Normally, I would've strained for this chapter, but I decided to take a break and have a short and fun special chapter. We might as well, you know?
Forgive me for the hiatus.
Fate of the Land Council.
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I can only say I was astonished.
Pikmin were far more advanced than I thought.
Right now, there were exactly twenty of each pikmin, except for the hundred of purples that were carrying an astoundingly large item. They were all gathered in a circle in the center of the three Onions as they were stared down by a white pikmin in the center. This white pikmin in particular was rather odd as it had crossed its arms behind its back and stood rather importantly. The pikmin awaited the seemingly important pikmin's speech as the white pikmin broke the silence.
It took me awhile to understand the pikmin's tongue, but I was able to translate it without much trouble.
"…all here because I need to tell you all something of grave importance."
Quickly, a blue pikmin responded.
"If it's so important, why didn't you tell us earlier when you were still a pikmin?"
"And is it so important that you had to call us out of the onions?" another pikmin from the yellow group said.
The White Pikmin seemed to chuckle at this.
"To tell you the truth, I never really was a pikmin until recently." It said.
This spurred murmurs among the pikmin as a red pikmin from his respective group walked forward and spoke.
"You wouldn't happen to be one of the Bulbmin we saved from Frontier Cavern, would you?"
The white pikmin stood silent for a while before speaking.
"Yes, I am."
There was a short silence among the pikmin, which was soon broken by the voice of another pikmin.
"And?" a blue pikmin inquired, "We saved some Bulbmin from Submerged Castle and they didn't have anything important to say."
"If I recall, there were two separate families of Bulbmin in the Submerged Castle, one on the second floor of the cave and another one on the fourth floor. If memory serves, one of your purple pikmin should have memories of being a Bulbmin. I wonder if he's here…" the White pikmin seemed to scan the area looking for a purple pikmin.
"Over here." A Purple pikmin spoke out as the other pikmin uttered silently in astonishment, focusing on him, "there were a whole army of Blue pikmin when they entered right?"
"Yes." The white pikmin replied, "and the cave was under control by a Land Council member."
At this, some of the pikmin shuddered in fear at the word 'Land Council' as others leaned their heads sideways with no knowledge of the subject of significance.
"That would be Waterwraith, correct?" the red pikmin from before said.
"Yes. Waterwraith happened to-" the white pikmins eyes shot open in surprise, "Wait, how did you know that the caverns leader was Waterwratih?"
The Red pikmin shot back with a question of his own.
"How did you know about the Submerged Castle and how many families of Bulbmin were there?"
The pikmin looked back and forth between the two pikmin in dialogue waiting for the first one to speak. After a while, the white pikmin spoke.
"Weren't some Bulbmin left behind after Waterwraith was killed?" he asked.
"Yes, some of them were left behind," the purple pikmin from before said as his head drooped in sorrow, "Many of them knew what horrors awaited in the world outside without parents. That was why they hesitated before it was too late as they knew our leader would be difficult to find if they didn't follow quickly enough."
"I tell you, it was a scary feeling back there," the white pikmin said. It almost looked like he was smirking.
"Wait, you mean to say…" the red pikmin said as he learned who the white pikmin was.
"Yes, I was one of the Bulbmin left behind in Submerged Castle," he said as many of the pikmin stood back and gasped in astonishment.
"Wow, life must've have been very hard for you after that, what with no mother and all," the purple pikmin said to him.
"If not amusing," the white pikmin exclaimed, "I had a very interesting time in the wild if you ask me," he said, almost as if he was proud.
"I'm sure it was," the red pikmin said, "but I believe you had something important to tell us. Otherwise, we wouldn't be out here."
"I suppose you're right," The white pikmin said, "it is something all of you need to know anyway," he said as he began.
"As you all know, you have all been venturing into caves and dungeons, following your captain without hesitation. You all walk, work, and fight with your Captain as you continue your progress deeper into caves. I'm sure it must be fun defeating oppositions and utilizing your advantage of numbers to overwhelm them. It must be an even greater feeling to have defeated a giant animal that we all normally thought was undefeatable, such as the Burrowing Snagret or, ahem, Waterwraith."
The pikmin talked among each other in agreement.
"However, the Land Council has caught wind of your triumphs and are beginning to make plans. They have assigned the murder, execution, and extinction of any and all pikmin on sight. It is clear that they are doing all they can to try to neutralize the threat we are as pikmin and have unknowingly thrown this country into discord. Many animals are evicting this country in fear of being killed by us pikmin while others are trying to oppress the Land Council."
At this, the pikmin began conversing with one another in concern and fear.
"Despite these commands orders, the Land Council is being too hesitant in annihilating the pikmin and aren't working fast enough. They are showing signs of weakness and it seems that the leader is becoming distant from the Land Council. He shows up late for meetings, shows little care for whenever a member of the Land Council dies, there have even been rumors going around that he is going to disband the Land Council."
The pikmin began talking to each other again, with a much more positive mood compared to before.
"This…leader, you speak of, who is he, if you happen to know?" the red pikmin inquired.
"I've been secretly attending their meetings for a while now and I found out it was a giant bug by the name of…'Titan Dweevil', or Titan for short."
"I see…"
"If you know who the members of the Land Council are, mind telling us the other members?" one pikmin from the crowd asked.
"There aren't many left, I can say, but the only remaining members are Segmented Crawbster, Grand Emperor Bulblax, Raging Long Legs and Titan Dweevil himself. The rest are just acquaintances by species. I also know that their headquarters is a place called Forest Navel."
"I know that place!" a blue pikmin called out, "our leader took us there the first time he came to this country."
"Can you guys move please?" a whole squad of purple pikmin suddenly came by carrying a large object shaped almost like a bone. I didn't notice them at first because I was so focused on the pikmin's meeting.
