The twerps have crossed the Sky Arrow Bridge and arrived at Castelia City, much to Ash's delight who wants to head straight for the Gym and his 3rd Battle. Cilan tells them about a famous ice-cream place called the Castelia Cone, and Iris wants to go straight there. Ash refuses though, as in last episode he's adamant about not getting distracted, but he's no match for Cilan's crafty ways. The Connoisseur suggests they "take a shortcut" (noooooooo!!!!) through the Central Plaza, a circular public garden that would appear to be in the exact center of the town. As they pass through, they spot Burgh standing beneath a tree staring up unhappily at the leaves, telling them that the Bug Pokémon are uneasy and he doesn't think he can battle right now.

NOOOOOOOO!!!!

Iris tells them that she's heard that Bug Types can sense impending danger, and Burgh says it has been scientifically proven by their registering of electro-magnetic waves. Having already established that the Bug Types have sensed impending danger, which in turn is backed up by Burgh's authority, Iris decides NOW is the time to reveal that she too can sense impending danger! She points in the direction she is sure it is in, and leads them on to.... Castelia Cone! Which, to make matters worse, is closed! Having exposed herself as either a fraud or food-obsessed, Iris is understandably embarrassed, but gets a slight reprieve when Pikachu picks up something odd as well and begins sniffing around a nearby manhole cover. Ash asks Burgh what is under the manhole and Burgh replies,"A sewer!" which is... I mean, I know Ash is stupid, but GODDAMN!

Burgh remembers that a Pokémon once wondered into the city from the river via the sewer, and they decide to head down to investigate. Down in the stinking flowing piss and shit of the city, they discover a segmented, maggot-like thing jammed headfirst into an outflow pipe flailing its tail about. Ash checks it out with his Pokédex and learns that it is a Venipede, which explore using the feelers on its head and tail to sense vibrations in the air. Ash tries to pull it free but Burgh warns that if it attacks in fear it could poison him, but Ash can't stand the idea of just leaving it there (he's got empathy!) and hauls it out, crashing onto his ass. Venipede is clear though, and Pikachu approaches to say hello only for the frightened, hurt little centipede/armadillo thing to use Screech on all of them as a warning to BACK THE FUCK UP!

Ash's reaction to this warning, of course, is to approach and try to talk to it some more, and it leaps right for his face. He grabs it as it crashes into him and tells it to calm down, telling it that he means it no harm... and then collapses from the poison that Burgh warned him about. The others go into a panic, scrambling for some Antidote that Cilan has in his bag. As Cilan feeds Ash the antidote, Burgh sprays some medicine onto the bruise on Venipede's back and then applies a bandage that coincidentally might be able to assist us in being able to tell it apart if any more happened to show up! Though the chances of that happening in an episode called "A Venipede Stampede" are highly unlikely, of course!

Ash thanks Burgh for doing that, and Burgh goes over all campily dramatic and gasps that Ash has awed his pure heart! Everyone ignores him and Iris gives Venipede an Orin Berry which it promptly sucks the insides out, pleasing Ash who thinks it is getting its strength back. They still don't know WHY it put its head into that pipe though, and before they can find out a whole mess of other Venipede show up! Spotting the twerps, the collected Venipede angrily blast Screech at the twerps and then fire their poison attacks at them, and they clear the fuck out of there, Ash forced to leave the bandaged Venipede behind.

Back up on the surface, they find they haven't left the Venipede behind. There are scores of them up on the surface, if not hundreds, menacing citizens, tipping trucks and carrying fat grandmas on their backs (won't somebody think of the fat grandmas!). Office Jenny comes driving by and spotting Burgh, she pulls over to give warning to one of the city's elite while ignoring the terrifying citizens. She doesn't know what is going on or why, telling them that Professor Juniper is working on that, and then an explosion from the direction of the Pokémon Center gets their attention and they rush to see what is going on. Outside the Pokémon Center, a group of trainers are holding out against the swarming Venipede, lead by.... Trip!?!

The jerky little snob has snapped a quick photo before directing action, and he turns and spots Ash, hilariously trying to look away before they can make eye contact and Ash talk to.... too late, Ash is talking to him! Trip calls out his Lampent, which looks like a lamp wearing a pot lid on its head, and tells the other trainers to use Flamethrower with their Pokémon to clear the Venipede away from the Center. The attack seems to work for a moment, but the angry Venipede reform and come back, blasting their smokey poisony/sludgey attack thing (fuck you, they didn't explicitly say what the attack was and I don't care enough to look it up!) back at them. Trip tells the trainers not to give up and use Flamethrower again, but Ash gets in the way and demands to know why Trip is attacking the Venipede.



