XY038

Forging Forest Friendships! (Japanese: 蠢く森のオーロット！ of the Crawling Forest!) is the 38th episode of Pokémon the Series: XY, and the 837th episode of the Pokémon animated series. It first aired in Japan on August 7, 2014 and in the United States on October 4, 2014.
==Blurb==
On the way to Shalour City, Clemont suggests a Double Battle to help Ash train for his upcoming Gym battle. Ash's Froakie and Hawlucha team up against Clemont's Pokémon, but their battling styles are so different that they just aren't getting along. Ash is trying to teach them how to combine their attacks into a single move he calls Super Flying Cut when he's pulled into the woods by a ghostly forest Pokémon called Trevenant!
Hawlucha and Froakie work together to rescue Ash, and after Trevenant lets him go, he finds out why the Pokémon grabbed him in the first place. Team Rocket has caught two of Trevenant's Pokémon friends in an electrified net, and it needs Ash's help to rescue them. Pikachu's Iron Tail quickly sets the Pokémon free, and a perfect Super Flying Cut sends the villains blasting off again!
==Plot==
While watch on, trains with for their upcoming Gym against . Unexpectedly, a log descends down the waterfall and is about to hit , but Froakie saves him by using its newly learned . Ash is thrilled, he congratulating Froakie on learning Cut and thanks it for saving Pikachu.
Following on ’s suggestion, Ash agrees to have a practice Double Battle. Clemont is about to call out his first Pokémon, but first, comes out of its ready to battle. Clemont also goes with . Ash decides that Froakie's partner will be , who emerges in a prideful pose. Ash tells Hawlucha and Froakie to work together as a team, and before any battling begins Hawlucha holds out a fist to get a fist bump from Froakie. Froakie hesitates, but it does eventually give Hawlucha a fist bump before calls for the battle to begin. Clemont goes first telling Chespin to use on Froakie and Clemont tells Bunnelby to use on Hawlucha. Ash orders Froakie and Hawlucha to dodge. Hawlucha, however, doesn't dodge and just takes the Double Slap hits from Bunnelby. Ash is impressed to see Hawlucha testing Bunnlby's strength, but Froakie feels otherwise. Ash tells Froakie to use and Hawlucha to intercept with . Clemont commands Chespin to use while Bunnelby keeps using Double Slap. Both Bunnelby and Hawlucha take hits before Clemont then tells Bunnelby to use on Hawlucha. As Bunnelby gets ready, Ash orders Froakie to use on Bunnelby to help Hawlucha out. However, the intervention makes Hawlucha furious. With Ash’s team distracted, Clemont has Chespin use . Froakie dodges and the pins end up hitting Bunnelby instead, knocking him out in the process. Soon, Hawlucha gets so furious with Froakie that it uses on it. Froakie retaliates with Cut, which strikes its ally. Next Hawlucha attempts to use on Froakie, but gets confused because Froakie uses . Soon Ash breaks up the fight and tells Hawlucha and Froakie to stop, and the battle is called off.
Ash takes Froakie and Hawlucha away from the rest of the group and tells them they need to work together because they're on the same team. He comes up with a combo move for the two of them which he calls the "Super Flying Cut". It starts out with Froakie riding on Hawlucha's back, and then it jumps and uses Cut, and then Hawlucha finishes with Flying Press. Ash decides to start working on training, but Hawlucha stops Ash and tells him it thinks it and Froakie should make up for their argument first, and it extends its hand to Froakie attempting to apologize to it, but it turns away. Ash tells Froakie to make up with Hawlucha, but it still won't, and this causes more fighting between the two. Ash eventually manages to get the pair to work together, but training is cut short when Ash is dragged into the forest by a . His friends hear the noise and rush over to see what's wrong.
Meanwhile, in the forest, Ash sees he's being carried away by Trevenant and scans it with his Pokédex. He tells Trevenant he'd never do anything to hurt the forest and yells at it to let him go. Hawlucha and Froakie see this and attempt to rescue their Trainer but they get caught in vines. They look at each other and growl angrily before looking in the opposite direction. Froakie begins swinging itself back and forth to try and shake loose from the vine, and Hawlucha does the same, but the two end up crashing into each other, causing them to argue once again, and this is enough to make the vines snap and free them. Froakie then sees Ash's hat on the ground and hands it to Hawlucha who puts the hat on its head. The pair recall Ash’s words and agree to work as a team to rescue Ash. 
