A big red ship appeared out of hyperspace, and ventured onward for the great blue and green planet ahead. It was quite a shabby ship, whose hull was almost rusted through and the paint was so worn the white of it appeared an ugly sand color. It was a wonder the ship was able to fly at all.
Woop! Near miss. The ship careened over an oncoming meteor.
On the descent now. It was a bumpy ride, just a tad. Then the ship passed the atmosphere and descended further though thick cells of clouds, and snow that showered so heavily it made it impossible to see!
Snap! The tree came out of nowhere, and down went the ship. Did the passenger hatch burst open? Uh oh.
BOOM!
Some ways away from the ship, a small body laid face down in the snow. His green and yellow suit stuck out like a sore thumb. The green-lighted antenna on his helmet perked up, and he pushed himself up out of the snow. He had a large, round head and an almost equally large nose.
"Woo! That was fun! Let's do it agai-" the young boy cut himself short once he remembered what had happened, and then said aloud, "On second thought…maybe not. Right Ly-" again, but this time who he had been speaking to was nowhere to be found as he turned to look behind him. "Uh oh…where's Lyrima? Lyrima!" He called out, but all he got was his own voice bouncing back loudly in his ears. He shook his head. Then he remembered that he had his communicator on him. He found Lyrima's frequency and hailed her. "Lyrima? Lyrima, you there? Hello?"
"Ow-ow-ow! Not so loud!" her voice came back over the channel. "This is the last time I let you talk me into letting you fly a spaceship anymore!"
He chuckled. "Well, you sound like you're okay. Where are you? You sound like you're nearby."
"I'm in some kind of pit. Not deep, I can see the sky, but it is dark around me. I- I'm a little scared…" a faint shiver hissed over the channel. "Please find me, Alimar."
"No worries," he told her. He checked his map for her beacon: indeed, she was not very far away. "Just hang tight. Watch me on your map. I'll find you and we can start our search together." He ended the call then, and looked out ahead.
There, in the near distance, he spotted something most peculiar: There was a strange creature he likened to his dog back home, but it was smaller and had red skin and white spots; it was being attacked by a bunch of smaller red creatures, whom he had a mind to think looked a lot like PikminPikmin carrots.
"Oh! Looks like a big fight!" Alimar rushed down the corridor and took cover behind a small pile of snow. He watched. It looked like the strange Pik-Pik creatures had the upper hand, but it turned out that the bout was a standoff. He felt compelled to do something—only he had no idea which one he was to help: the larger one, or the smaller ones.
"Huh?" It was so well hidden he had almost missed it. There was a glowing object in the snow mound he hid behind. He dug into it and sure enough, he found a Data File. It was even compatible with his suits operating system. "What's this doing here?"
As he slotted it in, and the data was displayed in front of him. It read: Throw Pikmin on its back! And the next page read: The whistle attracts your Pikmin. Use it to command them. Both were accompanied by images detailing their respective tutorials.
"The picture shows those Pik-Pik things landing on top of the creature. Those gotta be the Pikmin. And they'll follow my whistle? Okay, here goes nothing then." He stood from his cover and took a few steps closer. Once in range, he blew hard into his whistle.
It was a high-pitched metallic sounding whistle, and it drew the attention of the little red creatures to him.
His eyes popped wide. He panicked as they surrounded him. "Ah! Get away fro- wait, you're not attacking me." He looked around him. All eyes were on him. And so were the ones of that bulboid-looking creature that was heading their way. "Oh-oh! I gotta be quick! Um…" he grabbed one of them and threw as hard as he could. "Hya!"
Spot on! The Pikmin landed atop the bulboid's back, and the little beast let out a holler. But it was still coming!
"One more! One more!" He picked up another Pikmin and threw it. "Hya!"
Splat! That's the one that did it! The bulboid fell dead after letting out a painful cry, and rolled onto its back.
"Yeah! Whoo! Take that!" Alimar did a small dance, of which the Pikmin group joined in, bouncing and flipping alongside him. Once he had his fun, he spoke to himself, "So these guys come to me by my whistle, and they'll attack on command if I throw them. Just like a video game I used to play! Awesome! I wonder what else you guys can do? But first, I have to find my sister."