Trip quite rightly points out he's attacking them because THEY are attacking him, and he doesn't have time to deal with Ash right now. Ash insists though, saying that Juniper is working out why the Venipede are currently here. Trip mumbles that Ash is naive and this isn't the Kanto City Boonies, but before Ash can leap onto Trip and beat him to death with his "not first place" trophies, the GODDAMN MAYOR shows up!

With a big walrus moustache, a fat stomach and a hand clutching empty air where a brandy snifter should be, he declares that his first duty is to the citizens and he must get the Venipede out of the city. Burgh says that there is another solution, and if they can just gather all the Venipede together in one place - Central Plaza for instance - they can hold them there till Juniper figures out what is going on and help remove them. The Mayor ponders and asks how Burgh intends to accomplish this, and Burgh explains that the Venipede will have a leader so they just need to "convince" it and the rest will follow. The Mayor reluctantly agrees, explaining that if Burgh fails he will have no choice but to "remove" them (i.e, kill them all), and Burgh has Cilan go inside to get Nurse Joy's Audino while he, Ash and Iris set off. As they leave, Trip is left behind pondering SOME of what Burgh said.... a leader....?



WHO'S THAT POKEMON.... Venipede of course....



Meanwhile, Juniper's "work" is revealed to be a satellite scan of a location that.... isn't the city? Her researchers are confused, but she explains that she's scanning the desert because normally the Venipede live underground there. If they've left their home, it must be due to some kind of underground change.

Burgh is explaining to Ash and Iris how they will find the leader - a leader will probably be one that stands out from the others, it detects danger faster for instance. It'll probably be up somewhere high where the others can see it and it can see them, and they look around and spot a HUGE Venipede, another reason for its leadership role according to Burgh. It leaps down and crashes to the ground in front of them, and Burgh tries to talk sense to it, telling it that it must be able to sense the new danger they're in now if they stay. He asks it to follow him, but instead it blasts at him and he has to dart aside, the attack crashing into a building and scattering several of the Venipede planted against the wall. They try again to communicate, but then a Flamethrower attack cuts them off.... Trip has shown up after all, not to do as they suggested but to FIGHT the leader and beat it into a retreat!



Ash yells at him to stop attacking but Trip grumpily states that it's a no-brainer to take out the leader and break up the colony. Ash angrily shouts that they all agreed to get the Venipede to Central Plaza, and Trip doesn't point out that HE never agreed to this, instead quite correctly pointing out that Boss Venipede doesn't seem to be listening. He orders another attack on the leader, and Ash leaps heroically (stupidly!) into the way with an action hero,"NOOOOOOOO!!!!", causing Trip to raise one eyebrow and mutter,"That was a waste of time...."

Burgh speaks up though, telling Trip to stop this now. As Boss Venipede sits quivering with rage/preparation to attack, Bandage Venipede shows up and tells it,"Yo this dumb kid is a pretty good guy, even if he is kinda retarded...." and seems to calm it down. Ash is pleased to see it again and tells Trip that the Venipede aren't evil, there's obviously a reason WHY they're doing this. Trip (again, quite rightly!) points out that it doesn't fucking matter, they still need to be dealt with, but Burgh shuts him down by stating he doesn't have the right to make that decision... before diluting his authority somewhat by waffling on about pure hearts and all that good crap.

Cilan arrives with Nurse Joy and Audino, and Trip calls his Pokémon back and tells them to go ahead and knock themselves out, he already knows the result. Burgh has already forgotten Trip though, asking Nurse Joy to have Audino use Heal Pulse to calm down the agitated Venipede. It does so and seems to somewhat relax (i.e, get stoned) the Venipede, and then Burgh plays a bug flute to lead them all on to Central Plaza - a massive colony of stoned out of their mind centipedes chilling to some sweet ass tunes.

