The following morning it was time for Harmony's battle against Gardenia, and she was overly pumped up, Chu, her Pikachu, and Lyn her Shinx were geared up ready for the battle they'd been waiting for. Cinders, her Cinderace was pouting off to the side.
"Cinders, I know you want to battle, you love battling against Grass-types, but I don't want to heavily rely on you, Lyn here needs to be experiencing Gym battles too. How about I use you in the net contest?" she offers her teammate, "Ater all we've been perfecting that combo with Pyro ball and a Blaze kick." she responds rubbing the head of her silly rabbit pokemon who gave in and let out a purr. "You're our last resort, especially since I am not using Pip, he's still not ready, and grass type won't help him right now."
"Harmony! You ready for the gym?!" Ash calls out from the other room they had rented at the Pokemon Center.
"I am! though you better watch and pay close attention, after all, she might use the same or some of the same pokemon tomorrow for your battle," she points out too him grinning as Chu jumped up on her should and Lyn crawled into her arms as she got up. Cinders pouting a bit, "Sorry buddy, you're too big to be on my shoulder, you aren't a little Scorbunny anymore."
When they got to the gym Harmony and Gardenia quickly started their battle. And it didn't take long for Harmony to have Lyn take out Cherubi, but with being already tired she was no match for Roserade's power and she had to switch out to Chu who happily took down it with a strong thunderbolt.
However, once Gardenia's Turtwig came out, even with Harmony telling Chu to use quite a bit of Quick-Attacks it was no match for that speed, and Chu got wiped out. Having to use her trump card was a bit saddening to Harmony, seeing as her Cinderace was quite a bit higher and more trained than others were. But she wasn't going to take it as an easy victory until she actually won.
Thankfully her Cinders was so much faster than the Turtwig and were able to use combinations to throw Gardenia off and get in more hits towards her Turtwig than before, even managing to avoid plenty of tried at using Leech seed. And she won the battle.
"We did it! You did it Cinders!" she cries out rushing towards her panting teammate and hugging the rabbit who was just a bit taller than her, though she could easily grow a bit more to be taller.
"I might've said it before, but you're really tough! Wasn't it hard for you to raise your Pokémon to be so good? I guess that's a measure of how much you love your Pokémon. In recognition of that, I proudly grant you this!" Gardenia says outside the gym handing Harmony a cushion which had the Forest badge placed upon it. Harmony had gotten Lyn back out to happily pose with their pose they had, the Blastoise pose.
"We just earned ourselves the Forest badge!" Harmony cheers before Ash rushed up to look at it in excitement the two chatterings about strategies that he might use tomorrow for his battle.
The time had finally come for Ash's Eterna Gym Battle with Gym Leader Gardenia, who Harmony had beaten the day before, which made him overly excited and ready to win just as she had.
"Ash please calm down! The more worked up you are the more likely you're gonna be distracted!" Harmony tells him laughing as he dragged her by her hand away from the Pokemon Center and off towards the Eterna Gym."Gardenia's not going anywhere, she'll be there we don't have to rush."
"Yeah...you're right, but I'm so stoked after watching you battle yesterday that I can't be bothered to wait another minute! We're going to win this battle for sure! ISn't that right Pikachu?" Ash says glancing at his shoulder where Pikachu rested giving him a thumbs up and cheering.
"And that is nice, but aren't you forgetting something? We didn't tell Brock or Dawn we were leaving!" Harmony points out to him making Ash gasp and look back with horror on his face.
"We forgot them! I thought you reminded them?"
"When was it my responsibility to call out to them? You dragged me off as soon as I was dressed and ready."Harmony points out as Ash gaps once more tugging her back a bit though sighing in relief when he spotted Dawn and Brock who were rushing towards them.
"See? All is good," Ash says sheepishly.
"Ash Ketchum! You left us behind! We turn away to get ready and you and Harmony disappear!" Dawn cries out to the two teens. "We wanted to cheer you on but can't if you rush off without us!"
"I know...I know...I'm sorry, but now that we're all together again let's go!" Ash says moving once more and tugging Harmony off with him, making her laugh at his antics, some things would never change.
The battle was going to be a 3-on-3, starting with Ash's Turtwig against Gardenia's Cherubi.
The sun was shining brightly out and that meant that Cherubi's Chlorophyll ability gives it a speed boost, so before long Ash recalls Turtwig and swaps in Staravia.
