Do I still have to mention that I sadly don't own Pikmin or any of Nintendo's trademarks or logos or anything, all that wonderful copyright shtuff and rights reserved still goes to Nintendo.
Shacho stood in the hangar of the huge cruiser, admiring the ships and small shuttles all around him. But none stood out like his golden ship did. He was quite proud of it, actually, and he knew nobody would be able to match up to what he had accomplished.
While he didn't see it, the pilots controlling the ship came out of hyperspace and could see the Distant Planet less than five minutes away. Among them was Serbol and another pilot named Shiyo, some weirdo with an accent and a distant relation the president of Hocotate Freight himself.
When the captain of the freighter alerted them that they were coming into orbit, everyone put their suits on. Serbol put on his yellow gloves and life support pack while Shiyo put on his own green gloves and life support pack.
Shacho already had his black suit on and was more than ready to lift off of the freighter at any time and dive after Captain Olimar and Louie. The Ship hadn't been so anxious, but was willing to obey the President and now understood that Louie was in a life-threatening situation.
The next thing Shacho knew, the ship had shaken violently. Almost every ship had tipped over. Every pilot and scientist in the room had fallen to the floor.
Outside, a meteor had struck the starboard side of the freighter, and a huge hole now sat happily on the side. The cooler nearest to the scene shut down. The engines quickly overheated until one of them exploded. The ship lost control of itself, and was no longer able to direct its path towards the Pikmin Planet. While still going in that direction, there was no way the ship would land safely.
Shacho grabbed onto his golden ship, which instantly sucked him into the pilot's seat. Shiyo had entered the hangar and quickly ran to a control panel. He pressed a series of buttons and pulled a lever, and the huge blast doors opened. The entire hangar was sucked out into the atmosphere. Shiyo jumped back and entered a small escape pod, and waited for it to be sucked out of the ship just like everything else in the huge room.
On the outside, the golden ship and several others darted out of the ship, and none of them landed perfectly, but Shacho had survived, and so it was more than likely others, maybe even Shiyo, had survived as well.
----
Morning came, and Olimar was the first to experience the bright colors of the sunrise. No matter how harsh the planet's inhabitants were, no matter how bad the situation was, Olimar did thoroughly enjoy watching the colorful sunrises every morning.
But now he landed in the Forest Navel, this time in the middle of a huge field, the same field that had previously been occupied by several Fiery Blowhogs.
Olimar walked out of his ship and called out 100 hundred red Pikmin. Unlike in the Wistful Wild, all 100 Pikmin slid out of the Onion. He knew that there were fifteen wild Pikmin somewhere in the wistful wild, but he wanted to have a variety of Pikmin as his side before he charged back into that freakish place.
He looked north. There was the huge lake with the odd crystals, and to the east was the huge crevice he'd crashed in two days ago. This place seemed naturally dark, but he was in a strangely good mood today. All the Pikmin stared at him, waiting for his next command, he decided to walk west. The last time he had gone that way on his first adventure, he'd met the Puffstool and Beady Long Legs. He idly wondered what new life-threatening and fearsome beasts stood in their places now!
Breadbugs. Lots of Breadbugs. That was all there was in the Puffstool's old habitat. There were over twenty of them, all just waddling around their dens, searching for food that wasn't there.
Captain Olimar sighed, and his family laughed at him. He walked over to the arena Beady Long Legs had been defeated in before, hoping to find something worth his attention. What he found instantly told him to run back the other way, and the Pikmin were more than happy to run with him!
----
Louie and Serbol emerged from the escape pod, moving slowly, watching every bush, praying that nothing would jump out at them.
Nothing. The only thing new around here was that the green Onion had relocated to a few feet from the pod itself.
Serbol kept looking behind him every few seconds, in fear that something would just jump out of a burnt tree or materialize out of nothing. Louie, on the other hand, had a complete recollection of his experiences with the Titan Dweevil and was no longer worried about himself. Right now, he was only worried about Serbol returning to the others who had crashed here and telling them where he was. Worse, he was afraid he'd tell them about these green Pikmin. Right now, they were Louie's secret weapon. They were his only weapon! He didn't want to lose that to this guy.
