496: An Angry Combeenation!
Dodgy Synopsis
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500: Kohaku no Shiro no Bikuin!
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No, it's not a porno movie; it's a treasure hunt, for the greatest prize of all.... MAN! Wait, sorry, mixing up promos.... it's all for love! NO! Wait, it's all for the memory of the failed dreams of an old man! The very best reason to go out into the world on your own armed only with hokey folk wisdom!
But what waits for Cheryl and the twerps may not be the romantic ideal of the treasure hunter. She is, after all, seeking to take the greatest hidden treasure of a bizarre, incomprehensible alien species. Cheryl and the twerps could well find themselves facing....
The twerps chase the braying Mothim which is still chasing Combee, the bizarre segmented honeycomb, while elsewhere Team Rocket is.... living in a fantasy world!
As Meowth shouts at Jesse and James to get up and at'em, they're instead sitting with their backs to a tree trunk, complaining of sore feet and proclaiming that they're "there" now. How? Why because they're too tired for their destination to be anywhere but where they are right now! Meowth struggles valiantly to get them moving, tugging on first James' arm, then Jesse's.... but he's only a little cat for all his insane determination, and fails to move them at all.
Mothim has led the twerps to a giant flower, and Combee leaps out from behind it and zips off, the twerps and Mothim losing track of it but determined to keep going. Luckily they have an ace up their sleeve, Cheryl can offer them the motivation AND directions of her Grandfather who never found the Amber Castle in order to find the Amber Castle that he never found! Yes, using his directions to a place he never got to, surely they can get to the place that he never arrived at, by using his directions to the place he was never able to find!
But while the twerps are freshly determined, Jesse and James move along behind a ferocious Meowth, practically sleepwalking.
"My aching feet, my aching manicure," moans Jesse, and then suggests to James that she feels like they're sleepwalking off of a cliff. He tells her - eyes closed, basically asleep on his feet - that it would just be like those cartoons he loves so much, and Meowth tells them both to quit bringing them bad luck.... and almost walks over the edge of the cliff! They shout out in alarm, then turn to walk in the other direction... and the cliff's edge breaks and pitches them into a river below.
Meanwhile, Mothim is making the dying retarded giraffe noise that is its voice, squealing,"MAHHHH MAH MAAAAHHHH!" at the twerps by a shaking bush, from which emerges.... THE MOTHERFUCKING BORG!
Yes it's the "Combee Wall" that Gardenia told them about in the previous episode. It's a bunch of the Pokémon formed together in a collective hive mind seeking to add our biological and technological distinctiveness to their own.... resistance is futile! The alien monstrosity floats away and Brock suggests the Amber Castle could be near. They continue on, and find a valley filled with Combee Walls, moving about past waterfalls and a river. Mothim seems to spot/smell something and zooms away, Pikachu chasing it and calling the twerps after it until they find them at the foot of the waterfall. They rush into the cave behind the waterfall, while behind them Team Rocket emerge from under the rocky debris of their fall and guess the twerps have found the Amber Castle.
Inside the cave behind the waterfall, Pikachu seems to sniff something - the enchanted honey? - and the twerps move into the dark cave, Brock suggesting they're close enough that Pikachu can pick up on what Mothim has been leading them towards. The cave is filled with warrens and tunnels, and Pikachu and Mothim lead them towards a shining light - a quarry-like crystal hole inside of the cave. They move around the winding path and Pikachu calls them to a small tunnel set into the side. Suddenly Mothim charges off and Pikachu gives chase, the twerps trying to catch up but getting lost in the maze-like warrens, away from the glowing crystal quarry.
But if the twerps are lost, Team Rocket are too. Jesse and James instantly collapse and decide to give up again, until Meowth tells them that his own nose is picking up the honey now and now they don't need Mothim, he can lead them to it! Jesse and James leap back up with shovels (don't ask where they got them from, Gentle Dodgers) and begin digging, singing away.
And as Team Rocket sing and dig and the twerps stumble about lost in the dark.... deep in the heart of the quarry, surrounded by walls of hive-mind Combee Walls doing the work of drones, sitting at the centre of it all, the master of the hive waits, the great monster that is the Queen of this collective, alien entity.
The twerps trudge through the darkness of the caves and locate Pikachu and Mothim, who have returned to them, Pikachu looking concerned.... and then waves of Combee come spilling past, apparently alarmed and concerned..... but what has got them so agitated? Why, Team Rocket of course!
Jesse and James dig at Meowth's prompting, creating holes everywhere as they try to find the Amber Castle.... and then they hear the approaching buzz, and turn to see something fresh out of a nightmare. THE COMBEELLECTIVE IS SWARMING!
The twerps follow the twerps in and spot Team Rocket, surrounded by the Combee as James yells at them they haven't done anything wrong... they're certainly not after Enchanted Honey or anything! They insist that there's enough honey to go around for everyone anyway (which is probably technically correct) but when Cheryl tells them that they're not even sure if there IS Enchanted Honey here, Jesse growls that SHE knows where Seviper is, and calls it out to battle. James calls on Cacnea as well, only to have it remind him that it WUVS HIM!
Jesse - tired of digging and looking - has decided that the Amber Castle is directly behind the Combee, and Seviper and Cacnea begin bouncing about all over the place with Poison Tail and Pin Missile, the Combee becoming enraged and blasting psychic attacks all over the place. For some reason, Team Rocket are LOVING the explosion of fury from the Combee, dancing and cheering for the "fireworks". Cheryl tries to calm everything down and has Mothim use Supersonic to confuse the Combee, Seviper and Cacnea, then tells the twerps they should head off down another tunnel rather than get caught up in this foolish battling. Dawn then uses Piplup's Whirlpool to wash Team Rocket away down the tunnel to their probably deaths, before just abandoning them to continue on in search of the Enchanted Honey that they have no more right to than that EVIL Team Rocket who dared to also want to find it.
