Star and Leaf: A Pikmin Story

Posted this in the breif period of uptime between server difficulties. Which is good, because the title I had last time sucked. So here it is again, slightly edited.

A Pikmin fanfic. Mostly.

***

Prologue


The round, squinty-eyed little bastard standing at the podium cleared his throat with a nebbish “Hrm-hrm.” From his worry-bald head and sharp cut suit to his shiny, too-tight shoes, he was every inch the bureaucrat – and he stood at the front of the conference hall before a hundred and fifty men who were anything but. Men who lived like ants in the dark caverns under the facility, hauling scraps and fuselage and engines twice their size, covered in soot and sweat and bulging, formidable muscles; men who hadn’t been paid in over two months and were feeling less than cheerful as the President of the company prepared to tell them why, flanked by a row of similarly suited soft bodies holding clipboards and nervously tapping their pens.

Captain Olly Bottin didn’t quite fit in on either side of the podium – he wasn’t a hulking lug like the men in the audience, or a tweedy, twerpy little manager like those fidgeting in the chairs behind the President. He was a pilot. He was also one of only two left in all of Hocotate Freight. He sat on the end of the front row between bulky foreman Bolly Parkin and his last surviving contemporary, Captain Louie Olimar, who wrung his hands and bit his lip as the President began to speak.

“Hocotate Freight thanks you for your continued productivity and diligent service. You are – hrm-hrm – invaluable to our continued success, and your patience in this time of trouble, is very much appreciated.” The President stopped here and clasped his hands in what he must have thought was a stately pose of grave consideration, as if what he were about to say would chance the very fabric of space-time. His impression was swiftly corrected when Bolly Parkin threw a boot at his head. Cheers rose up from the audience, only to be replaced by a whine of disappointment as the portly President managed to duck and the boot took out the accountant unfortunately seated behind him.

The President righted himself as off-stage white-suits rushed in to cart out the body. Bolly gave Olly a wink and Louie put his head in his hands.

“This is bad,” Louie whispered. His face went green, and Olly inched away from the probable splash.

“Hrm-hrm,” said the President primly. Olly had to give him credit – he didn’t miss a beat, and turned to the audience with all the beady-eyed self-importance of a old man with soft hands and a habit of telling other people what to do.

“Well,” he said, “perhaps I should get to the point. We’re broke. Again. Hrm-hrm.”

Utter silence met this admission, and three hundred eyes tried to kill the President with squinting. The other managers standing behind him looked to the sides of the stage, ready to bolt at the sight of so much as a shoelace.

Bolly Parkin, one of Nature’s union leaders, stood up.

“Yes-now-we’ll-take-questions-Bolly-Parkin-would-you-please-stand-up?” said the President in one breath, never one to be left behind.

“So what?” Bolly said, crossing his massive arms over his barrel chest.

The sea of heads nodded and looked at the stage expectantly.

The President blinked. “Hrm. Perhaps I am being too delicate. We. Have no. Money.”

“That’s not true,” Bolly said. He stretched his arms out to include the whole auditorium. “Some of these tapestries are priceless.”

Even standing at the foot of the stage, Bolly was eye-to-eye with the President, who himself needed a stool to reach the microphone at the podium. Olly hadn’t noticed, but suddenly the chairs behind the podium were empty. At the back of the conference hall, he heard the sound of chair legs scraping on linoleum.

Louie whispered, “Oh, dear.” His face went pale. Olly was curious to see what colour he might be next.

The President put on his toothiest smile. “Those are part of a private collection. Not for sale, as it were.”

Bolly shot a glance at the back of the room. People were rising slowly, thoughtfully – taking stock of the surroundings with particular care to expendables.

Bolly returned his smile with interest. “I think it’s up for debate.”

Louie tugged Olly’s sleeve. “We should go.”

As the President started to sweat and the men crowded around the stage, Bolly gave Olly a wave and Louie tugged him out the doors.

Three steps down the hall, they heard the scream. It started out as a very bureaucratic scream – reserved, kind of snobby, almost embarrassed of itself – but soon someone was able to encourage the President to really give it some feeling.

***

“So. What now?”

Black smoke billowed out of the high windows of the main hanger. A few minutes prior, there had been an earth-shaking boom which, at least, stopped a lot of the horrible screaming. The labourers ran from building to building, arms loaded with the oddest assortment of pillage Olly had ever seen – one had a desk blotter, a stuffed owl, a bike pedal and dozens upon dozens of the lunchroom wet naps, falling off his loaded arms like snowflakes. He looked happy, anyway. Bolly had been by earlier to give Olly his cut – Olly, though extremely grateful, suspected his landlord wouldn’t accept an industrial vat of ketchup in lieu of two months rent. He sat beside Louie in a quiet corner of the bureaucrats lunch park, watching the mayhem and trying to muster a little revolutionary enthusiasm.

