Getting up at five wasn't new for me. I had my own job to do back home and I was already used to getting up early. Tori, however, seemed to be a different case. Once I had woken up, it took me a while to register where I was. But after remembering the previous day, I decided to see if Tori had woken up already.

Climbing up to her loft on the bunk bed, I just sighed. She was sleeping like a log.

"Tori, get up," I urged, nudging her a little bit. This resulted in her turning away from me, covers tightly pulled over her body even more as she grumbled, "Dad, it's the weekend... I don't have any classes today..."

Well, she's not budging. At times like these, you have to be creative. And by creative, I meant putting my helmet on and blowing the whistle right at her. This definitely got her up. Because as soon as I blew the whistle, she gave a yelp and fell off of her bunk. Seeing as my idea had worked, I took off the helmet as she sleepily gave me the stink eye.

"Asshole," Tori grumbled as she got up from the floor. I just shrugged, "Well, I can't help that we have to get ready. Be lucky that I woke you up an hour before we had to leave. It gives us enough time to get ready to go."

I could tell that Tori was waiting for me to leave so that she could go back to sleep. Naturally, I shattered that plan with a single sentence.

"If you go back to sleep, I'll wake you up the same way. Only worse."

"Okay okay, fine! I'll make breakfast—"

"After you're done getting all ready,"

"Okay, mom. AFTER I get ready, I'll make breakfast and we can get going."

Without another word, Tori headed downstairs, grumbling incoherent swears, most likely directed at me. I was honestly used to this routine. I was what she called a 'mom friend', which was usually what she called me when I would do stuff like this. Ranging from 'make sure you finish the homework from world history' to 'you do know you could hurt yourself doing that' to 'don't call me "back", call me Gin'.

... Actually that last thing was more of a dad sort of thing. I guess that makes me a mom and dad friend? ... Huh. Well, whatever. Tori wasn't the only one that needed to get ready for the day. So, without stalling any longer, I followed her.

~—~

Getting ready took a bit longer than anticipated. Mainly because neither of us could really get our shit together. Tori tends to take longer than me with the whole getting ready for the day. Normally, I'm a very patient person. But as the minutes ticked away, we really needed to get going.

I had hoped that finishing up first would let Tori have more than enough time to be done in time for breakfast. Apparently not.

"Tori, we really have to get going here."

"Almost done with everything, I promise!"

"You said that ten minutes ago. And it's ten till."

"... Wow, really? Shit."

Instantly, the washroom door opened and out came Tori, all ready to go in her suit and everything. I was silent for a bit, then left upstairs.

She got the hint, because she followed soon after me towards the cockpits, not wanting to make me more irritated than I was already. "You don't have time to make anything, so we'll settle with some carrots," I notified, and I could just imagine the disappointment on her new face.

"But I had a great idea! Are you even sure a carrot will tide us over for the rest of the day?" she whined, then flinched when I had tossed her a Pikpik carrot. Studying it in her hands, the only comment she could make was, "That's a big carrot."

Yes. It was. Which is why I had given it to her. Tori still had a disappointed look, however. "Look, I had one and they aren't half bad. So stop being a baby about all this," I sighed. Thankfully, this was enough for Tori to suck up her pride as a chef and just went with it.

Well, she definitely liked it, all right. I was thankful, because if she didn't, she would be complaining about it the entire time. Even after we landed. After everything was said and done, we were just about ready to go.

Before getting into our cockpits, I turned to her and put my hands on my hips. "Okay. I want you to stick by me today and listen rather than get into battles by yourself," I told Tori, who in return gave me an offended look. Using her new height to her advantage, she stood taller than me, "You think I can't handle some weird red looking things?"

"Look, I just don't want you to get hurt. You need to learn the ropes before going around killing wildlife. I know you know how to direct Pikmin, but you need to understand that some of the enem—"

"I got it, I got it! I should be careful. I will be, okay?" she assured with a thumbs up. This... Just concerned me even more. But I couldn't really do anything about it. Right now, I had to pilot with whatever skill I even could muster.

~—~

Well, I had managed to land. That was something. I couldn't really celebrate that accomplishment for long, because the ship had shot both Tori and I right out.

"Good morning, workers! Ready for another day of toiling for the profit of your company?"

Both of us were unamused.

