"HEY YOU!"
Pit gulped. The law of Smashville was outside Nookington's, waving his pickaxe at Pit and his hostage, who was walking slightly ahead at arrowpoint.
"What're you doing with Tom Nook?" it yelled. "He doesn't leave Nookington's unless it's officially scheduled. You could be taking him out to assassinate him for all I know!"
Pit smiled awkwardly, as did Tom Nook, who had no doubt that if he failed to provide a satisfactory answer his innards would be receiving an unwanted visitor in the shape of an arrow. He "um"ed and "ah"ed as he racked his brains for an excuse.
"Mr. Lightwing has important official business to discuss with Uncle," came a squeaky voice from behind Pit. "He's not going far outside."
"…outside."
By tilting his head, Pit could just about see the Nooklings' ears.
"Would you come into the shop, Mr. Resetti?" said one of them. "You can wait for Uncle in there."
"…in there."
"Oh," said the crotchety mole, looking convinced. "Well, okay, but you better take good care of him, y'hear?" And he followed the Nooklings, who looked over their shoulders at their uncle as they retreated.
"I've taught those boys well," said Tom, his fear tempered with pride of a good job well done. "Now, 'Mr. Lightwing', what do you want with me?"
Pit replaced the bow and whistled. Multicoloured flower-tipped heads popped out from every corner of the surroundings, and in an instant Pit and Tom Nook were encircled by floral soldiers. Two purple ones grabbed the raccoon dog in their stubby yet powerful arms, while the rest looked at him with threatening eyes.
"Pikmin?" said the astonished Nook.
So that was what they were called.
"How are you commanding them?" continued Tom, for a moment distracted from his imminent interrogation. "I knew the man who cultivated them – Captain Olimar, his name was. He brought the seeds back from a distant planet and grew them here in large numbers. But he was the only man who could command them. He had some sort of special whistle that they responded to. I tried to ask them to do things, but they'd never…"
"Shuddup, Nook!" said Pit, who had been using the monologue to think of his next lines. "I've had enough of your lip. Now tell me – how long have you been helping Porky to abduct Smashvillans?"
Tom looked blank. "I don't know what you mean."
"Don't play dumb with me, dog!" said Pit, arms crossed. "There are lives at stake here. Yours too, if you don't help out."
The purple Pikmin tightened their grip.
"No, really!" protested Tom, gasping in pain. "I've barely left my office since the LOVE took over! You heard Resetti – I can't go out for fear of assassination! I haven't had any dealings with the LOVE ever!"
Pit tried to raise an eyebrow. He failed, and just looked as if he'd smelt something bad. A yellow Pikmin headbutted Tom Nook in the midriff, winding him and giving him a moderate electric shock. Pit felt a twinge of pity that he quickly suppressed.
"Okay, okay, that's a lie!" Tom gasped. "When the world first fell and Meta Knight was in charge of the city, I brokered a deal with him. I paid him a certain amount of money every month, and in return he didn't look too closely at Smashville. Put up the propaganda channels, had the police force taken under LOVE control and that was it. He seemed happy to be able to concentrate on Dreamland, to be honest. But that's all. I haven't spoken to Porky. I assumed the agreement would just carry on."
"You, the most powerful man in Smashville, haven't spoken to Porky, your governor?"
"I just got the Nooklings to do it! I'm a busy raccoon, trying to sort out the accounts of a multinational business empire, and deal with the LOVE threats to my finances, and avoid talking to that wretched owl who keeps trying to call me about the unwanted gift I apparently left her with, and not be butchered in my sleep!"
An idea was started to form in the recesses of Pit's brain. It was a foul stinking dung heap of an idea, the kind that leaks into rivers when it rains and causes eutrophication and the deaths of all sorts of water life, but like the smell from such a dung heap it refused to go away.
"So, the Nooklings spoke to Porky for you," he said slowly.
"Yes! I'm not only their uncle – I'm also their mentor. I'm training them up to become unscrupulous masterminds of the retail industry, just like myself. And then one day, my entire empire will be theirs."
"Just out of interest," said Pit, feeling slightly nauseous, "how much work do you let them do?"
"Well, there's the everyday running of the shop. That keeps them busy for most of the time, while I get on with important things up in my office. Then there are meetings with Porky and other key LOVE figures, and visits to the mayor – of course I can't go outside, for fear of assassination, you know. I remember when Resetti first told me how many people were after me, and that I'd have to stay indoors for the foreseeable future for my own good. Ever since then..."
It is a horrible moment when one first realises for certain that one has made a mistake. There is the sinking sensation in the tummy, the feeling that everything is escaping upwards while one stands below in the darkness, the nausea, the headaches, the sheer acute embarrassment and, perhaps worst of all, the distinct possibility that it will come back to bite one hard in the backside. Pit now had all of these, and looking up at the fourth floor window he saw three faces looking out and hypothesised that the bite might well take the form of an explosive shot from the mouth of the shoulder-mounted bazooka Mr. Resetti was aiming. He turned back to Tom, who was still talking.
