Mission 01 - Pond Scum
The gang fighting an Ectopudding
Target Enemy	Ectopudding
Cie'th Stone Location	Archylte Steppe - Central Expanse
Target Enemy's Location	Archylte Steppe - Central Expanse
Class	D
Unlock Condition	None
Reward	Energy Sash

Pond Scum is a mission in Final Fantasy XIII. For a complete list, see Missions (FFXIII).

[edit] Strategy For Victory

The Cie'th Stone that enables you to start the hunt is located just in front of your starting position. Once you've accepted the mission, refer to your in-game map to locate your enemy's position. The enemy you will need to find and defeat is an Ectopudding. It's labeled as a pink star on the map. Once you reach the location of the enemy, make sure to start the battle with a Preemptive strike - it'll make this much quicker.

The Ectopudding itself is immune to physical damage, but your Commando characters Ruin attacks will do just fine against it. While the opening stagger you gave the enemy via the preemptive strike is still present, make sure your Paradigm is Relentless Assault, as it will inflict the most damage on your enemy at this time. The Ectopudding's main weakness is the Lightning element, so you can select this manually via the Abilities menu if you wish - or I if you're too lazy to do that every time, you could always use a Librascope to help the characters learn its weakness, and then just auto every attack. After the final launch, switch your Paradigm over to Delta Attack to end the battle in the safest manner possible.