ENGLISH NAME	JAPANESE NAME	POKEMOPOLIS NAME	DODGINESS RATING	ANIMATION	STORY	TEAM ROCKET	MORAL LEARNT
687: Iris and Excadrill Against the Dragon Buster!	692: Doragon Basuta Tojo! Airisu to Doryuzu!	Iris' Excadrill Adventure			Iris gets a taste of her own medicine, we learn more about her past	They have headaches and couldn't make it	If the one you love beats you, keep coming back for more!

Today finds the twerps walking through a windy canyon when.... a pair of legs in a short skirt appears the fuck out of nowhere and begins furiously giving exposition. It's a fashionable teen girl called Georgia, and she's a.... DRAGON BUSTER!?! What the hell is that? Apparently her thing is to beat Dragon-Types, particularly ones from the Village of Dragons, and she has heard of Iris and she wants to battle her! The twerps - keeping with the 80s anime theme of talking really, really fast with little to no emotional resonance - ask her why she is a Dragon Buster and why she doesn't like the Village of Dragons, and we learn (all of this in less than a minute!) that she was beaten badly by a trainer in the Village of Dragons once before, that she vowed revenge, that she turns the tables on Iris' usual mocking format but declaring that IRIS is too scared to face her, and we all end with Georgia and Iris scowling at each other before the opening credits. Today is fast and furious, Gentle Dodgers, it's...



Georgia, yous a busta!

So it is Iris against Georgia, and Georgia's Pokémon is an Ice-Type, and it's.... Beartic! A polar bear! It yawns and apparently it has REALLY bad breath, since yellow odour lines emerge from its mouth. Georgia is bemused at Iris choosing Axew to start, while Iris and Axew are both trying to get over their fear/trepidation around Ice-Types.

Axew opens with Scratch but Beartic slashes the little toddler out of the sky with Slash, then blacks icicles from its mouth at Axew which struggles to dodge and gets knocked back. Beartic blasts Ice Beam and Axew comes back with Dragon Rage... but this time Axew's ace in the hole fails, and down goes Axew! Down goes Axew!

Georgia snorts in derision, that's it? She tells Iris to bring out her next Pokémon as Iris checks on Axew, and gets pissed off by Iris' hesitation. Cilan explains that Axew is her only Dragon-Type, and Georgia snorts in disbelief, Iris wants to be a Dragon Master? Pfft! Iris is furious, getting some of her own treatment is not something she is enjoying at all!

Being Iris though, she turns the tables by telling Georgia she has another Pokémon that isn't a Dragon Type but will beat Georgia's Pokémon. Georgia grunts that she isn't interested in non-Dragon Types, and Iris retorts that Georgia is the one who is scared. This painfully obvious reverse psychology works a treat, and Georgia agrees to the match, and out comes... Excadrill!

Oh dear!

It topples over, still in its usual drill form, and Georgia demands to know if this is a battle or a nap. Iris is convinced that Excadrill will start fighting if it is pushed, so goads Georgia by telling her that Excadrill is so unimpressed with Beartic that it is napping rather than fighting. Georgia sends in Beartic to slash the sleeping Pokémon, knocking it into the trees and crashing it to the ground.... and waking it up!

Iris is delighted that it worked, and Ash is pleased to see it is ready to battle. Iris tells it to use Dig so... it lifts up its claws and charging! It cuts through Beartic's Icicles, dodges Ice Beam with Dig and then drills it right in the fucking gut! Iris gasps with pleasure, trying to tell it what to do next, but it ignores her to charge another drilling attack at Beartic which.... punches it hard in the face with Rock Smash!

Excadrill crashes into a rock which smashes (Rock Smash!), and Iris rushes to its side to check on it. It looks up at her, grimaces and closes up into drill form again, refusing to acknowledge her. Georgia demands to know if that is it and Iris has to agree to a forfeit, causing Georgia to rub it in over all of Iris' big talk and telling her to be stronger next time. She heads off and Ash and Cilan step over to talk shit about her now that she is gone, but Iris is more concerned with Excadrill. She tells them that Excadrill lost to that move before, the first loss they ever suffered as a team, and explains at last the origin of Excadrill!

Back when she lived in the Dragon Village, she would play all day with the various wild Pokémon. One day a Patrat she knew was brought to her, it had been kicked out of its burrow by a wild Drilbur which was enjoying eating Patrat's food. In a squeaky little girl's voice she had ranted at Drilbur for stealing Patrat's burrow, and it responded by... throwing mud in her face! Furious, SHE attacked it... by herself! Cilan is startled, despite having done the same thing himself the previous episode he can't believe she took on a Pokémon by herself. They ask what happened next and.... well... she got her ass kicked!



She went back the next day and tried to fight it again, swinging down from the trees and.... getting her ass beat again! She went back again and again and got her ass beat each time, but on the 10th attempt she managed to survive the attack, dodge the next couple and call it out to face her. It did just that, taking another shot at her but missing and ending up wrapped up in vines dangling over a huge fall. As it freaked out and flailed about she swung through the air and around to catch it as it fell, while it fainted from fright. When it woke up, she was so pleased it was okay that she hugged it and it blushed (haha!) and they became the best of friends, and it would battle for her beating the shit out of every goddamn Pokémon there was. They became so confident that they entered the Village of Dragons Battle Competition, and went and did some hardcore training up in the mountains. Come the opening day of the competition, Drilbur evolved during a battle and became Excadrill, much to Iris' delight. They defeated their first opponent, but then they encountered..... TRAPJAW THE HE-MAN VILLAIN FROM MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE!?!?!