"…takings have gone down significantly despite a gradual market rise, suggesting a finances leak…"
"Everybody RUN!" yelled Pit.
He grabbed Tom Nook and pulled him into the side of the building, just as the first shells started to rain down from above. The explosions fell into the herd of scattering Pikmin, sending small multicoloured ghosts upwards as the vegetable men made their escape (or failed to). The shockwaves buffeted Pit and his temporary protégé.
"Assassins!" wailed Tom as he cowered into the wall. "It's just like he said!"
"Tom, I owe you an apology," said Pit, "but that will have to wait. I need to know whether the Nooklings had anything made, anything built like nine months ago, after Porky took over."
"Nine months ago… There was a small boiler room built around the back of this store, but that's all…"
A small boiler room… If the Nooklings were working with Mr. Resetti, that would be enough to conceal the entrance to an underground tunnel the mole might have dug, leading to Porky's secret lab. In front of them, the rain of explosions subsided. Looking up, Pit saw that the faces had vanished from the window.
"Wait a minute," said Tom, his eyes lighting up. "Are you saying that it was the Nooklings trying to kill us just now? And that they've been plotting with Porky behind my back?"
"'Fraid so," said Pit, feeling a twinge of sympathy. "Along with Mr. Resetti. And they're probably responsible for the finances leak as well. I need you to take me… no, us to that new boiler room."
Tom welled up as he led Pit back inside. "To think I'd see the day when my mentees would overcome their mentor. Siphoning off profits behind my back, keeping me in my room while they ran my business to their advantage, even trying to have me killed…" He lapsed into thoughtful silence.
"Are you proud of them?" asked Pit.
"I was teaching them to become ruthless businessmen," said Nook with a teary smile. "They've done better than I could have ever hoped."
Pit looked at him in horror, all sympathy gone, as he and his army (depleted by about fifty now) followed the raccoon dog through aisles of furniture, carpets and curtains. Tom withdrew a small grey key from his belt and inserted it into a metal door in the back of the store, which swung open with a creak. He, Pit and as many Pikmin as could fit poured into a tiny metal room, filled with heating equipment and hissing.
"I never came down here before," said Tom. "They made the new lock open-able by the master key. Tsk tsk. Sloppy. Marks off for that."
Pit ignored him and looked around. He was searching for a way down, a passage into the earth, but all he could see was boilers boiling away.
"What does this button do?" asked Tom, pressing a big red one on the wall.
Pit felt himself leave the ground, along with the rest of his army. In fact, the ground left him, plummeting downwards at a rate that most rollercoasters wish they could achieve. He screamed like a girl, Tom Nook gave a bark of distress and the Pikmin wailed in a hundred and fifty different voices as they caught up with the dropping room just in time for it to catch up with them. They drew to an ignoble stop, falling to/hitting the floor and lying there panting.
"HEY YOU!"
Pit rolled his eyes and, after plucking the Pikmin off him, stood up unsteadily. There was a large shiny-looking corridor ahead of them, but it was blocked by an angry mole bearing a bazooka and wearing upon his head what looked like a bright pink Viking hat with angry red eyes. And it was very bright pink.
"I told you not to get on the wrong side of me!" shouted Mr. Resetti. "And now I'm wearing my angry hat! You know what that means, punk? It means you're going down, Resetti-style! I'm gonna reset your game myself!"
"Your hat looks stupid."
Mr. Resetti looked as if someone had hit him in the face. He stared wide-eyed at Pit, his bazooka for the moment forgotten.
"Yeah," continued Pit. "And, like, your legs are pathetic and stubby, and so are your arms. Oh, and your face is kinda cute. Yeah, you basically like don't look threatening at all."
Mr. Resetti fell, his pathetic stubby legs for a moment in the air, and lay on the floor with eyes glazed over, muttering to himself, while Pit and his entourage passed him by. One of the front line of Pikmin ran over and tried on the "angry hat". It still looked ridiculous.
Through the door at the end, another darker corridor presented itself. This one had walls lined with canisters filled with green fluid. Pit recognised the type of container in which Ness had been held captive, but instead of a small boy these containers held animals, animal hybrids and cyborgs – a robot resembling K.K. Slider, a poodle/penguin fusion and a fox with legs replaced by a jet engine were just some of the curiosities on show. Towards the back of the room was a dog with the general form of a German shepherd but the floppy ears and large flat nose of a bulldog. Presumably called Bopper, Pit thought sadly.
"Wow," said Tom, looking around. "I knew these animals! Despicable, and yet ingenious at the same time."
"Isn't it just, Uncle?"
"…Uncle?"
There they were, the little terrors of Smashville, standing at the back looking oh so innocent in their little cyan suits with their wide eyes and their butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-snout faces.
"Impressed though I am at your business stratagems and lack of ethics," called Tom Nook down the corridor, "attempting to kill me is something I cannot tolerate. Now stand aside or…"
"And you didn't realize until we threw it in your face," replied one of them. "The retail emperor of Nintendo's losing his touch, hm?"
"…touch, hm?"
