Sulphur Island was a rather large area, with more than half of it covered with thick grasslands, and an extinct volcano at the center. Apart from the wild pokémon that had made the land, their habitat, very few people came to that place. For one, it lacked almost any and all forms of services, and secondly, Birth Island was an infinitely better option. That meant that Austin and Cynthia had more than enough space to set up tent and facilities for the upcoming week of their time training… or well, helping in training, as far as Cynthia was concerned.

"Tell me Austin, what exactly was the training regimen you had in mind?"

Austin gathered his thoughts. "Well, I was thinking of teaching some… long-range moves to my pokémon like always, and work on a particular group."

"Which one?"

"Well, Bulbasaur, Scyther, Butterfree, and… Charmander."

"Ah, the elusive Charmander of yours." Cynthia drawled. "Would you like to tell me about him? Or is it still one of your secret shenanigans?"

Austin had a somewhat jaded expression on his face. "Sorry for the reaction back then. Well, Charmander just has a history, and it's not a nice one."

Cynthia nodded understandingly. "If you are willing to share that, maybe I could do something to help. I have a Charizard of my own, after all."

Austin looked at her in surprise. "You have a Charizard?!"

"Of course I do." Cynthia snorted. "He's one of my top battlers after all. After Garchomp, he's probably the strongest in the group in sheer power."

"That reminds me, you have never really seen my team, have you?" Cynthia asked rhetorically. "Well, I don't have my entire team on me, but some of them… which I thought would be useful to your… training." She plucked out six pokeballs from her jacket and threw them out. "Come out, everyone."

Flashes of red light inundated the entire area, only to be replaced by six pokémon. Standing in front of her, was her mighty Garchomp, and much to Ash's disbelief, a Rhyperior. Beside them were four more pokémon, he recognized but quickly he took out a Pokedex to scan since it would be weird if he somehow knew these foreign Pokemon. Holding the Pokedex in front, he scanned them.

Milotic. The tender pokémon. The evolved form of Feebas. Dexter narrated about the exotic, and elegant sea serpent, which looked a bit larger than Gyarados himself, if albeit much less monstrous. Milotic is said to be the most beautiful of all the Pokémon. It has the power to calm such emotions as anger and hostility to quell bitter feuding. They live at the bottom of large lakes.

The next pokémon looked like a purple, swirling vortex with green eyes and a black spiral for a pupil in its left eye. Around its face are green orbs that encircle it, its "body" is connected to a stone base. Spiritomb. The Forbidden pokémon. A Pokémon that was formed by 108 spirits. It is bound to a fissure in an odd keystone.

The third pokémon looked like a massive eagle, albeit slightly smaller than Pidgeot in size, though no less in bulk. Its entire body was covered with red fur, with a dark purple underbelly, and a white crest on the head. Braviary. The valiant pokémon. Known as "the hero of the skies," this Pokémon is so proud and so brave that it will never retreat, even when it's injured.

The last pokémon was humanoid, with a greyish body, having several red and yellow adornments on itself. Medicham. The meditate pokémon. It is said that through meditation, Medicham heightens energy inside its body and sharpens its sixth sense. This Pokémon hides its presence by merging itself with fields and mountains.

"Whoa…" Austin gushed. "They look damn powerful."

"They are." Cynthia smiled. "They are part of my original team of fifteen when I challenged the Sinnoh League for the first time."

"And you won." Austin completed it for her.

"Been checking me out, have you?" Cynthia teased.

"Uh… yeah." Austin choice to act oblivious to her wordplay.

Cynthia snorted at his obliviousness towards her wordplay. "Well, seeing your pokémon team the other day, I thought that these six would be good for training them to be a bit more optimized."

"What do you mean by that? You mentioned that during lunch."

Cynthia almost snorted again. "Well, at first sight, your team looks rather normal. However, if you look closely enough, each of them is flawed with several limitations. That is without even mentioning the fact that they don't even understand themselves as a team, and are simply latching together because of you."

Austin frowned.

"Can you… expand that a little?"

" Release your Pokémon."

Without further comment, Austin released all his Pokémon. It took some time to convince professor oak but he was able to get his entire roster for training.

"Hey guys, meet Cynthia and her pokémon. They will be helping us train and become more powerful for the coming few days."

A couple of snorts and grunts met his proclamation. The rest were busy staring at the fully evolved monsters, who were almost indifferent to their presence.

"Understand this carefully, because I do not like repeating myself," Cynthia replied in a no-nonsense tone, much like the way she behaved while talking about Charmander on the ship. "There are three kinds of moves- the basic, the advanced, and the trick moves."

Austin nodded.

"The basic ones are those which pokémon learned as a first stage. As they progress and evolve, the basic moves are slowly replaced by more powerful ones, and finally, the pokémon is left with a fixed group of advanced versions, which are, so to say its strongest move sets." She paused. "In case it wasn't clear, your pokémon are still in the baby-move stage."

Austin bobbed his head in understanding.

"The tricky moves are… so to say, moves that pokémon depend upon, irrespective of their forms. The Volt Tackle your Pikachu used, for instance, is one of them."

"I understand."

Cynthia nodded in acknowledgment, staring at the team of eleven standing in front of her. "I observed your pokémon during the matches, Austin and there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed."

"Your Pidgeot, despite his sheer size, is a baby at best. She doesn't know many moves, but the ones she knows none of which are perfected. It takes months to train a Pidgeot well, and yours is…." She paused, fearing she had been a little discourteous. "What I mean is, Pidgeot needs a lot of help as of right now. It would do her good to follow Braviary, who will be her mentor for the days to come."

Austin nodded as he wanted to talk more about the flaws in his battling style but opted to listen carefully to Cynthia's words.

With this training, he and his team will get stronger, much stronger, so strong that he would never have to lose a partner ever again.

Austin clenched his fist as he remembered Raticate.

I will never let that happen ever!