“Now we’re free, I guess,” he said, trying to make it sound hopeful. He was all for the uprising, don’t get him wrong – but he was also used to having work, and there were far worse things to do than be a space jockey – even unpaid – in this, the fourth year of the Great Depression.

For instance, he thought grimly as a crowd of labourers dragged a screaming fat-cat through the dirt of the courtyard on a rope tied to his ankle, he could be in management.

At least Louie had stopped turning colours. He was back to his pink-faced self, shaking with his ordinary amount of worry. Every time a new explosion went off he let out a squeaky little scream. Olly patted him on the back and stood up.

“Might as well see if anything’s left worth taking,” he said. Louie stood and darted his head around like a prairie-dog. Olly heard thunderous footfalls behind him, and turned to see Bolly lumbering up with what looked like a sac of undelivered mail on his shoulder.

“Could be cheques,” he said brightly in answer to Olly’s questioning look. Olly didn’t have the heart to remind him that the Hocotate Freight stamp wasn’t worth much these days.

And then it hit him – the thing he’d always wanted, the thing he’d been dreaming about on and off for the past six years, the thing that kept him happy doing short-runs to crappy moon settlements – that thing was suddenly within his reach. It had completely slipped his mind in all the excitement. He was one of three people to know about it, and the other two were likely dead. It was his for the taking – his, free and clear, and a sure sight better than ketchup. His eyes lit up as his warrior spirit found something it wanted to war for.

Bolly said, “What you thinking about, Olly?”

Olly grinned. “Come with me.”

***

He led them past the main hanger to the collection of squat buildings on it’s south side. From the looks of it, these had been spared the riot so far – their featureless sides were still unmarked and the doors shut snug. But it was only a matter of time. As he led them to the furthest one, Building D01451N, he noticed a group of thugs to the west take an interest in their small party and quickened his pace.

“What do you want in the battery rooms?” Bolly asked, easily tossing the heavy mail bag to his other shoulder. Louie stayed quiet and experimented with yellow. Olly wondered if he knew – he must, he was a pilot here long before Olly ever transferred – but Louie didn’t seem much interested in where they were going, as long as the booms stayed far, far away.

Olly led them around the back where he touched a seemingly blank piece of wall and the desert floor at their feet slid back to reveal a hatch. Bolly swore and Louie, poor sod, screamed. Bolly grabbed his shirt to stop him running away. Olly quickly looked around – no one in sight, not even a damn bird in the clear blue sky. But he wouldn’t be stupid. He ushered the two down the stairs and quickly followed – once they were clear of the hatch he pounded a button the sloping wall and all light was cut out completely. Louie whimpered until the floodlights came to life, casting a bright, eerie glow on the underground hanger.

“Wait,” Bolly said at the foot of the stairs. He dropped his mail – paycheques scattered like leaves and, contrary to Olly’s prediction, failed to bounce. “When the hell did this get here?”

“It’s always been,” Louie said softly. “It was here before the rest of it. Government contracts, or something.” He hung his head.

Bolly snorted as he looked around with hungry eyes. “Broke my ass.”

The hanger went on for miles. You could fit whole towns and partial suburbs in it. Great big beastly shapes loomed in pools of light, hidden by dusty, draped cloth. The last time Olly had been down here, everything was clean and bright and busy – now it looked abandoned and smelled vaguely like a thrift store change room.

He scanned the room, not daring to hope – and when he saw what he was looking for he let out a cry of joy. To his credit, Louie only jumped a little.

***

“That’s a nice boat.”

“Ship, Bolly. We call it a ship.”

“Can you drop me off at home?”

***

Outside, the rioting quieted to sack-stuffing and the half-hearted maiming of anything in a suit. Todd Kinmar had gathered a group of men together into something that resembled an army, and was picking up or cutting down anything that came in his path. Like any bully who shot straight to the top (it was he who had thrown the President’s head clean over the main hanger), he was already auditioning cronies. Boone was on his left and didn’t say much; Stan (who now called himself Sting), was chattering away a mile a minute, gleefully pointing out twitching limbs, calling insults at the other small gangs that had begun forming, and generally making a lot of noise. Todd didn’t think Sting would get a second interview.

“Where’s Bolly?” he asked the universe in general.

The universe answered by making the desert explode.

***

“Golly.”

