Exiting the gym with a shiny new Insect Badge, Ash encountered Bianca again.

Iris and Cilan did the same, except without the Insect Badge.

"Oh, hello!" Bianca smiled. "I assume you've battled Burgh? How did it go?"

"I've got my third Unova Badge!" Ash replied. "Thanks for the badge case, it really makes it easier to carry them and see what my next options are. How's Pignite doing?"

"He's doing well," Bianca replied. "I think he's trying to learn Fly, Flying Press or possibly Heat Crash, depending on how successful he is at jumping off places and landing… which way are you going next?"

"Well, where's the nearest gym?" Keldeo asked. "Based on what I've seen so far that's a good clue."

"I do want to visit just about everywhere in Unova, if I can," Ash told them. "But the next gym would be good… isn't Unova kind of like a circle?"

He brought up a map on Arc. "Yeah, it looks like it is, but we're not on the circle bit yet. So maybe we should go north to the start of the circle and get going from there?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Bianca agreed, thinking. "You'd have to go off the roads to visit some of the cities, and it's worth checking out what Castelia is like, but if you head north to the circle route then your main next stop is Nimbasa City."

She smiled. "Is it all right if I come along with you? I've got business there, but it's not urgent and Professor Juniper told me I should build up my team a bit more."

"I'd say that would be fine," Cilan volunteered. "I don't know what Iris, Keldeo and Ash think, but I'd be happy to have another one along for the ride… what sort of food do you prefer?"

"Oh!" Bianca frowned. "I suppose… well, I don't really have a strong preference?"

"Then we'll have to change that!" Cilan decided. "We could start with some pad krapow!"

Iris blinked. "...did you just say you were going to punch something?"

"No, no," Cilan laughed. "It's my first guess at what we could try, but there's plenty of other options. I just need to know what sauces to pick up while we're in Castelia."

"It's really amazing what some Pokémon are capable of," Ash said, turning Sandile around so the Ground-type was facing him. "I know it might not be easy to explain, but is there anything about how your powers work that I should know, so I can help you learn to use them better?"

"Hmm…" Sandile pondered. "I think I'm scheduled to learn Bite at some point, or possibly should have done already. The way you're skipping all these episodes really isn't helping me get my bearings, I probably should have evolved already."

"Sorry," Ash replied. "But Bite is good… maybe you could use it to eat things that couldn't normally be eaten?"

"That could work," Sandile agreed.

"Is that how you train your Pokémon?" Bianca asked, as Sandile wiggled his way out of Ash's grip and did a swan-dive into the ground, going crunch into it and raising a small hillock that travelled along with them. "Asking them about it, I mean."

"Since I can speak to them, it'd be kind of rude not to ask!" Ash said brightly. "So I can spend some of my time thinking of ways that Sandile can battle better, and some time thinking of ways that Sandile can train on what he already does. It's the same way I have Latias giving Sewaddle practice in using String Shot without looking at what she's using it on."

"I did wonder," Bianca admitted, glancing to the side at where Sewaddle was orbiting an empty space. "So that's your Latias?"

"Yep," Ash confirmed. "Are you doing okay, Latias?"

"Not bad at the moment!" Latias replied. "I'll let you know if I want to get a portable games console though… maybe the mini one, I can use Minimize and still use that one."

"Hmm," Sandile said, popping out of the ground. "I think this is the bit where we skip to lunch."

"Well, I found a lot of apples," Iris said, as they finished the spread Cilan had laid out. "But I'm not sure that's really enough for a proper dessert. Desserts aren't just raw fruit."

"Oh, no, it's not really," Cilan replied. "It's a good start, though. Give me about, hmm, fifteen minutes to prepare, and then ten minutes with Pignite or Tepig or Lokoko, and I'll be able to provide some lovely stewed sliced apple pastries!"

"What about a crumble?" Dragonite suggested. "That would take a bit longer, but it'd be much more of a proper dessert sort of thing."

"I say we flip a coin for it!" Cilan said. "Loser is the sous chef!"

Sandile bit into an apple. "Or we could just eat the apples."

"Well, yeah, if you're impatient," Dragonite said, crossing his arms. "Or if you want to practice with your scalchop, if you happen to be Oshawott."

Then the Water-type in question looked up. "Oh! Look, there's an Emolga over there!"

He sighed. "She looks miserable… maybe she's hungry? Maybe I should take her an apple, sliced of course?"

