When the girls got back to camp, they didn't feel the need to do anything else but enter their tent and moment that she was near enough that she wouldn't get hurt from doing it, Virah immediately collapsed into her bed.

The impact from the fall made her groan but she couldn't be bothered to care.

She relaxed and felt her body go numb.

Virah shuddered as she heaved out a breath, the relieved ache in her teeth that followed indicated that she was biting down on her molars harder than usual earlier and she was so stressed that she didn't even notice it.

'Great.' She groaned as she exercised her jaw.

When someone started tapping her back, she reluctantly moved her head to the side to get a glimpse of Whitney looking down on her with a caring smile, "hey uhm, maybe you should... wash yourself first before sleeping?"

Virah sighed but pushed herself up, she nodded while rubbing her eyes, "ye-" she yawned, "- yeah, that sounds like a good idea,"

And so, they left for the lake and when they came back, all three of them proceeded to not waste any more time and quickly headed for their sleeping bags.

They tucked themselves in, Whitney lowered the light of their lamp, and then they let the embrace of sleep drag them into a peaceful darkness.

When Virah woke up, it was already halfway through noon.

The smell of something delicious coming from outside wafted into the tent and Virah's stomach growled as her nose picked up the scent.

Next to her, she heard Whitney groaning something about being hungry and she found herself smiling fondly.

She sighed and quickly moved on from her feelings, burying them deep into the crevices of her heart before standing up to investigate where the smell had come from.

As it turns out, their Pokemon were cooking dinner.

Their chef, Kitten, nodded at her followed by a slow drawl of a purr asking her to call her friends, "Mrowww~"

Virah nodded, "uh, yeah, I'll go get them, wait here-" she stopped turning around and faced the Meowth again, "uhm, thanks, Kitten, I don't think we could have stomached hunting another Pokemon after everything,"

"Mrowww~" the Pokemon dismissively replied.

Virah walked back to their tent and slowly, she neared Whitney, placed a hand on her shoulder, and started shaking her lightly, "Whitney, hey," she softly said when the pinkette started groaning, "dinner is about to get cooked,"

The pinkette shot upright, "It is?!" She yelled out before groaning and collapsing back into her bed.

"Unfair!" Whitney complained in a muffled voice, her head tilted sideways and she shot Virah a glare, "you tricked me!"

"I didn't," Virah shook her head, "do you smell it?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Whitney sniffed the air and perked up, before looking confused, "wait, how did you?.."

"I didn't," Virah answered, "our Pokemon did it for us,"

"Oh." Whitney hummed, "I... when?"

"When we were asleep I think?" Virah tilted her head, "anyways, you should probably go out there, I'm gonna go wake Grene up and then head out with her,"

Whitney nodded, "thanks,"

"For?" Virah asked.

"... everything, I guess." Whitney pouted, "I don't-" her voice went low, "- I don't really know why but I want to thank you,"

"..." Virah nodded and hugged her friend, "thank you, too,"

Whitney returned the hug and they stayed that way for a second or two before breaking the embrace.

When the pinkette left the tent, Virah moved on to waking up Grene and she did the same thing as before, though without the whole hugging each other part.

She and Grene got out of the tent together and when the martial artist took a sniff of the meal Kitten was cooking, it only took her a second to recognized what it was-

"Steamed Pidgey?" Grene asked.

"I think so," Virah shrugged, she turned to Kitten, who nodded, "yeah, apparently it's steamed Pidgey."

"What kind of other dishes do you know how to cook?" Grene sounded curious as she placed herself somewhere to the right of the cooking pot, "I mean, stew and steamed stuff tells me you like to work with pots right?"

"Mrowwww~" was Kitten's reply.

Grene turned to Virah, causing the poison specialist to sigh, "he said anything that's "healthy" in one way or another," Virah translated with a small shrug, honestly, expecting her to properly understand Kitten's purrs is an exercise in futility, "or at least something close to it,"

"Anything healthy huh?.." the martial artist eyed the pot with a hum, "like what? Vegetables? Things like that?"

