Sorry about the long updates, but school is a priority. I've made it up to you though as it's the longest chapter yet!
Disclaimer: (Everyone's doing em might as well go with the flow) Okay, do you REALLY think I own pikmin!!!
The flower was very big and had no stem at all. It was all ivory except for the middle which was yellow. The flower it seemed had grown on a harder rockier patch of earth than the silky sand that surrounded it.
As I got closer I realized that there were other smaller flowers around it. They weren't that close to the flower but seemed to grow in little clusters. They were the same colour as the other, yellow and white, but had more petals. They even had little stems growing beneath them. There was something odd about the stems though. They were different colours. Well three at least blue, red and yellow.
They were pikmin
There was no other possible explanation; they were pikmin somehow grown without an onion. Was it something to do with the white flower?
What if these were my fellow pikmin, changed? Interested I gently placed down the wounded pikmin and started back towards the tracks. They seemed to head towards the white flower, getting less visible as the ground got harder. But they didn't seem to even get to the flower; they branched off into different directions and then disappeared.
This led me into one of the flowers, one with a yellow stem. Should I pluck it? It was a pikmin and I was a pikmin. I was a mushroom pikmin though. What if on instinct the other pikmin attacked me?
I'll kill him
That sounded too violent, I don't think he would try to attack me anyways. There was only one way to find out….
Gripping the yellow stem with both hands I started to pull. The pikmin was obviously stubborn and wouldn't give way. I planted my feet square into the ground and tried again. The stem started to thicken and I saw part of a head forming. The sand around the head started to give way as two ears popped out of the ground.
I was beginning to think I would rip the entire stem off when suddenly the pikmin shot out of the ground. As soon as the whole stem was pulled out I tripped backwards because of the momentum and fell on my back. Groaning, I looked up and saw the pikmin doing several flips in the air before landing perfectly a few feet from me.
As I struggled to get up, the yellow pikmin looked at me quizzically and said one word "Leader?" he then looked at me closer, realized something, let out a little gasp and said "Oh my gosh it's you!"
"You remember me?" I asked, well apparently he wasn't hostile.
"Yeah, we thought you were dead," the yellow pikmin said.
"I thought you were dead," I admitted.
"Well it was weird because we felt that we were being attracted to something, something was pulling us to this spot. We came across these flowers all different colours and practically forced ourselves to walk into them, they seem to be all gone now except for that white one," he noted.
"Funny, because I didn't feel like I was being attracted anywhere, I just followed your footprints," I said "But I brought him along".
The yellow pikmin looked at what I was gesturing to, the wounded pikmin, and gasped again "Another one! It looks like he's almost dead!"
"He is almost dead, and he will be dead unless we do something," I persisted.
"Right," agreed the yellow pikmin, he thought for a moment then said "We put him in the big white flower."
"Are you sure?" I said, glancing at the big flower, it somehow seemed opposing.
"Yeah he'll be turned into another pikmin, and his wounds will be healed," He assured me, and then he added "I had a huge gash in my mushroom and now it's gone".
"You don't have a mushroom anymore," I argued.
"I also had a lot of cuts and scrapes, it would've been near impossible to get out of that battle untouched".
I shuddered just thinking about that vicious fight, and then said; "Well, it's a white flower and there is no such thing as a white pikmin!"
"Is there?" he said, a hint of smile began to form across his face.
I sighed and then nodded. It was this pikmin's only hope, and only chance of getting through this alive. Hopefully it worked.
The wounded pikmin now seemed to be asleep; quietly the yellow pikmin and I picked him up. The yellow pikmin seemed very strong and was probably able to pick the whole pikmin up by himself.
We stopped at the edge of the flower, ready to toss the pikmin in.
The yellow pikmin looked at me and said "You might want to go in too."
"Why would I want to go in?" I questioned him.
"Well…uh you're…a mushroom…oh never mind," he said and looked away. He obviously felt intimidated by my appearance.
"I'm not like other pikmin," I thought to myself. "I'm…different".
"Okay, toss him on the count of three, aim for the yellow centre", the yellow pikmin said and started swinging the pikmin for momentum. I mimicked this movement. "Okay one…two…three!"
We released the pikmin and watched as he sailed through the air in an arc. He started to stir right when he landed in the dead centre of the flower. The yellow material seemed to act as quick sand and started to pull the pikmin into it. The pikmin let out a surprised squeak as he sank, alarm in his white eyes. I considered going in to get him when the petals of the flowers suddenly shot upward, snapping together and closing the inside from the outside. I took a step back, frightened as to what was happening. Then the flower seemed to squirm, as if the inside was filled with water. The movements became more rapid, something was happening in there. Suddenly something shot up out of the top and began to spiral down towards earth.
"Don't worry," the yellow pikmin advised me "It's perfectly normal."
The object was pure white save for the small leaf that spun around on top of it. The object was oval shaped and certainly did not seem like a pikmin. It had no eyes, no arms and no feet.
