't be happening if the pikmin and the onions were more sensible. But one thing remains hovering in the uncanny valley of Steve's little mind. What would Olimar think? Steve shuddered at the thought. The mysterious trans-coloured pikmin had run into some tall grass, not to pluck but to hide. Steve's short legs couldn't muster the speed to run faster than a scuttling pace. Damn being an underdeveloped leaf pikmin! The blue pikmin peeped one of her mischievous eyes between the large blades of grass, eagerly waiting for the charming crimson trooper to come by.
"She's laughing at me, I can see it!" Steve told himself. He pushed the blades aside to see that the blue pikmin's belly was no longer large and her flower has wilted a bit. Besides her were five planted pikmin with a green hue. Steve, however puzzled, kept his focus on their mother. She sat down and began to think. Whatever she was thinking of left her terrified, she was mewling and shivering uncontrollably and trying to hold her head in place as if it were to pop off. In a moment, it was done. She stood up with a blank expression and head tilted to one side and walked casually into the wild.
Trees of mutated origins and mass cloning errors towered over everything, though creatures were unaware of how they got that way. Shadows casted were playfully dark as little spots of light bended and folded along Steve's perimeter. It was truly glorious, as well as distracting. There was a melancholy to it all, especially in what a previous civilization called "the willow", whose branches drooped despite the lack of leaves. Steve continued walking until he heard the dreaded whistle. Olimar was around, and he had to hide. He was a wanted pikmin for associating himself with a weird character and going inside an onion whose colour didn't match his. He couldn't find her, and she just abandoned her kids. Now where would they go if they wanted to live peacefully?
Peacefully?
There's no such thing when you a disposable creature with severely limited IQ and an impulse to act upon a whistle. Pikmin virtually have no history, no prehistory, nothing. They didn't do anything in music, art, TV, or anything to be considered worthwhile by that Olimar fellow. Steve sat against the miserable tree, tired of his nihlism. And what was that awful smell?
That smell.
Steve followed his nose around the forest, as he couldn't resist trying to figure out why the scent was so familiar. He peeked in and around every curve of the tree that a lone pikmin could climb, and had regretted being curious. There she was, she somehow removed the stem from her head in a clean cut. Wide eyed, she offered it to him. Steve didn't want this macabre offer, the petals had fallen off. She became furious and shoved it at him again. Swampy green liquid oozed from her head and the corner of her mouth. The red pikmin didn't know what to do, and he'd never imagine seeing a sad, empty gaze try to look so sad. She seemed to fake it, but it was real. This was a game, society's one to blame. It tortured an individual without a name. She threw herself from the flimsy branch and Steve was tossed by the whiplash. He watched her turn ugly as she fell. The horrifying liquid streaming and breaking free into drops. At that moment, Steve realized they were the closest things she had to wings. Tears are nothing to trust when they advise to hurt one even more. Steve crashed into a thick bush and could not see anything, but he didn't want to after hearing the morbid splat. It wasn't loud or obvious as the pikmin herself, but much more memorable than a loud bang.
The frightened red pikmin fought to untangle the branches to see, just to make sure, that she was in fact dead. Nope, she was twitching and mumbling quiet screams. Steve rushed over to see she was spattered in her own juices that puddled around Steve's feet. Eeek. Upon instinct, he dug a hole, much to her disgust. She was nearly gone, and would be before Steve could put her in the little grave. The tension ceased and her fibrous muscles sank limp. The ghost arised, but her body was still there like a discarded doll. Steve hesitated to touch the body, as it still drained vital fluids. Then a buzzing noise alarmed Steve, he gawked in all directions, and back at the spot. She was gone.
Green pikmin? They had eyes, but no mouth or nose or ears. They had leafy wings almost like insects, it was strange to Steve. Their flowers were small, and the stalks a bit shorter. Steve followed them until the vegetation became too thick for Steve to keep up with them at their pace. Where did they go? Why did they end up like that instead of having short ears and a small mouth? The only thing that made sense was that it was nearly nightfall. If he couldn't live in an onion, where would he go? The trees weren't safe enough from the flying bugs and other creepy crawlies. Wandering in the forest in the dark became a marathon, and he wasn't that fast. He should've plucked that grass, or find a new patch before some bulborb eats him.
"This is wrong," he thought, "pikmin are pikmin. So why should it be that we get along horribly?" By a stroke of scary luck, he found the pikmin's rotten stem, picked it up and held it for a while. Steve dragged it along with him as he found a tree with rough textured bark to sleep in. There was a hole in it, but it was occupied by some unfriendly looking reptile, so he settled for the branch below it.
He stared at the stem, and remembered that if he couldn't know her more personally, that all he wanted to know about her at this hour was her name.