Episode 5: The Combee's Knees
Now having gained a new travel companion in the form of Reyn, our heroes are making their way to Marguerite City for Ash's first Gym battle in Anora. But first our heroes are still making their way through the many fields and hills before getting there.
"Wow, check out all these flowers!" Reyn exclaims as she runs excitedly through the fields.
"H-hey wait up, Reyn!" Mircea calls chasing after her.
Eventually, Reyn manages to stop for a bit as Ash and Mircea sit down for a break.
"Ok! Who's hungry for some breakfast?" Reyn asks beaming.
"Oh man, I'm really excited to see what you can cook for breakfast, Reyn!" Ash exclaims. "Your cooking is really good!"
"Aww thanks Ash, you're too sweet!" Reyn blushes brightly as she fumbles around in her backpack, tossing out pots and pans and nearly dropping several spoons.
"Hey, I know, how would you boys like some honey on toast for breakfast?" Reyn asks, as she begins to set out her foldable table and deckchairs.
"Sounds awesome!" Ash replies, as he and Mircea let their Pokémon out to play.
As Ash and Mircea sit down together, Pikachu and Marmelon roll around in the fields together, Applin shuffles slowly around the flowers and Hoopkoo flies around the table, glancing around at all the various trees.
"Do you know what would make this honey on toast even better? Fresh honey on toast!" Reyn beams as she walks over to Applin and watches it as it trudges over to some flower and starts to eat the nectar out of them.
"Applin can collect nectar really well, so this will help out a lot." Reyn explains as Applin begins to munch on the tops of various flowers in the field.
Suddenly, a small swarm of Combee buzzes overhead before descending down towards Applin.
"Hey, I guess the Combee are looking for some nectar too." Ash turns around to face them, as does Mircea, who gets out his Pokédex and examines the Combee with it.
"Combee, the Tiny Bee Pokémon, and a Bug and Flying combo type. When born, all Combee are together as a trio. They constantly search for nectar from dawn till dusk so they can take it to the Vespiquen that rules their hive."
Applin glances up at the Combee as it continues to eat more nectar and bounces up a little.
"App!" it says friendly.
The Combees share a glance with each other and then flap their wings rapidly at Applin, blowing it away with a mighty Gust attack. Applin rolls all the way back to Reyn's foldable table and bumps into the legs.
"Hey what was that for?" Mircea demands, but the Combee flutter down to various flowers nearby and begin quickly taking as much nectar as they can before they fly away.
"They must be really busy." Reyn ponders. "I guess the Vespiquen that commands them needs a lot of honey quickly."
Just then, as soon as Reyn has finished speaking, a massive swarm of about a hundred Combee flies towards the field and begins to cover every single flower they can find.
"Make that really busy!" Ash shouts over the loud buzzing noise.
Then, a few of the Combee notice that Reyn's table and chairs are on top of some flowers and begin to blow out a big Gust which knocks everyone away, allowing the Combee to take the nectar from the flowers.
Ash, Mircea, Reyn and their Pokémon look up, dazed and surprised as they watch the Combee all fly away back towards the woods.
"Man, I've never seen that many Combee in one place. And they collected all that nectar so fast too!" Reyn gushes for a few seconds before she regains her focus. "But why though? Combee do work hard and fast but never by this amount."
Mircea looks over at some figures moving from the woods towards them. "Maybe they have something to do with it?" He gets visibly nervous and tries to hide behind the upturned table.
The figures are revealed to be Pokémon, ones that Ash is familiar with, although they look different to how he remembers them.
"Hey, are those Teddiursa?" Ash asks, as he points at the Teddiursa slowly plodding nearby through the flowers.
The Teddiursa passing by, while having the same shape and size as a regular Teddiursa, do have some noticeable differences. Firstly, they have a yellow and black striped colour scheme, not unlike that of a bee. They also have two black antennae on the top of their head, and small bee wings like those on Combee. And finally, they have a yellow and black stinger behind their back, kind of like a Beedrill.
