the return home

by kingalex1234

when Alex finally achieves his goal and returns home, he's excited to reunite with his family. but when the leaders, one by one, join him, he'll find he has a bigger challenge than the pikmin world has ever presented, and much less help

9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I own neither pikmin nor its characters

Chapter 8: visiting a star

I woke up with the sun rising. I rubbed my eyes and blinked a few times. Back to school was my first thought, then I realized I could see the sun…heck, I could see the sky! I jumped up and saw I was in a meadow. "Cool, a lucid dream! Haven't had one of those since I used the machine!" I said. I looked around to see trees surrounding the border. They were spread out just enough to get through, but only enough. Wait…this was a lucid dream… I thought about a giant water slide, but nothing happened. Huh…guess they don't work like that all the time… then I felt something tug at my pants leg. I looked down and saw a small, dim, colorless light, which was flickering slowly. I kneeled down to get a better look…and I saw a pikmin! "Welcome back Alex" it said "hi, Star" I said with a smile. Looking closely, I saw that his onion had landed a little bit away from where I had fallen asleep. I must have dismissed it as a flower by accident. "I never realized how small you guys were" I said "that's not important right now, what's on your mind?" Star asked. He was a dream pikmin, and they were telepathic, so I knew he knew something was wrong "where's Starlet?" I asked "she's nearby, but she only talks about people specifically, and you're avoiding the question" he said. He was defiantly to the point "well, my machine malfunctioned and lost a good chunk of its log, do you think you could help me with it?" I asked him "you want to know the source of the malfunction, don't you?" he replied. I nodded "well, the machine was a proto type, if you remember, so it had a lot of bugs" he said "yes, but I had perfected the log to make sure I could write down any problems" I replied "well, the machine might have been overpowered" he replied "what do you mean?" I asked, worried that something could have messed with my technology "the pikmin have been showing different behavior than before, correct?" he said. Again, I just nodded "well, your machine should have copied your personality, if it didn't at first, it would have corrected its mistake…unless it didn't know it made one" he said "so your saying something cut off the log?" I asked. He nodded "I can only tell you so much before I break the dream rules, but I can tell you that your machine isn't normal" he said "dream rules?" I asked "long story for another day" he replied "well, could you elaborate? About the machine, not the rules" I said "well, you made your machine to transport objects touching it, right?" he asked. I nodded "if you messed with the machine before using it, then it's possible you did something unintended, especially if you didn't test the machine first" he said. I thought back to the day I left. The pikmin were sad to see me go, and I was sad to see them leave, but they had to take off. Before they left, they asked if they could come with me. I had a few parts left from something I couldn't remember, and I decided to modify the transporter. I opened it to multiple targets, and I allowed it to convert targets into humans. I was unable to do an analysis, and tests were useless if I had nowhere to transport to. "What are the possibilities?" I asked fearfully "one possibility is the machine worked perfectly normal, and the log was just lost. Another possibility is the machine malfunction from water damage, and the pikmin ended up with modified personalities. Neither one is very likely though. Another possibility is you changed something that made it unstable, again, not likely or you wouldn't be here." He stopped "what's the most likely possibility?" I asked "the last possibility is you confused the machine, and it locked on to an unknown target. Not knowing what target it locked on to, it shorted out. The malfunction would have taken a bit to take effect, but once it took effect, it would go crazy. I think I can explain what happened, if you're willing to listen" I nodded "when you activated the machine, there was a target close to another being that you didn't know about. The machine locked on to both targets, but only transported the one you wanted. With the second target still in the system, it would have become confused, and malfunctioned. That's what shorted out the log. Without the review log, the machine couldn't figure out what happened to the unknown target, and it shorted out, creating the time jump. Disoriented, the machine altered the personalities of the 7 targets it brought, 3 of which were awake, and left the remaining targets pending. Without the log, it doesn't know if all the targets made it, and it doesn't know how many there are. It will continue trying to transport all its targets until all of them are in, and any modifications to the machine could hurt any previous targets, including yourself. The logs are accessible, but changing anything else could kill you and all the former pikmin." He finished and looked at me. Wow, so I had to reactivate it for the others to come through. I didn't want more people right now though, so I wouldn't touch it. "you can leave the others pending for as long as you need, but it could let them through by accident, though it won't until the surroundings are stable, which they aren't right now." Star said, reading my mind. The dream sun was starting to set, so I said bye and watched the colorless onion take off. I blinked in the dusk, and I woke up to a loud beep from my closed computer. It was midnight, and the others didn't notice the beep. I checked my computer and saw that my machine had another log entry. "7 days after transportation: new accomplice detected. Age copied from subject, mindset unknown, appearance unknown, abnormalities detected." I scrolled down to the abnormality, and what I saw scared me "abnormality unknown, target has been transported without warning" Star was right, something had messed with my machine, and now whatever it was, it was loose in the human world…

Chapter 8 finished! Originally the story was going to only be about the pikmin adapting to the human world, but at around chapter 4, I thought the story needed something more. Instead of adding an obvious enemy, I added a mystery, and a second goal. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with the mystery yet, but I think it makes things interesting, it also explains the machines malfunctions better. The next chapter is going to be the start of school, so you'll get to see how that turns out! Remember: I love criticism, reviews encourage me, and I'm open to input. bye for now!