Galactic date: 20XX

At the ends of space, a planet is going down a dead-end street to ruin. The planet is known as Koppai. Due to a rise in population, appetites, and a basic lack of planning, Koppai's inhabitants have nearly worn-out their food supply. Their only hope of salvation is to find another planet with edible food matter.

Thus, they send unmanned scout vessels called "SPEROs" out into space.

But to their dismay, the search was turning up nothing…

Just as they were about to completely give up, the final vessel reports back with news of a miraculous discovery! A planet on the other side of the galaxy was revealed to be a gold mine of fruit! The SPERO nearly blew up the readings were so off the chart! Surely it was more than enough to save the dying planet!

They mobilize to investigate the planet, which they name PNF-404.

Koppai's last hope now rests on three intrepid explorers. Alph, a young engineer, Brittany, a botanist and Charlie, the captain of their ship; The S.S. Drake.

At last… the explorers' 279,000 light-year voyage nears its end…

Exploration Day 1 – 08:44
Charlie's POV

"There's the planet everyone! Preparing to initiate landing sequence!"

Brittney was sure excited, "Wow! PNF-404 looks so beautiful! I bet the fruit is super delicious!"

"It is beautiful." Alph replied, "Exploring a new planet, this'll be awesome!"

Despite our hunger situation, the mood on the ship was quite lighthearted. The planet looked very promising from our perspective. With confidence and determination, we can gather up as much as we can. That was our objective.

Then it happened, Shortly after everyone got to their landing positions we hit minor turbulence.

"Hold tight everyone! We'll be landing shortly!"

Instability caused by nearing a planet's atmosphere is not uncommon, but something about this seemed very wrong. With each passing second the trembling got worse and worse.

I fought to regain control, at the same time wondering, "What is going on!?"

All three of us were holding on for dear life, not knowing what the problem was. A mechanical malfunction? An interfering transmission perhaps? Or something else entirely…?

"Sir what's happening!?" Alph called out.

"What are we going to do!?" Brittney franticly asked.

"The ship is gone crazy! Hold for your life crew, looks like we're in for a rough landing!"

Our ship was going completely haywire by that point. We began to tumble in a spiraling motion; even the most hardened of stomachs would get motion sickness. I knew at that point that trying to get back control was impossible.

*BOOM*

Without warning we were ejected into the atmosphere. I twist and turned all around looking for my crew. I saw Brittany flying straight down into the planet; she was pretty far off. Alph was even further away, hurling in an arch shape. I too, was falling in a curved path. Each passing second got more and more terrifying, as I fell out of low orbit my falling speed accelerated massively.

I blacked out within seconds…

I found myself looking up at a dark blue sky, past the bare trees and… some… yellow creatures? Am I seeing things?

I kid you not, there were these banana yellow creatures looking down at me. They had large ears and made these little curious noises. Each of them also had a stem with leaves on their heads… They resembled plants. As my vision became clearer, they disappeared from my sight.

"Ugh… Where am I…?"

It didn't take me long to realize I wasn't dreaming, The cold bit me hard and I sprung to my feet.

"That's right! I'm at PNF-404!"

Immediately I took out my communicator and tried to contact The Drake.

"This is Charlie speaking. Do you copy? I repeat, this is Charlie, your Captain. Come in!"

…

Just my luck, no one was responding, "I have to locate Brittany and Alph." Question is… where could they be? Sheesh… they could be anywhere on this planet.

There was a wide path in front of me, so at least the first steps of my journey wouldn't be too difficult. I set off to find my crew with the snow crunching beneath my feet. I realized then, that I wasn't alone. Those yellow creatures I thought I was just dreaming of were watching me from up in the trees!

"What the-!? What are those things?"

Everywhere I looked I could see them! On some leaves and on the ledges! I was surrounded. I could hear them making conversation amongst themselves in their foreign language. I continued on with much more haste than before, hoping to lose sight of them. It was so creepy the way they just stared at me like that…

I seemed to have wandered into a strange neighborhood…

I turned a sharp corner and to my surprise there was a small colony of them sitting on a ledge.

I leapt in the air I was so shocked. This got their attention as all of their heads turned at me simultaneously.

As this wasn't nerve-wracking enough, they all got to their feet and started advancing toward me, I felt an adrenaline rush!

They're coming toward me! My whistle should scare them off!

I took my whistle and blew into it as hard as I could, making the loudest sound possible. I thought this would make them run away for sure, but no, it had the opposite effect. They huddled all around me. Sure they appeared startled by the loud noise, but they didn't run the other way like I thought they would!

No! I'm surrounded!

My next thought was to force them away by physical means. I grabbed one of them by the arm.

Wow these creatures are light… I tossed it to some random mushrooms.

"There you go!"

