Guess who's back...been a while no big deal. No I wasn't dead, just in a coma...
But seriously...
I am really, really, fucking sorry.
The fact is, this chapter is dedicated to Great Thumbs and Deadly Raptor, for getting me off my ass and holding me at gunpoint in front of a laptop and saying "WRITE!" (Dramatization possibly)
Alas, here you go.
Disclaimer: Where the hell is pikmin 3?
From our vantage point up on the edge of the cliff, we watched as the wave of mushroom pikmin slowly made its way through the forest.
Though the cyan pikmin and I were safe, I could inevitably see the fear build up in his eyes...and the familiar pressure build up inside my head...
Resistance...is...
Masses upon masses of pikmin slowly inched their way through the forest, their progress slowed by the rocky terrain the melted snow gave way to. It was far more pikmin then I had ever seen in my life, all of them one solid colour. That wretched colour...
Purple...
When snow melts it usually unleashes the vibrant palette of colours it has hid under the blinding whiteness for so long. Lush greens and vibrant pinks would sing under the leaf tinted sunlight. But everywhere the mushroom pikmin went, they left the same bruised colour behind them.
Their progress was not going to be unchallenged though, ahead of the massive wave of purple were the cyan pikmin, the cannibal tribe, hastily digging and constructing an elaborate system of trenches. Like the canyons that had tore through the horrid desert from long ago, the trench ripped a barrier through the forest, one that the cyan pikmin hoped to maintain. Their numbers could hardly match the masses of mushroom pikmin, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in large quantities of bombrocks that were now being distributed amongst the pikmin.
My two most hated enemies, fighting.
The cyan pikmin beside me spoke: "This is the quarantine line that the cyan pikmin are hoping to maintain, anything beyond those mushroom pikmin has probably been heavily spored and infected, even the vegetation. Prolonged exposure to even breathing the air could result in infection."
He seemed right, beyond the army of mushroom pikmin the air seemed fuzzy, distorted and carried a purplish tinge to it. All the plants that lay beyond the quarantine line looked dead, or had been resurrected into a fungi laced version of its previous self.
I glanced back at the two armies again. The mushroom pikmin were sloppy, a wave that was slowed by its own shear numbers, pikmin shambled over each other, any sense of organization that pikmin would have under a leader was not present.
The cyan pikmin now lined up, equally distributed along the trench, each of them had a bombrock curled in its elongated stem, and another in a sling held by their arms. A single flower cyan pikmin stood near the middle of the trench, slightly elevated amongst the rest, and with an arm gesture he gave the command; "Fire!"
First came the bombrocks nestled in the stems, in the span of less than a second all the cyan pikmins whip stems unleashed their deadly projectiles amongst the mushroom pikmin ranks.
To call the first volley devastating would have been a gross understatement. The leading ranks of mushroom pikmin seemed to simultaneously be ripped apart under the sheer force of the explosions. Under the flashes of light and blur of smoke I couldn't make out any intact pikmin. Only shreds of mushroom remained, along with bits of leg and arm with their joints still twitching if they had not been shattered. The ranks behind them did not even flinch as their remaining comrades were torn apart by the second volley of bombrocks from the slings. Shreds of body burst in their unblinking faces as they continued to move forward. Any fluid that had not evaporated in the sheer heat of the explosions drenched the second rank and protected them as they stepped over the charred remains of their comrades.
The second rank drew closer...
Along with half of the first rank...
Anything that still had a half of a face and some sort of limb to propel itself continued to inch its way forward. Mushroom pikmin with no legs, or even worse, no stems, still managed to continue its way toward the cyan pikmin.
They
Did not
Die.
The cyan pikmin beside me didn't seem troubled by this at all. "They've been spored so heavily, pain means nothing to them. They've lost all individuality."
As the smoke cleared, the cyan pikmin in the trenches got the same view. Sensing that their bombrocks were not as effective as originally planned, the cyan commander war had a far more nervous tone as he ordered a second double volley.
Followed by another...
And another...
Fountains of purple fluid and limbs sprayed up through the smoke, nothing was left intact, nothing could survive that.
Nothing could survive that...
I found myself saying that out loud...