Todd looked at Boone with a twinkle in his eye. They stood at the edge of the now not-so-secret hanger bay, which had flung open in a great shower of sand and sparks as Olly flew his dream ship into the heavens.

“Jackpot,” Todd said.

Sting was hopping up and down like his feet were on fire.

“Oh my, this is great, right boss, we’re going each get our own ship, huh, boss, we’ll be just like pirates, arr matey, etc, I wonder if they have one in blue, I guess I could paint it, right bo- ”

After the thud, Todd peered down into the hanger at Sting’s twisted body tangled in a drop cloth.

“Someone get that corpse off my boat.”

Boone wiped his hands together. “Ship, boss.”

Todd nodded. “Let’s go.”

That was awesomely funny - so dark and not quite right - but I enjoyed reading it just the same.

This has a 'fun' story to it, you could expand it more but I don't think you need to change a thing since it's a comedy. Keep it going.

Thanks guys. Here's Chapter 1.

***

Olly bit the end of his pencil thoughtfully.

Dear Mum, he wrote. Then he leaned back against the ship and considered. It was a good beginning. A strong beginning. The kind of introduction that proudly said, “I Am A Letter And Make No Mistake!” Except everything that followed kind of tumbled in on itself in a black hole of indecipherable madness.

It wasn’t his fault. He had never been good at letters. He was also, he recently discovered much to his own disappointment, not very good at adventures, either.

He looked around the beautiful, sun dappled clearing and sighed. Bolly snoozed in the shade of a pretty pink flower twice as tall as he was. His face was a study in serenity, which rather made Olly want to chuck a rock at his head. For all intents and purposes, he had been every bit the hero of their troupe – in the two days since landing he had taken to their troubling new environment like a tiger to long grass.

Louie – who was now tending to his “garden” under a red, onion-shaped organic spaceship – hadn’t been very Louie-like at all. Not once they left orbit and kept going into uncharted space. Bolly and Olly scratched their heads at what to do; the Hocotate Freight uprising had inspired every downtrodden poor sod on the planet and it’s established moons to turn to their fellows and say, “You know, there’s an awful lot more of us than them.” Bolly was no end of proud and, in Olly’s estimation, a little disappointed he wasn’t there to stick a few heads on poles. Olly was just worried. The ship was stocked with enough supplies to last one person three weeks, or more if they were conservative. Between the three of them, on Day Four the cupboard started to look a little bare.

“Why don’t we stop on Oberon?” Bolly had asked as they came within the outmost moon’s orbit. Olly checked the news feed and shook his head.

“I don’t think it’s safe,” he said.

“I can handle it.” Bolly thumped his chest all prideful, perhaps unaware how much he already looked like a gorilla.

“Okay. Only the port is on fire.”

They had decided to keep going. The not-quite plan became Outrun The Revolution. Each day the news feeds brought back more proletarian victory, until the proletarians took over the broadcast station and discovered their revolution lacked skilled video technicians. The feeds had gone dark for a bit, until one day a signal came through across all stations – a pretty young girl in army fatigues calling herself Jenny Red. She had puppets. After watching for a bit, Olly considered there far worse ways to explain the shift in power – but he thought the puppets looked sad with their little fluffy heads lopped off.

Once it had been three days with no break in the starry black, an abnormally non-screaming Louie said, “I have an idea.”

An uncharted planet, he explained, that his brother Olimar once crashed upon. Fertile as all get out – no shortage of food, which sounded might fine as they eyed the last tube of nutrient paste. Olly asked if it had any indigenous people.

“Just plants,” Louie said, in a funny sort of way. Olly was suspicious – but he was also hungry, and tired, and noticing that Bolly was the kind of man whose company was best appreciated in open air. So he said yes.

And here they were.

He looked down at his letter.

I am not dead.

He thought for a moment.

But each day brings new possibilities.

“They’re ready!”

Olly jumped as the excited figure of Louie danced around a ring of bright white flowers under the onion. Bolly snorted and sat up with his knife in his hand before his eyes were open. He stood and ambled over to Louie, with an interested expression dawning over his sleepy face. Olly stayed where he was and put his pencil back to the page. He was disappointed to see his hand shake.

We have made new friends that are carrots.

He heard a pop! and a little voice cry, “Whee!”

The carrots are very keen to help but are especially good at being eaten by the hundreds of gigantic monsters that live on this planet.

More pops; more shouts of “Whee!” Bolly and Louie were laughing. Olly frowned. He used to be the laugher – he would laugh, and Louie would scream. That’s the way it had always been. He didn’t want to be the Louie.