While he began to think up a few ways to resolve the problem, he called out all the green Pikmin in the Onion. Each one slid out, ran to Louie's side, and waited for orders. Again, Serbol couldn't help but feel a bit uncomfortable next to the Pikmin, but he took Louie's advice when he said that these Pikmin were the only defense available here.
They group walked for a while, not exactly knowing what to do. Louie knew he wanted to harvest more Pikmin, but he had to make Serbol believe they were looking for a way to get back to the crash site.
They walked until they reached a canyon, one that looked straight down for a very long time. They could see the bottom of the canyon, but just barely. Looking closer, both saw that there was movement down there.
If they could have seen further, they would have seen a large group of Bulborbs, Fiery, orange, red, larva, and a few spotty bulbears, all migrating across the canyon. They came a long way from the Forest of Hope/Awakening Wood and the Distant Spring/Perplexing Pool, and were looking for a new place to live and hunt without being eaten by the other species of wildlife that usually never attacked the bulborb species.
Louie and Serbol stared down into the cave for what felt like an hour. After giving up trying to find out what the creatures down there were, they turned around and began to walk back. Two steps from the canyon, a Wollywog landed in front of the two pilots. Louie's eyes widened and Serbol almost lost himself with fear.
Louie accidently dismissed the Pikmin, and the soldiers all grouped up. The Wollywog jumped back up and came down between Louie and Serbol. The latter was speechless, almost frozen with fear, and Louie just didn't have anything to say.
A second Wollywog arrived and came down with an impact strong enough to knock Serbol off his feet. Each Wollywog focused on a different pilot. Louie's attacker jumped again and came down just as Louie dove out of the way, landed two inches from the canyon edge. He slid to the point where he could look straight down into the canyon. He looked back to see the Wollywog jump again.
Serbol ducked and ran with his arms flailing. This childhood bully was now the prey in this alien world. He dove from another smashing attack, until he and Louie were standing next to each other. Both were inches from the canyon ledge, and both thought the same thing at the same time. They waited until their Wollywog attackers jumped, and then moved out of the way. Both frogs landed on the ledge with enough force to tear that section off the ground. Both tumbled straight into the abyss.
Louie and Serbol looked back and cheered, gave each other a high-five, and got back to their feet. Louie slipped right back down and found himself hanging onto the ledge. Serbol panicked and dove to grab his arm. He tried to pull Louie up to safety, but then he slipped and fell down too.
Louie's arms flailed as he looked for something to grab onto, finally grasping Serbol's left foot as the yellow pilot grabbed onto the canyon ledge for dear life. But they didn't stay like that forever. Louie's hands slipped, and he was helpless as he screamed and fell down towards the bottom of the canyon with the Wollywogs and the horde of bulborbs.
Serbol pulled himself up with some difficulty. He called the Pikmin to his side and looked back, still unable to accept that Louie had just fallen to his death.
----
Louie was still grasping for something to hand onto even as he plunged down the cave. He fumbled for his pack, hoping that somehow, a magic parachute button would appear and save his life. But of course, nothing was there. He looked down. he was halfway down, and he would have done anything to suddenly stop moving.
He suddenly stopped moving, just like he asked. Something had grabbed in from the canyon wall and was reeling him into its cave. It was a long tentacle much thicker than the tongue of a Cloaking Burrow-nit, but something told the novice pilot it wasn't saving him to be nice. Like all things on the planet, it was most likely hungry.
The tentacle dragged him into the cave that had been carved into the wall just thirty yards above the canyon floor. The only source of light this deep in the hole was his comm. antennae, and all it illuminated was more tentacles. He suddenly remembered to panic. He picked and pried himself loose from the tentacle that grabbed him, to fall two feet before another tentacle wrapped around his waist. He expanded his chest and waited for it to get its grip, then he breathed out and tried to slip through the small space he had earned. Nothing. He punched the tentacle in hopes of weakening it.