But as the smoke cleared, I saw the true horror on my face reflected on the faces of the cyan pikmin in the trenches, pikmin that had never felt fear before.
The mushroom pikmin kept coming...
And with them came the voice again.
You can't escape...
The mushroom's voice...
I found myself screaming. "GET OUT OF MY HEAD! I'M BLUE NOW, I AM CURED. YOU CAN'T HURT ME ANYMORE! YOU CAN'T...YOU BLOODY CAN'T!"
Neither of the armies heard me over the deafening roar of the explosions as the cyan commander ordered his troops to fire at will. I could sense that that battle was futile but what concerned me was the inevitable battle that was still...STILL... in my head.
"WHY! WHY CAN'T YOU LEAVE! IT'S NOT FAIR...IT'S NOT FAIR..."
The cyan pikmin snapped me out of it, "The only way you're going to get rid of that voice is by getting away from that thing. I'll get you out of the bloody forest okay? Now stop your whining and let's go."
Between the dry sobs I stared up at the cyan. "Y-you don't understand, this thing it has taken everything. My friends are dead because of this thing, this thing has destroyed everything I have. I thought I cured myself...I'm not a mushroom pikmin anymore. But the voice, the mushroom's..."
"Puffstool's..." The cyan corrected.
"...it's still here. It still comes to haunt me."
The cyan pikmin paused for a second. "Listen...I...I'm getting out of the forest, and you can come with me or you can stay here and let them voices drive you insane, understand?" With that, he began to walk away.
After a moment to get myself together, I followed.
Behind me, the explosions had stopped.
I followed the cyan pikmin through a seemingly less infected portion of the forest. The terrain was becoming more into my advantage, less ice for the cyan's claws to grip and more large pools of water collecting under the trunks of trees via the melted snow.
And through the melted snow, new life erupted from the ground.
Unlike the infection spreading beyond the quarantine line now, this area bloomed with a vast spectrum of colours on the palate of various buds that had started to emerge from the ground. Even the once bare stems of trees were now dotted with the occasional magenta of a coming leaf.
I breathed in excitement. "This is what the forest really should be like. All the colours, it truly is stunning...and the mushroom is going to destroy it all."
The cyan pikmin was not as enthused. "Us cyans never liked the warmer conditions, we'll probably travel to colder places, I miss the ice floats. I mean it looks like we've lost the forest anyways."
I was too busy being amazed at what the warmer temperature could bring. How so much life could emerge after such harsh cold was simply remarkable, to overcome the harsh death grip of snow and ice, to triumph. It was a rebirth, a new chance at life...
"You know, this is the first time I have seen a living, breathing forest in a while," I said to the cyan. "It's been too long, first it was that desert. That was nothing but scorched sand for miles and miles. Then right after was this forest, but covered in nothing but snow and ice. Now finally to see other plants again, reclaiming what is rightfully there's...it truly is wonderful."
The cyan pikmin nodded in understanding, something did seem to pass through his thick skull.
As I was starring at him I barely had time to register the rock that flew inches past my face.
Over the crack of splintering wood I heard the cyan pikmin yell, "Get down!"
By the time it took for me to dive down, the cannibalistic cyan pikmin had surrounded us. They came out of nowhere, erupting from the remaining piles of snow on the ground. Suddenly I found myself faced with twenty spears aimed at my head. It was over...
I was heaved off the ground and a whip stem snagged either of my arms, pulling them from my sides and effectively binding me. I could only watch as a cyan pulled up my other friend from the ground, who tried to whip around and attack, but was immediately choked as a whip stem wrapped around his neck...
The cyan pikmin tightened his stem around the fellow pikmin, one of his own colour, before giving a sharp tug. The stem twisted. There was a loud CRACK and my friend went limp under the stem before his lifeless body was thrown the ground.
My cry of anguish was stopped by the blunt end of a spear being rammed into my chest, leaving me breathless. I could only gasp...
Dead...
Just like that...
I stared around in hatred at the pikmin responsible. They had killed their own kind, heartlessly, relentlessly. It was futile though, I was going to be next...
"Lucky for you we want you alive."
I could barely register the words coming from a cyan pikmin. "What-"
Another fistful of spear into my chest interrupted the word. The cyan pikmin responsible snarled in my face, "That wasn't an excuse to talk!" He turned to one of his comrades, "Go inform the tribunal of our capture." He gestured to the cyan pikmin to go to wherever this tribunal was, but quickly stopped.
