From: NMVdS <nmvds@aol.computers> Subject: [PW!] Transcendentalism in Viridian Forest Date: Sunday, May 23, 1999 11:20 AM "You ever hear of transcendentalism?" asked Steven. He along with Karen Oak were still in Viridian Forest. "It's a system where people become in tune with nature in order to achieve perfection." "So how do you plan on doing that?" asked Karen. "Through training my Pokemon," said Steven. He reached into his pockets. "Pidgey, Caterpie, go!" "Who are you going to put them against?" asked Karen. "Each other," Steve responded. "Pidgey, gust attack!" The Pidgey quickly flap its wings in an attempt to blow the Caterpie away. "Caterpie, string shot!" Steve continued. The Caterpie shot threads of silk at the Pidgey, tangling it's wings and slowing down the potential gusts. "Now do a tackle!" The Caterpie began to prepare to run towards Pidgey. "Pidgey," Steve said, "use sand attack!" The Pidgey knocked sand into the Caterpie, reducing it's accuracy. "Now do another gust attack, Pidgey!" The Pidgey threw the Caterpie midway through the air. "Caterpie, sting shot again!" Steve yelled. Pidgey was finally taken down, its wings too tangled up to flap. Steve figured that they both had enough. "Good job, both of you," he said. Just then, a weird light started to surround Caterpie. "It's evolving into a Metapod!" said Karen. "That must have been a bigger work out than I thought it was," said Steve. "Now I'm going to need your Oddish." "Why?" "Remember that time I said I might borrow your Magikarp later?" he asked. "Yes." "It's later." Steve took out a Pokeball, revealing Magikarp. "Magikarp-karp-karp," it said. "You can't be serious," said Karen. "Look, I need to first convince my Magikarp that it can fight," Steve whispered. "So basically you want to lie to it?" "Persuade your Oddish to 'accidentally' miss my Magikarp with one powder or another and that should raise its confidence levels a bit." Karen reluctantly followed these orders. "Okay, so it's so-called defense seems to be overpowering my Oddish," she began, "supposedly. How do you think it'll actually manage to beat it?" "Hmmmm ... that's a good point," thought Steve. "Convince your Oddish to lie down." Karen did so. "Hey look, Magikarp," he began, "Oddish fainted from...uh...heat exhaustion. You win." "Magikarp-karp-karp," it eagerly replied. "Nothing's happening," said Karen. "Nothing's supposed to," said Steve. "otherwise, these guys would be in high demand around the world." "So are we finished?" Karen asked. "Just about," said Steve. "Metapod, harden. Pidgey, gust attack on Metapod." Both Pokemon obeyed, with Pidgey defeating the Metapod. "Now we're finished," he said, "next stop, Pewter City." "What are we going to do in Pewter City?" "Visit the Pokemon Center," Steve began, "you can only expect so much from these guys at first. And then we're going to attempt to win a badge." To reply, remove "puters" from the e-mail address.