The others didn't seem fazed at all they kept staring at me! I grabbed another one, and tossed. Then again! And again and again!

"Get away from me! Shoo! Scat!"

No matter how many times I threw them away, they kept coming back! They were like living, breathing boomerangs! I noticed overtime that they didn't appear to mean me any harm. That was good news.

"Huh… they don't seem to be hostile… In fact, they seem to see me as a leader…"

They just looked at me, like a group of students watching their teacher. The cold wind howled outside my helmet as I studied these life-forms.

"I suppose these fellows can be of some use."

I moved forth with them following behind me. As we pressed on the path was getting narrower. Seconds later, I was hit with this rancid smell.

We came across a giant mushroom! It was blocking the path. I did what I learned and threw my tiny squad onto the mushroom and they beat it down with the leaves on their heads.

It stunk like rotting cheese! It looked like it too! Yuck! Well I know what we WON'T be bringing back with us…

The mushroom was no match for these little creatures. It crumbled within seconds. Beyond the remains was an entrance to what looked like a cave. I passed through and came back again outside where a log bridge led to another entrance. Here I could faintly hear the sound of a river under our feet.

The yellow creatures were still following me, at this point I'm no longer surprised but questions flooded my mind. What are these things? Why are they following me? At the same time I was disappointed that our mission got off to such a disastrous start…

All we had to do is come here and collect food for our people… But now here I am, separated from my crew members and my ship, I have no idea where any of them could be…

My train of thought was interrupted by a sudden drop in light when I entered the other cave. I stopped to give my eyes time to adjust, but it didn't do me very much good… Guided by the light from the outside, I took cautious steps.

From the darkness, I could hear rustling. Something else is here! Is it friendly? Hostile? Is it even alive?

I couldn't tell which way the sound was coming from, whatever it is it's all around me! As if the timing couldn't have been better, glowing mushrooms suddenly popped out of the ground giving me an in-your-face view of a pack of small but ugly monsters! These I KNEW were hostile, otherwise they wouldn't be baring their razor-sharp teeth at me!

I started throwing my tame creatures toward these… things… They had been stunned by the light so it was quite easy for the yellow aliens to kill these monsters.

Whew! That was a close call! Or so I thought.

A shadow whisked its way past me, I turned and noticed nothing. I know I'm not imagining things, I know I saw something. I turned again, and yet again… still nothing.

Suddenly my team did a jump scare reaction and fled into the dark. I watched them run and I saw… I don't even know…

"HOLY SMOKES!"

Alph's POV

I was alive after the crash. I don't know how but I was. It sure was a miracle. I woke up floating in a small pool of water staring up at the sunny forest sky.

Just as The S.S. Drake crossed my mind, it crossed my line of sight. It puffed little breaths of smoke out of its exhaust, flying in a clumsy manner.

*Crash*

I could hear tree branches snapping and rustling. I could only hope that the emergency crash-landing function worked its promise and kept the ship from completely wrecking. Otherwise, we're screwed.

I swam to where it was shallow enough for me to stand, "We were just about to land… but the SS Drake lost control… and we were ejected out. I hope Brittany and Charlie are safe. I have to find the Drake too!"

I splashed my way out of the water into the white sand.

And there was a red creature standing right there! It had a stem growing out of the top of his head with a leaf at the end. I had never seen anything like that before! We stared at each other for a few seconds before we both decided to have a startled reaction. The creature flipped around and bolted down the path.

I stood there, stunned, "What was that?"

I ran down the path, following the tiny footprints of the creature. I reached another open area and noticed there were two others!

There's the creature I saw just now! Looks like it's got friends!

They were jumping at something in a nearby branch, whatever it was, they wanted it.

"What is that thing caught on the branch?"

It looked like some kind of fruit. But I couldn't see it well enough to confirm anything. The huge leaves were obscuring it well. The red guys seemed so fixated on it they didn't seem to notice I was there.

Is there anything I can do?

The first thing I thought to do was to get their attention, I sounded my whistle and they promptly responded. They approached me very nicely and seemed eager to meet me.

"Wow! What friendly little guys!"

I pondered on how we were going to get that flower looking thing down. That branch had a tight grip on it. My first thought was to try and throw something at it hoping it would loosen and fall. I looked around and there was nothing around that would do the job. Except… these little guys. Silly as that sounded it was worth a shot.

I grabbed the one nearest to me by the scruff of its neck and flung it toward the 'fruit'. To my surprise it caught it and managed to hang on despite its tiny arms.

"All right!"

I took another one and repeated the throw. That one too, grabbed on. I tossed the last one, and the weight of the three creatures proved too much for that branch. The object fell into the sand and began to glow a bright red color.

"Awesome!"

The object was some red thing, with a flower coating the top.