"No need for that now, I'm already here." The voice came from a new cyan pikmin joining the crowd. A flower crowned this one's stem along with several rings of sharpened bark that hung in loops along the length of it. This gave the cyan pikmin the inevitable look of a leader among the group.
The first cyan pikmin stepped forward. "What about the other members?"
The flower cyan gave an icy reply. "Dead, or probably infected by now. Of course life on the tribunal during such harsh times seems to be quite short lived." There was a hint of satisfaction that melted over the words.
The first cyan pikmin gestured to the lifeless body of my friend. "What about this one?"
The flower cyan didn't give a second look, "Well then, looks like we have dinner."
My body now seethed with rage, my words were venomous. "I'll kill you, I swear on my own body I will kill-."
The flower cyan smiled. "Angry are you? You should be glad we killed him, if only you saw the things we did to those left alive."
"Is that what you plan on doing to me?" I spat.
"Never. Unfortunately you are far too valuable at the moment."
My surprise was only masked by my anger. "Valuable? What makes my flesh more valuable then another you sick twisted...?"
The flower cyan spat in my face, "Such ignorance! If you only knew."
"How's that? How can I be of any value to you?"
"Don't flatter yourself. You're not valuable to us because of yourself personally. What makes you so special my blue friend. Is that you can hear the puffstool inside your head."
Nothing could mask the surprise this time. "H-how do you know about that?"
The flower cyan's reply was glacial. "The connection with the mushroom?"
"There is no connection! Look at me! I am not a mushroom pikmin anymore!" There couldn't be any kind of a connection. Not anymore. I wouldn't be able to stand it.
The flower cyan sneered, "And that, you idiotic blue, is where you are wrong."
"Enlighten me..."
"Why bother telling you now? All you need to know, is that we're going to fillet your body wide open and harvest that spore out from inside you, before the puffstool can get its hands on it" The flower cyan laughed. "The trouble is keeping you alive the entire time so that the spore will remain intact, but we've got some tools that will help."
I had trouble registering all the information coming to me. A wave of repulsion hit as I grimaced at the thought of a spore still implanted inside my body but priorities are priorities and what these cyan pikmin had in store was certainly not going to keep me at the living end of the spectrum.
I had survived this far now, there was no way I was going to die at the hands of these cannibalistic bastards.
"Shall we bring him back to the primary camp?" A cyan pikmin asked, his whip stem still wrapped around my arm.
The flower cyan shook his head. "No we'll do it here, the scalper shall be present in a few moments."
"Go to hell," I spat.
The cyan holding me spoke again. "Sir, there have been reports of large swarms of mushroom pikmin coming this way, with the quarantine line compromised..."
"WELL MAKE A NEW LINE!" The flower cyan shouted back. "The mushroom pikmin won't get to this place for a while."
"There have also been reports of infected creatures, having drastically increased in numbers..."
"That is why we've deployed the elemental cannons," The flower cyan snapped. "If you do not believe I am leading this colony effectively then I assure you those are the last words you'll ever utter."
"There is no "I", there is a tribunal..."
"Was, there was a tribunal," The flower cyan smiled. "But since the other members are dead or worse, I believe that leaves me in charge. Now extracting the spore from this inferior blue here is a priority. If we can control the spore, you fool, we have to potential to turn the entire puffstool's army against itself."
I was becoming more confused by the second, but the argument was buying me some time. Unfortunately I could see no method of escape. Two whip stems on either of my arms tied me in place, and my stem was too short to reach any of the cyan pikmin surrounding me. If I managed to get free I would still have to deal with twenty cyan pikmin armed to the teeth with spears, slings, and bombrocks.
Found...escape...
And the voice was back.
But then I thought about what the flower cyan said. This spore inside me, a link to the puffstool...a way to locate me. And possibly something more, the way the flower cyan put it, a method to defeat the puffstool.
For once, I decided to communicate back...
Hide...
I'm not hiding.
I am right here.
If I am so valuable, come get me.
I spoke to the pressure inside my head, the proposed location of this remaining spore. It was indescribable, but it seemed to make sense.