The little object hit the ground sending a puff of sand in the air. When the sand cleared there was no sign of the object. Probably it was completely buried.
"That's it?" I asked the yellow pikmin.
"Wait for it," was his only reply.
As if on que the small green leaf wriggled out of the ground, as if alive. Following it was a long stem, white coloured of course. Not the colour of any other pikmin though.
Behind the leaf, the white flower had opened up again. Suddenly though, it started to decay. Turning an ugly brown it sank into the sand leaving no trace of it. This is what probably had happened to the other flowers.
"That is your new pikmin," said the yellow pikmin grinning.
"Good," I replied and walked towards the stem ready to pluck this white pikmin out of the ground.
"Wait," The yellow pikmin suddenly stopped me.
"What, shouldn't we pluck him?" I asked, annoyed at the prospect that this pikmin seemed to know exactly what to do.
"We should wait until he grows a flower;" he said "He'll be stronger".
"Yeah whatever, and what should we do while we wait?" I asked.
"We'll there seems to be some others waiting patiently," the yellow pikmin replied gesturing towards the other stems.
"Yeah I forgot about those guys," I said with a laugh "Is there anything to eat?"
"I remember a little gully somewhere over there," said the yellow pikmin "It had plenty of plants."
"Good I'm starved. But I think I have the energy to pluck a few friends," I said grinning.
It wasn't a big reunion at all, there were four other pikmin. Two red, a blue and a yellow. They were all flowers, and all gave me the same surprised look when they first saw me (They also seemed intimidated). There were no wounds on any of them, so it seemed that the large flowers had healed them, just like the initial yellow pikmin had said.
I glanced over at the white stem and noticed the immediate change "It's a bud now," I said aloud.
The yellow pikmin looked at me and said: "Yeah it always happens, what's your point?"
"It's pink," I replied cooly.
This made all the pikmin glance over. Instead of turning into a white bud, it had turned into a pink bud, definitely not a normal pikmin.
"We should go get some nectar," the blue pikmin suggested "After we eat it should be a flower."
"And then we'll see what this mysterious pikmin looks like," added the yellow pikmin.
I followed the group as they went over a ridge to the left of us. Beyond the ridge was a small gulley, a stream ran through it with big ripe plants growing near. I noticed that there was little sand and a lot more rock. Hopefully it was the end of the desert and if we got lucky, the heat.
The stream had definitely caused the plants to grow. The nectar was as good as ever, and we lightened up. I ate fast though; I wanted to see this white pikmin…..
By the time we were down, the bud had most certainly turned into a flower, a pink flower that is. There was a yellow centre in the middle of the petals that seemed to be a fitting twin for the sun.
Anxiously I headed for the stem, eagerly ready to pluck it, the others followed. When I got there I did what I had done before, planted my feet, gripped the stem with both arms and pulled.
The stem started to stretch as if the pikmin was stubbornly refusing. I pulled harder, taking deep breaths; a simple task like this was turning out to be exhausting.
"You'll rip it right off," cried a red pikmin.
"No I won't," I snapped back "It'll come naturally".
The yellow pikmin came to try and help, but before he could do so the pikmin gave way and popped out of the ground.
My momentum carried the pikmin up into the air. He did several little flips in the air, flower swirling in graceful arcs before doing a perfect landing behind me.
The white pikmin was different. Not only because of his flower, which was obviously different. It was that he had no distinguishable facial features. Blue pikmin had gills, red pikmin had noses, and yellows had ears. All pikmin had these features they just weren't distinguishable (with the exception of gills). This pikmin had nothing, except for his eyes. They glowed a brilliant vermillion, it was a major contrast to his ivory skin and they were bigger than our eyes. The pikmin was also exceptionally shorter than all of us, and had to strain his neck to meet our eyes.
"Hello!" he said cheerfully.
We all responded with a "Hi or hey," somewhat less enthusiastic than the white pikmin.
The white pikmin than looked at me "Well I guess, I have to say thank you," he said.
I gave him a surprised look "Why?"
"You saved my life, I was almost dead," he replied in a matter of fact way.
"Oh…yeah, well no problem," I said. It was hard to recognize him as the pikmin I had carried across the desert, half dead.
The pikmin smiled "Oh no, we were both getting frustrated out there".
"Yeah I guess," I replied. The pikmin seemed much more passive, and friendly than the rest of us.
We ate again by the stream. It started to get dark as nightfall approached. Long shadows began to lengthen from the plants that we hadn't eaten, and from our own bodies.
The white pikmin and I sat together. I drank some nectar and the white pikmin hungrily crunched through leaves. The others sat in a circle a few metres from us, eating too.
"You seem hungry," I said, observing him tear through leaf after leaf.
"Eat as much as you can, never know when you're going to get more," he replied between bites.
"Wise words," I said. I glanced over at the other pikmin "I wonder why they don't sit with us."
"It's because we're different," the white pikmin answered "well not mentally, but physically, we're another colour".
