OFF: Well, finally got off my behind to write something and the subject of said something is a serie I've been overlooking for the longest time. Namely, Pikmin. Inspiration has struck me and I've taken it upon myself to start writing an AU following to the (at the time of this being writen) canon trilogy. However, as I begun to think about my growing interpretation of canon and my portrayal of the setting as a whole, butterflies begun to spring up in my mind and thus, the Interlude project was born.

Interlude is a serie of snippets and one-shots showing the Pikmin's point of view and actions during the lull in-between canon games, notably in-between the second and third game. Mostly, showing off the transition that led to the Onions' change to their Pikmin 3 design, the reason the Pikmin spreaded out to different regions from the first two games, the reason for new Pikmin types appearing, and so on.

It is my hope that the reader(s) will be entertained by this version of the Pikmin world I am slowly building up.

Comments and ideas are welcome, both positive and negative.

Enjoy!

Interlude

~1~

Dream Den Aftermath

The alien is leaving. He had returned for treasure and then, to bring his friend back. The thinner, taller alien had been recovered and with all of the treasure that could be recovered from this region, it was now time for them to say goodbye once again.

The alien's ship sure had changed. From a rust bucket, it had returned gold-plated, shiny, and much cleaner. The soldier and science strains, not having their own ships, had slept into the hold for much of the second war's duration and frankly, the lower volume of the engine now that the alien ship had been repaired was much appreciated, causing the science officers' infamous temper to become tolerable.

In a way, they'd miss this ship, though the other strains had prepared their own ships for accomodations for them.

But right now, this was not their concern. The thinner alien stood in the back of the ship's hold, shivering. His helmet was still on and frankly, everyone had figured out why already. They were wondering if the other aliens had, too.

"Forgive me... forgive me... please forgive me..." he had been whispering, mumbling those words almost non-stop ever since they had carried him out of that forsaken pit.

And there was the rub. The language barrier. They trusted the alien with their lives, for they owed him a debt that could never be repaid. They also had figured he owed them a debt that he could never repay. Even though words could not be shared, feelings could and the connection was strong. But objectively, the truth was that the language barrier was a thing despite the efforts of their scientists.

But this thinner, taller alien was different.

He had started like his other friend, the first alien, except in appearance. In fact, maybe worse ; his leadership skills were pathetic. Every colonist who had worked with him complained of his confusing orders, often given too late, and of his tendency to sit there while they were being slaughtered by predators. Or those times where he just stood there gaping like a fish while they flaundered without orders. Many actually resented that particular alien, to say the truth.

But he had begun to... change... during his stay. At first, everyone thought it was just weird alien biology stuff ; after all, the aliens had a startling lack of plant-like properties and were most probably entirely animal-like, not unlike many of the predators.

But change he did and the theories begun to revolve around the thinner alien's culinary experiments...

Dandelion stared at the alien. He was the oldest of the resurrected soldier strain, initially a common red strain who had been plunged into a genetic resequencer by the alien. He had taken part in most of the major battles of the second war, including the final battle with the spider king. He had personally disconnected the thinner alien from the monster's nervous system and carried him to the ship's hold. Like all of the others, he suspected there was more to the alien than it seemed.

He stared at the stem on top of the alien's helmet. Unlike flowerian stems, the ones on top of the aliens' helmets are artificial, being part of some kind of exoskeleton. The thinner alien's stem used to be like those of the other aliens', moving only because of the wind or because it was physically shoved. But through passing weeks and months, the stem had begun to... move like that of a flowerian. Even now, it waved in slow arcs, a physical sign of a nervous flowerian. This was highly abnormal.

He was going to finally go to the bottom of this. "You can understand us, can you?"

Startled, the alien's eyes widened before becoming fixated upon the purple flowerian. His mouth opened and closed repeatedly and he seemed to sweat a bit. Dandelion decided to stand up. "I know you can."

"Pl-please forgive me... please..."

He turned to the various scientist strain flowerians in the hold. They shrugged before turning back to lounging about. Everyone agreed silently to let the old soldier deal with this. So he stared at the alien and spoke up again.

"You were not to blame. I know... all of us know."

And at this moment, they all knew that Dandelion had been right in his guess. The alien's mumblings ceased completely. Surprise and shock replaced guilt. If he couldn't understand their language, he wouldn't have been brought out of his trance.

"The spiders are parasites." he explained to the shocked alien. "They integrated technology into their bodies to boost physical and mental attributes. The spider king's sudden sapience and intelligence was the product of forcefully integrating you into his nervous system. Your mind was probably completely overwhelmed by his will. You are not to blame for the suffering you caused."