"How dare you say such a thing, you young rapscallions?" shouted Tom, annoyed now. "Get them, Pit!"
Pit drew his bow and pointed it a Nookling's nose. Much though he disliked taking orders from a morally deficient shopkeeper, there seemed to be no other way of proceeding. The Nooklings just laughed – happy children's laughs quite out of place. The one not in Pit's sights drew forth what looked like a remote control and pressed a big red button.
The green liquid slowly drained out from the canisters. The wires the chimerae were attached to detached themselves, and the animals blinked into life. With an ominous humming sound, the glass containers opened and a plethora of Porky's experiments dropped to the floor, dripping green liquid and looking malevolently at Pit, Nook et al.
"We need you as a figurehead for your shopping chain, Uncle," said the Nookling with the button. "But we don't need your colourful friends. Get them, boys!"
"…them, boys!"
They came, moaning and groaning and clanking and screeching, mechanical eyes scanning and organic eyes rolling, claws swishing, tails lashing and biologically attached weaponry charging up with various charging up sounds. Tom Nook took one glance at the oncoming army, turned drooping tail and fled into the previous corridor wailing, leaving Pit to face the onslaught alone.
Pit had frozen up when the containers opened. His sights flicked from beast to bot wildly. Now would be a really good time to send me an army, Palutena. Just an idea. Aaaany moment now. Now, when the first few of these monsters are so close I can see the whites of their teeth, apart from the more robotised ones which have grey shiny metal teeth. And the ones behind them have their massive arm-attached cannons aimed at my face. Please don't leave me to them…
A blue Pikmin leapt onto the jetfox, clung to its fur and began to headbutt it, drops of water springing from the impact sites. The fox screamed as the water seeped into its jet engine, short-circuiting the animal as the Pikmin leapt off and sought new prey.
…okay never mind.
Bedlam reigned. The Pikmin clung onto their foes and headbutted them over and over again, all save the purple ones who slowly waddled up to the chimerae and dealt out powerful haymakers with their stumpy arms. Their headbutts were infused with the powers of water, thunder and fire depending on colour, apart from the white Pikmin who poisoned their adversaries with a purple toxin and stared at them with creepy pink eyes while they fell. The chimerae fought back ferociously, clawing and biting and shooting, but the Pikmin danced around their attacks and battered them at every opening. Pit danced too, ordering his new non-angelic army around with glee and not caring if they followed his orders. Timmy and Tommy looked agitatedly at each other as they saw the chimerae fall.
"I think we should inform Master Porky," said one to the other.
This plan was cut short by the appearance of a massive explosion that engulfed the two of them and rained down bits of Nookling upon the battlefield. Pit turned aghast to see Tom Nook holding Mr. Resetti's bazooka.
"If there's another thing I can't tolerate, it's competition," he said with a grin.
Pit searched the raccoon dog's face for any sign of regret at having just blown up two family members. He found none and felt rather unwell.
In the meantime, Pit's army took care of the last of the chimerae and looked happily at their commander, bouncing up and down and singing among themselves. It was quite a scene – the Pikmin turned their finished enemies into small squat sausages, so instead of bodies there were several multicoloured cylinders lying around on the floor with metal bits sticking out at odd angles. It made the aftermath a lot tidier, at least, although the two Nookling heads maintained the grizzly air.
"Come on, Pit," said Tom Nook, shouldering the bazooka with some difficulty. "I want to have a word with this Porky fellow, and find out why he didn't come straight to me with his demands. Going to my children instead of me, Tom Nook. The nerve!"
I hope he smashes you into tiny fragments, Pit did not say.
o o o
"So, you made it, dickfaces."
The voice was unmistakably Porky's, but it sounded distorted and strange. There was no sign of either the ancient little boy or his spider-bed mech in the large shiny room. In fact, said room was completely empty, apart from a cyan and purple mural on the back wall with a yin and yang symbol.
"Porky, you jerk, show yourself!" yelled Pit.
"Yes, come out and talk to me, you philistine!" shouted Tom.
The Pikmin squeaked their challenges in a multitude of voices.
"Oh, you'd love that, wouldn't you?" said Porky's altered voice. "I come out and get slaughtered by your army. Bet you don't even know why they're following you."
Pit looked at the Pikmin. The Pikmin looked back. Come to think of it, he did not. He had always assumed that they liked him, but this went at odds with what Nook had said about them only obeying Olimar… Mustn't think like that. That's how Porky works – he messes with your mind and then smashes you with a robot.
"You don't, do you?" came the sniggering voice. "They don't like you, dickface. They're just using you to find their pop."
"Olimar?" asked Nook.
"I want you to say hello to my little friend!"
A panel opened in the bright white wall, and out walked a small man, a little taller than the Pikmin. He was wearing a space suit, and inside the helmet Pit could see a large round head with a tuft of hair, pointed ears and a large potato-like nose. Most telling were the eyes, looking almost closed but with bright blue light filtering out from the slits.
"It's not Olimar, of course," taunted Porky. "It's my own little pet clone of him. But let's see if the Pikmin know the difference."