He opened his map, and found Lyrima's telltale pink beacon somewhere south-west of him, a fair walk that might take a quarter of the day, if he had to guess. He closed the map and looked around for a path that might lead that way, and saw a cave opening nearby.
A stiffened breath drew in and out of him, as did a little shiver shoot through him. His throat felt patchy and dry as he said aloud, "Well…like Dad said…Nothing ventured, nothing gained." He stuffed down his fear, and marched onward into the cave.
"Ugh! Of the two of us, why did Ihave to be the one to fall out of the ship?" Lyrima spat, as she climbed her way up a short incline through the dark reaches of the cave. She looked back, and could not see the light of the sky anymore, and back again, not much was there to see either, save for what was illuminated by her antenna light. Like her brother, she had a large round head, though her nose was not quite as big; she wore a bright pink hood as well with a pair of bun bumps on either side of her head.
She made it to the top. Yes, it was still very dark. At the very least she could tell she was in a larger section of the cave. But as far as she could see, no exit was in sight.
"Great…it'll take forever to find the way out!" She hugged the wall and moved ahead, mindful of her steps. Many of the areas in the cave were treacherously high, and she knew one wrong move would not be as soft as crash landing in a pile of snow.
A shiver ran down her spine as she trudged along, not of cold, but of some foreboding eeriness she could not shake. As though something was watching her in the shadows, she was sure her light was drawing attention to things she couldn't see. But she didn't want to turn it off either. Her antenna was the only way she could see in this infernal darkness.
Her breath echoed within her helmet, and between that and the faint rumbling of the cave itself, she found herself looking back and forth between places she thought she heard a noise come from, little skittering or slithering sounds that gave her goosebumps and made her skin run damp with sweat.
She found another incline. This one went down again. She didn't like it, but she could see nowhere else to go. She bent down as far as she could and brought her antenna down to see her path. The dirt was loose, and every step felt as though it would lead to a fatal slide down. Thankfully, her fears were for naught as she made it down safely. She looked around again, and groaned when she found herself only deeper under the ground than before.
"Ooh…Al…I hope you don't take too lo-" as she turned, she spotted some faint and strange thing nearby. She squinted, and caught a glimpse of what appeared to be…sparkling?
Quietly, so as not to disturb anything that might have been nearby, she rushed closer to the sparkling eminence and got a better look.
The source of the sparkling mirage appeared to have been coming from these strange little Pik-Pik carrot looking creatures, with tiny yellow bodies and disproportionately big ears. They were joined hand in hand, one at the end of the line had been grasped onto the end of what appeared to be a large cable. Lyrima was at first concerned, but then was panged with the notion that these creatures have been comfortably holding onto one another and the cable for quite some time and were in fact perfectly fine. As they all took notice of her and turned to face her, she confirmed as much.
Well, they did not appear to be hostile. Lyrima stepped closer, her head bobbed back and forth with unspoken questions as to what these little creatures were doing. Why were they letting themselves be electrocuted? How was it possible? To what end?
She looked to the end of the line of hands, and noticed the one at the very end could not reach another line of wire that lay nearby.
"So you must be able to conduct electricity…but only if there were enough of you to…" her gaze shifted the other way, and nestled within a wedge was something that seemed equally as odd as the self-surgent creatures: a large, round-ish object that was yellow like the Pikmin. "Hmm…I wonder…"
She went to the strange object. It appeared to be some form of craft, and beneath it were a few spouts with leaves that looked similar to the ones upon the heads of the yellow Pikmin.
Pure curiosity bit at her, and she went and grabbed one of the stalks. She pulled as hard as she could, and out it came. She was surprised to see she had plucked another Pikmin from the ground.
"Interesting! So these creatures are some sort of plant-animal hybrid…" she went, as she made a circle around the newly grown Pikmin that looked round and round back at her with big beady eyes. "You seem non-aggressive…" she looked back at the line of Pikmin on the wire, and then added, "and you might be just what they need to finish whatever circuit they're trying to connect. Okay! Let's do it."