But when they first landed, it was night. All ventured forth from the ship and promptly lost each other – or, at least, Bolly and Louie lost Olly, because by the time he found his way back to the clearing they had started a fire and were gearing up to come find him.

He had seen horrible things.

Things that breathed fire and shot electricity from their bums. Monsters shaped like festive potatoes with teeth bigger than his head. Things that shot spears out of their faces – things that went “Urrp?” before vaulting into the air and trying to squish you into paste.

That had been the first ten minutes.

When he found his way back to the landing site two hours later, he decided that he would never, ever run away from home again.

Louie and Bolly had discovered the Pikmin, and Olly stumbled into the clearing to find half a dozen red carrots with leaves on their heads looking at him with eerie, alien intelligence.

Then he fainted.

Louie and Bolly had been keeping their distance ever since. Just like Olly and Bolly used to. It wasn’t fair.

Olly watched them gather together the newly picked army of full-bloomed Pikmin. They tossed a whistle back and forth between them and took turns calling the attention of the plantlings. Olly had to admit, it was fascinating. He never knew carrots to do more than sit in his fridge and go limp.

Still, he was feeling fragile and screamy, so he decided to finish up his letter and take a nap.

Today we are going to look for more carrots that can swim. Love to Dad. Olly.

***

Todd looked down the slope of the hill reflectively. Boone, as always, stood at his shoulder on the right. Their own stolen ship sat safely on a sandy plot of land, walled in by stone. The eight labourers who had tagged along, dreaming pirate dreams, were now on the beach below rapidly reconsidering their new profession. Pirating, went the unspoken consensus, should include less mucking about in a swamp and more dry land pillage and pretty women. Eight men walked cautiously down the beach, into the water, holding whatever they had found in the ship that could pass for a weapon. Todd mused that, at best, they could scare the shell off a boiled egg. At least the man with the spatula was growling enthusiastically.

They fanned out in standard fashion. Todd watched from his position on the hill as first one, then two, then three men on the left disappeared under the water without so much as a gurgle. The remaining five looked around, bewildered.

“Huh,” Todd said, and Boone nodded.

Three giant slugs broke the surface of the water – wobbly, pale blue tubes with huge mouths frilled a cheery pink – and slurped towards the men. The men abandoned their utensils and made a break for the beach. Two made it, fighting with each other all the way. Todd approved. He was a big believer in Survival of the Fittest – or, more accurately, Survival of the Guy Who Will Break Your Knees To Slow You Down.

As the two came stumbling up the slope, the ground rumbled under their feet; sand sprayed up in fountains as three giant, green-black beetles scrabbled to the surface. The men didn’t even have time to scream. When they had sucked up the last limb, the bugs burrowed back underground leaving not so much as a stain.

“You know,” Todd said thoughtfully, “Maybe we shouldn’t have followed Bolly.”

Boone coughed into his fist. Todd took it as a diplomatic agreement.

“Well. We’re here now.” They turned from the now serene scene of carnage and headed back to the ship. Todd stepped inside briefly and came out holding two very big guns. Boone raised an eyebrow.

“I only had the two,” Todd said, a little hurt. “It wasn’t like I wanted them to die.”

Boone shrugged. “Darwin, boss?”

Todd smiled. “Yeah. That’s it.” He tossed a gun to Boone and held the other against his shoulder, checking the chamber. “Those slugs looked like they had some good eating on them, don’t you think?”

Boone held his weapon at the ready and twitched his head in a way that Todd took for a nod. They started to make their way down the beach slowly.

“And they’ll be slow now that they’ve eaten,” Todd said reflectively.

“Always look on the bright side, boss.”

Todd grinned. “Damn right.”

Oh my, this is really a good story, I love the pikmin and it always depresses me when they get et, or flamed, blownup...ect like this part the best

Dear Mum, he wrote. Then he leaned back against the ship and considered. It was a good beginning. A strong beginning. The kind of introduction that proudly said, “I Am A Letter And Make No Mistake!” Except everything that followed kind of tumbled in on itself in a black hole of indecipherable madness.

That's my wrting everyday.

Thanks, achitka. Glad to hear you're enjoying it. I don't think I'm going to draw it out too long, maybe five or six chapters at the most.

Posted the rest of Chapter 1 above.

Definately a superior piece of literature, but seeing as what I've read of your writings this doesn't particularly suprise me, mr. pipking. Do keep up the good work, I look forward to reading additional chapters.

Doh! - felt like a star trek moment there, certainly was a fun way to cut out a few extras. Long or short I will most likely follow along, Todd & Boone are just too interesting to miss out on.