The vegetable men had left Pit's side and were swarming around Olimar, jumping and singing and patting him. Only one red Pikmin stayed by Pit, giving him an agonised look that suggested it was torn between running to Olimar's side and being loyal to its new commander. The one outside my house, Pit thought.
"Apparently they don't," sniggered Porky. "Oh well. Let's see what happens when I order Olimar to order them to kill you!"
The spaceman extended a single arm and pointed with a stubby sausage-like finger at Pit and Tom Nook, who was keeping his bazooka aimed at the clone. The Pikmin turned at once to Pit, who flinched; but instead of charging, they turned back to Olimar with the same agonised look as Pit's red friend. Olimar seemed to become cross, and jumped up and down keeping his finger outstretched. A few of the Pikmin tried to calm him down, while others turned to the ground and shook their heads. Pit felt a small glow of pride in his army.
"Oh for fuck's sake!" yelled Porky. "Just whistle at them!"
"Oh no," said Tom.
Pit remembered Nook mentioning this fabled whistle, which Olimar now blew once. It sounded like any other whistle to Pit, but no sooner had it been blown than the Pikmin started to change. En masse, they toddled obediently up to Olimar and milled around him, waiting quietly for orders. The spaceman stretched his finger forward again, and this time the Pikmin's eyes were cold and hard when they turned on Pit.
"Oh no!" repeated Nook, and he fired the bazooka.
The explosive shell was met half way by a beam of blue light coming from the mural, causing it to detonate in mid-air and curtail the lives of several Pikmin. Before Tom could fire again, three red Pikmin were headbutting him, leaving scorch marks in his fur, and then a purple Pikmin had sent him flying into a wall, rendering him unconscious. Two more such purples grabbed Pit as he had made them grab Tom, not so long ago.
"What are you doing?" shouted Pit. "We're a team, aren't we?"
The Pikmin could not meet his gaze, but did not try to stop their purple brethren from dragging Pit forward and throwing him to the floor to the sound of the whistle. Porky sniggered obnoxiously.
"And so the LOL dickface Pit met his end far below Smashville, at the hands of the villain he thought he'd killed and the friends he thought he had. Isn't it tragic?"
The mural was moving. Slowly the yin and yang symbol was starting to turn, and now Pit could see that it was a wheel. The rest of the back wall fell away, leaving a massive robot in its wake, as big as Galleom and just as ugly. It was half cyan and half purple, and each half had one head and two arms; the blue half had blades on each arm and its head where the purple half had guns. It balanced precariously on its yin-and-yang wheels.
"Behold my new form!" said Porky's voice, as the robot approached Pit blue half first. "I like to call it Duon, because there's two of it. Better and bigger than the spider, isn't it?"
Now it loomed over Pit, at least four times his height, its blade arms extended into the sky. Olimar's clone watched on impassively. The Pikmin looked doggedly at the floor.
"Any last words before you die, alone and unloved?" said the robot with a snigger.
Pit thought of what he could say to prolong the fall of those dreadful blades. Bargaining was out of the question and useless – there was no way Porky would let him survive. At best he would be converted into a chimera. He could declare that he was not alone or unloved – or could he? Palutena had said he would never be alone, yet where was she now that he actually needed her? Given her track record, it seemed pointless to pray. And the LOL would miss him, its more emotional members might even shed a few tears for him, but none of them loved him as such. They would make do with who they had and go on. Or he could break free from his captors' arms and lead the army of winged centurions to victory.
Wait. What?
A beam of gentle orange light was shining down through the hole that had appeared in the room's ceiling. From this were flying several people dressed in similar garb to Pit's, only with the crown replaced by a battle helmet with little wings. They flew smartly into five rows of ten and hovered there, fifty soldiers ready to fight and die for their goddess.
The beam of light spread, and its rays alighted upon Pit. He suddenly felt incredibly peaceful. Closing his eyes, he faced the light.
"If you can slay Porky, we can deal with the rest," said a gentle voice in his ear. "Can you do that, Captain of the Guard?"
At last.
Pit opened his eyes, and did not need to look down to know that he had changed. Gone were his khaki tunic, moss-green trousers and his brown workman's boots, his disguise taken from the TES Soren's Soul just over a week ago. He was wearing his old outfit, that of the captain of Palutena's guard: a white tunic attached by a red brooch, dark blue shorts and sandal boots; two arm guards, and on his left hand a protector sporting a yellow star; two bright halos on his left arm, and a golden ring on his right thigh; and finally, a golden crown of laurel leaves in his hair, which had changed from gelled and black to short, brown and fluffy. His white wings spread out gratefully from underneath his tunic.
"What in fuck's name's going on?" yelled Porky's voice.
As the purple Pikmin diverted their attention to the growing hole in the ceiling, Pit's fingers clasped his bow behind his back. He tensed and fired an arrow into the floor, which shattered into brilliant flecks of light. His arms were freed as the Pikmin shielded their eyes. Carried into the air by his wings, Pit stretched a defiant finger towards Duon.