Mircea holds his Pokédex up again to examine them.
"Teddiursa, the Little Bear Pokémon, and a Normal and Bug combo type. Teddiursa in Anora have an insatiable appetite for honey and will do anything to eat it. They have developed many traits resembling Pokémon like Beedrill and Combee whilst spending less time hibernating. They are a lot more lively than regular Teddiursa and many farms and beekeepers use them for their great skill in discerning the best quality honey."
"Woah, Teddiursa in the Anora Region are kinda different from regular Teddiursa." Ash marvels as the cute Teddiursa plod past, glancing around at all the flowers.
"They are soooo cute!" Reyn squeals excitedly.
Ash, Mircea and Reyn watch as the Teddiursa look around the field at all of the flowers. But eventually, they all gather round together in the middle and sigh sadly before walking away to the woods.
"Wh-where are they going?" Mircea asks, poking his head from behind the table.
"I'm guessing that the Teddiursa need to find a lot of honey to eat but since there isn't any nectar left, they won't have any to eat today."
"Hey, do you think we could go see where they are going?" Mircea asks.
"Alright, sure." Ash replies and the two of them begin to walk towards the woods, their Pokémon following behind them.
"Wait up!" Reyn calls, as she quickly stuffs all of her cooking equipment, as well as her table and chairs into her backpack. She then leans her arm down and lets Applin roll onto it before following quickly behind Ash and Mircea.
Meanwhile, Team Rocket's balloon is slowly coasting overhead, Meowth is glancing down at Ash and his friends through some binoculars.
"What can you see, Meowth?" Jessie asks.
"Seems the twerps are following some Combee and Teddiursa. Trying to find some honey, I expect." Meowth replies.
"Hmm, I would like some honey right about now, I'm famished." James groans, rubbing a hand over his stomach.
Meowth looks back through his binoculars as he gets a closer look at the group of Teddiursa, who are continuing to plod through the trees rather sadly.
"Hmm, those are some interesting looking Teddiursa. Maybe we could give them as a gift to the Boss?" He asks, turning to face Jessie and James, who look down at him confused.
"What would the boss want with a Teddiursa that's dressed up like a Combee?" Jessie asks.
"I'm glad you asked because now I want you to imagine this." Meowth begins. "Now you see, the Boss really loves eating honey, it's one of his favourite things to eat. And the good thing is that he has his giant honey producing factory." As Meowth is describing his plan, a cartoonish Giovanni appears in front of a large factory that has the words 'HONEY' on the side.
"I didn't know that the Boss had a honey making factory, or that he likes honey." James responds, clearly not buying Meowth's plan yet.
"Well, you never know, he's really rich so he could totally have one." Meowth retorts before continuing to speak. "Anyways, now the Boss has some really useless employees there that can't make him any good tasting honey, they're no good at it. This makes him really mad because he wants to have really nice tasting honey to eat each day." Meowth's imaginary cartoon Giovanni is shown shouting angrily at some Team Rocket grunts dressed up as beekeepers. "So that's when we get him these Teddiursa from Anora. They can gather all the nectar from the flowers that the boss keeps in his garden, then they can help make sure that the Boss gets the best tasting honey possible, and also, he can use them to help make his Rocket produced honey the best in the world." Meowth puts his paws on his hips proudly. "And that's when the Boss will say…" The imaginary Giovanni then is shown with a big smile on his face, and he is cuddling an Anoran Teddiursa. "...'Thanks to Meowth and friends I can have the best quality honey possible whenever I want. I will make sure to give them as much money as possible and maybe they can have their own Teddiursa from Anora that can also make them honey too.'"
As Meowth's fantasy ends he turns back to Jessie and James with a hopeful look on his face.
"Well, what do you think?" he asks.
"Sounds like a plan to me!" James exclaims happily. "Imagine how much honey we could have every day if we had one of those Teddiursa!"