Well okay, not quite. It was Drayden, the Dragon Master, who Iris had only vaguely heard of to that point. He asked her if she'd had any formal training and is impressed to learn she and Excadrill learned to battle together, and she kind of got her training from her Pokémon Forest Friends. Drayden seems amused by this, and lil squeaky Iris asks if she can have a battle with Drayden, since they have 99 victories in a row and he seems like an appropriate 100th Opponent. The villager who told Iris about Drayden is scandalised, but again the Dragon Master himself seems merely amused (though perhaps he just caught sight of his own beard in a mirror and started laughing?) and agrees.

He opens with... A MOTHERFUCKER HAXARUS! Iris is too much of a kid to be anything but excited at the thought of fighting it, and sends in Excadrill on the attack... and Haxorus doesn't give a fuck! Drayden seems mostly amused but is impressed with Excadrill's power, and tells Iris to keep bringing it on. Excadrill is horrified to see how badly his moves are doing, but Iris remains stupidly convinced that she can win. She tells Excadrill to use Dig, but it seems reluctant, and she has to cheerily tell it that there is no doubt they will win. Excadrill tries to hit an Uppercut out of Dig and.... gets more hurt itself doing it! It comes in with a final Drill Run, but Haxorus smashes it with Rock Smash and knocks it out - Iris has her first loss! Drayden turns to look at the darkened tent off to the side, where the Elder woman of the village smiles back. Iris rushes to Excadrill's side, it stares up at her shame-faced, then looks over at Drayden and Haxorus and sees them as the unstoppable monsters that they are. It closes itself up into Drill Form and won't come out of it, confusing and alarming Lil' Iris.

Some time later she takes it out into the forest for some more training, but it refuses to come out of the Drill. She tells it that one little loss means nothing, reminding it how she herself kept coming back time and time again when it was first beating the shit out of her (good advice for young women there, if the one you love beats you, keep going back!). Inside the drill it can hear her but refuses to come out, and Iris explains that ever since then she has been trying to cheer it up with training, but it just won't listen to her. Cilan tells her that there is more to it than this, and ponders out loud as Pikachu stares in utter fascination at the side of his face. Clearly Excadrill will still battle when it is angry.... maybe the problem is... Iris?

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?!" she demands, and a nervous Cilan tells her that maybe it didn't like the strategy she gave it when fighting Haxorus. She thinks back to the fight and remembers how wary it was to use Dig when she told it to, and Cilan tells her she may have misread Excadrill's mood. She thinks about it, and then comes up with the best possibly solution when your man is angry.... LET'S SLEEP TOGETHER!

Nestling in under a blanket beside Excadrill that night, she talks about how they used to do this when doing their hardcore training, and they'd be so exhausted at the end of the day. She talks about the battle with Haxorus, and how she never really developed long-range moves with Excadrill.... and then gasps as she realises that Excadrill realised while fighting that it couldn't beat Haxorus but she herself was completely ignorant of the way Excadrill was feeling. Inside it's drill shell, it hears her crying as she apologises for not understanding how it felt and telling her to keep battling. She rolls over and places her hand against the shell, and tells it that it doesn't have to battle if it doesn't want to and they can just have fun in the forest and fields etc. It remembers spying on her (creepy!) when she was training to fight it, attacking a little log with Drilbur painted on it, and gets up and stomps away as she sleeps. She wakes up and follows it, discovering it attempting to use Focus Blast and failing. She asks it if she can practise with it and with a grunt it agrees, but turns away when she tries to happily hug it. She backs away and agrees to keep training, and begins issuing orders as it attempts again and again to use Focus Blast. The night passes as they keep trying, Excadrill slowly getting better at focusing its energy, then directing it, all under Iris' guidance. Finally it succeeds in blowing up a rock that was only two days from retirement, and she hugs it in delight - and then the other twerps show up. They've made breakfast, because they had nothing else to do this episode.... but when they return... they discover that Georgia has eaten all their food!

Well okay hang on that was just straight up a dick move!

She grunts at them that they can just make more, and mocks Excadrill for being a forfeiting coward, but Iris demands a rematch. "Nah," says Georgia, before laughing in Iris' face and saying she just said that to see the look on her face.

In the immortal words of Richard Pryor, if she was in a man in jail she would rape other men, not because she was gay but just to see the look on their face.

It's one-on-one, Beartic vs Excadrill, Slash vs Metal Claw and... Slash wins! Excadrill is sent back but keeps its footing. Iris checks it is okay, and has it dodge Icicle Attacks with Dig, then Focus Blast Beartic right in the face before following up with Drill Run to drill right up into its chest... and get hit with a blast of Ice Beam! Oh snap! Is it over?



IS IT FUCK!

Bursting free, Excadrill blasts at Icicle Crash with Focus Blast, but takes hits from the Icicles and looked staggered. Iris cries out in fright and Excadrill hears her and seems to take heart, standing up ready to fight some more. It attacks Rock Smash with Drill Run, both moves crash together and.... Excadrill goes down! Beartic is still standing, it's body glowing red from the burn of Drill Run... and then it collapses as well! It's a draw!

Georgia grunts in annoyance, claiming that it doesn't count if it isn't a Dragon Type. She turns to a shocked Cilan and Ash and tells them she's expecting another delicious breakfast the next time they meet and storms away, leaving them behind. Iris could care less about her delightfully bitchy rival, though, she's rushed over to Excadrill to make sure it is okay. She tells it they'll just keep trying, she doesn't care that the match was a draw because they worked so well together, and she hopes that it will continue to work with her as she tries to become a better trainer. Excadrill's response? A hug!



It looks like Iris finally cured Excadrill Headache #9!

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