Hello! It's me again! If anyone notices a change in how I'm writing this, it may be 'cause I'm trying to take some emphasis off the levels of a pokémon now, to make it more like the TV show. Anyway, you must know how I'm going to end this… I don't own pokémon! So there!

We reached Ecruteak City that evening, and went straight to the pokémon centre for some sleep. I woke up the next morning quite early, checked my pokéballs just in case, washed and dressed and went to get some breakfast. I was just finishing up when one of Nurse Joy’s Chansey came in to inform me that I had a call waiting. I rushed out to the lobby and picked up the videophone receiver.

‘Hi honey!’ My mum’s beaming face was on screen, speaking from the phone in our living room.

‘Oh, hi mum. What’s up?’

‘What do you mean? You know what’s up! We decided to give you a ring to wish you a happy birthday!’

I grinned. It wasn’t like I’d expect them to forget. ‘Thanks.’

My father walked on to the screen too. I was a little surprised because my dad works in Rustboro City, Hoenn, as a pokéball designer. He loves the job but since it’s so far away he basically lives there and we don’t see him very much.

‘We asked the Nurse Joy in Goldenrod where you were and found out you were heading this way, so you sent you some gifts to Ecruteak,’ he said. ‘Hopefully you’ll get them today.’

Suddenly my little sister bounced onto the screen, scrambling to stay in the shot. ‘I hope… you like… my present! I got you a…’ my mum quickly silenced her before she divulged any more information, and they all waved goodbye. I sighed and turned off the phone, and then noticed that Gary had been standing behind me.

‘Was that your sister?’

‘Yeah…’ I admitted. ‘She’s pretty odd for a 9-year old.’

‘You didn’t tell me it was your birthday.’ Gary said calmly.

‘Yeah, well… I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it… people have birthdays every day, right?’

‘I suppose,’ Gary smiled. ‘But you only just started training pokémon. How can you be eleven already?’

‘I’m actually twelve. I didn’t take the opportunity to leave at ten, and stayed at school until I was eleven. Then I had to wait for Professor Elm to hand out the starters again.’

‘You went to a Pokémon School? Cool!’

‘No, not a Pokémon school, just a normal one. My father wanted me to stay there until I finished the term. But believe me, I would much rather have gone to a Pokémon school. So, where are we off to? The Gym?’

‘There’s something else interesting in this town I thought we could check out. There used to be two towers here, but one of them burned down. They’re called the Burned Tower and the Tin Tower. Wanna go see?’

‘Hmmm… I say we look around the Burned Tower. It sounds more interesting. I bet there’ll be fire pokémon in there too.’

Before we left I saw a couple of brown boxes on the front desk. Upon further inspection I could see that they had my name on them. I took the smaller one off and opened it. Amongst the bubble wrap (which I discarded) and a card from my sister (which I thought about discarding, but didn’t), there was a pokémon quiz book. Why it needed so much bubble wrap I’ll never know. The larger box from my parents contained, aside from more bubble wrap, an actual Polaroid-digital camera! It was an amazing little thing which let you take, save, edit and print photographs. I decided to put it to good use if I found any rare pokémon. I went back to our room while dragging Meowth away from the pile of discarded bubble wrap.

We gathered up our stuff and headed to the north-west part of the city while Meowth ate a bag of pokéchow. I saw a tower poking out from behind some trees on the east side, and assumed it must be the Tin Tower. When we got To the Burned Tower I saw that there was no way I could have seen it on the skyline. It was still as black and sooty as the day it burned down, and was left only 2 stories high (and as I rightly guessed, we couldn’t go to the upper floor). We walked inside and became blanketed by the darkness. We then instantaneously decided to get out our torches from our backpacks. Meowth decided he didn’t like it and agreed to wait for us outside. We carried on in, our torches and the thin light filtering down from above trying to battle the darkness. After a few metres I thought I saw something smoky to my left, but I turned around and it was gone. I was starting to get creeped out, and I couldn’t see where we had come in any more. I turned back to find that Gary was gone.

‘Gary?’ my voice echoed on walls I couldn’t see. I strained my ears for any sounds.

‘I’m ooover heeere…’ Gary’s voice came floating back to me. I made an effort to walk towards it, but almost tripped on some pieces of wood.

‘’I choose you Spike!’ I called as my Cyndaquil came bounding out of its pokéball. ‘Spike, please use your flames to light the way.’

‘Cynda!’ cheered Spike, and waddled away. The spiky flames that adorned his back made a much better source of light than the torches. I followed him for a few minutes and eventually found Gary again, in a battle. I called Spike back to his pokéball, we didn’t need him for light anymore because Gary was fighting a Magmar. Its bright yellow and orange flames shed a flickering light on the surrounding area.

