The next day I awoke to the Green Leader's whistle. He made ten short and shrill whistles. I didn't know what most of his whistles meant, I still didn't understand why he didn't just talk to us. I tried to get up, only to be gently laid down by the flower Pikmin again. "You stay here and rest. Green Leader is only calling out ten of us for now. Besides, we can't have a repeat of yesterday's events."

I nodded sadly. I would probably feel better if I was around the Green Leader, but what if all the Oranges got mad at me again? I didn't want to get hurt even more. I watched as the flower Pink gathered 9 other Pinks, only the least injured of us, then they climbed out to greet our leader.

I slowly sat up and looked to see how many of us were left. Only four of us in all? Then before us new Pinks, the flower Pink was all alone. If we were the only color that Green Leader discovered... what happened to all the Pinks before us? I doubt he would travel with only one of us.

I felt sorry for the three other Pinks in here. I spotted not far away from me the Pink who warned me not to go over to the Oranges in the first place. He was sitting up too, holding one of his arms that got really injured. He was actually cut really bad. I got hit pretty hard but not cut. How did that happen? His leaf also got nicked, a little triangle shape was cut out of the side and that looked like it hurt too. He looked like he was crying not long ago and I felt really bad. If I had stayed with the others like I was told to he would not have been hurt.

I noticed the other two Pinks sitting together. The girl Pink's stem looked really weird, almost like it was bent in half! Her male companion had his left eye closed, a long fresh cut ran through it. He seemed to be holding her hands and trying to comfort her, without much success. She was crying and shaking a lot.

I looked at the floor in shame. How could I bring this upon my fellow Pinks? I must seem really selfish to them, or really stupid.

I knew that I couldn't do anything to help them, but maybe I could try and make things at least a little better. Gathering up all of my courage, I crawled over to the Pink who warned me and sat beside him. He looked up at me for a few seconds, his eyes slightly purple from crying, then he looked away from me. "Oh, it's you," he said quietly. His voice cracked a little. I wanted to talk to him but what could I say? Hi, I'm the person who almost killed everybody and got your arm ripped off?

"I told you not to go over there, I told you. But you didn't listen," he suddenly blurted out. I nodded my head and said quietly, "Yeah, I know..."

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I heard the gentle sobs of the other girl Pink but that was all. I slowly reached my hand out to him and said, "Look, I'm sorry. I was wrong and you were right. I didn't know this would happen. Could you ever forgive me?" He looked at me for a second, looking into my eyes almost like trying to find out if I was sincere. Then he took my hand and slowly shook it, giving me a little smile. "Can't be mad forever. I forgive you."

I smiled happily. It felt really good to get that off my chest, and maybe he could even be my friend from now on. I looked at his arm, which was now kind of curled to his side. "Is there anything I could do to help?" He shook his head. "I don't think so. I just have to wait for it to heal, I guess. A strange clear juice squirted out of my arm when it got hurt and it stung really badly. I don't know what it was."

I heard some rustling outside. I was about to get up and see what it was, but the boy with the cut eye said, "No, your leg is hurt. I'll check it out." I have to admit, he really was a bit of a ladies' man. Comforting girls and offering to do things for them.

He got up and quietly ran to one of our entrances, looking out and groaning. "It's one of those filthy Oranges. What is he looking for in the grass?" He looked back at us, a twinkle in his eye. "It's the first orange guy who sprouted, and he's all alone! I should go and pay him a... visit."

The other girl Pink gasped and said, "Tauri, no! Hasn't there been enough fighting already?" But it was too late, he was already climbing down the stilt. Okay, so besides being a ladies' man he had a preoccupation with vengeance. That was the Orange I wanted to talk to and I didn't remember seeing him fight at all. He couldn't be bad!

Seeing no other way to stop him, I did my best to stand and I half-ran and half-limped over to the exit. As I looked down I realized that I was a little afraid of heights, but I didn't know what else to do. "No! Don't tell me you're going to help him! Please don't!" cried the other girl. "Don't worry, I won't," I said as I began to climb down. I slid down easily and landed on the ground with my good foot, then I heard a "Hey, you!" in the grass.

I ran as best I could toward the sound of struggling and saw the Pink on the ground, wrestling with the Orange. "No, stop it! Stop it right now!" I yelled. "Go back home, I got it under control," the Pink yelled back. He was now on top of the Orange and about to punch him so I dived at him quickly and knocked him off. The Orange quickly scrambled to his feet and picked up a weird yellow liquid, then he ran away.

He moaned and pushed me off of him, then he sat up and said, "Why? Why did you stop me? I could have gotten rid of him right there." I was about to say something, but he suddenly swung around and punched me right in the face. I squeaked in surprise and fell backwards into a puddle of the weird yellow liquid. I couldn't believe he did that to me! But more than that, I couldn't believe how much it hurt!

I looked up at him with a bewildered expression on my face, and he looked just as shocked as I was. "I... I'm sorry, I-I didn't mean to! I'm sorry!"he stuttered. He reached down to me, concerned now. I rubbed my really sore face and took his hand. He helped me to my feet and suddenly hugged me. "I didn't mean it, I REALLY didn't mean it! I was just so..." I hugged him back. "It's okay, don't worry... it isn't half as bad as yesterday, eh?"

He broke the embrace and smiled at me, then he looked at the strange yellow liquid on the ground. "What IS that stuff?" he asked. He bent down and scooped up a handful of it. "Mmm, it smells really good, whatever it is. I wonder..." He hesitated for a second, then he put the strange goo into his mouth and his eye nearly shone with happiness.

"Hey, you HAVE to try this! It's SO good!" he said quickly just before he began to stuff even more of it into his mouth. It did look good but I didn't want to become an addict or something. He quickly slurped it up then suddenly stopped. "Hey, what...? I feel... weird..." I squeaked in worry as he closed his eye and suddenly fell to the ground, the sweet goo on his hands and around his mouth. What was I supposed to do now??

I ran to his side and tried to pick him up but I was too weak to do this on my own. I climbed up the stilt as quickly as I could, ignoring the flaming pain in my leg as I called out to the other two Pinks. They looked down at me curiously. "Quick, come down, he needs help! I don't know what happened!" The girl pink choked and tears began to well up in her blue eyes again. "Ohhh no, Tauri! I'm coming!"

She came down as quickly as she could. I told the other one to stay where he was, he wouldn't be able to help much with one arm. She cried over her friend for a few seconds before practically yelling at me to help carry him. She really cared about him. It was a bit of a struggle, but she tried climbing with her hands and holding onto him with her feet while I painfully had to hold him up with my arms and climb with my feet. It was awkward, definitely, but we got him safely into our home.

We didn't know what happened to him or what was going on. We bought him to the back of our home and looked him over.

"What is this," asked the boy Pink with the hurt arm as he pointed at the sticky yellow goo around the other's mouth. "I don't know, an Orange had it. He carried off a lot of it but left some behind by mistake," I replied. "I bet it was poison or something! I hate those stupid Oranges even more!" yelled the hysterical girl Pink beside me. "That filthy Orange put it there to trick us, I bet!"

I was afraid that she would begin to go crazy or something, but then something strange started to happen that made us all go silent. His, the Pink on the floor, leaf glowed brightly and we couldn't see anything for a few seconds. When the glow died down his leaf was gone, replaced with a new and pretty white flower. Besides that, he seemed to have gotten a little bigger and his injuries were completely healed. We all stared in disbelief, wondering what just happened.

Things just keep getting more and more interesting around here.