"The Pikmin seem to still be sleeping in their Onion. What lazy creatures!" the ship pointed out, which caused the two of us to turn our attention to the red Onion that was now stationed next to us. Tori just stared at it, then to me.

"How did it—"

"It can fly too."

The ship seemed to be uninterested in Tori's interest in how the Onion managed to fly and continued, "No wonder they lack survival skills! Stand beneath the Onion and call them out!"

Going underneath the Onion, I looked upwards.

So, I just. Call them from here?

"I'm going to need all of you in there to come out!"

Seconds later, twenty red Pikmin came sliding from the Onion's three poles. At the sight of this, Tori completely gushed. "Oh my god! They just slid on down like little tiny firemen! That has to be one of the cutest things I've ever seen!" she chirped, which caused all of the Pikmin to stare blankly at her.

It was at that moment that a single red Pikmin approached her, making a cute little sound as it looked up at her. "Oh! That's right! Gin, I want you to meet Chili!" she announced happily as she presented the Pikmin, apparently known as 'Chili'.

Okay, this just made me smile. She had gotten herself a Pikmin friend. But... Hopefully she doesn't get too attached. After all, who knows what'll happen. Directing two of my Pikmin to the two posies nearby, I watched at they both brought the pellets down.

"Okay. We need to get our numbers up. I'll give you ten and I'll have a group of ten. I think there's stuff around where you fell, so you can handle those while I handle the ones closer nearby. Once we clear out the area, we can pull them all out and move on," I explained as I directed nine more to Tori (since it was obvious that she wasn't going to part with Chili), who returned with a nod, "Alright! See ya when I'm done over there!"

With that, she took off, clearly excited. Huh. Maybe she's actually having fun? It looks like it... I really can't imagine this being fun at all. I mean, we're stuck here—in different bodies, no less—and she's already accepted that? I was completely amazed.

Looking to my own squad of Pikmin, I I could see that the two I had sent out had already finished bringing the pellets to their Onion. Maybe... I should try to see this as how Tori saw it and not just as a game.

"Alright, guys. Ready to increase your population?"

Every Pikmin around me made a resounding little squeak in confirmation. Following direction where Tori had gone, I could see in the distance a few pellet posies ready to be stripped of their pellets. I decided to first take care of getting the '1' pellet and one of the '5' pellets to bring over, then get the last one once they were done carrying those over. So, with Pikmin in hand, I tossed them at the posies and watched as the poor plants were beaten to a pulp.

With the first part of the job done, the Pikmin proceeded with carrying what they could on over to their Onion. All that was left was the final '5' pellet. I only had four with me right now, but I could see Tori's Pikmin arrive from her crash site carrying their own pellets. They, of course, were followed by my proud-looking friend.

"There weren't many there, so I did what I could. Need any help?" she offered, gesturing to her remaining four Pikmin (nice going on her part to figure out that you can make more carry objects faster). Well, I DID need help with the '5' pellet... "Yeah. Think you could help me with carrying this? We both don't have enough to carry it separately, but we have enough together.

Tori was already on it. We both directed our Pikmin to the pellet, which they hoisted up and followed their brethren. By the time that all of the pellets had been sucked up by the Onion, we had around forty or so Pikmin... And Tori still knew which one Chili was. Amazing. Well, we had enough to move on, so that was something. Before I approached the paper bag separating us from the rest of the area, I looked Tori in the eye. "Okay. This is where I want you to just watch and learn from that."

I swear Tori rolled her eyes at me. "I told you before, I won't get myself into shit. I'll be here. Promise," she assured... But somehow, I doubted it. Well, it was time, I guess.

Throwing the entirety of the Pikmin army up onto the bag, it deflated and finally made our way passible.

— —

I really didn't get what she was so worried about. I mean, yeah. The things over there would try to kill us. But you learn better from dealing with it face to face. Well, that's what I believe.

After the bag got pushed down, I could see a living version of the thing that was dead from yesterday, as well as...

"Holy shit."

A bigger version of one. Like. Waaay big. About as big as an elephant almost. It was asleep, but holy fuck. That's one big freak of nature.

Already, I saw Gin carefully approach the smaller one, Pikmin firmly in her hand as the thing sniffed the ground. Before it could react, a flurry of red were sent forth at the weird looking creature. Needless to say, that little guy got fucked up.