"Hey, Porky!" he shouted. "I'm not alone, I'm not unloved and I'm not going to die." He spread his hand. "All troops: fall out!"
Thus the battle for the depths of Smashville began.
o o o
It was quite the battle. Testament has already been paid to the fighting abilities of the Pikmin, but up against centurions of Palutena's army and their spears the vegetable men had a hard time. Once they got past the spear points, they had to contend with fighters who flew into the air and ducked and rolled to get their unwanted attachments off, and in extreme cases were willing to impale themselves on the weapons of their brothers just so long as their assailants perished too. The three to one ratio dealt the Pikmin no favours; nor did the presence of Olimar, who ran around trying to avoid the spear-tips and otherwise just blew his whistle lots.
Epic though this confrontation was, the two commanders of the sides were too occupied with each other to pay it much heed. After giving his order, Pit had unfurled his wings and flown above the attack range of the Pikmin, and then charged straight at Duon, dodging the mines the robot rained down upon him with ease.
As he approached, the battlefield seemed to warp. The white room faded from existence, replaced by darkness out of which red shapes loomed ominously. The sounds of battle gave way to interference and the howling of the void. Duon seemed to get further and further away, until Pit was flying over an empty black expanse towards the distant figure of Porky's new carriage.
"Do you want to know how I escaped death?" it asked in Porky's mocking tones. "I've done it before, you know. Sort of."
Pit ignored the speech and fired an arrow from his bow. It did nothing to light up the darkness, and fell into black long before it reached Duon.
"That time was more like eternal life, really," said Porky, "only not eternal life: eternal imprisonment. I told you already, and your dickface friends: a man I trusted created a sphere that would keep me safe from the end of the world. He'd neglected to mention that he hadn't put a door handle on the inside. I was going to be trapped for ever."
"Would have been better for everyone if you had been!" yelled Pit, but his voice fell into the darkness like a lead weight.
Suddenly, Duon was right in front of him and charging. Pit rolled quickly to one side, just avoiding the robot as it passed. Yet spinning around, Duon was nowhere to be seen.
"I told you that I served a great lord of the cosmos, who succumbed to emotions. Well, after he fell apart a bit, he searched for the only help he could remember – me. He came to me, even inside my prison, and infused himself with my mind. A great raging ball of power and feeling, he unlocked my latent psychic abilities."
That explained how Porky had kept up the illusions before and after Ness Z. Pit had no time to reflect on this, however, because Duon was there again. The purple half was at the front this time, its head firing those blue beams of light that had stopped Nook's bazooka fire and its arms blasting bright pink lasers. Pit flew behind his Mirror Shield, looking out of the side at the robot finally getting closer. The interference was getting louder as well.
"A great cosmic idiot, but using his abilities I could free myself. I could use his psychic strength to survive Lucas' brain-blast, his teleportation to escape the collapsing building. With his PSI and sheer rage, I can do anything!"
As Pit closed in, Duon became transparent purple. Inside the shell, the figure of Porky floated, monochrome and red and screaming at top volume. Unlike his pathetic "death cry", these were real yells that shook Pit to his core.
"Welcome, Pit!" said Porky's voice, but the figure continued screaming. "Welcome to Hell, courtesy of Porky and Giygas!"
Pit could hardly bear to fly closer: the screams tore at his soul, the red figures in the background neared and now they all seemed to be looking and screaming at him. The figure of Porky was growing to fill his whole vision, and he saw that inside Porky's wide form another red figure shook about, wailing and crying and laughing and shouting. Pit put his hands to his ears and shut his eyes, but no relief was forthcoming. So this was what it was like to be Porky.
"This is what I feel, all the time," shouted Porky's voice, just audible above the din. "This is what shakes my soul, in return for my escape from eternity. And now, Pit – now you'll feel it too!"
"I... don't... want..."
His mind oppressed by emotional chaos, his senses barely operational, his whole being filled with the madness, Pit did the only thing he could think of – he drew his bow and shot. In that instant, it seemed as if someone was pushing his arrow from behind, giving it the force he had been unable to muster, forcing it through the purple covering. It mattered not: the arrow went through, and Pit convulsed from the cry of pain that echoed in his skull as Porky, or Giygas, or Porkiygas or whatever was inside the shell, was pierced. There was a lot of shaking, and the interference went wild for a minute, but then the robot dissipated into purple mist that faded away and filtered out through the hole in the roof where the soldiers had entered.
He was back in the white room, panting, sweaty and feeling well and truly emotionally drained. He was surrounded by sausages made of angel soldiers – Pikmin leave no trace when they die, save for a small ghost that floats upwards and then disappears. The Olimar clone had vanished as well, and Pit just managed to glimpse the last few of Palutena's soldiers leaving through the roof. All that remained were a few Pikmin lying inactive on the floor, and Porky's body face up and unprotected. Tom Nook had recovered consciousness and was watching from a corner with rapid shallow breaths.