She ushered the yellow Pikmin along, eager to test her hypothesis. She pointed to the line of Pikmin, and the lone one went and joined them. Lyrima watched with eager intent as the arcs of electricity surged through them all, and connected with the end of the wire.
Then, like a sun had suddenly burst into existence, a great bright light came on and lit up the entire cave!
"Woah!" Lyrima watched as the foliage within the cave took to the new light. All around her, gargantuan fluffy mushroom platforms bloomed, and bioluminescent fungus began to shine along the walls.
A crackling sound drew her attention. She looked and saw that the big yellow object was moving, shuffling its way out from the rocks, and with a great big blast it rocketed up out of the cave, busting a new opening in the roof.
Shock and awe. That's what she had been left with from that display. She almost wished she had been holding onto the thing as it burst its way out. Then again, if it had been flying, that was a prospect she did not want to entertain, perhaps. Oh well. She looked back and scanned the walls, and up on the far end, she saw what looked like an exit.
"Ah, finally! A way out!" Lyrima let go a sigh of relief. She turned to the Pikmin, who had left the wire now that the arc was formed and joined her side, and with a shrug she said, "I guess some company wouldn't hurt. And you guys turned out to be quite helpful. Alight, come along then." She waved a hand, and the Pikmin followed her on up the path to the exit.
"Looks like Lyrima is on the move…" Alimar noted, as he checked his sister's location against her last known position. Unfortunately, without proper scan data from the ship, his map remained blank, and he could only see how close Lyrima was to himself, but not which way he had to go to meet up with her. "She's really smart. I know we'll see eachother soon! Just like Papa told us: 'With you and your sister working together, you can accomplish anything!'" At that, a sigh escaped him like a slow creeping smoke from a dead fire. He said, to no one in particular, "Papa…when I said I wanted to go on an adventure, this isn't what I had in mind."
The red Pikmin followed close behind him. Alimar was unsure whether they were listening or not, or if they cared for that matter, but he felt a slight flutter as they looked and met eyes with him. Like faithful little soldiers, who followed at the heels of their commander, they did not need to say a single thing to him, only listen and follow. He decided it would be best to treat them with kindness, and do his best to serve them back in turn if he could.
They reached the end of the tunnel, and entered into an open cavern. Alimar stopped at the opening, and looked on at the rocky field ahead. There were fire spouts shooting off tall pillars, and strange gray-skinned creatures with large backs and narrow red-tipped snouts.
"Oh boy…" Alimar felt his heart sink. Out from the freezer and into the frying pan, if such a saying could more perfectly describe how things had appeared before him. He watched the gray-skinned creatures pass by ahead of him, they seemed not to notice his presence. He felt inclined to keep it that way. He found a patch of bushes along the wall and hurried himself and his Pikmin along to hide in them, and he continued to look around and catch a better bearing of the surrounding area.
It was not dissimilar to an arena in terms of size and form, with the aforementioned treacherous obstacles and creatures. There was a small wedge on the far side of the cave which seemed to house some strange purple flower that was quite large. Just a ways off to the left, he spotted the opening to another tunnel.
"Okay, I think I have a plan," he said, kneeling closer to his Pikmin. "There's too many of those monsters to make a full scale attack. We'll keep sneaking along the wall until we make it to that flower, then we make a run for the next cave." He paused, as though waiting for a response, and then added, "Yeah, just like a video game…only a bit more scary," he drew a sharp breath, and his eyes turned intense, "…one, two…three!"
Instead of hugging the wall, however, the Pikmin went after the gray-skinned creatures.
"What? Wait no!" Alimar went after them, but stopped short at the blast of a fire geyser. He watched his Pikmin be engulfed by the flames. His heart sank.
But only for that brief moment, because the next, when the geyser stopped fuming, he saw the Pikmin still rushing perfectly unharmed. They attacked the gray-skinned beast as it lurched its hind legs and threw them forward, and blasted them with a fury of flames out its snout.
Again, Alimar had been struck worried, but once more the Pikmin appeared unphased, and only got back up to continue their attack. Then it clicked. "Fire resistance? This just keeps getting better! Alright! Go go go!"
