Can't think of anything to say.
…Oh, wait, here's something: in about a week or so, I'm going away to a different state for a few weeks…I think three…Anyways, though, I probably won't be able to use a computer (except once or twice). During the quick intervals when I can use a computer, I'll try and get back to speed on any updates by you guys that I missed. Or, I'll be looking at the Smash Brothers website. Or, more probably, I'll be looking at the Halo 3 website. Seriously though, sorry if I miss anything important.
The group of pikmin kept trudging with renewed vigor, and they were already a good distance by the time the sun had begun to set. However, the night caused them to halt their progress and wait until the sun would rise again.
As he had predicted, Felow got little sleep during the journey. He spent most of the night sitting down, staring out at the darkened landscape. He sat in complete silence, and whether he was keeping watch or simply restless, Yeer and Lear could not tell.
Those two, on the other hand, were sleeping far better than most of the yellows. They still did not have a full night's sleep, and were prone to waking up at random intervals in the night, but they did manage to get a good deal of rest. Many of the pikmin, mostly the older ones, spent the majority of the nighttime talking amongst themselves about what the creatures could be, or perhaps what the reaction of their comrades at the Brush would be. Though they did argue about many topics, they would all agree that the pikmin who lived in the Brush would not take the loss of a seed-pod lightly.
The sun rose the next day, and Felow gazed at it appreciatively. Lear and Yeer were sleeping nearby, but Yeer quickly awoke. Lear needed a bit of encouragement in waking up, spending a couple of minutes mumbling "I don't want to collect any berries today," in a state of partial slumber. However, soon he was woken up, and the pikmin squad got moving not long after.
Yeer was happy that he would be returning to the Brush, and spent a lot of time talking to Felow about it. Felow had told him many stories about the Brush, and they were things that Yeer had not known or learned in his four days there. Lear probably should have been more interested in the tales than Yeer, considering Lear had only spent a meager two days in the Brush, but he was usually to groggy or exhausted to pay attention.
The yellows continued to get closer and closer to the Brush. Before long, the group of yellow pikmin clambered up a final hill, and the outskirts of the Brush were only a few yards away. Excitedly, some of the more energetic pikmin broke into a sprint, running for the forestation. Yeer dashed right for it, outpacing many other yellows.
He watched as the ground he crossed seemed to become more and more lush. At first, it was just dust and dirt under his feet. As he continued running, he noticed a bit of the dust seemed to be disappearing. He continued dashing, and the ground under his feet felt less hard, a little better on the feet. Soon, he was running over leaves, and after a bit he was dodging blades of grass that reached higher than his stem. Eventually he stopped running; he was at the doorstep of the Brush, with a massive tree, a great column of nature, just a few inches in front of him. He was back.
Other pikmin began running past him, jumping for joy at the greenery. Some rolled on the ground, rolling on fallen leaves or good soil. Others ran for the foot of the tree and collapsed in the shade. Meanwhile, many stared up at the forestation, much like Yeer.
Felow came up behind Yeer, chuckling at the excitement of the other pikmin. "It is great to be back under the trees," He said happily. A few seconds later, Lear arrived next to Yeer at a slow run, and then collapsed as a heaving mass on the ground nearby.
"Oh, sweet green things!" He said in joy, looking at the masses of green plants around him. "I've missed you so much!" He looked up at Yeer, and said joyously, "Finally, some time to rest!"
"Not quite," Felow said. "We still must alert the rest of the yellows to what happened."
Lear paused, looking a bit discouraged, but Yeer nodded quickly. "Still, many of us will want to rest," Yeer pointed out, knowing that the group of pikmin who had rolled in the ground or jumped into the shade were very tired.
"I'm sure some of the group will not accompany us," Felow said. "But many of us will not falter." He walked past the other two, and continued walking farther away as he added, "We must continue."
Yeer and Lear glanced at him, before Yeer turned to Lear (who was still on the ground) and said, "He's right, you know."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Lear replied, getting up. The two then hurried to catch up to their companion.
Traveling through the Brush was far better than traveling through the Barrens. The ground in the Brush was not as hard, and painful on the soles of the feet. Also, parts of the Barrens were susceptible to randomly shifting under the feet, causing the pikmin to slip. In the Brush, the ground felt a bit softer, and many fallen leaves created a blanket over the ground. Plants, mainly bushes and trees, were everywhere, giving the yellows some shade. In contrast, the Barrens gave no mercy against the murderous sun.
Then again, there were some bad things about traveling through the Brush.
Creatures were everywhere, though they were all mostly very small. Since the outskirts of the Brush were rarely occupied by pikmin, a multitude of large beasts lived there. Dwarf orange bulborbs were common, and the pikmin gave them a good distance. Burrow-nits were waiting to ambush the pikmin, but the yellows knew their tricks and easily avoided them. Creeping Chrysanthemums lurked beneath the ground with only their eyes and fake flower stalks showing, waiting for unsuspecting creatures of a lesser size to get too close. Pikmin, being from a close genus to the Chrysanthemums, paid them no mind; still, both the pikmin and the Creeping Crysanthemums eyed one another warily.
Not all of the pikmin had accompanied the major group; many had stayed behind to rest for a bit. The pikmin group was now about thirty strong, as opposed to the previous fifty six.
---
The group was just walking through a large clearing when several of the pikmin stopped and paused. Yeer and Lear kept walking, but then they saw that Felow had stopped and was looking about the clearing anxiously.
Yeer was about to ask him what was wrong, but Felow began first. "Do you two hear that?" He asked quietly as his eyes darted around the clearing.
"Uh, no," Lear said, not knowing what Felow was talking about. "I—"
"Shh!" Felow hissed. "Listen!"
The entire group of pikmin had stopped now, trying to hear the noise—or hearing it. Yeer eventually heard it, and immediately became alert.