Burgh asks the others to gather up any stragglers that aren't stoned and get them to join the rest of the colony. Ash heads into an alleyway and uses Pidove's Gust to blow some Venipedes out to join the others, while I struggle to think of a clever way to put "Alleyway" and "Blow" together in a sentence. Meanwhile up on top of a building, Iris has Axew use Dragon Rage to blast some sleeping Venipede off of the top of the building and down amongst the others. It goes about as well as you might think, with the attack blowing up in its face and knocking them both on their asses. They giggle about it, while the Venipede are woken up and startled enough to take off down the side of the building and join the rest of the colony.

Cilan calls out Pansage and tells it to use Bullet Seed on some of the rogue Venipede.... but subtly, with just a touch of spice. So it blows a very small, slow arcing blast of Bullet Seed at the approaching Venipede, startling them and causing them to scrabble clear in a panic and join the colony and follow their Boss and Burgh towards Central Plaza.

A couple of Venipede are head to head and looking to fight over some unfathomably alien insect thing or another. Nurse joy has Audino use Heal Pulse on them to get them nicely toasted, and they happily press heads together with beaming ^_^ eyes and join the colony, flowing forward happily with the rest of them following Castelia City's pied piper.

Ash is trying another blast of Gust on some more Venipede, but these ones decide to attack FIRST rather than just sit there and take it. Pidove looks in danger for a moment, but then Air Cutter blasts the attack out of the air. Where did that come from? From Tranquil! Who's Tranquil? Trip's!?! He's joined in the herding of the Venipede, much to Ash's utter pantswetting delight. Catching his fat little Pidove as the shockwave of the Air Cutter knocks it backwards, he watches as Tranquil herds some more Venipede into the colony. Delighted to be working alongside his rival, he tells Pidove to use Gust again, successfully blowing many into the Colony, and it happily flexes its biceps (!!) before being surprised by a glowing enveloping it. For once Ash actually knows what is going on, as he declares that Pidove is evolving!



He has his Tranquil use Gust while Trip has his use Aerial Ace, and between them they help get a great number of confused Venipede to scuttle to the safety of the colony. Ash is absolutely beside himself with pleasure, giggling and guffawing at working alongside Trip who turns to look at him then turns his head away in contempt, causing Ash make a hilarious close-mouthed,"Wha-fuck?" look.

At the lab, Juniper's assistants (they seem to be doing all the work) locate two strange energy flows combining in the Desert Resort, causing a massive off-the-charts level of energy for some reason. but what is going on there?

What indeed? High in the sky in a small private jet, a suited man sits staring out the window when the screen in front of his seat switches on and an underling informs him that they will be arriving in the Unova Region very soon. The man tells him excellent and the screen goes off, and he sits back and cackles with delight - soon the Meteonite will be his, exclusively for the use of Team Rocket! Who is the man.... well holllllllyyyyyyyy shiiiiiiiiiiiit, it's Giovanni! Giovanni is in the Unova Region!

Back at Castelia, the twerps, Burgh, Joy and Trip have arrived at Central Plaza where all of the Venipede seem to have been rounded up. The Mayor is delighted with Burgh, Ash is pleased to see Bandage Venipede is safe as well, and Burgh tells the Mayor to thank the twerps. They say they just did as they were told, it was Burgh's idea. As everybody congratulates everybody else, Trip starts to leave and Ash asks where he is going... what about his Gym Battle? Trip tells him that it is obvious that it will take awhile for everything to be right in Castelia and there probably won't be any Gym Battles for a little while. He isn't going to waste time hanging around waiting, so he's heading for another Gym instead. Ash calls after him that the next time they meet they should have another battle, and Trip tells him maybe... if Ash is good enough to battle him next time! Ash's reaction to that? Well let's just say for once he's less than convinced of his ability!



What follows is a bit of careful editing. Originally what was supposed to happen was the twerps would join Juniper to go check out the Desert Resort, but a pesky "little" earthquake in Japan meant the episodes had to be pulled and edited quickly and placed out of order. As a result, what we see instead is the twerps meeting Juniper who reveals the powerful energy signature in the desert resort and claims she is going to research it, Burgh declaring he'll have to keep an eye on the Venipede, and the helicopter promptly leaving without showing us who got into it while the narrator talks about what Ash is thinking about his Gym Battle.

Some slight confusion, but it'll all work itself out in the end, and who knows, even if Jesse, James and Meowth are being all boring at the moment - Giovanni is in Unova now, and that can only lead to interesting things happening! Maybe Team Rocket will be interesting again! Hoorah!

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