Kitten nodded, "mrowwww~"

The pinkette flashed them a sheepish smile, "... Yeah, mum was- is obsessed with health and fitness so our food is pretty varied and healthy, so I guess that's where Kitten learned it from,"

A conversation about food and what each of them ate every day started as the girls waited for their meal and Virah managed to learn a few things about her friends, like the fact that Grene mostly ate meat with the occasional banana for her joints while Whitney had meals that varied from raw vegetables dipped in sauce to roasted Pillowswine.

"You guys didn't eat fried food?" Grene asked.

"We did- but only rarely since mom said they're bad for our heart or something?" Whitney shrugged, her expression uncertain, "I dunno, but it was something like that,"

"It makes sense," Virah chimed with a nod, "since oil is mostly the reason why most adults have high cholesterol," she explained, "that, and fat,"

"What she said," Grene nodded in agreement before turning away from them and smiling.

Virah caught the shift in her expression and followed her friend's gaze to see Kitten taking out a fully cooked Pidgey out of the pot.

The poison specialist tilted her head, "huh, it's orange,"

"Of course it's orange, isn't that normal?" Whitney tilted her head.

"No- it's just, I find it weird that it's that color since it's been steamed," Virah replied and thought about why the Pidgey turned out the way it did, she shifted her gaze to the side and saw a bunch of dark green leaves next to the firewood, "is it because of the Oddish leaves?"

Kitten nodded, "Mroww!" The feline replied enthusiastically, "Mrowww~"

"I guess?" Virah lightly scratched the sides of her cheek, "I mean, I guess if the leaves help in cooking the meat then I can see it looking like that?.."

She isn't exactly a chef though so Kitten telling her that the Oddish poison "breaking down" the meat from the inside out, allowing for it to easily cook even when steamed flew above her head with a loud whooshing sound.

What she did understand though is that it was safe to eat thanks to the Pidgey being marinated with pecha berries beforehand.

"Tenderized..." Virah murmured as Kitten pushed a plate of meat her way, she got a steaming thigh while Whitney and Grene had the wings and breast respectively, the rest went to their Pokemon.

Virah took out a spork from her trainer bag and stabbed it into the meat, it was surprisingly soft- tender, rather, now she understood why Kitten used that term.

She reached a hand out to pluck the piece that she had cut, only to hiss and quickly pull it back once she realized just how hot the meat was.

She blew on it, and when she was sure that it wasn't hot anymore, she pulled on the meat and when she saw strings of flesh get stripped away from both the cut and the main meat, she salivated at the thought of eating it.

She bit down.

She squealed, "this is sooooo good~"

She turned to her friends to gouge out their reactions, only to see that they had small plates of sauces they dipped their meat in.

Virah turned to Kitten and the Meowth sighed, stopped eating, and showed her a gesture that conveyed, 'learn.'

Virah nodded and watched as Kitten grabbed a knife and a cheri berry, the berry got cut in half, then squeezed into the sauce and the feline then proceeded to do the same to a passho berry.

"Huh, it's a whole lot simpler than it looks, thanks!" Virah said as she took the sauce from Kitten's hand.

"Mrowwwww~" the Meowth nodded before walking away.

They silently ate their dinner after that and as Virah stripped away at her food, her eyes went to her Pokemon.

Nitro and Jet looked content as they feasted on their respective meals, and also, she noted that Kitten's cooking was good enough to cause them to ignore the small bowls of Pokefeed next to their plates.

She smiled and looked away, humming all the while, she looked up to the slowly darkening skies and thought that she would train her Pokemon after they finished digesting their dinner, and then, after that, she would wash herself on the lake followed by getting a full night's sleep.

She yawned and wondered what their continued hunt for Whitney's team members tomorrow morning would bring.

'I really hope that we find a Munchlax or something, because convincing an Ursaring to part with her kid sounds...' Virah shuddered at the thought of facing the colossal Normal Type unflinchingly while asking for their spawn