When the two find Ash, they begin to battle Trevenant. Froakie launches a barrage of frubbles, temporarily blinding Trevenant. Next Hawlucha attempts to use High Jump Kick, to which Ash explains that Trevenant is immune to moves because it's a . Trevenant approaches Hawlucha with a , though Froakie stops it in its track with Bubble. Ash is freed as a result, and Hawlucha promptly returns Ash’s hat to him. Ash then calls for a Super Flying Cut combo, however, Froakie just manages to leap onto Hawlucha’s back. Though Hawlucha simply flies through the Ghost-type, without scoring any damage. Trevenant retaliates with two s, but Ash is undeterred and vows to protect his friends. The show of determination leads Trevenant to forfeit, and it leads Ash, Hawlucha, and Froakie to a net where a wild and are being held. Ash now understands Trevenant's earlier aggression, so he attempts to free the two Pokémon, but gets shocked by the net. Just then Pikachu and the others arrive on the scene. Ash explains the situation before having Pikachu use to free the two from the net.
The celebration is short-lived as the culprits, returns to net Pikachu for themselves. A battle begins, and Ash has Hawlucha and Froakie battle Team Rocket. Jessie's Pumpkaboo uses , but Froakie and Hawlucha both dodge it. Froakie uses its Frubbles to blind Pumpkaboo as Hawlucha prepares to use Flying Press. But being part Ghost-type, Pumpkaboo is unaffected as Jessie states that Fighting-type moves won't work as Ash says he's one step ahead as Froakie uses a close-range Water Pulse on Pumpkaboo, knocking it out. After dodging James's Inkay's and , Ash tells Hawlucha and Froakie to use "Super Flying Cut" and they get the combo perfect, knocking out Inkay. Before Team Rocket is about to leave, Trevenant pitches in with a to smash the remote and free Pikachu from the net. Pikachu then blasts Team Rocket off with a .
With Froakie and Hawlucha having put their differences aside, Ash and his friends say goodbye to Trevenant, Bonsly, and Sudowoodo as they head off towards Ash's Shalour Gym battle.
==Major events==
* Ash's Froakie learns .
* Serena's Fennekin uses for the first time.
===Debuts===
====Pokémon debuts====
=====TV episode debuts=====
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==Characters==
===Humans===
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* Jessie
* James
===Pokémon===
Who's That Pokémon?: (US and international) Pokémon Quiz: (Japan)
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* (; )
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==Trivia== 
* Professor Oak's Pokémon Holo Caster: 
** For the TV Tokyo airing, instead of the Professor Oak's Pokémon Holo Caster segment, the clips of and , and the scene where was turning into a stone in Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction, were shown.
* , , , and narrate the preview for the next episode.
* V (Volt) is used as an insert song in this episode.
* This episode marks the first appearance of a in the since The Fleeing Tower of Sunyshore!, 205 episodes earlier.
** It also marks the first appearance of a in the animated series since last appeared in DPS02, over three years ago.
===Errors===
* When Serena says that whoever ate all of the Poké Puffs she made will be revealed shortly, her neck is colored brown.
* When Pikachu has been trapped by 's trap, while everyone is shocked, the hair on 's right side of his ear is colored beige instead of blond. 
* When Ash orders to use on , Froakie's sclerae are colored white instead of yellow. This error was fixed in future episodes.
* When Froakie mounts 's back to use "Super Flying Cut" on , Hawlucha's entire legs are yellow instead of just its feet.
XY038 error 3.png|Clemont's hair error
XY038 error.png|Froakie's sclerae error
XY038 error 4.png|Hawlucha's miscolored legs
===Dub edits===
==In other languages==
038
Category:Episodes written by Shōji Yonemura
Category:Episodes storyboarded by Fumihiro Yoshimura
Category:Episodes directed by Ken'ichi Nishida
Category:Episodes animated by Takashi Shinohara
Category:Episodes focusing on Ash
Category:Episodes in which a main character's Pokémon learns a new move
de:Neue Wald-Freundschaften!
es:EP842
fr:XY038
it:XY038
ja:XY編第37話
zh:宝可梦 XY 第37集