"All right!" Ash said, with a grin. "Great work, Krokorok!"
"Rook!" Krokorok said, with a smirk.
There was a lot of smirk, because he was a Krokorok, but that seemed to be about all the energy he had left.
"Pika-kachuu!" Pikachu cheered, and Brycen nodded slightly.
"Well done, Ash," he said. "And well done to your Krokorok, as well. That was quite a finishing move."
As he handed over the Freeze Badge, Iris made a noise.
"What is it?" Cilan said. "Iris, you can't mean that you disagree with that three-course gourmet meal of a battle!"
"Can you stop with the food metaphors?" Iris asked.
Cilan looked genuinely puzzled.
"...no," he said, shaking his head. "It appears I cannot. It would be like cooking a risotto without risotto."
"Whatever," Iris said. "But I was actually wondering about – okay, I get that Ash won, but why did he rely so much on Krokorok?"
"It worked, didn't it?" Cilan asked. "If you-"
"If this is going to be about a recipe…" Iris warned.
Cilan stopped talking.
"You mean about how Krokorok has a type disadvantage, right, Iris?" Ash asked.
"Yes!" Iris agreed. "And it's not just this time either, you keep doing it – it's, weird. You get that, right? Why use a Pokémon with a disadvantage?"
"Because that makes it so the victory is so much better!" Ash told her, his eyes alight. "It's the best kind of battle, right?"
"...no?" Iris said, hesitantly. "I hate fighting Ice-types because I'm a Dragon-type trainer!"
"You have an Excadrill," Cilan pointed out helpfully.
"Not the point here!" Iris protested.
Ash looked like he was about to reply, then stopped, then frowned.
"Okay, uh…" he began. "I guess I'll try to make the point a different way? Because – if I used my Charizard to flatten Cilan's Pansage back when I first challenged the Striaton gym, does that really mean I'm any good as a trainer? Or that my Pokémon are using skill?"
"...you have a Charizard?" Iris asked. "Or is this one of those metaphorical Charizards?"
"He didn't evolve from a Caterpie," Ash said, sounding a bit confused. "But you get what I'm saying, right?"
Iris was silent for a moment.
"I guess?" she said. "Maybe? But – how does that go to what you were talking about?"
"Er," Brycen said.
"It's because the best kinds of battle are the kind where something surprising happens!" Ash explained, expansively.
"Pika-pikapi, kachuuuu!" Pikachu agreed, bouncing up and down just as eagerly.
"When you're fighting an uphill battle and you win that way, or when you do something that nobody else expected – even you!" Ash went on. "It's like my first gym challenge, waay back in Kanto – Pikachu beat Brock's Geodude for me with a Thunderbolt!"
"...is that surprising?" Iris asked, glancing at Cilan.
"Geodude are Rock and Ground," Cilan supplied, mercifully avoiding a food metaphor about two kinds of ice cream for once.
Iris blinked.
"That's impossible!" she said. "That's not fighting a type advantage, that's just – it can't be done!"
"And it happened anyway!" Ash replied, with a thumbs-up grin. "And it was great, like I say, it's the best moment because you know that it was you and your Pokémon doing the impossible! So every time I have the chance, I want to see if I can make that happen again!"
"...Ash?" Brycen said. "You do realize that a Gym Battle is a test to see if you and your Pokémon can compete in the Pokémon League, right?"
"Yeah!" Ash agreed.
"So why didn't you use your Charizard?" he said.
"Because I already know Charizard is strong!" Ash replied. "I'm training up a new team, like I do everywhere, for a fresh start! Like I did in Johto, and Hoenn, and Sinnoh, and now here too – that way I get to know more friends and more Pokémon, and there's always a new challenge!"
"I'm… actually a little bit intimidated now," Brycen said, looking at Krokorok who was now taking a nap. "You were using your fifth team against me?"
"Uh," Ash began, frowning. "How are you counting number of teams? 'cause I had more than six Pokémon some regions, but then again I've always used Pikachu… I guess the Tauros are all just one…"
As Ash counted under his breath, Iris looked at Cilan.
"All right, let's hear it," she said. "What's the food metaphor for this one?"
"A buffet, of course!" Cilan replied. "Ash is an all-you-can-eat kind of trainer!"
Iris stifled a snigger.
"I've seen him at lunch, that's probably about right," she conceded.
"Thirty-seven plus Pikachu, counting all the Tauros as just one!" Ash said. "Unless I missed one. But not quite all of them are top level battlers, so I guess the team here is my sixth or seventh!"
"I am seriously intimidated," Brycen decided.
"Wait, actually," Ash went on. "Hey, Iris, Cilan, should I be counting Zekrom? Because if he counts then there's about… maybe three or four other Pokémon a bit like that who I should count too…"
Brycen decided to keep his mouth shut in case it got worse.
AN:
A thought about why Ash might sometimes not bother with type advantage.