"Oh, it's you guys," one yellow pikmin asked, "where has our leader gone to?"
"Some Gatling Groinks started wandering too close to the base so he and the black leader are trying to lure it away from the onions."
"Ohh, how brave…" the yellow pikmin said in praise.
"Hopefully you guys heard the whole thing because I don't really feel like repeating myself." The white pikmin proclaimed.
"Don't worry, we heard. We could've said something sooner but we wanted to focus and dragging this object to our leader's 'ship' as I heard him call it."
"Was that all you wanted to say?" one purple pikmin from the other side of the object asked, "because I want to hear your story of how you survived by yourself."
"Well, I suppose I am finished. But that depends on how badly the rest of you want to hear it." The white pikmin replied.
The white pikmin was met with positive replies from the crowd. I noticed that one red pikmin was wandering away from the crowd as if he was in deep thought.
"You see, after we left Submerged Castle," he began, "I came to realize the pikmin's wprk against the Land Council. Bulbmin have had quite a history with the pikmin and we found ourselves liking the pikmin more than the members of the Land Council. It wasn't news when we heard that the Land Council was, to put it bluntly, royally screwing up the country over their efforts to eradicate the pikmin threat. We weren't stupid either, because we all knew what happened six months ago. Knowing whose side we wanted to be on, we made preparations to help the pikmin in our own way."
"One day, I organized a group of adolescent Bulbmin like me and had them prepare a special surprise for the forces of the Bulblax tribe's warriors. And it was a brilliant plan too. As I mentioned before, I was secretly attending the Land Council meetings, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. When the Emperor Bulblax started making preparations to trap the pikmin in the Bulblax Kingdom, I knew I had to put my plan into action."
"I told the king that he should send in his troops after the pikmin entered the Bulblax kingdom. He found the idea fantastic, much to my delight, and ordered that I organize his troops in an area and prepare the attack. Little did he know that I had no intention of sending them after the pikmin and rather have engaged his troops in an ambush. As I expected, the plan worked and us Bulbmin managed to kill off the Bulblax tribe's most powerful warriors before the pikmin had to."
"Wow, you did that??" one yellow pikmin proclaimed among the others who clamored in praise, "We owe you one!"
"I don't need anything special," the white pikmin said bashfully, "just beat the Land Council and liberate the country."
"So then what?" another white pikmin asked.
"Well, we did what any army would've done after a victorious battle like that. We partied. But we didn't count on the parents intruding and risk our hides being reported to the Land Council for treason. So, we had no choice but to slay our own parents."
"Whoa…that's heavy," a blue pikmin exclaimed.
"I wonder what it's like to have a parent," one pikmin pondered.
"Maybe the Onion is like a parent to us?" another pikmin said.
"Afterwards, I decided to work alone for awhile. I infiltrated another family of Bulbmin and pretended to be one of the kids. I was hoping on infiltrating another Land Council meeting for future references but I did not expect to meet the pikmin while under surrogate care. This was back at Frontier Cavern, the cavern that housed the second Empress Bulblax. I was already planning on doing more things after the Empress Bulblax was slain, but turning into a white pikmin was the last thing on my to-do list."
"After a while, I decided that I would let the pikmin take care of everything else from there. With only four members left, I knew that the pikmin would be victorious. To be honest, however, I was very surprised to learn that the pikmin were following a leader this whole time. It did explain everything, though, like why the pikmin went underground, how the bridges were built, the disappearing treasures, and how the pikmin were smart enough to overthrow certain members of the Land Council. Even so, the pikmin got this far following their leader, so I trust that the leader will help the pikmin make everything all right."
"So, you don't mind being a white pikmin?" a purple pikmin asked.
"Nah, I've come to accept it. How hard can it be?"
"Out of experience," one red pikmin explained, "the leader has been known to sacrifice white pikmin to larger, tougher animals."
The white pikmin stared for a while, but then closed its eyes.
"Well, I suppose it's better losing one pikmin than thirty of them…" the white pikmin said, drooping morbidly, "but if it's for the sake of the pikmin, I can die in peace…"
"Hey, don't be so negative," a yellow pikmin said as he walked up to the white pikmin and placed a hand on his shoulder, "I say, live today and let tomorrow become today."
"…heh, thanks."
"Hey guys! Our leader is coming back!" a blue pikmin exclaimed, "I can feel it. He's coming!"
"We must go back in the onions. Hurry everyone!"
The pikmin soon retreated back into the onions without a moment's haste. All but the purple pikmin carrying the object and one red pikmin. One red pikmin stood there, standing near the leg of the onion as it remained in deep thought. I couldn't tell what he was thinking of but it was clear it was of importance if a pikmin had to be provoked to think that long. Soon enough, he started climbing back into the onion as…huh?
That red pikmin…he had…
…
Well, I certainly had taken the pikmin for granted. They were much more advanced than I normally give them credit for. Land Council? Ambushes? Six months ago? Clearly, the pikmin have been through a lot before Olimar crashed on this planet two months ago. If I ever told him of what happened here…
No, I shouldn't. If he discovered that the pikmin were benefitting greatly from this treasure hunt of his, he would begin to doubt the faith and loyalty of the pikmin. He would surely be heartbroken. I just can't tell him what I saw today. Rather, I think I'll watch this 'war' for the 'country' wage on as we continue doing as we please. It will be very interesting to see how it turns out.
The purple pikmin have taken the treasure back to me. Time to collect it.
"Price: 3000 pokos. Name: Doomsday Apparatus."
Hmm…Land Council…how many have died in their name?
Six petals…
More and more questions surface as I near the end of this story. Next chapter will be the fate of the Segmented Crawbster, all together leaving three chapters left. And yes, I will cover what happened six months ago in the story, you can count on that.
Oh, and forgive me for the hiatus.