Since yellow pikmin do not have very much interaction with water, it would be hard for them to describe anything as being wet or waterlogged. This noise, however, could easily be described as being very wet; it sounded like some slimy or wet object was being quickly pounded against the ground. The sound was very fast, and it was definitely getting louder and louder.
The pikmin looked in every direction, but they could not see anything. Felow surveyed one side of the clearing, while Lear nervously and frantically spun and looked in every direction. Yeer simply stood there, trying to find the source of the sound.
It became louder and louder. Soon, it sounded like it was right on top the yellows. Many backed towards the center of the clearing and grouped together. Yeer brought up his hands and made fists.
Suddenly, the noise stopped. As randomly as it had begun, it stopped. The pikmin continued to look around for about thirty seconds before they relaxed.
One let out a sigh of relief, and then asked, "What was that all about?"
Then, there was a slightly different noise. It sounded like a hatch opening, and then a large booming sound. That was quickly followed by the sound of some sort of projectile sailing through the air, making a sort of screeching sound. Yeer looked up in time to see three bright blobs descend through the sky and land on the central group of pikmin.
The explosion that followed the blobs hitting the pikmin sent Yeer flying back, soaring a foot before hitting the side of a large tree trunk. Screams of terror and pain surrounded him. He could here another voice yelling out, trying to calm the pikmin down. Yeer's vision went blurry for a second, but he still noticed the thing that had walked up to the side of the clearing, and was now standing atop a large rock that was elevated a couple of inches above the pikmin.
The creature was very strange. It had two, long legs with round, almost rubber-like feet. The two long legs supported a massive, bloated body. The beast was covered in scales, and also had a large, curved, rectangular piece of metal attached to the front of its body. All of the scales below the bottom of the metal rectangle, which began about a third of the way up the monster's body, were deep green. The other scales were a bright orange. Two slender rods covered in orange scales rose up from just behind the top of the creature's spherical body. At the very end of these rods were large funnels that were giving off bits of smoke. At the very back of the creature was a fin, bright blue and webbed, yet in a very fixed position. In front, two short eyestalks came out horizontally on either side of the metal, holding oval shaped, large eyes. The last distinguishing feature of the beast was its mouth, which was shaped like a large nozzle, or a cannon. The pinkish, yet metallic looking nozzle was sticking out of a hatch below the creature's metal plate, which had orange scales around it instead of the surrounding green ones.
In short, Yeer had never seen anything like it before.
The creature slowly moved to the left of the rock, away from Yeer, and pointed its nozzle at a pikmin who was yelling at the others and trying to calm the yellows down. The beast fired three more right blobs with a loud boom, and the blobs arced through the sky, leaving a slight trail of whisp-like smoke behind them. The three blobs landed on the pikmin, and quickly detonated, sending other pikmin nearby flying.
Yeer weakly got to his feet, determined to see if his friends had survived the carnage. He quickly called out Lear's name several times, and, after receiving no response, called out Felow's name. Again, no response came.
Yeer then spotted four of his comrades charge towards the monster with battle cries. They flung themselves at it, but went flying into the metal piece, which the beast had moved slightly downwards to block them like a shield. The four yellows fell to the ground with cries of pain, and the monster launched three more blobs right on top of them, swiftly destroying them. The creature's tail suddenly twisted one hundred and eighty degrees, and the smoke stacks that were above its body let out large puffs of smoke.
A pikmin ran up to Yeer, through the carnage that had been created. Yeer noticed almost immediately that it was Lear. "We have to get these pikmin organized." He said quickly. "That monster's already killed about ten yellows!"
"Where are the rest? Have you seen Felow?"
Lear shook his head. "He might have been killed, or run off, I don't know." Yeer noticed then through the corner of his eye that the beast had pointed its nozzle towards them.
"Look out!" Yeer shouted. Lear quickly saw too, and the two ran off towards the other side of the clearing as the monster fired off three more mortars. They landed precisely where Lear and Yeer had been standing, but just before they hit the dirt, Yeer shouted, "Take cover!"
That didn't help very much. The mortars thudded into the ground and exploded violently, lifting Yeer off his feet and throwing him forwards, where he hit the ground with a thud. He lifted his face out of the dirt and looked around to see Lear was already picking himself up. Yeer jumped up quickly as watched to see the creature's next move.
"We have to attack it!" Lear yelled.
"We'd have no chance from the front," Yeer said in response. "It uses that sheet of metal to block every attack!"
Just as Yeer finished talking a group of about fifteen yellows leapt out of a group of plants near the beast, and leapt onto its left flank, the creature grunted from the impact, and for a short second the battle cries of the yellows who had grabbed onto the beast overpowered the uproar of the wounded or frightened yellows below. The attacking pikmin used their stems as clubs, mercilessly pounding at the monster's scales. Yeer saw Felow, who was among the attacking yellows, let go of the monster with one hand and raise his fist in victory.
Unfortunately, that was the exact moment when the beast decided to shake itself wildly in attempt to dislodge the attackers. This attempt was very affective, and the group of pikmin went flying off the monster and landed on the ground nearby. Yeer saw Felow, who had only been holding on with one hand, tumble to the ground and look up at the monster. Yeer ran towards him to try and help him, but the monster raised his nozzle and fired three more mortars, which sailed towards the disoriented attackers. Felow had his eyes fixed on the monster, and Yeer kept running, trying to help him. He heard someone shout out a warning just as he reached out his hand to grab Felow—
Then, he felt the ground below him shudder from the detonation of the mortars. He could feel his body lift off of the ground and go flying, but then…
Nothingness.
Everybody wants Gatling Groink fighting…those mortars were fast as lightning…
I'll try and cram in a couple more (maybe even a few more) chapters before I leave.