Even more surprises, the object spurted glittery lights and levitated into the air. Three yellow tentacles wiggled its way out of the weird thing, acting as legs. The little guys jumped for joy and cheered, dancing around the machine.

"What is this thing?" I wondered, "I was hoping this would be fruit but… It doesn't look like it would be edible… Still… the little red guys seem pretty happy now we've freed it."

I walked away to continue my search for The Drake. But I turned again upon hearing tiny running feet sounds behind me.

H-hey they're following me!

I guess these little guys took a liking to me.

The one closest to me suddenly made a cute little sound and ran for a freakishly tall posy. It jumped on the stem and began to whack it repeatedly. What was it doing? These creatures have some weird habits…

The flower eventually dropped into the ground leaving behind a small pellet. What was that thing? The little guy had drug it toward the thing we just got loose from the tree. Under the red beam that the strange thing was casting, the pellet was quickly sucked into the strawberry lookalike. The flower tip span rapidly and seeds popped out, dancing gracefully from the air to the ground.

"Wow! It just produced sprouts! So this is where these little creatures come from. How strange…"

One by one I plucked the sprouts out of the ground, each little guy making a happy noise as they flipped over my head. With a bigger team, I set out to find the Drake. Which would be a difficult task in itself, if only I had my Koppad…

As luck would have it, across a wide dip in the sand, was my KopPad. There was no way I would be able to jump across this… and I don't see any alternative route.

"I have to get over there somehow… Hmm…"

As the gears in my mind began to turn one of the little guys began tugging on my arm. I looked to where it was pointing.

The little guy had guided me to a strange pile of… bricks maybe?

"What's this pile of rubble?" I wondered. They skipped over to the ruin and began plucking little pieces one by one. They ran back and forth from the dip to the pile.

"What are they doing?"

After some back and forth trips the layout they had made fell forward and created a bridge just long enough to make it across the gap!

"Wonderful! Now I can get across!"

I hurriedly rushed over and turned the Koppad on. To my surprise and relief, it booted up just fine.

"Great! It still works. Thank goodness… Of course, I'd expect nothing less from Koppaite engineering." A bit of bragging to myself, engineering being my own profession.

The little guys looked at each other curiously, making these confused little noises. They were really cute, the way they looked and spoke. It was all quite adorable. I brushed aside my opinions to focus on the task at hand, using my Koppad to find the Drake.

By following the Drakes signal on the Koppad, I was able to determine that it was close by.

"Awesome! The Drake isn't too far from here. Maybe Brittany and Charlie are there, I should hurry over."

I followed the path that led in the direction of the Drake, unexpectedly these abnormally large bugs emerged from the ground.

"Whoa!" I nearly fell over backwards.

My team of little guys pounced on these bugs and killed them rather quickly. They lifted the carcasses of the bugs and carried them back to their little base, producing more seeds. I watched in amazement.

"Yesterday's foe is today's food. Wow... Nature is unforgiving."

Now with a team of 21, I continued down the sand path hoping that I wouldn't get anymore unpleasant surprises-
*TRIP!*

"Ow what the-!?" I flipped over and searched the grains of sand that I just fell over. I noticed a strange object jutting out of the ground.

"Huh? What's this?"

I carefully lifted the item out of the earth and brushed it off, "Hmm… Looks like someone's left a data file here. Perhaps the Koppad will be able to read it."

I inserted the small data into the slot and the Koppad immediately began to load something onto the screen. What came up appeared to be observation notes. Complete with illustrations.

"The Onion is like a nest for the Pikmin. It both gives birth to them and provides them with shelter."

"Excellent! The Koppad can read the data file!" I turned around to my squad, "So… these creatures are called Pikmin?"

The little guys began to bounce happily, obviously excited that I'm getting to know them better.

"This information will definitely come in handy later. I should save this… I wonder who created this data file? I don't think Captain Charlie could've created this… Could there be other intelligent life forms on this planet?"

I continued to follow the direction of the signal, "Now according to the radar… the Drake should be this way."

The signal eventually led me to a small cavern entrance, I wasn't completely trusting of the dark opening but looking at the map, I had no other path. High on alert I entered the cave, which turned out to be not as bad as I was planning. Just a bunch of mushrooms, some of them glowing, some of them didn't glow, but were gigantic!

"Wow! Those mushrooms are enormous!"

My Pikmin team dashed ahead of me and began to beat the non-glowing mushrooms senseless. These Pikmin sure have a lot of energy to spare… this could be useful.

When the mushroom crumbled away I was suddenly pounded with a horrible smell!

"Gross! These are definitely not edible!" It was so bad my eyes began to water.

I whistled for my team and fled that awful stench. Looking at the Pikmin they didn't seem to fazed by it somehow, which was so weird because they had noses too!