And I heard it reply back...
Found you...
I was only a matter of time.
The cyan pikmin surrounding the area were looking uneasily out towards the forest. One was squinting, "I can see some near those trees right there..."
Another: "Our bombrocks are pretty much useless..."
"I saw them take my pod-mate. I hope they killed him instead of infe..."
"I can see more! At least fifty!"
"SILENCE! Where's the bloody scalper?" The flower cyan was getting far more impatient. He gestured to another cyan. "Check with the perimeter guards."
At that moment another cyan pikmin came from around the tree to my left. "Perimeter guard here, the scalper...he...he's been taken by...them."
The silence that followed was only interrupted by a dull boom in the distance, presumably from a bomb rock. The flower cyan, not looking at the newcomer spoke, "And you couldn't get there to save him?"
"Sir I-"
Slash
The words of the guard were interrupted as the flower cyan, without a word, ripped through the guards throat with one his claws. Fluid gushed out from the open wound, and the guard's body collapsed onto the ground. The cyan pikmin around their leader stepped back a little, fear reflecting in their eyes, either from the insanity that had just occurred or the impending threat of the mushroom pikmin.
"Out of here. Now." The flower cyan spoke quickly, but not quick enough before a mushroom pikmin leapt out from the snow behind him. With a twist, the flower cyan spun around, his stem whipping out to meet the mushroom pikmin in midair, the several sharpened bark rings along the stem slicing through the body. Purple fluid stained the flower cyan's stem as four equal chunks of mushroom pikmin hit the ground around his feet.
Right as several more mushroom pikmin burst out from nowhere.
The cyan pikmin barely had time to raise their spears as several mushroom pikmin flooded into engage. I could feel the whip stems loosen around my arms as the guards hesitated in the correct course of action, to help their comrades or continue to hold me. The decision was moot though as I took the moment to break free from one of the stems. The guard tried to wrap it around me again but I had already used it to grab hold hold of the second stem. WIth a sharp tug, the second guard cried out as he was pulled toward me...
Right into the path of my flower stem. The blow sent the guard sprawling to the ground, and I whipped my stem around back to meet the face of the first guard. Moments later he collapsed onto the ground too.
"No stop him!" It was the voice of the flower cyan, but I was already making my way through several groups of fighting pikmin. I picked up a fallen spear along the way, dodging the whip stem of its previous owner. Looking back I saw the flower cyan also pushing his way through the masses of fighters, his razor bark whip stem spun a whirlwind of severed limbs around his demented, fluid stained, figure.
Dodging the claws of the first cyan attempting to attack me, I quickly countered by impaling him along the length of the spear. Pikmin vs pikmin combat had now become pretty much natural to me, any move that a cyan or mushroom could pull was quickly dodged and fiercely countered with my flower stem.
There was only one of me though, and although the cyans were temporarily engaged with the mushroom pikmin, more cyans were arriving to temporarily stem the unending flow of mushroom pikmin.
Another whip stem. I duck, and follow with a swift uppercut. It was hard to move through the battle, everywhere around me was chaos. To my right a bombrock exploded, sending chunks of pikmin body into the air, filling my eyes with gore. I kept pushing through and finally I found a small open portion of land that was, although littered with bodies, temporarily free of any sort of fighting.
"Keep him alive you fools! I need him intact!" The flower cyan pikmin now had a moment to catch up as the cyan pikmin temporarily gained control of the area. As several cyan pikmin arrived to expand the area of control, the flower cyan faced me single handedly.
"It would be wise if you just gave yourself up now, unless you'd rather go off with the infected," the flower cyan tried to appear unnerved but it was clear in his face that he did not have much time. We both knew it. The mushroom pikmin would keep coming.
"Same goes for you," I countered. "How about we walk away quietly before we're overrun. And then we'll talk."
"You're in no position to say anything," the flower cyan snarled.
"Ah but that's were you're wrong. See, the difference between you and me is that I am actually wanted alive by all parties." Though I still had no idea why. "Meanwhile you, if you don't get out of here soon, are most certainly dead or infected." I prepared myself for the flower cyan to charge me but it didn't come.
There was a rumble from deep below the earth.
Not yet.
