From: Rob (robfrompw@yahoo.com) Subject: [PW!] Apricorn Appreciation Newsgroups: alt.games.nintendo.pokemon Date: 2001-07-09 21:31:45 PST "How much longer to the trees, Mazey?" Sarah, the tired shepherdess, complains, having lost most of her usual inhibitions by chatting with Mazey for the past half hour, on their long walk to the hills behind Kurt's house. Before Mazey can answer, Sarah pulls out her wooden crook. Barbie the Mareep, who's quietly following alongside her trainer flinches when she sees the staff, but smiles when she realizes that Sarah's just going to lean on it, not use it to pull her towards something scary. Mazey finishes calculating their distance from Kurt's grove of Apricorn trees and finally replies, "Don't worry, Sarah, just a few more minutes!" Sarah is relieved to hear this, until she remembers that after picking her Blue Apricorn, they're going to have to walk all the way back to Kurt's house. She sighs and distributes more weight upon her staff as she walks. Sarah's young, inexperienced Mareep is pretty exhausted as well. Suddenly, she gets a brilliant idea! Hoping to convey her idea to her trainer, Barbie nuzzles up against Sarah's leather bag, "Mareep Reeep!" She looks up at Sarah with her eyes wide open, a sad expression on her face, and bleats out pleadingly, "Reeeep!" Sarah smiles at her, "Do you want your buddy Cyndaquil to come out so you can chat with him?" Remembering all the conspiracies she imagined between Cyndaquil and Mimic, Barbie's eyes squint and her head shakes wildly from left to right, "Ma Reep!" She starts contemplating what would be the best way to get her trainer to understand the message she wants to convey, so she remains quiet for a while... Breaking the silence after about a minute, Mazey exclaims, "Look! There's a Black Apricorn tree! We're not far now..." Sarah and Barbie both gaze up at the spherical Black Apricorn hanging from the nearby tree. The sight of the Pokeball-shaped fruit gives Barbie an idea. Despite her exhaustion, the Mareep races over to the tree, getting Sarah's attention by calling out, "Eeep! Eeep! Eeep!" She leaps at one of the Apricorn on the lowest branches, knocks her head onto it, trying to make her point, then falls to the ground and rolls up into a ball, hiding her limbs and head, so that only her fleece can be seen. Mazey scratches her head, trying to figure out what's gotten into Barbie, "I think yer Mareep's trying to tell ya something." Sarah walks over to Barbie, leans forward on her crook, thinks about what her Mareep just did, then asks, "Do you wanna be put into an Apricorn Pokeball?" "Reep!" Barbie's small blue head and limbs pop out simultaneously, and she hops up off the ground, nodding happily, "Mareep! Maaareeep!" Sarah considers this unexpected turn of events for a moment, then shakes her head, "No, Barbie - you're way too shy to be hidin' all the time. It's much healthier for you to be walkin' alongside me all the time, meetin' new people whenever I do." The Mareep is stunned at Sarah's reply, so Sarah has to use her crook to pull her, after all. Dragging the shocked Mareep behind her, Sarah continues to follow Mazey's lead until they arrive at a large tree with many Blue Apricorn hanging from it. Mazey smiles, gesturing towards the tree right in front of her, "Here we are! The Blue Apricorn tree. Hold on while I look for the ripest one." The little girl begins to slowly circle the Blue Apricorn tree, examining all the Apricorn dangling high above her, trying to find the best one available for Sarah. Sarah's wide hazel eyes examine the grove, admiring how beautiful the trees are, especially the ones that bear fruit. Her eyes become even wider than usual when she sees a Pink Apricorn tree. She thinks it's the most beautiful fruit tree in the grove, "Hey, Mazey? Why don't we get a Pink Apricorn instead? I love the color pink!" "Not unless ya want yer Slowpoke to fall in love with yer Mareep." Mazey chuckles when she sees Barbie go from a blank shocked expression to one that would be best described as "digustified" - that is to say, a combination of disgusted and horrified. She goes on to explain, "Pink Apricorn are used to make Love Balls. They're good when yer using boy Pokemon to catch girl Pokemon and vice versa, but sometimes there's a side effect - that the Pokemon ya catch falls madly in love with the Pokemon ya used to catch him or her. I'm sure grandpa wouldn't mind making ya a Love Ball if you take him some Pink Apricorn, but I think ya should take him a Blue Apricorn for yer Slowpoke... Hey, that one there's great! It's pretty high up on the tree, though." Mazey points at the Blue Apricorn she's describing. "Not a problem!" Sarah removes the end of her crook from around Barbie's neck, reaches up to the Blue Apricorn that Mazey selected, and using the crook, she knocks it out of the tree. It falls out of the tree and Sarah