Ow... why... does it hurt so much...? I thought bitterly. My body felt numb, and I couldn't open my eyes. Sensation gradually returned to my body, and I felt two large lumps on top of me. I could only assume that it was Poy and Ping on top of me.
If you're wondering, Poy and Ping are about my size because of a device by the science team that allows the Pikmin to become a size relative to my height.
Anyways, I finally regained all sensation in my body. I slowly blinked my eyes open.
We were in a large, spacious field. There were only a few trees here and there. I looked up and saw glittering dots in the sky, and a large, round white object outshining the glittering dots. I quickly recognized them as the stars and the moon. It was nighttime.
I steadily pushed myself up from the ground, and Poy and Ping fell off my body. They both slowly awakened after once they fell
"O-Ow..." Ping quietly said.
"Hey, what was that for Keith!?" Poy yelled when he realized that the cause for his fall was because I had pushed him off.
"It's not my fault you two were on top of me..." I said quietly. Poy simply gave me a fiery look, then examined his surroundings a bit. Ping also eventually recovered, and she also went to flying around to examine her surroundings.
"This doesn't look like somewhere in the Pikmin Universe," Ping said.
"Where could we be then?" I thought out loud. I looked around at our surroundings a second time, when I noticed dark spires off in the distance.
"What is that...?" I said, "Guys, look!" I pointed towards the general area where the tall spires were. It looked to be about a mile away. "It sort of looks like... a castle?"
"What's a 'casel'?" Ping asked.
"A castle is sort of like a really large house, Ping." I explained. They were Pikmin, so they didn't really know what a castle was.
"Maybe we should head over there," Poy said
"I don't know... it looks a bit ominous." I said with uncertainty.
"Stop being such a scaredy-cat, Keith!" Poy said, smirking. Looks like Poy's finally back to his usual mischievous self... I thought.
"I agree! Maybe there might be people over there! Maybe they'll give us presents! And maybe there's light over there! Oooh, I hate how it's so dark here! Can we go there Keith? Please? Please please PLEASE?" Ping pleaded. Aaaand there goes Ping's mouth chatting away as usual. Looks like the two of them have finally recovered... unfortunately for me... I thought dishearteningly.
"Okay, if you guys really insist, we can go there." I said, if a bit reluctantly.
"YAY!" Ping yelled as she began to fly around spasmodically from excitement. I rolled my eyes, and we set forward towards the dark spires.
We had only been walking for a few seconds, when Poy spoke up, "Hey, do you guys feel that?"
"Feel what?" I asked.
"Just stop for a second." I did so, and so did Ping. Ping lowered herself to the ground to see what Poy was talking about.
"Well? Do you feel it?" Poy asked. I eventually felt it too. A sort of soft rumbling beneath the ground.
"Could it be an earthquake...?" Ping nervously said.
"I doesn't feel like an earthquake, it's too subtle." I said. "Maybe-"
"AAAAIIIEEEE!" Ping screamed, suddenly jumping up and hovering as far away from me as she could. Even Poy had a grave look on his face, and slowly backed away from where I was standing.
"What has gotten into you two?" I asked, confused.
"K-K-Keith?" Ping said, "L-Look behind y-you..."
Behind me...? I turned around, and was faced with a horrific sight.
It was a living skeleton! The mere sight of the thing paralyzed me to the spot. It was only inches away from me, and it had it's arm above its head, ready to...
SNAP!
The arm was brought down whizzing through the air, and came into direct contact with my abdomen. It felt like a claw ripping through my stomach, and I yelled in anguish as a warm, dense fluid came gushing down. I quickly stumbled back, but the skeleton only followed. It raised its arm again for another blow...
"HYAAAHHH!" I heard a shout to my right, but I wasn't able to so much as glance in that direction before something pierced through the walking skeleton. The skeleton quickly crumbed apart, and dissolved into ashes. I looked up, and saw that what killed the skeleton was a gleaming sword. The sword was being held by a young man in his left hand, and if I inspected him closely he was dressed in a garb that was almost all green.
Inspecting him closely, I saw that the man had blonde hair, and wore a garb that was almost completely forest green. He even had a green hat covering his head, and if I looked closely, he also had very pointy ears.
The most noticeable thing about him though was that he was, in fact, riding a horse. It had a simple, brown coat, and looked to be a strong steed.
I was relieved that this mysterious man had saved me, but I was still in pain from when the skeleton had hit me. Poy and Ping, realizing that the threat had diminished, went up to me to see if I was okay.
"What are those?" the man asked. I was confused,but then I realized that he was pointing his sword at the Pikmin. I immediately panicked.
"N-No!" I sputtered. I coughed up some more blood just from saying that simple word. "They're... my friends. Don't... hurt them!"
The man lowered his sword. "I just wanted to make sure. Are you okay?"
"Do I... look okay!?" I said through my teeth. I probably shouldn't have been so angry at him. After all, he had just saved my life, but the pain was too excruciating to keep a sensible grip on my sanity.
"Here then. Drink this." the man took out a bottle with red liquid from a pouch at his side. He handed me the drink. I had my doubts about the liquid, but I drank it anyways. I fountained the drink, just so I wouldn't stain the rim of the bottle with blood.
The drink tasted amazing. Even as I was drinking the thing, I could feel the pain begin to slowly drift away, an I felt my wound begin to weave itself back together. It was an odd sensation, feeling my wound speed up in its recovery, but it felt good nonetheless.
"Thank you," I said. I managed to stand up again, and I handed him back the bottle. I decided to ask him a simple question. "What's your name?"
"My name is Link," he said, "I've been sent by Princess Zelda to travel Hyrule and save any and all places who need help. A darkness is growing, and it's consuming the people, turning them evil."
