012 | Goldenrod City | Video / Action;

[nostabbing]

Okay, little hup-hup, you ready?

[Thus speaks Parker Alice, who is currently out on the tennis court in the backyard of the Dangan House, as she carries an Eevee over to a marked-off section at one end of the court, just in front of the serving line. With a deliberate point of her hand, the Eevee sits, seemingly obedient, and watches her eagerly as she retreats to the other side of the court and reaches into a waiting cooler.

A second later, her hands reemerge holding a delicious-looking sandwich, which she places on a paper plate and sets down near her feet, lightly slapping her knees as she proceeds to start calling for it.]

Okay. Come on! C'mere! Come get the sandwich! Look, it's a delicious sandwich! Mmm-mmmm, does that look good or what?

[The Eevee, predictably, just kind of looks at her.]

...I said come on. Look, it's a sandwich. You like sandwiches, right? Come on! Sandwich! Get over here!

[The Eevee doesn't move.]

Okay, you know what? Fine. Whatever.

[In a huff, Parker Alice folds her arms and turns her back on the waiting Eevee. But the instant after she does so, something unusual happens — all at once the Eevee springs into action, darting across the tennis court at a somewhat slower speed than is usual for the Horde, taking its time so it doesn't have to use its tiny nails to keep traction as it goes.

When it reaches the net dividing the court, it pauses, tail twitching in anticipation as it gathers its feet beneath it and makes a mighty leap, just barely managing to clear it in a single bound, and with a relatively silent landing that makes it freeze for a second before continuing on, as if waiting to see if the human in its midst has noticed.

Now on the opposite side of the court, the Eevee promptly flattens out, making its approach toward the waiting sandwich by determinedly scootching along on its stomach in a commando crawl to circumvent the problem of the nails entirely.

But then, as it draws close, Parker Alice seems to be alerted by something, and whirls around in what can only be described as an accusatory fashion —

...and by the time she has, the Eevee has flipped itself over onto its back and curled into a painfully adorable mass of fur and belly, its little feet suspended in the air as it wriggles and chirps happily (and seemingly innocently) at her.]

...Awwwww.

[Apparently appeased, Parker Alice turns around again, and as soon as she does the Eevee is back in action, scootching urgently toward the sandwich and grabbing the paper plate in its teeth before sitting up and exploding into a flurry of yips and barks.

At which point, smiling proudly, Parker Alice clicks the timer button on the stopwatch she's been holding and reaches down to scoop up the Eevee for some much deserved-snuggles.]

Good boy! Twenty-six point two seconds!

[Yip yip yip yip, goes the triumphant Eevee, as she sets him down and feeds him a bit of the sandwich before replacing it back in the cooler and clicking the stopwatch timer to clear it.]

Okay, who's next?

[And with that, she walks out of camera view, apparently to go fetch the next candidate for the Super Stealth Sandwich Training Run.]

Comments

[video]

[rocketralph]

_{[Ralph is curious to see what this pokemon's got up its sleeve. The last time he remembered the camera being set on one of Alice's critters there was lightning. And death.]}

That's quite a little sneak you've got there!

[video]

[nostabbing]

Hi, Ralph! He's getting pretty good at it. Some of the other ones are faster, though.

[video]

[rocketralph]

You're teaching the others to be sandwich thieves too?

_{[What, was she planning to knock over a Subway with adorable?]}

[video]

[nostabbing]

What? No. The sandwich is just there because it's something they want. You know, like a parfait. Or a spoon.

[...because that makes sense.]

[video]

[rocketralph]

So what are you going to do with all these sneaky little pokemon?

_{[He hadn't had to teach Bossy a thing when it came to stealing stuff. But he doesn't know about the chip.]}

[video]

[nostabbing]

I'm gonna show them to my brother when he gets back. They're actually his, I'm just watching them for him while he's gone.

[video]

[rocketralph]

Oh!

_{[Well that would make for an interesting surprise! Hey, bro, look I turned your pokemon into a criminal organization! A thought comes to Ralph and the slow grin he's been forming dies a little.]}

He's just out of town, right?

[video]

[nostabbing]

[Oh. Oh.]

Yeah! He's on vacation. You know, doing...guy stuff. With the guys. Stuff.

[Probably. maybe.]