catches it in the palm of her free hand. She drops it into her satchel and says, "Now let's get a Pink one!" Before Mazey can even congratulate her on getting the Blue Apricorn, Sarah's already racing towards the Pink Apricorn tree. The sun is setting, so Sarah's hurrying since she wants Mazey to have some sunlight available when picking the best Pink Apricorn. Sarah sits down on the grass when she arrives at the tree, leaning back against the tree's trunk, partly to wait for Mazey and Barbie, who aren't running, and partly to rest her aching feet until Mazey finds the ripest Pink Apricorn. When the little girl and young Mareep finally arrive at the Pink Apricorn tree, Barbie sits down next to Sarah and Mazey once again begins her Apricorn appreciation process. Barbie, having already repressed the thought of Luthor lusting after her, is now trying to figure out how she can convince Sarah to put her into a Pokeball. She's not able to come up with anything reasonable in the time it takes Mazey to find the best Pink Apricorn, and she doesn't manage to formulate a strategy while Sarah fumbles with her crook in an attempt to pluck the Pink Apricorn without having to stand up. Some ridiculous schemes come to her as she watches Sarah stand and pluck the Apricorn off a branch with her own hand. After Sarah has tucked the Pink Apricorn away and is leaving with Mazey, Barbie is still without a plan... "Maaa!" The Mareep is startled when she finally notices she's alone. She leaps up and races after Sarah just in time to hear a conversation start, but she doesn't pay attention to the girls' conversation for very long since she's still determined to figure out a way to convince or even trick Sarah into giving her a Pokeball hiding place. Sarah asks, trying to divert her attention away from her current weariness, "Do you think your grandpa's done talkin' with Mimic about 'old stuff'?" "You mean about Silph? Ha, when ya get grandpa started on Silph, he doesn't stop for a while." Mazey responds, shaking her head. "Wh-What..." Sarah's shyness suddenly returns since she's about to ask a question she thinks might sound foolish, "What exactly is Silph, anyway?" Mazey's jaw drops for a second, but she quickly picks it back up before Sarah can notice it and feel silly, "Ya really don't know what Silph is? Whoa, ya weren't kidding when ya told me ya grew up on a farm on the way over to the grove! Silph's a giant company located in Kanto... Saffron City, to be exact. They make synthetic Pokeballs and all sorts of other inventions, like technical machines. My dad started working there a long time ago, studying Pokeballs. Grandpa does NOT approve of my dad's job and doesn't want me living with my dad in Saffron City. Grandpa says I'd be 'corrupted'. He also says he wants me 'to carry on his legacy'." "I know what it's like to not have a dad around..." Sarah sighs, as the day turns to night, "...and also what it's like havin' grandparents who don't like your dad." Mazey glances over at Sarah, and asks, "Yeah?" Sarah nods as she walks, then explains herself without looking directly at Mazey at all, "When I was little, younger than you, my dad... my dad left home. Ma told me and my little brother Teddy that he left to become a Pokemon Trainer, his lifelong dream. Ever since she said that, I wanted to follow in my dad's footsteps, hopin' to maybe find him some day, and my brother became really resentful of Pokemon Training, which up to that day had been his dream. Well, some years later, my grandma, my ma's ma, started tellin' me that my dad didn't go on a Pokemon Journey - she said that he just abandoned us never to come back and that my ma just didn't wanna hurt my feelin's..." At this point, Sarah's eyes begin to water, "I asked grandpa, my dad's dad, and he said that it's true that my dad's dream had been to become a Pokemon Trainer since he was little, but that he didn't tell anyone why he left, and since then started tellin' me how much of a failure his son is..." Mazey doesn't know what to say, so she justs puts her hand on Sarah's back and says, "I know how ya must've felt..." They share some more details about their common issues until they arrive at Kurt's house. Sarah and Mazey both wipe tears from their eyes before wiping their feet on the doormat. The two girls enter at the same time, to find Mimic and Kurt in the middle of a heated intellectual debate. Barbie steps into the house last, ready to carry out the plan she came up with on the half-hour walk from the grove to Kurt's house. She casually trots up to the shelf that has a bunch of Fast Balls on it, and reasoning that the only reason why Sarah put Cyndaquil into a Fast Ball is because the Pokemon was scared of it, she looks at the shelf and screams, "EEEEEEP!" Sarah crosses her arms at Barbie, who is now being stared at by everyone present, and says, "I'm not gonna put you in a Pokeball." -Sarah