The rumble crescendoed into a roar beneath our feet and at that moment the earth ripped open between us, and from it erupted the same beak headed creature that had attacked the blue leader and I.
Almost the same. Now its white feathered head had a deformed, yellowed look to it, its blue scaly body was now bruised with purple, and much of its body was encrusted with mushroom growth. Its eyes were entirely white now, mirroring the vacant stare of a mushroom pikmin.
How could it infect something so massive?
All of the cyan pikmin momentarily ceased fighting to gape at the towering figure of the new creature. The mushroom pikmin barely registered its existence and gained the upper hand on many of the cyans. I took the hesitation to start running again.
The creature emitted a shrill cry before its beak dove down stabbing towards the flower cyan. He barely had time to roll out of the way as the beak speared the through the earth.
"Bomb rock it!" The flower cyan shouted the command as he got back up and immediately gave chase. Despite the appearance of the massive scissor like beak almost impaling him, he was still fixated on me.
Bomb rocks soared over my head presumably towards the monster, but I didn't dare look back. I heard the inevitable blast of the explosion followed by the creature screaming in anguish, but I was too busy dodging my way past cyans, most of them worried about the new threat to register my existence anymore.
There was a loud rumble. "It's gone back under!" I head a cyan pikmin shout. "Focus on the pikmin!"
I breathed a sigh of relief. I had made it past most of the cyan pikmin, and with their primary focus on the mushroom pikmin I might just have a chance to...
The flower cyan pikmin tackled me from behind, arms gripping my torso and causing us both to tumble into the snow. Before I could react I felt the snow underneath us give way, opening up into a massive void in the ground. The cyans arms lost their grip on me and moments later we were both in free fall, I saw the circular opening we had fallen through, a white light in the darkness. Seconds later I slammed into the ground.
I blinked my eyes, allowing them to adjust to the dark. My body ached with pain but nothing felt too severely damaged. I flicked my stem and it shifted. Intact. Arms...also intact, Legs...intact, but I was not going to sit up yet.
Surveying the area around me it was clear to see we had fallen into some kind of narrow sinkhole, perhaps created by the one borrowing-birdlike creature. To my left the tunnel sloped downward into the darkness.
Despite the fall, finding this tunnel was definitely the best luck I've had in a while, it gave me a chance to temporarily avoid the fighting above ground. I wasn't sure if the puffstool would still be able to locate me mentally unless I communicated back, but I assumed I was safe here for at least a short period of time
A groaning noise emitted to my right, the flower cyan was still alive. I squinted and saw his figure still lying on the ground. The bark rings on his stem had backfired and had tore through his body during the fall, leaving several deep gashes. A large amount of fluid had already pooled around his body.
He was muttering inaudibly as I stood up and walked over to him. He wasn't going to put up any sort of a fight. "Can you talk?" I stared down coldly.
"What...does...it...matter..." He choked out.
"Perfect! You can talk and you can't move. I guess that gives me just a bit of an advantage hmm?"
Silence.
"So here's what's going to happen now. I want some damn questions answered, and you're the ideal cannibalistic bastard to answer them." I spat in his face. "The first thing I want to know is everything about this damn spore inside my head."
"To hell with you..." The flower cyan began, but was interrupted as I brought my foot down upon his left arm.
I heard the twig-like snap as the limb broke, followed by the cyan's sentence turn into a scream of anguish.
"I'm not going to bother to ask again," I said calmly. "I'll just let you know that it's going to get far worse for you when I run out of limbs to break."
Silence from the flower cyan.
My foot raised up again, aiming for the other arm...
"OKAY! Okay!" The cyan burst out. "You want to know about the spore, fine..."
"Tell me everything." Finally.
The cyan hesitated. "You clearly weren't originally infected by this puffstool correct?"
"How do you know that?"
"Because it would be able to control you far easier. And you certainly would not have to option to turn yourself blue again. But no, I'm guessing the first puffstool that infected you died, leaving you and whatever other infected pikmin free willed, but still spored."
He had clearly seen this before. "That is what happened."
"And then I am also assuming you were the last mushroom pikmin of that other group, the rest were killed or changed back."
