S1EP03 A Lost Cause for a Lost Fire

A lost Cause for a lost Fire is the third episode in Season 1. Ashley now has two Pokemon, and is headed for the First Sinnoh Gym in Orebeurgh City. WARNING: May have plot details and spoilers

Plot Description
Ashley's Piplup finds a forest that she enters. Her Squirtle somehow gets out of it's Pokeball and races off into the shadows of the forests, not returning. Though Piplup and Ashley try their hardest to track down Squirtle, but it's almost a lost cause, as Squirtle is no where to be seen.

But when Ashley and Piplup do find Squirtle, it is crying on a rocky shore just outside of the forest, a bunch of Wartortle following, each carrying something in their hands. When Piplup begins to freak out like Squirtle, Ashley finally realizes something. The forest is on fire!

When Ashley notices all the burns on the Wartortles, she decides to do her best to help them. Of course, she isn't that good at medicine, but manages to help heal the burns on all of the water Pokemon. One of the Wartortles begins to have a gruff conversation with Squirtle, which Piplup knows exactly what they're talking about. Wartortle wants Squirtle to evolve, even though it is still small and quite young. Ashley refuses to let the Wartortle give Squirtle a Water stone to evolve, saying that her Squirtle isn't ready, and shouldn't be forced to evolve when it doesn't want to. Of course, this upsets the Wartortles, but they go along with it, even though they still believe Squirtle is weak due to it's unusually small size. Though later the Wartortle lead them to a cave filled with more Wartotles and even more Squirtles! Until Ashley's Squirtle met another Squirtle, who happened to be the same size!

When they were all hiding-out in the cave, Squirtle began to devise a plan with the other small Squirtle. Though of course the Wartortle joked about how weak and puny they were, making them cry. Ashley tried to stop the Wartortle, but ended up with a water pulse to the face instead. But just then, the Squirtle beside Ashley's Squirtle evolved into Wartortle! The newly evolved Wartortle told another Wartortle if they could beat it in battle, then they could pick on it, but they had to leave Ashley's Squirtle out of it. The other Wartortle agreed.

When the fight began, it seemed the newly evolved Wartortle was at a disadvantage, even though it had evolved, it was still quite a bit smaller then the others. But somehow, the newly evolved Wartortle managed to pull off a narrow win, winning the Wartortles trust. Ashley and her Squirtle, along with the newly evolved Wartortle, help to put out the fire. Even Piplup helping as well!

As soon as the fire was out, Ashley and her Squirtle bid farewell, and headed off to continue their journey to Orebeurgh city and their first gym battle.

Details
It may be concluded that in some point during the episode, Ashley's Squirtle may have tried to suppress feelings of comfort being around a Squirtle his size. Though it felt pretty bad that he had dragged yet another Squirtle into it's mess, and tried to make it up to the other Squirtle. But as soon as it unexpectedly evolved, Wartortle explained that Squirtle wasn't weak for being small, it just wasn't strong enough to evolve yet. It still had a while to go as just being a Squirtle before evolving, and forcing it to evolve at that specific time would be terrible for both Squirtle and Ashley. Ashley's Squirtle actually managed to confess to Wartortle, before racing out after Ashley, not giving Wartortle a chance to respond.

Though it is unknown if the two have seen each other once more, or if Wartortle sometime evolved into a Blastoise.