Final Chapter

It's been an amazing experience writing this story. And I want to thank everyone who has had the patience to stick with it until the end.

Thank you for all of your reviews. And thank you to everyone who put it on their favourites: ashpokeball, Black Murder Heavangelon, Bonsley67, Calderious, danielns13, Deadly Raptor, Devil's Sunrise, Diabowserker, DJtheHedgehog, dragonheart93, duke of awesome, Elegant Release, Ferahgo the Assassin, Gingerstar, girl-hatake95, Great Thumbs of Wisdom, H2Obelow0, hamhamhaha, Juffo-Wup, KJ Foxx, KJman456, Kostya Razrushityel, Lanny-Sama, Leader of Talking Palm Trees, MariomasterDT, markman 1111, Midnighter67, Mr. Pichu, mukurin, Multiversity, olimarioshi, PenWraith, podso38, Pokemon Nerd, ramenblitz, rampaging-poet, Sentimental Semantics, Shika1929, smileyface120, Sugarette, The Last Invisible Pikmin, The Silent Knight, TheMarioMarioFan, TheRamificator, Thug Lucas, Titan Class X, tobi number1 fan, ToffeeFlavouredClosetRomantic, TokoWH, VampireElder, xXThunderflameXx, Yammer, Yoshi The Blue

(I hope that I didn't forget anyone)

Special thanks to all the regulars on the Spored forum who kept bugging me to keep writing this story as well.

It would be nice to hear a final review, for the story as a whole (maybe get up to 200 haha). And if you have any questions, you can visit the Spored forum as well in the Pikmin section. Now that the story is over I can release some fun easter eggs about it (like how the Titan Dweevil is hinted at twice in the story)

But without further ado.

Thank you.

Existence comes slowly

First comes the feeling of my alignment. A horizontal posture. I am lying down.

Then the feeling of my body parts slowly return to me. My stem, my arms, my legs, all of them are nestled amongst something cool, gritty. Something that sifts and parts among them like water.

Dirt.

Part of the earth.

The feeling of cool is quickly contrasted by a gentle taste of warmth along my face. A certain type of warmth that can only be provided by one thing.

The sun.

The heat begins to melt every last numb sensation from my body.

I test my arms

They move

I test my legs

They shake

I test my stem

It waves

I open my eyes

They see

See a vast blue tapestry above. Endless, infinite, perplexing. Perfected by the glowing yellow sphere that radiates with more energy than I have ever witnessed.

A yawning sensation. It dawns on me.

Alive

I am alive

I glance down, and my body brims with a new type of joy as I discover it is a perfect mirror of the sky above.

Both are a stunning blue.

And on my stem, as I droop it over my head to see it with my own eyes, is a flower. Ivory white petals surround my own stunning sphere of yellow.

To my further amazement, I discover that while there is white on my flower, there is no more on the ground.

The snow is gone.

And what replaces is a vast aura of colour. One that drenches the forest into a new type of beauty.

The lush, rich greens of leaves crown the many branches of the tree tops. Other trees are adorned with the blazing hues of both fuchsia and indigo.

More greens have ripped through the brown dirt. Blades of grass wave gently in the wind, the stems of vermillion flowers glow with a new type of energy under the sun.

The colours are all around me, surrounding me, enveloping me with their entire spectrum. Searing reds meddle with rich turquoise.

It is vivid.

And it is all breathing with life.

The scars of last night still remain. The rusted, crumbling walls of the arena still corrode the area, as well as what remains of the decayed body of the Mushroom. But all these minor discrepancies are unmatched, unmatched a hundred times by the sheer glory that has sprung up in the spores absence.

Without the spores, nature has thrived to its absolute best. No longer do I have to witness endless stretches of desert, frozen wastelands, or toxic covered forests. Instead I can now finally see everything at its full potential.

Encircling the ground around me are hundreds of white flowers. Flowers like mine, each with their own miniature suns at the centre.

Pikmin

They lie entrenched in the ground, waiting to be pulled out. To begin again.

Reds.

Yellows.

Blues, matching me.

Even cyans.

I don't see any enemies among them.

All I see is potential friends.

A chance for us to unite.

I ignore the potential hardships that will come, the gruesome battles against numerous creatures that may ensue, and the harsh nights.

After what I've experienced, it all seems trivial.

And as I go to pluck the first pikmin stem, I realize that some other part of me has changed as well.

As my hands wrap around the yellow stem, I experience a different sensation. My mind leaves my head, exits through my hands and I can feel the pikmin. Feel his body contoured amongst the soil, amongst the hundreds of other pikmin bodies.

I can sense them all.

Feel what they feel.

Another dawning occurs to me.

The spore...

I retreat inside my head. Trying to find what must be the source of this newfound power, the very thing that let me destroy the puffstool in the first place. The thing that let me control.

But...

But it isn't there. My mind is my own. The spore is absent, but what remains is not its power to control but to simply...feel.

To observe.

And with this fact, I let my mind expand once more.

Past the pikmin, past the rusted arena.

Into the trees.

Suddenly I am the trees. Suddenly I am massive. I can soar up through the trunk, through the ancient bark, into the branches.

The change of perspective is simply breathtaking.

I can feel the leaves...

I am the leaves.

The sunlight glistens on me, and I soak it up hungrily. Feel it radiate on my thin body. I am closer to the infinite blue sky than I have even been.

I dive again, down this time. Down into the ground where the tree's roots are, where they spread into a vast underground network, searching for water. Constantly digging deeper and deeper into unseen depths.

I surface.

I leave the tree.

I become a berry, ripened at the tip of a flower, ready to be plucked.

I become a blade of grass. A simple stem with nothing to crown it, letting the breeze tilt me.

I become everything that exists in the forest. Individually, one by one.

I become myself.

I am not sure how long it takes for me to finally return to my own body.

Hours?

Days?

But it feels like returning to that trustworthy shelter. To that onion that I lived in so long ago when with the leader.

It feels like home.

And soon I will pluck the rest of the pikmin from the ground, and together we will face the next section of life to confront us. Together we will endure all of what nature can throw at us.

But for now, I simply sit among the flowers and relish the simple, sweet thought that for the first time in my existence; my body, my future...

My life...

Are all in my hands. All my own.

And now I can truly appreciate what it means to have all of this.

Inhale

To be self-aware

To have emotion

To laugh

To cry

To hate

To love

Exhale

To live

The End.