Nothing happened. There were several tentacles all around him, but the only one that held him brought him deeper into the cave, where he met the owner of all those arms, a squid that seemed to occupy the entire cave's height and width. Arms not included, the squid's entire body was about the same size as the S.S. Dolphin or The Ship.
Louie looked into its two beady black eyes, and screamed. He saw the center of the beast open up, revealing a very grotesque beak just waiting to chew him to pieces. He began to fight against the iron grip the tentacle had again. He didn't want to die here!
Moments from being consumed, the squid suddenly jolted and shook violently, dropping Louie to the cold and slimy cave floor. He got up with some difficulty and backed away slowly, still watching as the giant squid flailed and panicked for seemingly no reason.
On the other side of the cave, at the squid's backside, a member of the Snagret family had found the squid and bitten into its backside. This member of the Snagret family had been referenced to before, but Louie had never actually seen this Burrowing Snarrow before. He couldn't though, because the squid was being devoured and he decided to run for his life.
He reached the edge of the cave. The squid was going to die, but he didn't want to be here in case the monster on the other side deciding to see what else was here. But he also really, really didn't want to dive into the flurry of bulborb species.
The burrowing snarrow quickly devoured the tasty squid and, as Louie predicted, searching the rest of the narrow cave. It slid to the entrance, where Louie was standing. Looking back, all he saw was a monster with a yellow beak and a tan body heading straight for him. He jumped. He landed on a Spotty Bulbear, the worst place to have been.
At the cave, a Burrowing Snarrow appeared. It looked much like the Burrowing Snagret, only it had tan feathers instead of blue. And it was much longer. It reached the end of the cave and looked down at the feast Louie had just led it to.
The burrowing snarrow instantly began to pick at the bulborbs. The bulborb larva were snatch instantly and swallowed. The bulborbs had no defense.
Neither did Louie as the Spotty Bulbear he was on top of tried to shake him off. He grabbed onto the creature's eye stem, hanging on for dear life. Panic had arisen among the bulborbs and bulbears as the Burrowing Snarrow began to pick at the young bulborbs and bulbears. The adults of the species were too big to eat in one bite, but if the snarrow was still hungry after this, they'd be next.
Louie jumped off the Bulbear and grabbed onto the canyon wall opposite of the snarrow. He began to climb, willing to do anything to escape this disaster. On the way up, a Sheargrub burrowed out of the wall. Before it could even screetch, Louie grabbed it and tossed it down into the mix. He climbed for a very long time, and got lucky. Not a single creature had intercepted him. The Burrowing Snarrow claimed the new cave as its own and the bulborbs ran away from the scene.
----
Shacho landed in the small arena of the Awakening Wood where the Ultra-Spicy Berries grew. The Yellow Onion landed a few feet away from him. He summoned all 35 yellow Pikmin to join him outside. After collecting a few berries, Shacho had two spicy potions at his disposal. He felt more comfortable with the Pikmin at his side. He walked out of the arena into the larger opening, only occupied by two Dwarf Red Bulborbs and a fully grown Red Bulborb parent. There was a skeleton not too far from them, a group of discarded waste that had been tossed out. Shacho didn't know it, but those were the remains of the giant bird that had been eaten by the Snagrets two days ago.
The President paused. Why was he here again? Oh yeah, he was looking for Olimar and Louie and the rest of the survivors! He had almost forgotten about that.
He wiped out the two young bulborbs and harvested their remains for another eight Pikmin, a grand total of 43. By sheer luck, those 43 defeated the mother bulborb, with the help of a spicy spray. The additional 12 Pikmin joined the fray and followed Shacho across the Awakening Wood, largely intact, minus some larger crevices, but the only huge canyon was a few feet wide and was near the Hole of Beasts, somewhere Shacho wasn't interested in.
A small crevice, however, did seem more promising than at first sight. The hole in the ground seemed to be more like a hole in the ground, a tunnel leading to the underground, much like the sublevels of his previous adventure. He looked behind him. He had 55 Pikmin, he could probably survive this. Shrugging, he walked in, the Pikmin following him one by one.
