"Please, hold your Horsea!"
Score: 5/10
The heroes stop at an extremely busy bakery in the middle of a forest (?!) when a wild Arcanine runs by. Ash declares it to be an Arcanine and then scans it with his pokedex even though Arcanine was Gary's third main pokemon and Ash definitely already knows all about them. May desperately wants to catch it, but Drew runs by and tells her that he's going to catch it. You know what that means: a race to find it.
Using Mudkip, the heroes actually find Arcanine first, but it simply runs away using extremespeed when May attacks. Ash declares that Combusken could never match extremespeed, and then apologizes.
The heroes decide to ask a hermit living in the forest for information on the Arcanine. He explains that Arcanine used to live in the nearby mountains, but it now comes by every day because there's so much good food and water.
The heroes decide to set up a trap: they know Arcanine likes Pecha Berries from a specific tree located in a small canyon, so Ash and Brock take one entrance and May and Max take the other, to box it in when it comes. I would have assumed something of Arcanine's size, speed, and demeanor, especially with fangs like it has, would be a carnivore, but okay. Ash and Brock box it in toward May, but she incompetently allows it to escape anyway.
For a third time, the heroes track it down and May attacks Arcanine, but Drew shows up, and Arcanine takes advantage of their arguing to escape. May declares that they must have a battle to see who gets to go after Arcanine, and sends out Squirtle to fight Flygon. Seriously? Why not use Combuskohokayyoujustlost. Drew tells May that she sucks and leaves, and hell, he's right. Why would you send your weakest pokemon to fight Drew's most powerful? In any case, all five of them follow Arcanine up a mountain and find that it has several Growlithe in a nest (because dogs build nests on mountaintops), and it's been bringing its puppies food. Of course, it doesn't explain how they're drinking, since they're stuck in the nest, but okay.
Both May and Drew decide not to catch Arcanine because it would break up its family. You would think statistically that at least one of the heroes' pokemon also had a family that they cruelly broke up ("Mommy? Where is daddy Corphish?" "Oh, he's with a trainer on a fun adventure that will take him around the world." "Is that why you have to work as a stripper?" "Shush, honey."), but I guess not.
Drew tells May to enter the upcoming Saffron City contest and walks away. Ash and Brock decline to mention the time the city's gym leader tried to murder them, and agree to take her there.
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Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005