[video]

[rocketralph]

_{[Ralph is going to buy that because he'd hate to think of his friend's family being tossed out into that uncertain mess of wires beyond the glass. Who knew what the arcade looked like these days?]}

Great! I'm sure he'll get a real kick out of it! Y'know, I ran into a guy in town who's talking about putting on a circus. Maybe you could teach them to do something for that.

[video]

[ardent]

[Well, it's been a little while since he was last in contact with Parker; even if she hadn't posted today, it would have occurred to him to check in eventually, if for no better reason than to verify that they didn't freeze to death, no one caught hypothermia and the bloober-thing is still with them.

However, it seems that she's posted, and she's...

...she's...

Um.]

...Ah...that's...

[Parker, what are you training the fuzzballs to do - ]

What are you doing?

[video]

[nostabbing]

Hi, Ishimaru!

[Whoops, only semi-busted. Fortunately, he would've found out sooner or later anyway, so today it's probably just "sooner".]

I'm training the Eevees. Wow, you look great!

[video]

[ardent]

[Oh god, what does he do with that.]

Thank you - I've had a few days to recover from the Ice Path, and it's...Blackthorn is really nice.

[outside of be really awkward, that is]

[video]

[nostabbing]

Did you get the chocolates? Were they okay?

[video]

[ardent]

[He brightens a bit at that.]

I did, yes! And they were good - I made sure to actually eat them and not just look at them.

[Okay, Naegi kind of had to prod him when he noticed the staring, but that's beside the point.]

[video]

[nostabbing]

Great!

[She actually sounds...almost relieved? But not quite. And whether that's from hearing that the chocolates came out okay or the fact that he ate them at all, well, who can say.]

What've you been doing in Blackthorn?

[video]

[ardent]

We've been spending a lot of time in the saunas and the hot springs - I've also found a few things to research while I'm here, and I plan on challenging Clair before we leave.

...I've also been sleeping more than I should, but I think that's because of spending a week in the caves.

[video]

[nostabbing]

...Like how much have you been sleeping?

[DOES SHE NEED TO BE CONCERNED. Or, well...Parker's approximation of concerned, which is to feel strange and maybe accidentally break some things without noticing it because of the aforementioned strangeness.]

[video]

[snotfaced]

Hey! Tell me how you did that.

[The camera zooms in on an Eevee who's inspecting himself in the mirror. As soon as he notices himself being filmed, Spike tries to hide behind his tail for a little last-minute preening.]

This is all that guy does. I need cool tricks like food-fetching until I can actually make them battle and stuff.

[video]

[nostabbing]

Hey! Hi!

[Look at that, Snotlout, someone's legitimately happy to see you, apparently. Vikings are so cool.]

It's not really that hard. I mean you have to work with them a lot but it's really just rewarding them when they do something right and not rewarding them when they don't. Pretty soon they learn to only do the right things.

[video]

[snotfaced]

[Oh, she's happy! She's happy? ...Well of course she's happy, he's awesome.]

Huh. Rrrreally.

[The camera flips back around to show a contemplative Snotlout. It's take just a bit longer than it should for him to work out this suggestion.]

What if they never do the good stuff? Snail-or-whichever isn't going to care if I'm not rewarding him because I never reward him.

[video]

[nostabbing]

Then you have to have lower expectations. Like you can't just expect them to run in a circle right from the start; they're pretty smart and they'll figure out pretty fast what gets them a treat and what doesn't, if you give them treats for stuff that's even just similar to what you want them to do.

It's like creepy people-programmy stuff except with animals instead of people.

[video]

[snotfaced]

[Man, he hates lowering expectations. These creatures were his, so they should at least try to be as awesome as him. Guess he can't expect much, though. They are just stupid bet foxes.]

You can do this with people?

[video]

[nostabbing]

Uh-huh. I don't know how, but I've seen somebody do it before. It's creepy.

[video]

[snotfaced]

Woah...

[He must learn how immediately.]

It can't be that different. I know some people who are way dumber than animals -- they could fall for it.

[If the reward was 'you get to burn up this building', maybe.]

What trick did the person make the other guy do?

[video]

[nostabbing]

[Teaching the viking neurolinguistic programming. This can only end well.]

She could make him pour tea for her just by tapping his arm with her purse. Or like...buy her stuff, just from poking you a certain way. It was so weird.