----
Captain Olimar and his red Pikmin ran for their lives as an Emperor Bulblax chased them out of Beady Long Legs' old arena. The monster was running as fast as it could, not very fast at all, and appeared to be very territorial. RED slipped off the edge and landed in the midst of the huge Breadbug colony, ignored by them all but still bound to be eaten if left there all night. Other red Pikmin slipped and fell, until Olimar lost enough to have to go back for them. He leaped and landed amongst the Breadbug gathering. He called for all his Pikmin, until he knew he had them all under his command. He felt a sudden shadow fall on him, and saw the Breadbugs running. Without even looking up, he knew the Emperor Bulblax had jumped after him. He dove, and heard the monster land inches behind him. He heard the sound that Pikmin made when they died. He called his Pikmin together. Out of the hundred that he had just a moment ago, now there were 78. This monster had just killed 22 of his Pikmin! This wouldn't do.
The Bulblax king lashed out its tongue, sweeping up three Breadbugs and two Pikmin. Olimar had had enough! As the monster swallowed and momentarily choked on the Breadbugs, the captain tossed all his Pikmin on the monster's face.
The Bulblax jumped up and knocked all the Pikmin off its face. It roared angrily, spooking everyone there. All the Breadbugs ran back into their dens and every Pikmin was running in circles, terrified.
Captain Olimar called each one to him, regrouping. The emperor lashed out its tongue again, this time catching nothing. But 76 Pikmin found their way onto its face, whacking like crazy.
The Bulblax knocked them off a second time, and went straight to sweeping them in with its tongue. It caught a whopping 33 Pikmin in one munch. Olimar could hear his family screaming in horror as Olimar threw the remaining 43 Pikmin onto the monster's face.
The monster fell to its knees and finally keeled over. The 43 red Pikmin got off and returned to Olimar's side, waiting for orders. Olimar stood there, and would have spat on the beast He had just lost a shameful 57 Pikmin to a simple Emperor Bulbax. This had never happened to him before. He felt disgraced with himself. He didn't say a word as the Giant Breadbug came to harvest the beast's corpse, and didn't say a word to his family as the Pikmin grabbed the corpse and dragged the stubborn Giant Breadbug all the way to the red Onion. The seeds poured out, a whopping 50 seeds burying themselves into the ground.
The Giant Breadbug ran away, shocked and hurt. Olimar didn't care. He just sat there, monitoring the Dolphin and using its radar to search for any traces of a pilot or ship debris here in the Forest Navel. The scans only located small fragments of metal scattered across the Navel, but nothing that could prove useful or keep a lost pilot alive. Olimar waited until the Pikmin seeds grew into flowers before picking them out of the ground.
----
At the Valley of Repose, dawn had come and the survivors of the crash had begun to open the blast doors and search for a sign of the other pilots on the planet.
The 23 pilots and scientists surrounded the hull of the ship and searched for a danger. There was nothing in sight. All the strange monsters they had seen at night had left, given up or exhausted.
On the other side of the Valley or Repose, an escape pod lay half-buried in the cold snow. The hatch was open and footsteps led two about three yards away, where Shiyo stood with his arms wrapped around himself, shivering from the cold. The snow was blowing onto his helmet and he couldn't have been surprised if his helmet suddenly turned to ice.
It didn't, but He was still in the middle of a blizzard. Geographically, he was a few yards west of the Subterranean Complex. He didn't know it, but ironically, the huge shuttle's hull and its 23 surviving passengers were ridiculously close to where Louie had first landed on this planet, just seconds after the Ship hit a tree and knocked the poor novice out.
He had spotted the Subterranean Complex hole, along with the red flag on it, which Olimar had placed there to mark its completion. But there was a crevice, a small canyon about ten feet wide and a mile long, spreading far enough west into the blizzard so Shiyo couldn't see the end, which had obviously occurred here.