Pit marched towards his nemesis, looking more feeble than ever, and turned the body over with his foot. Porky's skin, hair and beard were all ghostly white, and his entire body trembled with every laborious breath. His eyes were barely open to see half the bow raised up above his face.
"You sure you can kill him?" shouted Tom, his voice scared yet mocking.
"Yes," said Pit firmly.
"He's a defenceless old man, and you're just going to murder him? How noble."
"It's not murder."
"Oh really?" Tom sneered. "What is it then?"
Pit thought back to the unfettered emotional instability of Giygas, who/which even now resided within Porky's soul, bursting with uncontrollable power.
"Yoo-then-nay-sher."
o o o
The Roost was busy again. Smashvillans sat down in twos and threes, whispering and pointing at the angel sitting at the counter. Rumour had it that he had killed Porky. Rumour had it that he had slain the Steel Mechorilla that had stood guard beyond Smashville. Rumour had it that he had clinched a deal giving him half Tom Nook's shares in Nookington's plc, etc. etc. As always, Rumour had it about fifty percent right. Now, had Rumour said that Pit was at the moment drinking his customary blend of coffee, which he had received as many cups of on the house as he desired for four days now, it would have been hard to argue with Rumour, but Rumour found such facts boring and preferred to feast upon plumper, juicier and frequently less true articles.
"He's late today," said Pit in an agitated fashion.
"Might be a good thing," whispered Brewster, serving an ape and an anteater a cheap lager of some variety. "You know what they say – no news is good news."
"Not when I need to be in Hyrule Field in two days! If he doesn't find it soon…"
"I've found it!"
Pit turned to see Tom Nook standing in the Roost's door, triumphantly holding a small shiny object in his unbroken paw. He ran over as fast as his sprained ankle, now mending, would let him and plonked the key down on the counter in front of Pit.
"It took a huge amount of searching, but I found it!" he exclaimed. "Turns out it was in Porky's secret lab, behind that mural that turned into a robot and then vanished with you and then reappeared again and exploded. The experiments he had going on in there! Shocking. This thing was being used to power some sort of hallucination generator."
Pit took the key and looked at it from different angles. Here's hoping it still works, he did not say.
"Yes, it's a beautiful thing," said Tom. "The gem might be a sapphire. You… hm… you wouldn't consider selling…"
"No!"
"Fair enough, fair enough!" said Tom quickly, backing off. Then he beckoned Pit down and whispered into his ear.
"Okay, Pit," he hissed aggressively, "I've found your SubSpace whatchamacallit. I've set up a memorial to my treacherous nephews, in which their devious heads lie. Mr. Resetti's banged up in his own jail. I've announced to the city that it's open to outsiders again, and removed Porky's barricades. I've given Mayor Tortimer a massive grant towards re-creating parks and orchards in Smashville, providing that Pelly becomes deputy mayoress. I've bought Brewster a new jukebox and started advertising his coffee in my stores. I've given another massive grant to the Able Sisters to fish them out of their strip club and reboot their clothing business, yet another to Blathers to revitalise the museum, and a fourth to Celeste to raise her…" Here he stopped, drew breath and continued in an even more hostile tone. "…our little bundle of radiance. Now, will you please sign the form?"
He pleaded this last question, and with it thrust forth a bundle of papers. Pit took them and looked at them with satisfaction. The bundle had started out as a non-disclosure agreement, in which Pit would promise not to tell anyone that Nook had mismanaged his business and left much of its recent running to his nephews in exchange for a sizeable fee, which was whittled down to almost nothing through various clauses and sub-clauses. To Tom's astonishment and great annoyance Pit had read the whole thing, sometimes going over passages with Brewster over a mocha, and rewritten much of it in blue biro to his liking. The final product did not give Pit a cent, but demanded many services of Nookington's plc and its almost eponymous chairman of the board in return for Pit's silence.
Pit pretended to take a while to decide. First he flicked through the many pages of the typed-up document, with its biro additions and crossings out. Then he "hum"ed and "hah"ed and looked around the café a bit. Then his eyes widened, he stared for a moment and he signed the back page of the form without looking, using a quill provided by Brewster.
"Thank you!" said Tom, with a deep sigh of relief. "Brewster, a glass of your finest ale, please. Make it strong, hm?"
Pit did not see the look of disgust across the pigeon's face. He was already walking in the direction of his stare, coffee cup in hand, over to where a beautiful woman with green hair was sipping another cup. She smiled and waved at Pit as he approached, and indicated a chair.
"Why are you here?" he asked, taking it.
"As my Captain of the Guard, I feel you deserve a personal appearance," said Palutena serenely. "I thought you might want to ask me some things."
"Well, I do."
Pit stared into Palutena's unfazed green eyes, waiting for a response. Palutena sipped her drink and waited for a question.
Pit broke first. "Can anyone else see you?"
"They could if they wanted to. But those who don't believe in me just… won't. They'll ignore me, and anyone talking to me. It's easier on their disbelief that way."
"You drink cappuccino?"
