| 11:07p |
[In front of a huge building-wall, tucked in against the stairwell, sits their mother, their home, the Onion. The bulb casts a warm red glow on the ground. It blends in oddly well here, alongside some tufts of curly-strange grass.
Ten Pikmin return, lugging a bent metal-thing. It's not prey; they can't feed it to the Onion. It's treasure. Large and glorious treasure!
The problem is that they're not sure exactly what treasure is for. They have a sap-flowing need to carry useful things ... somewhere ... for some reason. That's all. The Pikmin hum and chirp to each other, and eventually add their metal-treasure to the pile.
The pile is a fairly ordinary trash heap, if more carefully stacked than most. Off to one side are twenty-eight brochures with twenty-eight baubles that a lobster-person-thing gave them. There's also a smooth-thin Credit Card that seems to assume "Red" is a given name and "Pikmin" a surname. Other than that, it's all metal-junk and paper-junk and plastic-junk, anything that catches the Pikmin's wide, staring eyes and isn't nailed down. Yes, their treasure pile will be useful. Someday. For someone.
The ten of them sit down in the light of the Onion, sighing. Rest is good. Maybe more of their kin will come back soon?] |