Mothim gets progressively more excited and leads them further into the darkness, and then Ash walks face first into a wall. He mutters it is a dead end, but Mothim seems to disagree, and then Cheryl looks closer at the wall and notes that it appears to be moving.....
Ohhhhhh shit.
The giant Combee Wall blasts psychic energy at them, and Cheryl has Mothim use Super Sonic to break the Hive Mind Collective Consciousness of the Combee Wall to reveal.... THE AMBER CASTLE!
They move across one of the bridge platforms and enter the "castle" to discover it is dripping with the Enchanted Honey... and at the centre of it all.... is Vespiquen.... QUEEN OF THE MOTHERFUCKING BORG!
Cheryl approaches and Combee surround her in fury, which is bizarre - don't they understand that this group of interlopers that trespassing into their most sacred place and physically attacked the Combee when they got in the way are the good guys!?! Not like those evil jerks from earlier who trespassed into their most sacred place and physically attacked the Combee when they got in their way!
But Cheryl explains her actions, begging forgiveness for trespassing and insisting they're not here to steal, they just wanted to know was that this place existed! All she wants is a small jar of honey, not to bring war against this Hive-Mind Collective of Millions of Insect Pokémon that have psychic powers.
But as Vespiquen peers down at her with its unreadable alien expression.... TEAM ROCKET BLAST THROUGH THE MOTHERFUCKING ROOF!
"We've found the Amber Castle so get real!"
"And for the price!"
"It's..."
"A steal!"
"Bringing total chaos at a breakneck pace."
"Dashing all hope and putting fear in its place."
"A rose by any other name's just as sweet."
"When everything's worse, our work is complete."
"Jesse!"
"And James!"
"Now Meowth, dat's a name!"
"Putting the do-gooders in their place."
"It's Team Rocket, giving chase!"
"We're yer case!"
"In your face!" they finish together.
Jesse laughs and mocks Cheryl for her begging request, going just a little bit over the top as her head swells and her lips pucker crazily. Seviper, Cacnea and Carnivine leap out, the latter two trying to eat/rape/hug James at the same time. Ash is eager to battle, but Brock warns him that this could damage the Amber Castle (wouldn't want to damage THAT after blasting your way through a wall of thousands of Pokémon who were trying to protect it after all!). Team Rocket laugh at them for sweating the small stuff, and begin blasting at the Combee, doing major damage, causing cracks to form in the Castle and the honey to leak out. Team Rocket grab buckets (don't ask from where, Gentle Dodgers) and begin collecting the honey, while Dawn has Buneary use Icebeam to seal up the cracks.... and Vespiquen watches on with apparent alien indifference to the frantic actions of these small, single minded shadows of life. The Combee appear to be getting madder, however, and Brock tells Ash they'll need to fix the place up permanently, as the Icebeam is simply a stopgap measure. They and their Pokémon begin working to block up the leaks, while Pachirisu hits Seviper, Cacnea and Carnivine with Sweet Kiss and confuses them, causing Jesse to declare them a bunch of wimps.
The ice walls begin to break apart and melt, the twerps redoubling their efforts to block them up as Team Rocket grab their buckets of honey and prepare to cheese it. The Combee blast Psychic at Team Rocket, but Meowth throws up a parasol to protect them..... and that's it! Whatever passes for thoughts in the alien mind of Vespiquen, the sight of that parasol absolutely fucking enrages it!
It draws energy in towards itself, and Cheryl - despite earlier claiming she wasn't even sure if Vespiquen existed - identifies the move as Power Gem.
It blasts Team Rocket with an outpouring of the energy from Power Gem, sending them blasting off..... through multiple layers of rock, stone and mountainside! They're smeared in honey, buckets slammed over their heads, surely concussed and absolutely resigned to their fate....
Inside the Amber Castle, the Combee are repairing the Amber Castle with the Enchanted Honey itself, and then Vespiquen approaches Cheryl and offers her a jar of the honey. Cheryl is delighted and has everyone grab a taste, which everyone seems to enjoy but Croagunk, which blanches in disgust. Why? Maybe because it knows the truth.... Enchanted Honey is just Bee Piss!
Not long after, the twerps move through the forest with Cheryl, who has finally achieved the one thing her Grandfather never managed to pull off. And speaking of pulling off, Brock suddenly proclaims he is going to be a Treasure Hunter too and travel with Cheryl... who spots a Beedrill and proclaims that her Grandfather told her that if you see a Beedrill, you must travel alone.
She takes off, leaving a shocked Brock behind, while Ash declares that now he is more determined to get to Eterna Gym than ever.... apparently eating honey gets him in the mood for fighting?
But it's not fighting that the various Pokémon of the forest have in mind for Team Rocket. As the episode ends, we discover the still honey smeared trio charging through the forest chased by horny Pokémon that desperately want to rape them.... and Meowth's strategy to prevent this?
And that is why, after 500 episodes, I can still honestly say.... God I love Pokémon.
| BEST QUOTES |
 "It's not like WE'RE in a cartoon, silly!"
 "BETTER GET THOSE HONEY SOAKED CLOTHES OFF AND QUICK!"
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