Well since no one else feels like updating, (End of school stress?) I decided to! (Cheer). I have 10 bucks on who's gonna be my first reviewer (Looks at Thumbs), and what you're reading has nothing to do with the story!!
Disclaimer: What did I tell you in the last chapter?
The first thing I felt was the change. It was cold, not hot. It felt as if I was in another world, I couldn't still be in the desert. Could I?
Slowly I started to feel my body again, from my stem and mushroom down to my feet. Apparently I was lying down on something like a rock. I was tired, felt weak and was very stiff. How long had I been unconscious for? It seemed like a year.
"I think he's awake," said a voice above me. I knew that voice, which was good as it meant it was a friend.
I heard footsteps around me, other pikmin probably. There were whispers all around, pikmin talking in hushed voices. Groggily I opened my eyes to find myself staring at the white pikmin.
"You're alive," he said smiling. "Glad to know that huh?"
I nodded weakly, other pikmin were staring down at me too. Suddenly I noticed the change that was behind my friend. The sky was not clear anymore, but covered in gray clouds. Not a single spec of blue could be seen. There were also trees.
Trees.
Mighty towers trees were to pikmin. They touched the sky with their branches, leaves blooming in bright greens……
Except these didn't have leaves. They had something else, almost tiny dark green spikes. Forming in clusters along these spiky branches were dark brown segmented cones. These were different trees, alien trees.
Exhausted I looked at the white pikmin. "How long have I been out?'
The white pikmin glanced around at our surroundings, chuckled and said, "About eight days."
That caused me to become more tired, "that long?" I said. "How?"
The white pikmin almost gave me an uncomfortable shrug, glancing around at the other pikmin. They all shook their heads, the white pikmin turned back to face me and said "We ran into some……difficulties."
"What, creatures?" I asked him.
The white pikmin shook his head "Just get some rest for now."
"I think I've had enough rest," I replied. I tried to sit up on the little rock I was on and I was successful. It left me gasping for breath though; my muscles had taken a long break.
The white pikmin motioned to another pikmin, a yellow. Quickly that pikmin bent down and picked up a chunk of crystallized nectar from a whole pile of it. The yellow pikmin handed it to me.
"Thanks," I said, and took a bite, it was really soft. I glanced over at the whole pile of nectar bits and noted: "You've been doing pretty well…"
The white pikmin shrugged and said: "We've had a fair amount of luck, finding all that. Though it's going to all disappear with the likes of you around."
"Get used to it, I'm hungry," I replied and we both chuckled. I then looked around. "This isn't the desert is it?"
"We've traveled really far," The white pikmin explained. "But even this change seems odd, it even snowed yesterday."
"Snowed?" I asked.
"Well it has all melted now," the white pikmin said, and then he pointed to another rock to my left. "See the white stuff on that rock, that's frost, an early form of snow."
I glanced at the frosted rock "Probably only forms when it's cold."
"Most likely," the white pikmin nodded.
I looked at the yellow pikmin who had given me the nectar to notice something odd. He had bud instead of a flower. All the pikmin I was with were suppose to have flowers. Glancing around at the pikmin in the clearing I did a quick count (The pikmin had gone back to mingling in little groups). There were ten in total when there was supposed to be only seven.
"Do I know him?" I asked the white pikmin.
The white pikmin looked at the yellow budded pikmin and shook his head "No, we met up with them on the fifth day I think."
"Them?" I asked curiously.
"Yeah there were four of them. The yellow guy with a bud, two blues, one with a flower and one with a leaf and that red with the leaf over there," The white pikmin pointed them all out for me.
"But shouldn't they be with the….leader?" I asked, spitting out the last word.
"The leader left," the white pikmin replied.
"What do you mean left?" I asked in confusion.
"I mean gone, went away and never returned," the white pikmin explained. "He left all the pikmin to their own doings, I don't know the details, you'll have to ask him."
"Later," I said. "Right now I'm just happy I'm alive."
"Me too," The white pikmin said, grinning at me.