"Black coffee's too strong for me, and…"
"What took you so long?" Pit almost shouted. "All those times I was nearly dead, nearly lost hope…"
"Nearly," said Palutena calmly. "I am a goddess. I believe that the beings in my kingdom should have free will, and prefer to provide psychological help if I help at all. I should not have done what I did, strictly," she said, looking somewhat abashed. "But to see you so disheartened before the robot… I could not bear to let you think I had abandoned you. Then I followed you into the battle, and helped your arrow to fly. It was not good of me. I must not make a habit of it."
"Is that why you refused to let me take an army against the LOVE?"
Palutena looked into her drink. "Partly."
They sat in silence some more. Palutena swirled her drink, her eyes seeking something in the bottom of the cup. Pit sensed that no more answers to that question would be forthcoming, so posed another.
"Why did you let me think you had abandoned me?"
Palutena leant back and inhaled deeply before answering. "You must understand, Pit, that I came to you as ever, with the intention of making you return to Angel Land and leave your foolish existence behind you. For ten months, I have watched you laze about, doing nothing, pretending to fight the LOVE while in reality you just played kiss chase with the Hylian guards and drowned your worries in poetry and aggressive music. Don't give me that look – you know it's true. And I always felt that so long as the alternative was frittering your life away, it would be better for you to come back home and less potentially lethal.
"But when I spoke to you as you travelled through Eagleland, I sensed that something had changed. There was fire in your eyes, and determination. No longer someone who had left my service just to prove a point, you were once again the hero who rescued Eagleland from the clutches of Medusa. Greatly though I feared for your safety, I knew this was the right thing to do and left you to it.
"I did not mean to make you think that I had abandoned you. I have been with you the whole time. I just wanted you to do what you were passionate about. If you felt alone, that was because you rejected me, not the other way around."
Pit acknowledged this, feeling rather foolish, and thought for a while with one hand on his chin. Palutena fixed her green eyes upon him.
"I can answer one more question," she said softly.
"I don't think I have any more," replied Pit slowly.
"Yes you do. You have one major question, which you have wanted to know all your life."
Pit looked at her, mouth gaping. Ever time he had raised the subject of his parents, Palutena had clammed up, or said that keeping their identities secret was necessary under her military system. Was she going to tell him now?
"Your parents were good, but misguided people," she began, breathing deeply. "Your mother was a lovesick fool, and your father no better. They fell for each other in a union they knew could never last. A union that resulted in you.
"Your mother was from Angel Land, and after you were born she asked a favour of me. She begged me to take you in, and to never tell you about your family. She was ashamed of what she had done, and thus of you. Wrongly ashamed, but ashamed.
"And so I took you in, and I trained you as a member of my army; but I gave you solitary training, and made you believe all members of my army were given up by their parents. It was a lie, Pit. It was a dreadful lie and I have regretted it ever since. All that I can say is that it seemed the right thing to do at the time.
"It was because of your mother that I tried so hard to return you to Angel Land when you left. She was afraid that you would die out here. Medusa and her army of lost souls are no real threat, not to you, but the LOVE are something else entirely. But now that you have proven yourself to be a passionate hero, I feel you have the right to help save Nintendo.
"I'm so sorry, Pit. Sorry for all the lies. Can you forgive me?"
Pit had sat there and listened with wide eyes and his mouth open. Realising that Palutena had finished, he closed it and bit his lip.
"You, maybe," he said after some thought. "But not my mother. She abandoned me? Why?"
Palutena sniffed, and Pit saw a glowing yellow tear appear on her cheek. He realised that he was crying too.
"I was afraid my people would no longer respect me if they knew I had borne a child by a mortal. I'm so sorry."
Pit looked at the table, then at Palutena, then at the table, and then fell backwards off his chair.
o o o
The sun was setting over the hills of Eagleland by the time Pit detached himself from Cooker's ecstatic embraces and made his way out of the gatehouse. As it turned out, the doubledog-cyborg felt that the loss of a "brother" he had never known, and who had probably been in as much pain as he was, less than the joy of knowing that no other such creation would ever belch forth from the bowels of Porky's mind. Pit had fended him off still in a daze, the same daze in which he had sat through Kapp'n's nautical songs on the way there without a flicker, and looked for the Saturn Pork Bean. Had he been more himself, he would have been more than a little disconcerted by its absence where he had left it.
"You there. Boy."
He recognised the voice, and this time Pit did not need to be told to look down. When he did, he saw not one beige creature with a big nose but eight of them, all looking up at Pit with their beady black eyes and smiling with their no mouths. Each had a single strand of hair atop its head, adorned with a pink bow. The one with the pink cape still had it draped around him and stood at the front, looking ever so slightly smug.
"Hallucinations vanish all over Eagle-ish Land, ding," he said. "Your work?"
Pit nodded dazedly. In an instant the blobs were all over his feet, jumping up and down and making elastic noises. The shier ones nuzzled his ankles from behind.
"Is this your family?" he asked through the daze. "Which one's Mrs. Saturn?"
There came elastic laughter from around his boots.