"The Boss would be so proud of us if we got him one!" Jessie grins. "Now, imagine how much better it would be if they then evolved into Ursaring?"
The three of them imagine a group of giant Anoran Ursaring gathering mountains of honey for Giovanni and they all smirk wickedly.
"This sure-fire plan is really sweet; a sweet reward is the perfect treat!" They all chant together.
"Wobba wobba!" Wobbuffet joins in.
"Mime mime!" Mime Jr. jumps onto James' shoulder and smiles happily.
Down on the ground, Ash, Mircea and Reyn are still following the group of Teddiursa through the trees until they finally stop at one large tree. Surrounding the large tree are huge mounds of pots filled with glowing, golden honey. Underneath the tree, is a dozing Ursaring. Though it is clearly different from the Ursaring that Ash is familiar with. It is coloured in the same yellow and black colour scheme as Anoran Teddiursa and also has the same antennae and bee stinger tail as Teddiursa. However, it has a large honeycomb pattern on its stomach, a long tongue hanging out of its mouth and big, fluffy claws with tons of honey dripping off them and its body.
"Ursaaaa…" it yawns loudly.
Mircea holds his Pokédex up, though his hand is shaking quite a lot, due to him being rather scared of the large Ursaring.
"Ursaring, the Hibernator Pokémon, a Normal and Bug combo type, and the evolved form of Teddiursa. Anoran Ursaring are capable of immense strength and power though very rarely show it, since they are rather lax in nature. They usually feast upon tons of honey and have great capabilities in finding nectar from just one smell alone from a mile away. They seem to enjoy copying Vespiquen by commanding a 'swarm' of Teddiursa to fetch it honey."
"I-I-It's really big…" Mircea trembles a little.
"The Ursaring or the pile of honey?" Ash asks with a slight chuckle.
They all watch as the Teddiursa plod over to the Ursaring. The first Teddiursa in the group steps forward a few steps before calling up to the Ursaring, waving its arms about a bit, still looking rather sad.
"Teddi tedd!" It calls up.
"Ursaaa?" Ursaring glances down slowly at the Teddiursa, before licking a bit of honey off of its paws.
"Teddiiii!" The Teddiursa all call up to the big Ursaring sadly, pointing to themselves, then at the honey stash, before pretending to imitate some Combee.
An angry look suddenly appears on the Ursaring's face before it slowly stands up and roars loudly as it plods along the ground through the woods, the Teddiursa cheer and jump happily, following close behind it.
"Where are they all going now?" Ash asks Reyn from behind a bush.
"I guess the Teddiursa told their leader that all those Combee took every last bit of the nectar from the field, and now Ursaring is going to confront the Combee about it." She then glances over at the massive pile of honey underneath the large tree. "Although I don't know why, Ursaring already has enough honey to last it and the Teddiursa several years."
"L-let's not get involved then guys, I think we've seen enough." Mircea chuckles nervously before beginning to sneak away.
"Come on, Mircea. We should go see what they are up to, it could be so interesting." Reyn exclaims before she pulls Ash and Mircea out from behind the bush and after the Teddiursa.
Eventually, the three of them hide behind another bush as they arrive at another clearing in the woods. There is once again another tree in the middle, with a massive hive underneath. Several massive honeycombs and mounds of honey are scattered near the hive. Then, a large Vespiquen slowly flies out of the hive, followed closely by many Combee.
"So that's Vespiquen…" Mircea activates his Pokédex once again and holds it up to the Vespiquen.
"Vespiquen, the Beehive Pokémon, a Bug and Flying combo type, and the evolved form of Combee. Vespiquen houses many pheromones inside its body that it can then release and use to command its army of Combee to do its bidding. In every colony of Combee, there is only one Vespiquen."
Mircea slowly pokes his head over the top of the bush as they watch the Ursaring start shouting angrily at the Vespiquen, who in turn, starts angrily buzzing at the Ursaring. The Teddiursa and Combee shout and buzz at each other.