I exchanged my own smile and then lifted my self off the rock. I felt dizzy trying to stand up but I managed to by keeping my two feet shoulder width apart. I did a full turn to get fully aware of my surroundings, this new alien world with the strange trees. Frost seemed to be everywhere lightly brushed against small rocks and the base of trees. It seemed calm and peaceful, a very welcome change from the desert. In fact it seemed to be in direct contrast to the desert.
"I guess you returned the favor," I said to the white pikmin.
"What favor?" The white pikmin asked me.
"I save your life, you save my life," I said smiling at him.
"Oh everybody played their part," the white pikmin said. "It wasn't just me; in fact I'm just pretty small and puny." To add to that final point he craned his head up further just to stare at me.
"Oh don't say that," I replied "Every pikmin has their own unique trait, and I'll help you find yours."
"That'll be hard;" thought the white pikmin out loud. "As it could be anything."
"The sky's the limit," I said encouragingly.
"Yes, it definitely is," the white pikmin replied eagerly.
I stretched for a few moments and then managed to walk. My energy was returning quickly. I went over to the pile of crystallized nectar and grabbed myself another chunk.
"So, why are we all the way out here," I asked in between bites.
"What do you mean?" The white pikmin looked at me curiously as he helped himself to his own chunk.
"Why keep traveling, haven't you found a spot where we could stay for a while. You know like settle?" I said.
"Well we had to keep going," the white pikmin and hesitated before adding: "We had to keep going because of you,"
"Why is it my fault?" I questioned. This was too confusing.
"Well it wasn't really your fault it was the mushrooms fault," the white pikmin answered. "You see, when you were knocked out we managed to defeat the mushroom pikmin. But the mushroom itself was still alive. About an hour after the fight you woke up, but you weren't yourself. All your movements were sluggish and your eyes were vacant. You tried to attack someone before we managed to knock you out again. We reached the conclusion that you were being controlled by the mushroom. You woke up about every five hours after that doing the same thing until we got here. It seems we've finally got out of the mushrooms control range."
This was too disturbing; I couldn't bear to imagine my self attacking my friends. "I'm sorry," I said to the white pikmin.
"Don't be," the white pikmin said. "It wasn't your fault. You should be thankful that you didn't end up like him." He pointed to my right where another mushroom pikmin was laying down on a rock. Probably unconscious.
"Who's he?" I asked.
"One of our own, until he got infected with spores during the fight. He kept doing the same thing as you, but hopefully now when he wakes he'll be okay."
We continued to chat for a long time about various things. I got to talk to other pikmin too. The white pikmin told me he saw things in a different hue, that everything was red. He could also see farther than ever before.
As we talked the sky began to darken, signaling the approach evening. That's when it started to snow.
The white pikmin saw it first, "Look," he shouted, pointing up.
Every pikmin in the clearing looked up into the dark sky. A blue then spoke up, saying "its snow!"
Indeed it was. Even though I had not seen it before there was no other explanation. Flakes the size of my head floated down above us. I watched one wisp sharply in front of me before landing on the ground. It stayed there like a foot print. Other pieces of snow drifted gently down, swaying back and forth. I felt one land on my mushroom, before dissolving into something wet. Water?
Evening was near. The lack of light bleached colours into shades of turquoise and deep ocean blue. The cool lapis lazuli hue made everything seem more relaxing and serene, it almost seemed peaceful. How much different, and better it was than the glassed sands of the desert. I almost wanted to say sorry to the land for calling it "alien".
Every pikmin was enjoying it. The snow kept coming in gentle waves, delicately dotting the landscape in white.
After watching the snow fall for what seemed like an hour. I approached the yellow pikmin with the bud. I was curious to know about the leader, more like eager actually. I wanted to hear that the leader was dead.
"Hello!" I called cheerfully.
This caused the yellow to turn towards me. He gave me a friendly look and replied, "Hi, nice to see you up and about."
"Me too," I said. "I was just wonderi….."
"You want to hear about the leader."
That was a surprise. I managed to give a little nod, "Yeah."
"He's gone; you don't have to worry anymore." He was vague just like I thought he would be.
"I know that, I'm just curious about the details," I said.