With a final shriek, the smaller spotty thing fell to the ground, dead as dead can be.

... The circle of life can be scary.

Wait a second, did it just puke out a pellet when it died? Ew. I really hope that the Pikmin aren't seriously gonna bring it back to—aaand they are. Gin threw a few more Pikmin at both the corpse and the slimy looking pellet and the small group went on their way.

Now there was only the elephant-sized one left. Sleeping away. I looked to Gin, eyes wide, "You aren't seriously gonna kill that thing, right?" I asked, in which she replied sternly, "I have to. I gotta g-get it over with. And if I d-don't now, then I n-never will."

Whatever confidence Gin had tried to exude had abandoned her, because at the moment, she was shaking like a leaf. I really couldn't blame her... Having to do something like take on an elephant sized monster would be out of most people's comfort zone. To add to it, Gin has always been a bit timid. This sort of thing wasn't what someone like her should be doing.

After taking deep breaths, she shakily began to approach the giant monster from behind, trembling with every step. With Pikmin in hand, she tried to steady herself, shake off her nerves, and...

She threw.

As soon as the Pikmin had grabbed hold of the beast, it woke up and was obviously no too happy with this development. Gin continued to throw, but as soon as she made eye contact with the monster, she just froze in place, immobilized by fear.

"Gin!"

No response, from her. She was just still frozen in place.

"SNAP OUTTA IT, GIN!"

That got her attention, because as soon as she regained mobility, she dove out of the way, making the monster trip and fall from having missed its target.

The Pikmin used the opportunity to climb it, grabbing hold of its eye stalks and completely beat the shit out of the things. Apparently this was pretty painful, because it started to vigorously shake them off.

The Pikmin that had climbed it were tossed aside, which gave the thing an opportunity to strike. Fortunately, Gin had whistled them away before the damage could be done, which caused it to fall once more.

Apparently, Gin was now filled with adrenaline, because she was throwing Pikmin like crazy. It was at this moment that the monster fell to the ground with a loud 'THUD'!

It was dead.

It took us a while to process it, but it was fucking dead.

After a few seconds with this sudden revelation, Gin fell to the ground, trembling as she curled up. Naturally, I went over to console her. "I-I-I don't think I can do this, Tori..." she said quietly, her voice trembling. I just scoffed and smacked her helmet a little, "You just beat the shit out of an elephant sized whatever-the-fuck-it-is with walking carrots, man! Who else in the world has done that? Nobody!"

Gin turned to face me, a small smile forming on her face. "Th-thank you..."

That's when I noticed something in the distance. It looked a little bit like a... "Is that a crushed soda can?"

Gin got up from the ground, then took a look herself. "Oh yeah, that. It's apparently 'treasure'," she explained.

"So, is everything here just gonna be trash?"

"Not all of it. But right now, one man's junk is another man's treasure."

That saying really did fit right now. With a final gaze at the giant monster (and the gross-looking pellet it had eaten), I asked my partner, "So... We gonna get these all picked up?"

"O-Oh! Right! Let's take care of the red bulborb and the pellet first," she replied, then quickly guided the Pikmin over to the two.

Hold on, so wait... "Did we just kill a mother and her child?" I asked, which Gin just shook her head in response, "Oh, no. They aren't related. The small ones mimic the big ones for protection using their coloration."

"And... How do you know that?"

Gin seemed to stop and think for a bit. "Well, I've played Pikmin a lot, I guess. That's the best reason I can really think of for that."

I decided not to continue on the topic and instead just help her out with pulling out Pikmin.

When we had gotten to our base area, I could see that a '5' pellet flower had grown right next to the Onion. Naturally, I had called over some of the little guys that were hanging out by the Onion to get that one as well. Finally, we went from forty to, like, SEVENTY. And I swear, Chili would have been smiling if he could!

Going back to the area with the crumpled can, the two of us chucked Pikmin right at it and they went off to bring it to the ship. And you'll never guess what it decided to name it.

"This treasure is worth "170 Pokos! I shall call it... The Utter Scrap!"

Yeah.

—

EXTRA: Gin's Entries

Utter Scrap:

The name of this pretty much defines it. It's a huge hunk of scrap metal. I'm honestly not sure what else to say about it. But I'm pretty sure it can be considered modern art or something... I guess?