//------------------------------// // 14 - Apples To Apples, Dust To Dust // Story: V for Victory, V for Victini! // by zelkova48 //------------------------------// Victini sat comfortably perched atop Big Mac’s head as the two enjoyed each other’s company, a nice cold pint of some hard apple cider, and the overwhelmingly entertaining sight of watching Big Mac’s younger siblings chase around a terrified Drilbur with a cardboard box over his head. The two watched with silent amusement from the cool shade of the porch as Drilbur ran, hopped, rolled, zigzagged and outmaneuvered his way out of the Apple sisters reach every single time they got close to him even though he couldn’t see a single thing. They laughed dryly with a slur in their voices as this display of hilarity continued for another half hour. The cider that they were drinking was slowly starting to get to them. “Tini” said Victini as he took a sip of cider from a little shot glass that was filled to the brim with ice cold, frothy apple cider. It was his third shot of cider, but given his relative size in conjunction with the size of the shot glass it might as well be considered his third glass. His eyes were half lidded, his mouth seemed to be stuck with a permanent smirk, and he couldn’t stop tilting back and forth as the alcoholic beverage flooded into his systems. “Eeyup” Big Mac spoke with a light haze twinkling in his eye. He was on only his second mug, as in a regular mug, and was starting to feel a little tipsy himself. The usually stoic stallion of the family could feel his eyesight slip ever so slightly yet he maintained his integrity “ *Sip* Tini” “ *Sip* Eeyup-yup-yup!” “ *Sip* Tini” “ *Sip* Eeyup” “ *Sip* Tini” “ *Sip* Eh heh heh heh... Eeyup” Without even the slightest warning, a loud thwack sound could be heard from beside them, snapping the two newly formed buddies from out of their drunken reverie and towards the source of the noise. When their eyes finally reached the direction of the sound, they broke out into a jovial bout of pure unmitigated laughter and collapsed to the floorboards with his hands and hoofs held close to their sides. Tears were streaming down their cheeks as they gasped for air with each breath that they took. Luckily for them they were masters of their own bladders so no accidents needed to be cleaned up on the porch. Applejack and Applebloom had just attempted pounce on Drilbur both at the same time in an attempt to catch the runaway mole. Instead, they slammed directly into each other, leaving them dazed and seeing stars floating around their heads as a result. At this, Drilbur kept running and running until he ran onto the side of the porch itself, effectively knocking the box right off of him and giving him vision once more. Drilbur fell onto his bum with one claw held close to his chest and felt the beating of his heart which was racing at about eighty eight miles an hour. The mole’s fur was all shaggy and matted from the sweat of running, and his eyes looked like they were going to pop right out of their sockets. His tongue was left hanging off the corner of his mouth, he panted heavily to alleviate all the heat that was building up in his little body. “ *Pant* *Pant* *Pant* Oh, Arceus. I thought I was going to be eaten by that box” Drilbur fell onto his back and sighed “Victini... where are you buddy... I need ya...” “Looking *Hic!* for me?” Victini popped up from the side with his head resting in the palms of his hands as he smiled a long smile “Hey! How are ya *Hic!* doing... did ya enjoy your little trip around the *Hic!* farm? He he he he he he...” “Oh, you would not believe the day that I had...” Drilbur shut his eyes to recall the strange events that haunted him earlier today. He shuddered and just pretended that it all didn’t happen to him “All I can say is that you look great in a suit buddy. Speaking of which we should find you one later...” “...Has anyone ever told you that your stripes are really, really, reeeeeeally blue?” Victini spoke, acting completely oblivious to everything that Drilbur had just said. Drilbur looked up from his spot and raised an eyebrow at Victini. “You okay buddy?”         “Me? I feel *Hic!* terrific!” Victini exclaimed with glee as sparks of fire permeated off his little body “And it’s all thanks to this magical *Hic!* drink!” he pulled out his shot glass and took another swig from it “ *Belch!* Oh, yeah... I never felt so *Hic! enlightened in all my life!”         “Whoa, easy there buddy” said Drilbur as he sniffed the glass “I recognise this stuff. The humans used to drink it back home. It made them a little crazy if they had too much”         “Really? But I *Hic!* feel great!” Victini threw his hands up in the air and danced around “Whee!”         “Yeah, but I once knew this Minccino who knew this Liligant who was friends with this Garbodor who was haunted by this Chandelure who was also haunted by this Dusknoir whose mate was a Frostlass whose second cousin twice removed was a Banette who has a crush on Mismagius who always had a picnic with Stoutland who was the father of this Mienfoo whose mom was a Mienshao who knew a human that lost it after drinking that funky stuff. It’ll rot your brain, Victini” “Well, when you put it that way...” Victini tried to finish his sentence but was rudely cut off when he was grabbed from behind and yanked up to eye level with a very exasperated mare. Looking at him dead in the eye was Applejack who was covered in dirt, cuts, bruises, and something that probably came from the backside of their cow neighbors “Oh! Hello there *Hic!* miss Applejack! How are you this *Hic!* fine day?” “Victini! I’ll save y-” Drilbur was going to spring into action but a cramp on his legs caused his to remain grounded and straddled with fatigue “Ah... hold on and let me... catch my breathe first... be there real quick” his muscles refused to move due to the intense pain of a workout. Lactic acid made each little twitch on his body feel like a concentrated firestorm. He was going to have to sit this one out for now. “Aha! I finally gotcha ya sneaky little varmint!” Applejack shouted in light of her success “Good work tricking Victini Big Bro. Just leave the rest to me” she turned to face Victini who was smiling and waving his hand at her “Applejack!” Big Mac shouted from behind as he wore a serious visage on his face “What do you think you’re doing t-” “Big Mac, please” Applebloom, who had finally recovered from bumping into Applejack, quickly butted in and raised a hoof to her older brother “You’ve already done enough, just let me and sis handle this” BIg Mac just frowned at his siblings, it was ludicrous in how they acted to Victini “Just you watch, I’ll have my cutie mark and you can see that arrow on our business poster go up!” “Bu-” he tried talking again but got shushed by Applebloom, much to his annoyance “Fine. But if everything you’ve told me so far is true, then I don’t have to do anything to make you see that what you’re doing is wrong” “Psshh, you worry too much” Applebloom brushed off her brother’s negativity “It’ll all work out, you’ll see. In the end, everyone wins” “Except for Victini” Big Mac sharply retorted. “What? He’s just a magic rabbit” Applebloom replied nonchalantly which brought forth a look of neutral irritation to Big Mac’s face “For all you know he probably just cares about carrots or something” Big Mac facehoofed himself. This wasn’t going to end well. “Now, how’s about helping me and my family out with a little bit of victory?” said Applejack with an unsettling gleam in her eye “ I’ll make it worth your while, I’ll give ya this here carrot to snack on in exchange for some of your help Whaddaya say? Have we got a deal?” True to her word Applejack pulled out a bright orange carrot (grown from the patch of a certain mare) and dangled it in front of Victini like some sort of gilded prize. What happened next came from completely out of left field and took everyone by surprise. Victini giggled goofily and kissed the tip of Applejack’s nose before stumbling into la la land. He hummed a light tune to himself as he rocked his body side to side, swinging and swaying to the sound of an unheard beat. “Uh...” Applejack just stared at the inebriated pokemon before her that was just chanting its own name over and over again in her grip with an incredulous look plastered onto her face. There was no way she was going to get anything out of him now. “Hey!” Applejack shook Victini like a rag doll “Snap out of it! I want my victory!” she shook Victini some more, not realizing that the gas from the cider within him was starting to stir “Come on! I busted my rear trying to chase your buddy down just to get to ya. I ain’t gonna let all that hard work be for nothing!” Just then Victini burped. The fire from his body mixed with the alcohol on his breathe and created a little puff of fire that scorched Applejack’s favorite stetson, singed some of the bangs off her mane and practically erased her eyebrows from existence. Applejack yelped in terror and fell back onto her haunches, letting Victini go while trying to put out the little flame still flickering on the brow of her favorite hat. “Wah! My hat! My hair! My gosh!” she fanned her hat up and down to extinguish the flame, just enough so that most of hat stayed intact “Phew, that was close” she let out a sigh of relief before turning to glare at the one responsible for nearly torching her. Victini’s tail was fluttering about and he was floating around in place like an astronaut stuck in zero gravity enjoying blissful ignorance at its finest. “I’d figure something like this would happen” Big Mac suddenly appeared beside Applejack and startled her “Applejack, mind splaining to me why you were treating Victini like that?