"All Mr. Saturns, zoom boing!" said one, sounding exactly the same as its caped comrade. "Species name Mr. Saturn. Live in Saturn Valley in Eagleland. Peaceful, nice, ding ding."
"Porky man not so nice," said another, a shy one. "He sometimes attack our peaceful valley. We not like. But you show him! I girl, by way."
"How did you know that I should ask Brewster for a coffee?" asked Pit of the group, only semi-caring.
"We do spying in Smashville, boing. Look for Porky man. Go round Roost, coffee cup abandoned, drink coffee. Really nice, Zoom! Think you should try it when there!"
Nothing to do with clues to the mystery at all. Guess that fits their disposition. The Mr. Saturns were still bouncing around his boots.
"Guys, it's been my pleasure to help you out," Pit said, trying to carefully extract a leg, "but I've got to get back to like help my friends now. Any of you see the big car?"
"We take back Saturn Pork Bean," said the caped one. "We need it for helping you soon, boing."
Fair enough, I guess (you gave us it in the first place), but how am I going to get back to the LOL?
"But we not want to leave you without ridey thing, ding ding. We bring instead Saturn Runner."
"That sounds… nice?"
A ninth Mr. Saturn rode out from behind a nearby bush on what looked like a tea table with legs and somersaulted off, landed on its nose and rolled away. The tea table bore the Saturnian whiskers and a little pink bow towards it back. Pit stared at it dazedly for a moment, before the tide around his feet started drawing him towards it.
"We set co-ordy nates for Hyrule Field. We check Saturn Pork Bean - say you come from there. Ding boing?"
"Yeah, almost…" He was pushed onto the table by eager noses, and tried to make himself comfortable on its smooth surface.
""Now holding on tight, zoom zoom zoom! Cheery-bye, Legend man!"
"Holding on tight to whaAAAAAA…"
Fortunately the slim black faux-whiskers on the front of the table were stronger than they looked, as were Pit's hands – a boon when the table shot off at a speed far greater than that of any table Pit had yet experienced. He was too busy yelling in fear and hanging on to see the Mr. Saturns, doing their best at waving farewell without hands.
After a while, he would adjust to the galloping gait and sharp turns of the Saturn Runner. He would think about the disappearance of the remaining Pikmin, who lacking their commander vanished without trace from Smashville and its underground. He would think back to Palutena's conversation, and spend a while trying to puzzle out why having a mortal-born son was so shameful, without success. He would think about his future after the LOVE threat was over (if it ever was), and how he was going to quit Palutena's guard and tell everyone about her lies, or change country, or go on holiday for a while and come back, or continue with his poetry, or dye his hair again, or keep it like it was, or shave it all off. He would think about how dog-tired he was, and even catch a few minutes' rest before the next corner threw him a bit.
But mostly, he would think about how he, Pit, was the son of a goddess. Was he glad that he had met one of his parents? Was he annoyed that he had been kept in the dark for thirteen years? Was he angry that his mother (his mother!) had let him get so near death so many times without lifting a finger to help him? Was he sorrowful that his amazing skills were not the result of his innate amazing-ness, but that of having a divine parent? A little bit of all of them, perhaps, mixed together in a melting pot of emotion almost as potent as Giygas.
Nonetheless, first and foremost on his list of feelings was his sense of duty. Whoever his mother was, he had a task to fulfill. There was a key in his pocket (that hopefully was not going to fall out, because it would take a hell of a long time to fetch if it did) that would take him into the Dark Prison, where he would rescue the Purged and impress the LOL, especially Peach, with his amazing hero "skillz". Besides, he bet the girls would find it really hot that he was half-god.
Not once did he think about his music player, left behind in his wooden Smashville bedroom, and he was much happier for it.
4
1 And it came to pass that the Crazy Hand did approach the Master Hand, and it seemed peculiarly agitated. And this was because it was peculiarly agitated. 2 And the Master Hand did say unto him, "What ails you, kindred spirit? And if you say 'bibble' or 'pheep' or 'pa-taah' so help me I'll smack you in the palm." 3 So the Crazy Hand did rethink what it was about to say, and spoke as follows.
4 "We currently reside in Space, which is defined because there is no creation; however, that is not to say there is no destruction. 5 And because of this, might it not be that we are destroyed one day while we remain here?" 6 And the Master Hand did scoff, and replied, "But if there is no creation, how can there be any destruction when there is nothing to destroy?" 7 But the Crazy Hand did respond, "There is something to destroy: there is us." And the Master Hand said, "Okay, fine, geez."
8 And it did summon up all its creative power, and when it had finished the area in which they remained had acquired a purple tint. 9 The Master Hand did declaim unto anyone who was paying attention, "Behold! I have created a space as empty as Space, but defined by its lack of destruction rather than its lack of creation. 10 Furthermore, it will freeze all inhabitants of space in time upon entrance, which should prevent any more interruptions from 'heroes'. 11 And because it is like Space but created second, I shall call it 'SubSpace'." 12 And the Crazy Hand did say appreciatively, "Pheep." And the Master Hand did smack it in the palm.