A small white beast climbed out of the crevice. It was a Snow Bulborb, but the small creature was not here for food, it was here for escape. From what, Shiyo didn't know. Nor did he put together that if the native beast was running, he should, too. He didn't think of that.
He walked back to the escape pod and got inside, closed the hatch, and rubbed his hands together. He looked for a package of space noodles and tried to warm them up. Just to be safe, he let his pack resupply while the noodles cooked. When his life support precautions were complete, he grabbed the noodles and began to take off his helmet.
The pod shook violently. He dropped the bowl and quickly placed his helmet back on, latching it as fast as possible. He looked around the inside of the pod. Nothing had warned him of an incoming ship coming to pick him up. What was happening?
He felt the sensation he was getting heavier, but the pod was only being lifted at a tremendous speed. As soon as it stopped, he dove to the hatch and opened it, only to see that he was looking down, the ground being a hundred feet below him. His eyes widened, but the pod shook again. He fell right out, panicked, and grabbed onto the hatch door just in time. He looked forward, and saw a mechanical hand grasping his pod. The gears began to spin faster and faster, and the giant metal hand crushed the pod until it looked like a ball of iron.
He let go of the pod hatch and found himself holding onto the metal hand itself. It didn't realize he was there, but he then decided to look at the metallic limb's owner.
He hadn't seen the Man-at-Legs before, but he saw it. The metallic hand started to return to the surface, but he started to climb until he reached its metal head. All he saw was a metallic sphere with exhaust pipes, a metallic arm-leg, and three other insect ones.
The Man-at-Legs had emerged from the Subterranean Complex's new crevice, and has caused chaos underground as it made its way up. Down below in its original home, there were mostly corpses of all the wildlife stupid enough to attack or stay in sight. The Man-at-Legs had defeated them all.
Now it marched towards the large black hunk of metal in the blizzard, the hull of the crashed shuttle. Shiyo held onto an exhaust pipe as the machine marched quickly towards his fellow pilots.
The 23 survivors looked towards the sound of clanking metal, only to see a huge spider-like machine march towards them. Most of them ran into the hull. The ones who did not found themselves dodging the monster's arachnid legs.
The turrets of the hull were turned on again. They immediately rolled over to face the Man-at-Legs. They fired all at once, but most of the bullets bounced off the creature's hard shell.
Sensing an attack, the Man-at-Legs stopped moving and the lower half of its head opened up, the machine gun in it turning on. Two seconds past, and then the monster fired, over and over and over again! The turrets were gone instantly, but the machine would not stop. It began firing at the hull. The machine's intelligence told it where to fire. It scanned the entire ship as a whole and viewed crucial points that held its structure. The machine looked for the weakest points that were penetrable by the machine guns simply strength and firing range. Two points were marked. Both were shot with 4 bullets. The hull creaked loudly, vibrating through the snow deep enough for the mitites deep down to think they were having seizures.
The ceiling collapsed just as all the survivors were jumping out of the large ship's remains. By pure luck, the machine gun retreated back into the fiery abyss of the Man-at-Leg's head. The exhaust pipes heated up until Shiyo had to let go. He plunged down and fell into a soft blanket of snow. He couldn't see, but he suddenly heard light footsteps all around him.
The pilots and scientists ran to the other side of the hull, hoping the machine wouldn't be able to see them. But the Man-at-Legs grabbed one chunk of the hull with its mechanical arm, tore it off, and then lifted one side of the remains and threw it to the side. The machine gun emerged again. The bullets would not penetrate their suits, but it would take them down for the rest of the day. The gun fired several shots. Out of the 23, 15 were hit and knocked unconscious. 8 remained, and they knew they didn't stand a chance.
Without warning, blurs of white passed by them all and jumped onto the Man-at-Legs. The machine seemed to panic, the machine gun being unable to fire subjects so close. But it fired anyway, throwing blasts of firepower all over the place. This was where the remaining 8 pilots decided to take cover once again.
Shiyo got up and brushed the snow off his helmet only to see a bullet fly past him and burry itself in the snow inches from his crotch. He looked up at the deadly machine. There were white creatures all over it, whacking the machine without pause.