But just as before when he found them, they were in a standoff against this larger beast. There appeared to be no danger of them being eaten, and the fight was sure to attract more of the other beasts, though Alimar was inclined to step in and help speed things along.
He blew his whistle and regrouped his handy little soldiers, and he guided them behind the beast where it seemed it was most vulnerable. One by one he threw them, and they beat upon its back the moment they landed. The great beast lurched again and hurled its backside, and threw the Pikmin off. He repeated the cycle, and eventually the beast fell dead. Another one bites the dust!
A smile drew across his face, and Alimar, more confident now, regrouped his fighters once more and set off against the next one, and the one after that, and then another, until all that remained in the cave were a small pile of downed beasts slain at the hands of himself and his little red soldiers. Triumph!
Then a sigh of relief. Alimar went to wipe his brow, but only knocked his hand against his helmet. Still, he was glad that the fight was easy enough, if only a tad more perilous for himself, as he doubted his spacesuit would protect him from the fire like his Pikmin were. Now onto other matters. He looked again to the strange flower over yonder, and approached it. Sure enough, it was an oddity quite unexpected to be found, a spectacle of many degrees. The most blatant was that its petals were as big as he was, and despite having appeared to have grown underground, it blossomed with the most beautiful shade of purple.
His attention turned to a sudden shifting sound, and he noticed that one of the Pikmin was trying to climb a petal.
"Seems like you know something I don't," he said. He bent down and took the Pikmin under its arms, and helped it into the flower.
Snap! Alimar lurched back as the flower spiraled closed, contorted into a cone, and out from its spout flew what appeared to be a strange purple seed. Once it planted itself into the ground, a stalk with a leaf spurted out.
Alimar was at a loss for words. He looked and saw that his Pikmin appeared as curious as he was, but also seemed oddly eager. About the sprout?
Well, it was enough to draw his intrigue, and he went over and grabbed ahold of the stalk and pulled. It was unbelievably tough, and when the sprout had been freed, he'd been sent flying backwards. As he looked up, he let out a faint yet bewildered gasp.
Big and purple. The newly sprouted Pikmin stood taller than his red brothers, and from a bare glance, he appeared to be stronger too.
"Huh, so I can change you with that flower too?" Alimar went over and picked up the purple Pikmin. Indeed, it was much heavier. "Jee wiz…could probably crush something's skull if I threw you." He looked at his other Pikmin, and counted another four of them. Very low numbers as it was, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to change any more. "If I did…maybe it would be worthwhile to convert the rest of you."
As good an idea as any. Alimar went ahead, and plucked the newly sprouted purple Pikmin. They were much more daunting than before, like if they charged at him they may very well run him down like a bunch of boulders rolling down a hill.
"Alright, I can't wait to see what you guys can do!" Alimar turned, and his attention was brought to the giant flower, and he watched as it wilted into nothing. Shocked, maybe, but it was nothing he was going to concern himself too much over. He did what he wanted to do. Now it was time to move on. He took the lead and guided his reformed group out of the cave and into the next tunnel.
But upon entry, Alimar had been struck with what could possibly have been the most bizarre thing he thought he could have ever come across. Down the short path before him, a large section of the pathway along a ledge appeared to have collapsed, and in its place was a strange contraption of platforms suspended by odd-placed ropes on beams and supports. It seemed like some treacherous sort of puzzle, one that required a counterbalance to get across. Then, beyond that, Alimar blinked, and where for a moment he thought he'd been imagining things, he spotted Lyrima on the other side. Ecstatic, he jumped and waved to her. "Lyrima! Hey! Over here!"
"Alimar!" For the first time since landing, Lyrima felt a sense of relief. She stopped as close to the end of her side of the drop as she could, and called at him, "I'm so glad you're okay!"
"Same!" Alimar called back.
Lyrima looked up and around, and noted the same things he had. She said, "Looks like the only way we're meeting up is if we work together to solve this." She pointed to the platform nearest to her brother, and asked, "That platform, think your team can weigh it down?"