Zelda? Hyrule? A growing darkness? Who knew a simple question would just arouse even more questions. If I had to guess, "Princess Zelda" was the ruling monarch of the land, and "Hyrule" was the name of the land. I was still a little confused about the "growing darkness" part. Was something evil taking over? I decided to ask him,
"What do you mean by this 'growing darkness'?" I asked.
"What you just saw was an example of what I had meant," Link replied, "Monsters are appearing more and more. The thing that just attacked you was a stalchild. And this darkness is spreading across all of Hyrule. Not even Princess Zelda or I know the cause of this spread..."
I pondered what Link had just said. Looks like I landed into a Universe that's in crisis... I thought.
"HEY! Listen!" a high-pitched voice said. I was snapped out of my thought, and I looked at Link again to see some sort of glowing thing with wings flying around in Link's face. It sort of looked like a fairy.
"While you're at this, why don't you bring this boy and his friends somewhere safe. You don't know if more monsters might come out! You should probably bring them to Gerudo Valley, because there's a tent there where they could stay. After all, you can't bring them to the Hyrule Castle Town since the bridge to the town is closed during nighttime! If only we had the Ocarina of Time, then we could make it daytime again!" the fairy said, all the while still flying around in Link's face.
It's like a representation of Ping! I thought. Speaking of Ping, she seemed very intrigued by the fairy thing that was flying around, so Ping flew up to get a closer look. The fairy eventually noticed Ping, and they stared at each other for a while. Then, they erupted into conversation!
"You can fly too!?" "So what kind of thing are you?" "What do you..."
Looks like Ping found a new friend... I thought.
"Navi," Link said to the fairy. The fairy, who I assumed was Navi, seemed to understand, and she went back to Link. "Anyways, Navi's right. I'll bring you three to Gerudo Valley. It's a desert off to the west, but there's a tent there where you could stay until morning." Link motioned for me to get onto his horse. It took a few tries, but I managed to swing myself up onto the horse behind Link. I grabbed Poy and held onto him, and Ping held onto my shoulder. Seeing that we were ready, Link yelled for his horse to go forward.
As we headed east, I saw more stalchildren rising up from the ground. Luckily, Link's horse was fast enough to outrun these monsters, but even so, I still had a shiver of fear seeing the monsters.
In a few minutes, the grass began to slowly turn into sand. Less and less trees could be seen, and I could feel the climate getting dryer and warmer. My body was aching just from riding the horse those few minutes, but I was relieved to see hat we were almost at our destination.
Eventually, Link had his horse come to a stop. He swung himself off of his horse., and I did the same. I nearly collapsed when I felt how weak my legs were, but I managed to keep myself up. I put Poy back down, who seemed glad to finally have his personal space back. Ping, on the other hand, seemed more than happy to simply stay put on my shoulder.
Link went up to a tent a few yards away. I followed him to the tent.
"You should probably stay here until daytime," he said, "there should be some extra clothes there for you to change your battered one." he indicated towards my shirt, which had been ripped and stained with blood from the stalchild. "I'll leave you here then." Link continued, "I still have to travel to the other areas of Hyrule." With that, he walked back to his horse.
"Thank you!" I yelled at him as he rode back into the large field with the stalchildren.
I headed inside the tent, and the two Pikmin followed me.
The tent wasn't too fancy. It just had few candles to light up it up, casting dim shadows across the walls. A few simple rags lay on the floor, which were presumably used for sleeping. In the corner of the tent, there was a chest, which I assumed were where the clothes were. While Poy and Ping were doing their own thing in the tent, I went to the chest and opened it up. It was mainly just robes and other strange garbs that were in the chest, but to my great satisfaction, I managed to find a T-shirt that was just my size. I changed into the new T-shirt.
"This place is so creepy..." Ping said. "I keep seeing my shadow everywhere." Ping was moving around the tent, all the while staring at how her shadow kept moving with her."
"I should probably tell the science team how we're doing," I said. I took out one of my Emergency Devices, the Communications Device. The Communications Device allowed me to contact the science team from anywhere. I took the device out of my pocket...
And saw that it was broken. I was horrified, and began to wonder how it had broken. Then I remembered the SNAP! that I had heard when the stalchild hit me. The snap must have been the sound of the device breaking.
Just to make sure, I took out my Wormhole Transmitter. As you've seen before, that device allows me to return back to my home Universe. I took it out...
And saw that that device was broken too! I let out a small cry of anguish, which caught Ping and Poy's attention.
"What happened Keith?" Ping asked me.
"The Communications Device and the Wormhole Transmitter... they're broken! We can't return home or contact home without the devices!" I explained.
"Aww... do you need a hug?" Ping asked.
That's the last thing I need... I thought. "No," I said, sighing, "I'm fine." Ping hugged me anyways. Poy simply rolled his eyes, and went back to exploring the tent.
When Ping had finally gotten off of me, I decided to see if my last Emergency Device was okay. This Emergency Device, the Form Changer, allows me to scan any organism and turn into that organism. For example, I could scan a dog, and be able to turn into a dog. I would also learn the dog's language. The Form Changer was how I was able to understand the Pikmin. I took out the Form Changer from my pocket...
And it was okay! I was relieved. I put the device and two broken ones back into my pocket. I then realized how tired I was, so I told Poy and Ping that I would be going to sleep. I laid down on one of the rags, and immediately drifted off into sleep the moment I closed my eyes...
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Nintendo. I wish I did...
Note from Keifren1ooo: Chapter finished! For those of you don't know yet, this chapter takes place in the Zelda world. As always, reviews and criticism are greatly appreciated. Thank you!