The thinner alien looked down at his feet for a moment, the glowing stem above his head lowering more than an artificial one should. "It... it was horrible. My mind swam. I've always had problems with controlling my hunger and it's been getting worse ever since I got to this world. But when that... that thing grabbed me and shoved me into its head, I... all I could think was about food. I knew it was you, that what I was looking was were truly Pikmin yet the hunger was so great, all that registered in my mind was pikpik carrots..."

This definitely got everyone's attention. The theories and rumors had certainly been circulating regarding the spiders' sudden tactical brillance and bioengineering feats, something that a normally non-sapient species should be incapable of. The fact that the thinner alien had been discovered merged to the spiders' leader's head had only fueled the rumors. To have confirmation from the concerned alien himself finally shone a light on what had happened.

Yet, Dandelion still had a question. One that was shared with the other flowerians in the ship's hold and, deep down, with every other flowerian.

"You have... changed, didn't you?" The alien blinked a few times. He elaborated. "The others, in particular the short one. He's been with us since the beginning and yet, we still cannot communicate with words yet you understand us perfectly. And you mentionned a growing hunger before even meeting the spider king, one we indeed observed. What have you been doing, with all those smells that seemed like cooking?"

"I don't know. I just... wanted to taste all of those strange creatures we've been encountering. But when I tasted that weird flower, the one that change your colors, I think... it did more than just give me an indigestion. It made me... hungry, very hungry. And it never went away, no matter how much I ate."

And at this moment, everything fell into place. The scientist strain flowerians all had eyes as huge as saucers and frankly, so did the soldier strain ones too. A flower that changed colors... a genetic resequencer. He had consumed genetic resequencers...

And if he had eaten a large number of them, ingested their systems and what not, systems designed to survive simple cooking methods... and thus put them into contact directly with his flesh, and DNA...

"You don't need that helmet anymore, don't you?"

And at this moment, the thinner alien opened his eyes fully and instead of the alien-like irises that the others sported, Dandelion saw ones that... were just like his, a border of green visible around the edges. The glowing stem atop his helmet whipped in a single motion and everyone figured what had happened.

"Oh... dear..." Frankly, he was lost for words for a moment. "So... you indeed don't need it anymore. It's how you survived so many weeks when a single space suit's air supply should have failed well beforehand..."

There was no jet of steam or air when the thin alien removed his helmet, showing that the suit had long exhausted its air supply. He stared, without the visor, with his own two eyes, at the creatures that had rescued him from the spider king...

"What will I tell my family? What will they say if they see me like this? I... I don't even know if I count as a hocotatian anymore. I ate meat... and I digested it! I've drawn nourishment from sunshine alone! And the things I see now... I... I don't know what to do."

First, they finally learnt how the aliens called themselves. This was nice. But the other, more important point was that the obvious finally did hit them. The way the other hocotatian treated them, there was trust and love... but also lack of understanding and a lack of confidence that shown that he was wondering if they were truly sapient. Yet this one was not surprised they could speak to him at all.

He knew. He had probably known for a very long time that they were not instinctive beings but rather, sapients.

And at this moment, thoughts swirled among every flowerian. One of the scientist strain ones decided to break the silence.

"I think we may be able to help."

"You... you'd be able to fix this?"

"It's a far-fetch but... you became like this by eating genetic resequencers, correct?"

"Candypop Buds? Y-yes..." anwsered the hocotatian. The white flowerian rubbed its chin, its stem shifting as it thought for a moment.

"I think we may be able, in time, to create a genetic resequencer to return you to normal. However, our colony is still weak. Our population was completely gone until your partner shown up and resurrected us. We are still learning how to operate our own technology. In fact, you know very well that we're in dire need of survival skills too. We'd be hard-pressed in recreating our technology at the moment. However..." he did the flowerian equivalent of a smile. The hocotatian seemed to notice it. "... we owe you a debt, just as we do your friend."

"Even... after what I did?"

"You're a friend. You may not be a great leader at times and you might have done mistakes, but we all hang together in the end." said the soldier flowerian.

And at long last, the tension in the ship seemed to relax. Slowly, the hocotatian put back his helmet on and stared at the flowerians.

"My name is Louie, by the way. What's your names? I mean... we call you pikmin but your race probably had a name before, isn't it?"

"Yes, we're called flowerians." replied the scientist flowerian. "How about we share terms? You're probably wondering what we call all of what we saw during our journey and to be fair, I'm really curious about what you call everything, too."

The discussion would last for hours. Later, Dandelion would share with the flowerians of the other ships the name of the one to whom they owe everything: Olimar.

Fin