Alimar nodded, and picked up one of his Purples and threw him over. Following a loud metallic thud, the counterbalance mechanism shifted, and down it came, rather fast, and fell far past him and into the pit until no more slack was left.
But the task was done. Now Lyrima took her turn, only she noticed how high up the platform nearest to her was, much too high, she thought. She had to try though, so she picked up a Yellow, and with as much might as she could muster, threw it.
To both their surprise, the Yellow flew higher than either of them thought possible, and landed safely atop the high platform. However, a new problem emerged: the Yellow did not appear heavy enough to counterbalance the Purple Alimar threw.
"Interesting…" Lyrima thought aloud, intrigued by the stunning difference between hers and her brother's squads. Still, there was the task at hand. She told him, "I'll throw a couple more." And so she did, but by the end of it wound up throwing the remaining nine Yellows in her camp. But now the two sides were balanced, and she stepped onto the platform. However, as she did, the weight had been thrown off again, and it was she who had sunk down. "Guess I should have expected that."
"Let me throw another!" Alimar called out. He threw another Purple onto the platform, and just like before, they shifted—only this time, the two Purples appeared to outweigh both the group of Yellows and Lyrima together. He stood stupified by the fact.
Lyrima, too, was surprised by this but being up high was better than below where she needed to be. Up high…right, from where she stood, the way down looked much higher than where she had stood before. She gulped.
"Any way I can help?" Alimar asked, though he saw no real way to help.
For a moment, Lyrima had been lost for words. Her head shook as she looked up to meet Alimars eye. Shakily, she told him, "I- I got it, I think… Um…" she felt her heart pounding, heard the blood surging in her ears. She tried to think, but thoughts weren't coming together how she wanted them to.
As strange as it was, her Yellows seemed to catch on, and one of them stepped over to her. It got her attention, and then it leaped off the ledge with a cute little squeak.
To her surprise though, she was watching the Yellow gently glide away, and touch down safely at the spot of land between the two platforms.
A gasp escaped her, as though a lightbulb came on in her mind, and showered away the thoughts of fear she had moments before. She turned, and saw another Yellow had volunteered itself for her to pick up. She raised it over her head as high as she could reach, and after a not-so-steady jump, she too glided down to safety with the Yellow in hand. She panted for breath for a moment. "That…that wasn't so bad." She chuckled, and patted the two Yellows atop their heads. "Thank you. That was actually pretty fun."
"Hey, sis! What's that beside you?" Alimar called out.
Lyrima looked over, and sure enough, there was what appeared to be a locking mechanism for when the two platforms were level. It was just a matter of leveling them back out again. She looked to her brother and asked, "Think you can throw one of yours over here?"
"I can try, but they are really heavy!" Alimar grabbed a purple, and used all the force he had in him to throw it across.
For a moment, it looked as though it might not make it, Lyrima rushed over thinking it wasn't, but the Purple just barely made it, about an inch from the edge. She grabbed his little hand regardless and pulled him to safety. Then it was onto the next part of her plan. She knew there were already two Purples on the first platform, so if she threw her Purple and the other two Yellows back on the second, then the scales should level out. Hypothesis done. Now for execution.
The two Yellows went up easily, like a pair of feathers in the wind. The Purple was harder, and Lyrima noted that it didn't have much of an arc as she threw him, but it barely cleared the edge.
And just like that, the two platforms balanced out. Lyrima engaged the lock and whistled for her group to join her. Just as expected, the two platforms remained as they were, which meant she could now convene with her brother and his squad too. They locked arms around one another, and held each other tight.
"I'm so glad you're okay…" she told him.
"I'm glad you're okay too," he told her.
"Mind if we get out of here? I've had enough of dark and spooky places for one day."
He chuckled, nodded his head, and took the lead out of the cave.
By the time they returned, the yellow object had landed at the crash site where their ship laid, still half buried in the snow.
"What is that thing?" Alimar asked.
Lyrima shrugged. "I don't know…I found a Yellow sprout underneath it. I think it's connected to our little followers somehow."