"Not a fair way to judge someone," I snorted.
"Oh they're just happy they have their original colours," he said as he observed the group "besides it's not your right to be envious".
"I'm not envious," I scoffed.
The white pikmin said nothing, he just smiled.
The sun was very low in the sky. Turquoise, saffron, violet, amethyst and many other colours were splashed across the clear sky like waves. The sun itself seemed to dissolve and shimmer into liquid as its bottom touched the horizon. It took my breath away.
"Hey, look over there!" the blue pikmin exclaimed.
We all turned around. Behind us the stream snaked through a narrow gulley. Not so far off in the distance was a glowing light, much like a miniature sun.
"What is that!" another pikmin asked.
"I don't maybe we should find out!" said a red.
"Yeah!"
"Agreed!"
"Whoa wait a minute," I exclaimed, cutting everyone off. (The white pikmin hadn't said anything though) "We're just going to barge over there? I don't think that's a good idea."
"Oh don't worry, we can take 'em," said the blue, whipping his flower to show his strength "Let's go!"
The blue pikmin eagerly jogged down the gulley, the others quickly behind him.
The white pikmin and I got up. Slowly we started to follow them, I was still unsure. "We shouldn't just march over there," I explained to the white pikmin "It could be an enemy."
The white pikmin nodded in agreement "Caution is a virtue."
Still we followed, as our strength was in numbers. The light winked ahead of us, drawing us closer. As I had noticed before, the ground was rocky here, no more big dunes.
I jogged beside the other pikmin, who were still full of energy; I didn't sense any concern in them. When we finally got there, rounding the last corner I could've sworn it was the biggest surprise yet.
It was the mushroom. No it wasn't the same mushroom, that thing was dead. But this was of the same species. It had the eyestalks, the tiny feet, all stuck together to a giant bloated body.
The glowing red light turned out to be a small fire. It had been constructed in front of the mushroom, gloriously illuminating it, making it even more intimidating. The fire had been apparently built by a half a dozen mushroom pikmin, clones of me, all now who were dancing around the mushroom.
A sudden realization occurred to me. This thing was evil, at first I thought it had been good but that had been single mindedly viewed. Now this was it, the cold hard truth, all leaders were evil. In fact they couldn't even be called leaders, they had both used us, pikmin to there advantage. Were we meant to be slaves?
Our purpose is to serve the leader
How muddled this sentence was. It was false; everything in it was a lie.
My chain of thoughts was interrupted by a sudden silence. The mushroom had noticed us, the pikmin around it were looking straight at us too, with white, expressionless eyes.
The mushroom pikmin suddenly twitched, all stems straightening at once. The mushroom seemed to be sending the pikmin an order. The mushroom pikmin then started moving towards us, cautiously, but ready to attack.
"We should leave, we need to leave, now," the white pikmin said behind me, sounding calm.
What did he just say? I didn't seem to be hearing him right, my mind was going fuzzy. I felt my stem tightening up. It was then I realized that I was walking towards the mushroom. An intense urge to run towards him sparked up inside me.
The white pikmin behind me suddenly noticed this. Figuring out what was going on he shouted "No! Fight it! Fight it!"
It sounded so blurry; I heard it but didn't make any sense of it. Another pull, the mushroom was urging me forward.
This was suddenly stopped by the white pikmin tackling me to the ground. He pressed his weight against me, trying to stop me from approaching.
"Help me!" the white pikmin shouted. I heard other pikmin running forward, running past us, than screams. They were probably fighting the mushroom pikmin.
Another pull, this time much stronger. It jabbed into me and I started seeing black spots, passing into unconsciousness. Still the white pikmin stood on me shouting "Fight it!"
The pain was unbearable, I couldn't fight it. It felt like I was dieing. Everything was hazy; I saw the fire crackling into the multi-coloured sky. The mushroom pikmin were fighting my friends, pounding each other with mushrooms or flowers. A red pikmin charged into a mushroom pikmin, sending them both sprawling into the fire. The red pikmin was okay, but the mushroom pikmin started to blister. The blisters burst sending steaming fluid spilling over his body. His mushroom exploded into many tiny charred bits, the remainder that didn't explode started to melt away.
In another violent battle a blue pikmin tripped a mushroom pikmin. The mushroom pikmin hit the ground hard, but immediately started to get up. Before he could do so the blue pikmin was on him. The blue pikmin gripped the mushroom pikmin stem with both hands and with great effort ripped it. The blue pikmin threw the severed top away as the mushroom pikmin screamed in agony.
His scream was cut off by my own scream as another jolt of pain hit me. I resisted as hard as I could. The white pikmin was helping, firmly holding my jittering body down. The black spots became worse, until everything was dark. I felt my mind slipping away. If it was good thing or a bad thing I had no idea…….
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The reason that I spell color, "colour" is that I'm Canadian, eh! (Canadians actually do not say eh! very much at all, if you think we say eh!, you're stereotyping and that's a big no,no...)