"What are they so angry at each other about?" Ash asks.
"Well, I guess the Ursaring loves eating honey and wants to keep it all to himself and wants lots of it. The same can be said for the Vespiquen. I don't think either of them want to give up their honey supplies to the other." Reyn explains.
"M-maybe we should try getting them to share with each other…" Mircea proposes as he begins to slowly stand up from behind the bush, until-
"Prepare for trouble, this scheme you surely can't beat!" Jessie laughs from up in the balloon.
"Make it double, that honey looks ever so sweet!" James follows on, constantly looking down at all the honey on the ground below them.
"To protect the world from bee stings aplenty!"
"To unite all people within a honey mansion numbered twenty!"
"To denounce the evils of wasps that we don't love!"
"To extend our reach to the beehives above!"
"Jessie!"
"James!"
"Team Rocket blasts off at the buzz of light!"
"Surrender now or prepare for a honey-smothered fight!"
"Meowth, that's right!"
Wobbuffet and Mime Jr. jump alongside them to finish the motto.
"Wobba wobbuffet!"
"Mime mime!"
"Team Rocket!" Ash shouts up angrily. "What are you guys doing here?"
"Who's Team Rocket?" Mircea and Reyn both ask in unison.
"They're a group of crooks who steal people's Pokémon!" Ash replies.
Mircea and Reyn gasp in horror.
"That's awful!" Mircea cries.
"Hahahaha! These Teddiursa are ripe for the picking!" Jessie calls down from the Meowth balloon, as a large metallic object, shaped like a giant beehive, swoops down and the Teddiursa fall into it, along with some Combees in the process. The lid then shuts, and the beehive gets whisked back up into the air towards the balloon.
Ursaring and Vespiquen quickly turn to face the balloon and both yell at it in anger, before turning to face each other and beginning to fight one another.
"Time to skedaddle!" James yelps as the balloon begins to slowly rise higher into the sky.
"H-hey wait a minute guys!" Mircea calls to the two Pokémon, as he runs out from the bush, though still very scared. "You guys shouldn't be fighting each other; you should be working together to stop those bad guys from stealing your friends!" He then points up to the giant beehive attached to the bottom of the balloon.
Ursaring and Vespiquen glance at each other for a moment, then look down at Mircea and nod together.
Mircea then looks around them, then back up at Team Rocket's balloon in deep thought.
"I have an idea how to help save them!" he declares and chucks out Marmelon's Poké Ball, releasing it onto the field in front of him.
"Mar mar!" Marmelon claps happily as it turns to face Mircea.
"Ok! So Marmelon, I want you to use Rollout towards this tree over here!" Mircea points over to a tree that is shaped in a curved angle.
Marmelon nods several times with a big smile on its face.
"Then, Ursaring. You need to grab Marmelon when he rolls from that tree and chuck him up the top of the balloon.
Ursaring nods in response.
"Then, Vespiquen. Once Ursaring has thrown Marmelon up to you, you need to be flying just above the top of Team Rocket's balloon. Make sure to catch Marmelon once it's thrown up to you. Then, chuck it down as hard as you can into the balloon to burst it." He looks back up at the balloon. "Then, use your most powerful attack to destroy the cable attaching the beehive and the basket. Ursaring will then try and catch the beehive and then-".
Before he can finish speaking, Marmelon is busy hurtling towards the tree using its Rollout. It races up against the tree, and gets sent back down, rolling faster than ever, towards another tree. It bounces off it and rolls right towards Ursaring. Ursaring quickly grabs Marmelon and lobs it high into the air towards Vespiquen who has very quickly flown up to the top of the balloon.
"Marrrrrrr!" Marmelon squeals whilst laughing, as it sails through the air towards Vespiquen, who catches it and then slam dunks it down into the balloon, which immediately bursts open impact.
Jessie, James and Meowth glance up and gasp as they watch the balloon begin to deflate.