"Like a mothership?" Alimar asked, small wisps of wonder and intrigue sewn into his words. His eyes looked all playful and bright.
But Lyrima remained inquisitive and serious in her response. "Possibly. If it is, I wonder if your Purples will have one too. And also…" she added, with even more intrigue in her voice, "you said that you found them as Red's, and changed them by throwing them into a flower?" She watched Alimar nod, and went on, "Fascinating…that further proves that they are some form of plant-animal hybrid. They seem evolved to respond to the sounds of our whistles, and intelligent enough to possess a degree of intuition to perform tasks. If that thing," she pointed at the Yellow pod, "is their mothership, perhaps there's more to them that we have yet to discover."
"In Hocotateez, please?" Alimar groaned.
"Nevermind the last part," Lyrima relented. "The point is we can command them to help us with whatever we need to get done." Then, as she turned for the Yellow pod, she asked, without actually asking, "Why don't we test our theory?"
She went and stood directly underneath the beam of light that shone down from below the pod. Before she had a chance to react, she had been presented with what appeared to be a UI screen that fit nicely over the surface of her helmet. There were three sections with numbers, which she gathered had to refer to the number of Pikmin within and outside the pod—oddly though, it only counted the ten Yellow ones in their group, while the others remained excluded.
"Well that's just mean!" Lyrima felt her brow tinge. Just as quickly, her tone softened, as she added, "But I suppose it makes sense, somewhat. Yellow goes to Yellow."
"That must mean there are other colors too!" Alimar so point-of-factedly stated.
"Yes, that would make perfect sense," Lyrima answered, her tone stretched like a rubber band. Then she more emphatically added, "So unless we find a pod for your Purples, we may have to let them bunk in the ship with us."
Alimar let out a symphonic hum, which the Purples and Yellows mimicked and drew a chuckle from him. When his attention returned to his sister, he told her, "Cool! At least we'll be able to take them with us!"
"Speaking of the ship…" Lyrima turned behind her, "Auto-Repair—on."
At her word, the ship rumbled to life. The sounds of machines working inside whirled and whizzed and clicked and toiled, until the ship was upright and all damage had been repaired. It was as good as new—or, rather, as they found it.
Then, on came the ships on-board artificial intelligence, who spoke with the most irritating buzz to take the form of words.
"System rebooting…Auto-Repair sequence—complete; Systems Check—complete; Life Support systems—operational…System reboot—complete. This vessel is ready for flying."
"Speech module—Off," Lyrima said next.
And just like that, the ship's vocal systems went offline. The ship was now just a ship.
With the ship repaired and the two siblings together again, nothing else was in the way of the purpose of their arrival to the planet…save for the day growing short. They each looked up, and noticed the sky had turned quite a bit darker, and the air around them colder. Even the Pikmin seemed wary, huddled up to each other and to the siblings. Once more, they all heard strange and blood curdling noises coming from afar, the sounds of unthinkable nocturnal creatures getting ready to prowl in the night.
"Maybe it's best we take off and land again tomorrow morning," Lyrima told Alimar.
He agreed, and turned to the Pikmin around them. "Alright, everyone, time to pack it up for the night!" He blew his whistle, and right on cue the Pikmin dispersed to their respective housings. Just as Lyrima surmised, the Yellows filed into the Yellow pod, and the Purples took shelter in the hull of their ship. Once all numbers were settled in, the two of them entered the ship too.
Then, the two vessels took off, soaring high into the sweet lavender light of the dusk-night sky.
Alimar wrote:
Day 1
Our mission hit a snag, and we lost a day. Despite crash landing on arrival to this strange planet, my sister and I were able to find each other and take off safely before nightfall. If it weren't for those Pikmin we found, Lyrima and I might be slumming it out in the caves hiding from whatever scary monsters there are lurking in the night.
It's strange…for some odd reason, it's like I feel some sort of force pulling at me, like something on this planet is drawing me back. Or someone. Maybe it's a sign that we are getting closer to what we have set out to do here.
Lyrima is detecting a faint signal not too far from this strange land. That will be our stop coming morning.
Papa…wherever you are, just hold on. We're coming for you.