Sandile tilted his head slightly, then reached underground for a booklet. "Didn't you just do this plot with Snivy? If this keeps up we're going to meet a female Stunky and she's going to flutter her eyelashes at every Pokémon on the team..."

Oshawott took Emolga some apple slices, which somehow turned into Emolga inviting Oshawott to invite her over to the table, and as the Electric-type was eating Bianca twitched slightly.

"I, um…" she began. "I think Emolga is really cute… do you want to be my Pokémon?"

Emolga looked up, assessing Bianca, then went back to her apple.

"No thanks," she replied. "I'm not interested in a trainer right now. Like you."

Bianca sighed. "You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Emolga said, a little more sharply this time. "Do you want to get zapped?"

"I think that's not likely to happen any time soon, Bianca," Ash warned. "Though… Emolga, do you have any relatives who might be more interested?"

"Not that I know where they are," the Electric-type answered, finishing one apple slice and taking the next one from the ones Cilan and Dragonite were preparing. "...okay how did you make an apple taste like this, this is way better."

"It's a marvellous process called cooking!" Cilan said. "Well, technically those ones haven't been cooked yet, so it's part of a wider process called food preparation. But if you like a bit of caramel drizzle, then you're going to love the finished result!"

About thirty minutes later, much of which was cooking time, Emolga was officially full of apple.

"That was so good," she groaned. "Wow…"

"Wow!" Axew said, jumping up on the table. "You're a bigger eater than me, and I eat a lot!"

"Watch it, scrawny," Emolga said, shaking a paw vaguely in Axew's direction. "Don't make with the insults."

"Insults?" Axew repeated, confounded. "Was that insulting?"

Emolga's paw stopped shaking. "...you actually sound like you don't know. Which one of these is your trainer? It's not the hugger, is it?"

"Huh?" Axew said. "No, my trainer is Iris! She's the one with the really big hair! I ride in it sometimes!"

The Electric-type blinked. "What? Is that possible?"

She shook her head. "Whatever. I hope she has another Pokémon, because you're so naive it hurts."

"If you don't want people making comments that might sound insulting, it's probably a good idea not to make them yourself," Ash pointed out.

"And yeah, Axew's still young," Iris added. "So what? I'm going to be there for him, so he doesn't need to grow up too quickly… I bet he could handle it, but there's no reason to make him."

Emolga looked mulish, then visibly reconsidered and sighed.

"Yeah, true," she mumbled. "Any chance I can get more of those apples to take with me, uh, somehow?"

"Hmm…" Iris mused. "The difficult thing would be making it so other Pokémon wouldn't just find them and take them. Obviously as a Flying type you'd be able to fly higher into trees normally, but… maybe not carrying that much stuff…"

She frowned. "Excadrill, do you have any ideas?"

The Ground-type emerged with a flash. "Yes, but I'm not sure how helpful they are."

"Well, what do you think about carrying some food boxes up to wherever it is Emolga lives?" Iris suggested. "That way it can be high up enough that other Pokémon are less likely to get at it."

"Sure, whatever," he said. "Should be easy."

"I was right," Excadrill said, some minutes later. "It was easy."

"Yeah, but I'm not really sure how that happened," Iris admitted.

She looked at the Pokéball that contained her new Emolga. "I'm not complaining, and I guess that keeping Emolga's food in the backpack with the rest is a good way of doing things, I'm just… surprised? Emolga seemed so independent."

"That's exactly why she agreed to go with you, Iris," Lokoko said. "Take it from me – you didn't presume anything, you just helped. That helped Emolga realize that she could agree to being your Pokémon, because the good side of that for her is knowing where her next meal is coming from and that's worth whatever bad side there was."

Iris was quiet for a long moment after that.

"So… it's important to Emolga that I don't ask too much of her," she said, slowly. "Because she's not really signed up to be a battle Pokémon. And she doesn't want to just be a pretty Pokémon either?"

"I think that's likely, though you should talk with her yourself about it," Lokoko recommended. "She might want to train a bit, or she might be happy with just being a companion, or she might be interested in the Contest lifestyle for that matter."

"Oh, yeah, you said some of your old friends did Contests," Iris realized. "What are those like again?"

"Competitive showing off," Pikachu said.

"Yeah, I can see why that might interest Emolga," Iris admitted.

"It's a shame Emolga and I weren't compatible," Bianca said, sighing, then shrugged. "But then again, I didn't expect Minccino and now I love them, so if there's an Emolga that's right for me I'm sure I'll find them!"

AN:

Not flightless or fightless. Or something.