Disclaimer: pikmin belongs to Nintendo, and so do its characters.

Chapter 11: hard shell

There were already 16 of each pikmin out when I got up, though I noticed there were 17 reds, yellows, blues, and purples. I didn't question it, thinking Olimar brought them out.

"Good morning Alex" Olimar said.

"Morning" I replied, then I looked at the pikmin.

I had started thinking about how the pikmin resemble humans, and I realized that their maturity was based on whether their stem had a leaf, bud, or flower.

Flame had a flower, and often acted like a commander, with Amber, who was a bud, being the rebellious teenage daughter that would soon inherit the command. Daisy had a bud, and often acted like an overly-attached teenage girl, while Static, who had a flower, acted very mellow, which made me wonder why Static wasn't the leader.

Aqua had a flower, and often acted like an adult, though she had her emotionally unstable teen moments. Meanwhile, Jet acted like a child trying to impress an adult, and had a leaf.

Bell and Muscles had matching flowers, and acted as parents who had opposite views. Toxic, who had a flower, often acted like a mother hyped up on coffee, while Nock, who had a leaf, acted like a hyperactive child.

"Let's go find Brittany, the poison should be gone now" Olimar suggested, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Ok" I said. Then we headed down the grey path again. Once we got to the arena, I noticed the poison generators were gone…but I also noticed a faint banging.

"Do you guys hear that?" I asked the captains "there's a faint banging"

We went through the gate and it got louder. "Hello?" a voice called out.

"Brittany!" Alph exclaimed. He ran down the path, with us following.

We got to a crystal wall, which Brittany was banging on, trying to break it. "I can't break through it!" Brittany complained "it's our first exploration all over again!"

"Just relax" Alph said. He turned to me "I'll try to calm her down, you look for the rock pikmin, ok?"

I nodded and walked off, Olimar and Louie stayed with Alph to try and help. It didn't take long before I heard the familiar pikmin noises. Moments later, I saw a grey onion with about 5 rock pikmin around it.

The rock pikmin were throwing themselves at each other, as if seeing who can last the longest…it was interesting, to say the least.

"Hi there" I said. The five pikmin looked at me.

I noticed most of them had leaves, though one had a flower and the other had a bud. I noticed the two who didn't have a leaf also had a bit of a darker coloration.

"Hi!" the flower said "I'm Rocky!"

"Nice to meet you Rocky" I said "and who's this?" I looked at the bud.

"Shell" Rocky replied, before Shell could say anything.

"Why do you have to answer for me?" Shell asked.

"Can we not do this now?" Rocky asked. Based on the tone of his voice, I could tell he had been through this before.

"Whatever" Shell said, then he walked off.

I looked at my pikmin and saw Amber poking her head out of the crowd, but I decided to ignore it, thinking it was nothing.

"Oh, almost forgot" Rocky said "do you want us to collect pellets?"

"I'd like that" I replied.

"Ok boys!" Rocky said, turning "you heard him, start collecting pellets!"

The three rocks that were still listening ran off, and Rocky started talking to some of the other pikmin. They were pretty self sufficient, so I left them to themselves.

Most of the pikmin had either gone to help the rocks, or had started talking with each other, but I noticed Amber had gone after Shell. Again, I thought nothing of it. Moments later, the rocks had a total of 16.

In a moment, I not only brought the rocks to Alph, but I also had the wall taken down…I expected Brittany to only thank me, but instead she practically tackled me as she hugged me.

"Thank you so much!" Brittany said

"Uh…you're welcome" I replied. She let go and we headed back after introductions.

The rocks got along very well with the others, but I noticed the others were acting differently as well…again, I dismissed it.

"Oh my goodness!" Brittany exclaimed as she saw the obelisk.

I actually had to stop myself. The grey side had lit up, which made the obelisk stunning…but the more impressive thing was how much it changed. The random symbols were almost completely gone now, and so was the line in the middle of each side. The parallel pikmin were riding the parallel bulborbs, and they were looking at each other questioningly. I also noticed underneath them were 5 sets of space suits: red, blue, light blue, pink, and colorless-grey.

"Hey, do you think you could depict part of this?" Alph interrupted my thoughts, and obviously Brittany's as well.

"Oh, sure" she said. She was lead to the metal plate.

"I have half of it, but I can't understand the Kopi writing" Olimar said.

"Hmm…" Brittany looked at the plate, thinking "I think I know what to do to find the captain…but let's get some sleep first"

The sun was setting, so I agreed full heartedly with her. The pikmin got into their onions as they took off, then the captains went to their normal spot as I went to mine. I noticed the Obelisk reacted to onions landing in the circles near each side, which I found interesting. It was almost like the obelisk was put there to keep us away from something until we were ready…but that seamed crazy.

I started thinking about the pikmin instead. Each type had a different personality, but there were 2 pikmin that were different as well. They also seemed like armies, which kind of went against normal pikmin logic…but I decided it was my imagination.

I laid on my 'bed' as I thought about how close I was to seeing my family…and I fell asleep.

Yay! Another chapter! I actually got this one done in a day…it was a day, right? Well, I actually feel accomplished! Oh, I'm likely going to finish this story VERY soon…although, it doesn't seem like many people, if anyone, cares about that…oh well, I like writing, and obviously SOME people read it. Anyways, I want to do a pikmin crossover and see how well I merge 2 worlds, but I'm not sure what world to do. What do you think? If you want to give me suggestions, you can either send me a PM, or put it in review. Wow that's a long Authors note…anyways. Remember: I love criticism, reviews encourage me, and I'm open to input. Bye for now!