When I felt the reeking fragrance starting to fade I came across a wall made entirely out of dirt! Geez, it's just one surprise after another today! How could this wall be here?

"Could this be the work of an intelligent life form?"

I commanded my Pikmin to attack the wall, I observed these creatures with admiration.

"My crew could learn a lot from this kind of team work no doubt."

The dirt wall became falling dust within seconds, revealing the light from outside. I gathered my Pikmin and hurried.

"I hope they're both okay!"

By the time we were out the sun had begun to set and the blue sky was now a vivid orange. Slowing down my pace I looked around.

A miracle had been granted to me once more, standing there proud and in perfect shape was the SS Drake.

"All right! The SS Drake is here!" I rushed over.

"Brittany? Captain Charlie? Is anybody here?"

Brittany's POV

It all happened so fast I didn't have time to even brace myself, we were launched from the Drake right when we were about to land. Now I'm in free fall with no way to slow myself down. I thought for sure I was a goner, I looked down and saw the ground rushing up at me so fast. I scrunched my eyes shut hoping this wouldn't be too painful.

Ack! I landed in a giant tree, and my descent was greatly slowed. Tumbling down the tree I felt like I was in a pinball machine. After what felt like an eternity I dropped out of the mass leaves and smacked on the ground.

"Ow… That really hurt."

I got to my feet carefully, checking to see if anything is broken. I seemed to be all right so I looked around. Just my luck there were tall ledges all around me. There was no way I'd be able to climb out of this. The only way I could see out was this one section of the wall was made out of… crystal maybe? I ran over to the glass and started trying to break through with my fists. But the crystal was tough… I couldn't even make a crack.

"Oh no… what am I going to do?"

Alph and Charlie came to mind, "I hope Alphie's okay… I wonder where the Captain is…"

From the other side of the wall I heard growling and stomping, it was the scariest thing I've ever heard. I ran behind this small boulder that was in my little area staying out of sight of the see-thru part.

With caution I peeked out, hoping to catch a glimpse of the source of the noise.

Oh my gosh what is that thing!?

As soon as I did I immediately hid back behind the rock, Seriously! This giant black monster with red spots on its back tromped by! It had stalky eyes and a big mouth too… It stopped and sniffed around, in time for a group of smaller versions to catch up! I'm guessing those are that things offspring.

I could hear my heart beating inside my ears, I kept hiding waiting for that thing to move along. I heard him sniffing around and the little ones yapping. Then all noise stopped.

I was about to crawl out of my space, when I heard that beast tapping on the crystal… No please stop doing that! I'm not edible! It was quiet again, then I heard a loud bang and a roar. What I'm guessing happened is that beast tried to smash the crystal, but the crystal must be some tough crystal to rebound that monster.

After more terrifying seconds I heard the creature go away. I just came to get fruit and it's come to this! I haven't even been here for an hour! Now that the creature is gone I should try to contact Alph…

Alph's POV

The sound of the wind was the only response, I was all alone, "What am I going to do now?"

*beepbeepbeep* *beepbeepbeep*

My Koppad started vibrating in my hands, someone was calling! I hurriedly pressed the answer button.

"Alph! It's me, Brittany! Do you copy?"

I felt a surge of relief, "Brittany! I'm here!"

"Thank goodness! You're with the S.S. Drake, right?"

"I just now found the ship. Are you all right? Where are you?"

"I made it through the landing in one piece. The thing is, I'm trapped somewhere. I can't get out."

Oh no…

"And I'm star-" With a crackle and fuzz within the transmission, Brittany disappeared from the screen.

"Oh, no! We've been cut off! I wonder how far away she is… In any case, I'm glad that she seems to be safe and sound."

From off in the distance I heard something that sounded like a roar, seconds later some growling.

"What was that?" I looked out to the west horizon; the sun was just barley poking out of the line.

"The sun is setting, the nocturnal predators must be waking up now. I hope Brittany will be safe wherever she is… And Captain Charlie… I haven't heard anything from him…"

At this point I knew the best course of action would be to get off the planet's surface for now. I put my Koppad away and boarded the Drake with a feeling of unease.

The Drake blasted off into the bright pink sky, the trees and terrain getting smaller as I lifted higher. I was surprised to notice the Pikmin Onion was lifting off with me. After a rush through some thick clouds we emerged to a sea of stars.

I took the time to write in my journal,

Here we are, shipwrecked! Our journey has certainly gotten off on the wrong foot. Not only that, most of our supplies were destroyed in the wreck. Leaving us with very little juice left… I'll have to start finding some local food tomorrow… To make matters worse, I can't find our cosmic-drive key anywhere! Without that we can't leave the planet! I managed to make contact with Brittany… she's safe… for now…