" Ally Switch," Austin said as Abra showed Zippo the middle finger before his body glowed with white light.

With Ally Switch, Abra disappeared replaced by the rocky rhinoceros who stood grunting, glaring at the fire type in front of him, as it waited for his trainer's instructions. Over the last two weeks, rhyhorn had grown in size and gained a lot of body mass as it trained with Charmeleon who was using it as a punching back. Its rock plates had gotten a lot sturdier, and it had learned several new moves, and now Rhyhorn planned to unleash all his anger on the poor fire type.

" Zippo, use Metal Claw !" Ritchie's voice boomed, as the Charmeleon charged toward the ground-type pokémon.

" Take Down!" Austin commanded, and simply enough, Rhyhorn charged at the Charmeleon at a very high speed with streaks of white aura covering its body.

" Dodge it and use metal claw," Ritchie ordered with Zippo jumping up in the air causing Rhyhorn to miss as Charmeleon used gravity to its advantage to lash out with Metal Claw.

" Tower of Flames" Austin calmly ordered as Rhyhorn formed a sandstorm all around him.

With embers of flamethrower coming out of Rhyhorn's mouth, a flaming vortex formed in between Charmeleon and Rhyhorn.

Ritchie smirked thinking that Austin had played himself.

Zippo parted the flaming vortex and found a dome of rock in the middle of the vortex.

Rhyhorn's defensive rock slide broke as Charmeleon's metal claw tore apart it.

Seeing Rhyhorn in the middle, Zippo arrogantly smirked before it was wiped off as he saw rocks floating above Rhyhorn's horn.

( ~ Boom ~ )

Charmeleon was thrown back as Rhyhorn's rock blast attacked the fire type.

Crashing into the ground, Zippo struggled to get up.

" Zippo, don't give up, we'll win this," Ritchie shouted causing Zippo's body to erupt in white light as he evolved into a draconic, bipedal Pokémon with a primarily orange yet cream underside from the chest to the tip of its tail. It had a long neck, small blue eyes, slightly raised nostrils, and two horn-like structures protruding from the back of its rectangular head. Two large wings with blue-green undersides sprout from its back, and a horn-like appendage juts out from the top of the third joint of each wing. A single wing finger is visible through the center of each wing membrane.

( ~ Roar ~ )

The Charizard roared before flying towards Rhyhorn at high speed.

" Landmine," Austin commanded as Rhyhorn launched stone edge the moment Charizard came closer.

Crashing into the ground, Charizard struggled to get up.

Only one thing needed to be said. "Use Earthquake!"

Using its powerful limbs, rhyhorn smashed down onto the ground, sending powerful seismic waves radially outwards, as the tectonic strike destabilized the battleground, making a serious impact on the down Charizard.

"Earthquake, again!" Austin commanded, his eyes staring at the final stage starter Pokemon.

Even after all of that, Charizard managed to hold on.

"Now use horn attack!" Ash commanded, his tone emotionless, as the rhinoceros grunted and galloped its way toward the fire type fallen on the ground.

"Charizard, get up and you can't lose this." Ritchie's words caused Austin to frown as while this attitude might be fun to watch in the anime, it was downright cruel to watch in real life.

Finding some kind of strength, Charizard managed to spin on its back while launching an iron tail as the collision of the iron tail and the horn attack had significant damage on either side, though both pokémon were still standing.

"Horn Drill."

Nothing else needed to be said. The ground and rock type smashed its powerful horn attack into Charizard's already injured self, banishing the starter away into a world of darkness.

"Charizard is unable to battle. The winner is Rhyhorn."

Ritchie's arms shook as he returned Charizard before running towards the Pokemon center.

Austin sighed before turning towards his next opponent which caused his eyes to widen.

Standing on the other side of the battlefield was Paul.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

[ Team Rocket - Celadon City Base ]

"Okay," Meowth said, as they ate at the little cafeteria in the Rocket headquarters beneath the Celadon Game Corner. " Why da ya think the twerp survived. After dat monster came to the SS.Anne ."

"I like to think otherwise, that twerp ....," James said with a melancholic look in his eyes as he remembered that Austin had put his pokemon back into the safety of the pokeballs even if he didn't have to.

" James, just stop," Jessie said while she looked at her reflection in her soup. Even though she didn't show it, Austin's actions of saving the only things that she truly cared for affected her.

"What's da point of that look? We are dat team rocket. And I question your eating habits, by the way."

"What's wrong with them?"

"Rice balls and jelly donuts? Seriously?"

"I like them—it's the contrast of salty and sweet that gets me."

"I prefer my canned Wishiwashi, myself," Meowth said, popping another saucy fillet into his mouth.

" Hey, did you hear that ?" James asked.

" What ?"

" That some powerful trainer is offering an Omanyte on his defeat in Celadon park."

" Oh, dat sounds like something for our area of expertise," Meowth said with a smile before he remembered something

" We're talkin' a trainer dat can fight for multiple hours," Meowth pointed out. "We're going to need ta be talkin' stronger than everyone here already is."

"Yeah," James said, poking a jelly donut and causing some red to leak out. "Or I guess we could try a mech machine—they probably wouldn't see that coming."

"Or we could try trapping it differently," Jessie pointed out.

"Yeah, but the only trap we know is digging a hole in the ground, and I don't think that Omanyte is going to stay."

"We need better skills."

"We do," James sighed.

And then it was like a lightbulb went off over his head.

"Or maybe we weaken the trainer with a mecha or something and then whammo with our Pokémon!"

"Except our Pokémon aren't equipped to be taking that on—no offense, guys."

"None was taken," the Pokémon eating next to them chimed, before going back to eating.

"I take offense," Meowth decided to say.

"I guess cats have more delicate sensibilities."