"Oh, come on! That's just plain sneaky!" James shouts down to the ground.
Vespiquen then suddenly flies down below the basket, but not before chucking Marmelon all the way back down to Mircea who catches it.
"Vessssss!" Vespiquen cries as it slices through the cable with a single X-Scissor.
The giant metallic beehive flies down from the sky and Ursaring holds its big arms up and catches it just in time, though it quickly falls to pieces upon impact. But thankfully, all of the Combee and Teddiursa jump and fly out of the broken beehive and celebrate happily.
Vespiquen suddenly appears in front of Team Rocket and punches their balloon basket flying into the air with another powerful X-Scissor.
"There goes another plan ruined!" Jessie groans.
"I never got a single taste of any of that honey…" James sighs sadly.
"I guess we'll never be able to get any kind of sweet reward now because…" Meowth shrugs.
"Looks like Team Rocket's blasting off again!" they all shout together as they fly away into the sky.
"Wobba wobba!" Wobbuffet cries.
"Mime mime!" Mime Jr. shouts out.
Back down on the ground again, Ursaring, Vespiquen, as well as all of the Combee and the Teddiursa are busy listening to Mircea talk to them.
"You guys shouldn't keep hoarding all the honey to yourselves, because then there is less for others to eat. You should all try sharing it with each other so then there is enough to go around. Then, you won't have to fight each other anymore." he explains to them as best as he can.
All of the Pokémon listen to Mircea with wide eyes, especially a Teddiursa in the small crowd of Pokémon.
The Ursaring and the Vespiquen share a glance with each other and smile happily, before shaking hands.
"Vesss!"
"Ursaaa!"
All of the Combee and the Teddiursa buzz and cheer happily with each other.
Ash and Reyn stand behind Mircea and smile proudly.
"That was a really great strategy to defeat Team Rocket, Mircea. I usually just have Pikachu blast them away with Thunderbolt." Ash laughs, and so does Pikachu.
"You were so kind and helpful to these Pokémon." Reyn adds, giving Mircea a big hug. "I'm sure they'll get along now."
Mircea chuckles awkwardly and shrugs. "Th-thanks. But I don't think I was really that great."
Soon, all three of them begin to set off back out of the woods, after spending some time with the Pokémon, and even getting to eat some honey with them.
"Well, thanks for letting us have some honey. And I hope you guys get along in future." Mircea waves goodbye to the Pokémon who in turn all wave goodbye to him, except the Combee who buzz happily back.
One of the Teddiursa however looks over at Mircea walking away and then runs over to the Ursaring and starts to talk to it. Mircea as well as Ash and Reyn turn to face it, and see Ursaring smiling down at Teddiursa and nodding, before the Teddiursa gives it a big hug, then gives hugs to all of the other Teddiursa. It then runs over to Mircea, but not before giving one final wave to everyone else behind it.
"Hey look! I think Teddiursa really likes you!" Reyn exclaims.
Mircea looks down at the Teddiursa jumping up and down excitedly at his feet.
"Do you want to come with me?" he asks.
The Teddiursa nods its head up and down and smiles happily.
"Alright then!" Mircea grins and throws a Poke Ball at the Teddiursa who goes inside.
And after one.
Two.
Three shakes.
The ball clicks and Mircea picks it up.
"A-awesome! I caught a Teddiursa!" he exclaims proudly, Marmelon jumping alongside him.
"Marrrr!" it cries with joy.
"It's so awesome that you caught a new Pokémon, Mircea!" Ash chuckles. "I bet Teddiursa will be a great member on your team!"
"Thanks!" Mircea replies, before turning around to the Pokémon and waving goodbye as he walks away.
"Goodbye! I promise to take good care of Teddiursa!" he calls to them.
And so, Mircea has now caught another new Pokémon, in the form of Teddiursa. What kind of sweet adventures await our heroes and their newest addition now? Well, you'll just have to stay tuned to find out…
To Be Continued...