First off, a correction: it’s not actually Milkshake Swamp that’s toxic. It’s the ivy. Yes, that’s right: Tunod has literal poison army.

Salandit poison ivy.

As I’ve mentioned, this poison can even poison Poison-types, which is why Youngster James here caught us at a bad time. We blacked out in the battle.

No, that’s not a glitch. That’s part of the transition scene.

Coming back at full health, we defeat James.

Um, dude, you saw Honey’s Croagunk in the first battle.

We fought a few other trainers… but one in particular stands out.

Youngster Alex.

Sign of a supervillain part one: thinking swamps are awesome. Swamps are not awesome. Especially not swamps named after milkshakes or milk snakes, infested with ivy-dwelling Salandit, and full of jerk kids like this one.

Swamps are, however, a perfect spot to hide your dastardly deeds, because if anyone sees you do anything, you can attribute their delusions to swamp gas. Easy enough.

Sign number two: Zigzagoon henchmon. Everybody that’s anybody has a Zigzagoon henchmon, don’t you know?

Of course, it’s quite necessary for Zigzagoon henchmon to be incompetent. Everybody knows that, except for the Zigzagoon.

Sign number three: news media connections. This guy has his own propaganda lapdog, which took out Honey’s strongest team member while he was at his weakest.

Thankfully Ekans put the squeeze on him, so that was two down.



Then came the clincher.

Sign number four: You see this Budew? This is not the Face of Mercy Budew. This is Omega-Ruby-level Stall Budew. Allow me to demonstrate.

Looks innocent enough.

Also knows Absorb, but it’s not very effective. On anyone still conscious. Actually, the only Pokemon of Honey’s that doesn’t resist Absorb by at least one stage is BBC Doge, so that’s good, right? Not to mention that Absorb isn’t a very strong attack anyway.

I guess it would be, if it didn’t also restore Budew’s health… and if Budew didn’t prove so difficult to kill.

Wrap does a small amount of damage each turn, but Ekans can’t stay in there for much longer. Even with resistance to Absorb.

Oh, and remember what I said about Absorb being a weak attack? Yeah, it gets stronger.

Snek decides not to get tread on and retreats, to be replaced with Baa the Sheepfrog.

Who promptly wastes time fiddling around with the Exp. Share instead of fighting.

Sadly, Croagunk is not made of Salandit ivy, and thus cannot poison Flowey Bud, who uses another Growth. But Sheepfrog uses Poison Sting again, and Flowey Bud uses Absorb, healing back a considerable percentage of the damage that was dealt it.

The process repeated.

At this point, it might have been wise for Sheepfrog to try to use Mud-Slap. Instead, it stayed on Poison Sting, possibly because chat didn’t want to try messing around with the Exp. Share again. Or possibly because of Turbo Anarchy. Maybe both.

Flowey Bud was put in the red, survived, and responded with… Growth.

Thankfully, Croagunk manages to kill it with the next Poison Sting. All’s well that ends well, right?

Well, not quite.

Oh boy.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy…

This is when the real cancer began.