The yellow pikmin sighed "More curious than the others eh? Well we didn't kill, not us pikmin. In fact he's not even dead. He just flew away in his iron bird into the sky and disappeared. Leaving us to do what we though was bes…."
Thump
The noise came so suddenly. Everything shook, including the snow floating down to the ground. The yellow pikmin's bud and my mushroom stiffened in alert. We exchanged confused looks.
"What was that?" A red pikmin called out.
Thump
I glanced over at the white pikmin. He was scanning with his red eyes around the clearing. Suddenly they widened in alarm.
"Hide!" he shouted. "Hide, right now!" He ran for cover at the base of a tree trunk, pressing his body flat against the rough bark.
We all sprinted for the tree as well. The thumps continued, growing louder each time, it was getting nearer. I put my back against the bark; I was next to the white pikmin, he was looking around fearfully. The yellow budded pikmin was to my right; each breath he exhaled was a pale, misty cloud. The blue pikmin with the leaf was the slowest, arriving last, but thankfully not too late.
Thump
The snow on the ground quivered as the something drew very near. I felt like holding my breath in the silence after each thump fearing I might be heard, but I forced myself to breath. I glanced at the white pikmin, he had his eyes closed and stared up into the air trying to keep his breath steady. The yellow budded pikmin was leaning expectantly trying to get a view of the creature.
But the thumping had stopped, the something had stopped somewhere behind us. The white pikmin opened his eyes and took a large exhale, very relieved that the something had stopped.
"It's still around," said the white pikmin "I can feel its presence."
"I can too," said the yellow pikmin. "Because it's right in front of us."
Our already stiff stems went stiffer, my mushroom pulsed with adrenaline. Slowly I turned my head away from the white pikmin, who was once again staring up into the sky, and looked directly in front of us.
At first I didn't see it. There was just the light swirl of snow continuously falling, the icy translucent clouds of mist ahead of me and the faint outline of other tree trunks. But then there was the faint outline of something else. NOT a tree. It was big though, a very large body. I breathed another shallow breath.
THUMP
The creature took another step forward. Pikmin whimpered in fear, I heard a scream of anguish somewhere to my left. The creature was now fully visible in all its glory. It towered over all of us, a large body supported by two lanky feet. Its mouth stretched across the entire width of its brown face. Its back was covered in bristling white fur making it look adapt to the environment.
It had its eyes on us. The two things stood on stalks gazing at us with total focus through the light snowfall. It was only at the other end of the clearing, each of its steps made so much distance though, making it impossible to outrun. We were trapped, I wanted to turn around and tear away at the bark and try to find a way out.
THUMP…..
BOOM
All of a sudden the ground beneath the creature simply exploded. A huge pulse of light shone blinding us all. I heard the creature roar in agony, the sound echoed in my ears making them ring. Another roar from the creature this time it sounded like a scream.
I felt dazed. I managed to focus my eyes on the creature, blinking rapidly I tried to get the echoes of the light out of my eyes. The creature's entire underside was covered in blood; its chin was torn up badly bits of muscle hung loosely from deep cuts. The creature itself screamed in pain again. Crimson, steaming blood poured out in torrents from its left leg. What had happened?
A large rock suddenly fell from above, somewhere from the labyrinth of branches that covered the sky. The dark rock fell quickly, whizzing past flakes of snow it hit the creature squarely in the back….
….and exploded. The creature's entire back was ruptured; fur that had covered its back was suddenly flying into the air looking like snow. But the creature's back was anything but bare, large pieces of flesh were shredded apart in the large wounds that they showed through. Blood bubbled out of fleshy potholes, flowing down the back and off it in small cataracts. The creatures legs failed to support it; they both broke, loud cracks echoing and fell in a tangled mess. The creature's body followed, crashing onto the ground, into its own pool of blood.
Something else had killed the creature, something that could kill us…..
Please feel free to post your theories in your review, I mean you are reviewing right?
Oh and this is only half of chapter 7 but it was gonna get to long so I decided to post this first...You will see part two of chapter seven now chapter eight be posted soon and the former chapter eight now the new chapter nine because of the latter chapter eight which was chapter seven part two, be posted sometime after that...