I nodded. "Yes"
"That's when the reaction occurs," he said. "You see the spores planted inside you just aren't inanimate objects, they're direct animate links to the puffstool. Even after the puffstool dies the connection remains among the mushroom pikmin, though not as strong without a central controller. The reaction happens when all the pikmin in the connection are dead except one."
"Myself," I breathed.
"That's right you lucky bastard." The cyan smirked. "When the remaining spore detects no other spores to remain in sync with, it starts to mutate..."
"Into what?"
"A proto-puffstool."
No...
I was changing into one of those things? "Impossible..."
"Entirely possible, and it has happened." The cyan grimaced in pain. "The spore inside you was beginning to transform your body, starting with the mental, but the process takes a while. You changed back to blue before any physical transformations took place but the mutation was too far along for it to be completely destroyed."
"Why would you want this spore then?"
The cyan pikmin gaped. "Are you kidding? Do you realize the power that you potentially possess!" He coughed, and spat out more fluid. "The power to control masses of other pikmin, other creatures, to become the single most powerful entity in the forest!"
It made sense for this pikmin to crave that kind of power. I simply felt lucky to have changed blue again before I physically transformed into something as horrific as the puffstool.
"The spore inside you has stopped mutating. You wouldn't be able to infect but you would be able to control others still." The flower cyan's eyes seemed to gleam at the potential idea, I was sickened by it. "That's why the puffstool also wants you, through you it could control even more pikmin and expand its control radius. A puffstool's drones can only go so far from the main host, but with you under its control that radius would double!"
"And how do you know all this?
"We've seen it happen before, to other pikmin. Before those leader's came, more puffstools could infect more independent pikmin. Us cyan pikmin have been craving to get control of one of these spores, it's been futile...so far." The cyan looked hungrily at me, good thing it was badly wounded.
It all made sense now. After the initial shock though, an idea began to form in my head, right alongside the spore implanted there.
"So with this spore," I asked. "I could potentially seize control from the puffstool?"
"I doubt it," The cyan scoffed. "The spore in your head is from another puffstool, this infection is from entirely different host, which means a different network. Besides you'd be far too weak to gain any kind of control."
This time I smirked, before grabbing a tree root and starting to climb out of the hole and back to the surface. I had heard enough.
The flower cyan shouted up at me. "That's it! You're just going to leave me here?"
There was a rumbling noise, something else was traveling through the tunnel
I didn't bother to look back. "As far as I'm concerned you're as worst as the bloody puffstool. But if I'm feeling merciful when I get to the surface, I'll toss you a limb to gnaw on. Got to keep the pikmin flesh craving up eh?"
The rumbling grew louder, the cyan didn't even have time to reply. As I reached the surface of the hole I looked back down and saw the snake like body of the beak headed creature stream by through the tunnel. One second the flower cyan was lying on the ground. The next second the scissor beaks had scooped him up as the rest of the creature's body swept through the tunnel at an astonishing speed.
He was dead.
And soon all the other cyans would be. I could care less though. I just breathed the fresh air.
For the plan in my head had formed into a coherent idea.
Inhale.
Not just an idea.
Exhale.
A solution.
For the first time in my life I felt empowered, felt like I had I had a destiny.
A fate.
That all the suffering, all the horrors I endured could be compromised.
That for all my friends who had suffered. Who had died. There was an opportunity to pay tribute to them all.
Just one.
A single chance.
But one was enough.
One was enough, because that is all it takes to justify your existence.
I did not think at all about my chances of failing. The idea of failing never hit my mind.
There was not going to be an if.
Nor a try.
I had the power to.
I could kill it.
I would kill it.
The puffstool would die.
At my hands.
And then life could have its way with me.
But not now.
Not yet.
Now, I simply headed deeper into the forest. Past the the failed quarantine line. Into the infection zone.
Towards the mushroom itself.
Thanks for the read and the potential review hehe.
We'd also love it if you could join us at the official Spored forum located in the pikmin section. Listen to DSPR and Deadly Raptor debate about something and Thumbs and myself make the occasional comment!
Fun guaranteed.
Also minor contest here, I really hate the description for this story now. "What is his fate?" ooohhhh who cares. So if someone wants to put up a better description in their review, and if I choose said description they'll get an advance preview of the next chapter (which will be out before the next solar eclipse, no seriously, by March)