One of them was knocked off and fell into the snow. It got up instantly and looked up. At that moment, Shiyo saw that it had big red eyes and resembled a pikpik carrot…
It suddenly hit him. These were the Pikmin they had read about! The description of the pikpik carrots similarity matched, they had stems on their head with leaves, and these were white, which meant they were a newer species of Pikmin Olimar had only recently discovered!
But what was interesting to him was that they were taking the giant machine down! The spider's mechanical leg and been crippled, the hand being ripped apart, sparks flying out of the arm, and the joint connecting it to the head was being ripped out! These tiny white fellows were incredible!
Next the bottom half of the machine's head came down again, but this time it was detached. The Pikmin had torn the machine gun out. The joint to its mechanical leg had been taken out, and the machine creaked as it leaned over to one side and crashed into the huge shuttle's debris. All the Pikmin had been knocked off, but none had died. The Pikmin got back up and continued to fight. The insectoid legs of the beast were flailing in every direction as it tried to get up, until the monster stopped moving, the exhaust pipes released a climatic amount of steam, and the legs crumbled to dust. The head seemed to fold on itself and then dissolved. Nothing remained to prove that it had been here except for the mechanical detached leg nearby.
The white Pikmin cheered to themselves and grouped up. The 8 survivors grouped together and admired the Pikmin. One of the pilots used his whistle and called all 42 of the white Pikmin. They ran to his side, and he suddenly found himself enjoying the position, seeing as now 42 alien creatures now saw him as their leader.
Shiyo got up, but he felt a shadow come over him. He looked to his right and saw a huge bird-vulture monster come out of nowhere and grab him in its claws. The other pilots were helpless and just watched in horror as the monster took him away.
----
Night had fallen across the planet altogether. The survivors of the crash had grouped up with the white Pikmin and were doing their best to make themselves at home inside what remained of the ship, along with the white Pikmin.
Louie had reached the top of the canyon, but was on the wrong side. On the other side, Serbol had returned to the Green Onion and returned the Pikmin and slept inside the escape pod just like last night. Louie sighed heavily and turned around, looking for somewhere to go. He began to walk until he found a cave, and empty one with nothing living inside it. He decided to spend the night there.
The Golden Ship remained on the ground, as Shacho and his yellow Pikmin had entered a cave underground and had not yet returned. What they had found down there, the Ship was about to find out, as it finally deployed its research pod.
Shiyo struggled helplessly in the claws of the flying bird, the same species of bird that had attacked the yellow Onion. He gave up after an hour and just looked forward, wondering in curiosity and terror where the bird was taking him.
----
Finally, Captain Olimar plucked the remaining Red Pikmin and lifted off. Olimar didn't have much to say, so he bid his family goodnight as they tried to tell him the Pikmin deaths were not his fault. He wrote his journal before going to bed.
Captain Olimar's Ship Log,
Day 3:
Today I lost a ridiculous amount of Pikmin to an Emperor Bulblax. It just crushed and ate half my Pikmin within seconds. How do the Pikmin still believe I can keep them alive after this? All day I helped them rebuild their numbers, and now over two hundred red Pikmin are in the Onion, but still I wonder, what is it they see in me that makes me so trustworthy to them?
Louie was not in the Forest Navel. Nobody was. Tomorrow I will search the Distant Spring for a sign of hope, if not something better. But I promise, I will not lose Pikmin tomorrow. I hate watching them die. They look at me in their last moments and have an expression of horror as they seem to call out to me, begging for me to help them somehow, and all I do is call their brothers and save them. No, tomorrow, and hopefully everyday after that starting now, Pikmin deaths will be minimum.
This was not my best chapter, but next time, I promise I'll do my best, especially since I have a scene planned that should prove to be very interesting! But I am curious, what seemed best about this story so far? I mean, what makes it most interesting? Is it interesting at all? Help me improve, so I can write something you guys really like! But regardless, thanks for reading!