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “BIg Mac, allow me to answer your question with another question?” she asked without so much as a hint of remorse in her voice “Just what is it that we do here?” Big Mac blinked. “We sell apples and apple products” Big Mac stated. “Exactly. So why do you think I was trying to get Victini to help us out?” she said as if it was the most simplest thing in the world “We haven’t met our quota for the last few months even though we’re the only ones selling apples. Victini here’s gonna fix all that, yes he is” “Nope” “What was that?” Applejack raised her eyebrow at her brother. “You heard me loud and clear. That ain’t no way to treat a friend of the Apple family” said Big Mac as he snipped his sprig of wheat in two through his teeth “We treat our guest with same respect we’d give to each other or anypony else, no ifs, ands, or buts” “What are you talking bout? Have the fumes from the manure gone to your head or something? With Victini our sales will go through the roofs! When opportunity knocks, you answer!” Applejack retorted “Why would you let something like this go to waste?” “Well, let me answer that question with another question” said Big Mac with a smirk hidden behind his stoic facade “In fact, why don’t I answer your question with a whole buncha questions?” Applejack gulped. Whenever her brother spoke like that it usually meant that he had an answer to the argument that would cause her reasoning and logic on the current situation to turn around, spit at her in the face and then collapse like a lopsided building. She bit her lips and broke out into a cold sweat. This wasn’t going to end well. “Listen up and listen up good Applejack, you too Applebloom” he began, never once losing the attention he received from his siblings. When he spoke, you listen. Wielding his verbal weapon, he locked, load, aimed, and fired. “What would you do if it were Winona instead of Victini?” he asked, the words coming out like a red hot .500 magnum round flying through the air. As he continued his verbal onslaught, his tone never raised nor lowered. He just kept that same tone of his and it chilled his sisters down to the bone and shook them to the core. “If she could do everything Victini could, would you do everything you just did today to her? Would you go to insane length to try and catch her, to make her use her powers for you even just once? How would she react? How would she feel? How would she look at you again knowing that you see her as nothing more than a means to an end?” he paused but his ammunition never ran out. He just reloaded. “Do you think she would want to run around the fields with you after a day of hard work, or even just greet ya whenever you walked in the house? Do you think she’d even look at your general direction anymore? Do you think she’d have trouble at night sleeping knowing she could be caged up and used like an old dish rag? Do you think you would justify all that by saying it’s just business, the family business, that she’s a magic dog or some other lame excuse like that?” he stopped and waited for his words to sink into his siblings. Then, with his last metaphorical bullet, he pulled the trigger and fired the killing shot. “Would you do that to Winona, Applejack?” With deadly aim and precision that would make even Annie Oakley blush, every word, every shot he took was aimed specifically at the spindly legs of Applejack’s weak argument. With no legs to stand on everything came crashing down on top of her. The weight of her own ignorance and greed acted like a heavy blade that cut through her heart and it tore her from the inside out. Big Mac reeled back from his own effectiveness. His word were powerful indeed and though they may have come off as harsh he knew that the only way to get through someone like Applejack, who is known to be thick headed at times, was to break down her mental barriers with the force of a wrecking ball. Crude as it may be, it worked. Quiet sobs could be heard from Applejack as she buried her head in her hooves. A baker’s dozen of emotions, thoughts, and regrets assaulted her at all sides. She felt terrible, she felt lower than the dirt she sat on, she felt undeserving of any kindness that may come her way no matter how insistent or forceful it was. But as she sulked, a gentle warmth brought her senses back to reality. She turned and to her shock, found Victini hugging her. Even after all she’s done, he still came in her time of need. With tears flowing again with the force of a broken dam, she hugged back and let out a wave of raw emotions to purge herself of everything that she had done.