Ash ends up using the weather to his advantage. He has Staravia dive at Cherubi, using the glare of the sun as a distraction, and Staravia wins this round.
Next up was Gardenia's Turtwig. And although Ash has a strategy to neutralize her Turtwig's speed, Gardenia's Turtwig still manages to knock Staravia out with Leech Seed.
Following Staravia's defeat, Ash sends out his own Turtwig against Gardenia's Turtwig.
The two Pokémon had faced each other before in Eterna Forest and neither one wanted to lo, especially Ash's Turtwig as it had a disadvantage with speed.
Ash's Turtwig won the round, but it's had been weakened by a Leech Seed from Gardenia's Turtwig.
Leaving her to her last pokemon was Gardenia's Roserade, who was easily able to defeat Ash's Turtwig.
That just meant that Ash had Aipom is ready to go next, and with more of Ash's quick strategizing wins the final round, and earned his Forest Badge!
"You did it!" Harmony cried out, rushing away from the sidelines and moves to quickly hug Ash, who ends up wrapping his arms a bit lower on her back until Dawn coughs a bit making them part and separate a few feet away from each other.
"Congratulations Ash," Harmony says a bit softer, her cheeks aflame as she refused to really look at Ash straight on only to catch Dawn's eye that had the look of 'we are going to talk about what just happened later' making her eyes widen.
"Hey Harmony, you wanna doing some training outside" Dawn offers to Harmony who was looking at her phone.
"Huh? I mean sure! Did you hear there's a contest being held at Alamos Town, it's supposed to be held in this beautiful place called the Space-Time Towers." Harmony says holding her phone out to her friend who peeked over to look at the beautiful arena. "Good thing about it is that it's on the way towards where we can find the next gym. In Hearthome city. Of course, we'll have to go through Cycling Road first." Harmony tells her.
"That looks beautiful! We are for sure going there next!" Dawn says with a grin, "I can't wait! Which means we really need to train! Bigger is better and that's what we're going to do!" Dawn says raising her fist in the air. "But that's something else I wanted to talk to you about. What was with that moment you and Ash had back at the gym?"
"Wh-what moment? We didn't have a moment!" Harmony's voice goes a pitch higher and her cheeks start flushing a Scizor red. "I do not know what you are talking about, because whatever you thought you saw you didn't!"
"Uh-huh, and you're sure you don't like him?" Dawn says with a grin on her face, watching Harmony's reaction.
"I do not!" Harmony denies shaking her head, "I thought you wanted to train for contests, why am I being interrogated?" she says.
Dawn sighs, "Fine, deny it all you want, but I see it loud and clear, you two are way too oblivious for your own good." she murmurs. "It's gonna take some disaster for you to actually admit it."
"Even if I did like Ash, I doubt he'd return the feelings after all his head is always in the clouds or always thinking about battles, I doubt he has time to think about girls," she admits huffing before Dawn rolls her eyes and shrugs grabbing her wrist and dragging her back towards the Pokemon Center's battlefield where they trained for a good hour.
The following day the group of teens were taking the Cycling Road toward Alamos Town which was on the way to Hearthrome City.
But the weather was not having it as it turned bad, on top of that Brock's Pokémon Egg looked as though it was about to hatch, they quickly had to take refuge at the nearest Pokémon Center.
However, the Nurse Joy at the Center has a serious case of the blues. Thanks to the Cycling Road, everyone pedals right past her Pokémon Center and she had convinced herself that it was her fault that the place is so empty.
With a little encouragement from the group of teens, Nurse Joy gets back some confidence in time to help hatch Brock's Pokémon Egg, which turns out to be a Happiny.
Everyone had fun taking care of Happiny, until Team Rocket showed up, snatches it, and makes a getaway in their Meowth balloon.
Jessie wanted Happiny to evolve into Chansey and become a nurse!
Brock and the rest of the teens had to rush after and chase down Team Rocket while also trying to keep Nurse Joy's spirits up
The teens finally caught up with Team Rocket and Nurse Joy is feeling confident enough to help the teens battle, too.
But to the surprise of everyone pint-sized Happiny turns out to be so strong, it clobbered Team Rocket on its own.
Pikachu and Chu help finish the battle with a double Thunderbolt, and then the teens are ready to get back on the road towards Alamos Town where Harmony and Dawn's next contest was to be held and further closer to Hearthome City, where the next gym awaited Ash and Harmony. Oh, and course Nurse Joy was ready to get back to work thanks to the teens.