‘Umbreon, faint attack, now!’ Gary’s Umbreon speed away so fast it could have disappeared, then reappear behind Magmar while it was confused. It tackled from behind, sending Magmar sprawling onto the floor.

‘Headbutt attack!’ Umbreon leapt over Magmar and pointed its body downwards, hitting Magmar at the end of its fall with its head. Gary wasted no time in lobbing a pokéball at the fallen pokémon.

‘Nicely done,’ I commented. ‘Shall we carry on? And this time don’t run off.’

We walked some more, after deciding that we’d leave after I caught a pokémon too. I needed to get some more too, since most of them had recently been stolen. After a few minutes I saw something I wanted: a Vulpix. The small, red fox-like pokémon ran away almost as soon as I saw it, so I chased after it. Unfortunately it was faster than I was. I tried to keep following the six red tails bouncing away ahead of me, but they turned a corner and disappeared. I jolted out of my disappointment by realising that I had concentrated so much on the chase that I was lost again. I called for Gary and heard him shout for me to stay put, so I waited. But just as he came into view the ground under my feet crumbled and I fell through the floor!

‘WAAAAAAH!’ >CRASH<

I was lying on my back when I recovered from the landing, and through the dust I could see Gary peering into the hole. I stood up shakily; nothing seemed to be broken. I saw Gary disappear for a moment, then a rope came tumbling down while Gary held the other end.

‘Climb up!’

I snatched the rope, and was about to put my weight on it when something caught my attention. Some sort of noise, too quiet to make out.

‘Hang on a minute Gary, there’s something down here!’

I heard more unrecognisable noises and tried to figure out where they came from. After sussing out the general direction I grabbed onto the wall and started walking, ever so slowly so I wouldn’t trip over in the dark. I don’t know how long I walked on for, feeling my way across the wall while my hands got covered in age-old grime and soot. Suddenly the wall ended, and I could sense that a large room was open before me, even if I couldn’t see it. I kept walking, with no senses to guide me, until I nearly fell up some steps. Crouching carefully I looked over the top. A small amount of light was emanating from somewhere; I could make out three shapes. This was where the sounds were coming from, the three unidentified silhouettes were grunting and snuffling. I couldn’t see what they were doing but the sounds they made did not have any words, so they were not speaking to each other. Then there was another sound, louder and higher. This came from a fourth creature, somewhere in the cave, and my heart jumped and melted at the same time as I realised what the words meant. It was a cry for help.

I decided it was time to make my presence known. I stood up and took a few steps forward, but I was suddenly aware of how loud and echoing the sounds my feet made were. The three mysterious shadows snapped completely still, then they disappeared. I felt a breeze go past my ear from where they had been standing a second before. I walked forward, following the sounds of whatever creature had needed my assistance, until it was just below me. I knelt to it and pushed out my hands. I felt its body, it was very slightly warm and very furry. Then I checked its weight, it was light enough for me to carry so I tried to pick it up, careful to support its head. It was whimpering but offered no resistance. I walked back the way I came, walking even slower than before. I wanted to run; whatever I was holding could be dying, but I knew that if I walked faster I would hit something.

It was by pure luck that I found the way I came in. The long tunnel stretched before me, looking like it would never end. Hoping that the echoes would carry far enough I called out.

‘Gary! Can you hear me? I need some light!’

I waited for a response, but my invalid was making less noise now, and that was a bad sign. I tried to keep walking, but I heard something. …It was a pokéball opening! I felt a rush of gratitude as I saw a red light flickering. I walked steadily towards it, fighting the urge to break into a run, painfully aware that the small, rasping breaths were a sign that I had to get out now. I watched the ground for dips and rocks and quickened my pace as we got nearer to the light. The air seemed to get hotter all of a sudden, and I looked up to find Gary’s Houndour releasing a small ember-like flame into the air. I found the rope again (although it was slightly singed) and called upwards.

‘You’re gonna have to pull me up!’

I held on tightly as the rope jerked upwards. For a moment I thought it would break, but we made it up the last few metres. I immediately looked for Gary and saw that he had been using a wooden beam as a pulley.

‘Jeez, how much do you weigh, anyway?’ he started, then realised that I had more pressing things to think about. I saw Houndour make a huge jump out of the pit and run ahead, making a flame so we could see the way. We ran all the way back to the entrance and finally broke out into the fresh air and sunlight.

‘Hey guys, what took so long?’ asked Meowth, and saw what I was carrying. I lowered my arms and looked at the pokémon. It was quite young, but also bruised and scratched and covered with soot. It was a Growlithe. Its fur was out of place and in some parts, completely burned off. But the strangest thing was its colour; its fur was a sickening pale yellow instead of the usual orange. It looked extremely ill.

‘We have to get him to the pokémon centre,’ I said shakily. ‘Now.’

A/N. You know what you're going to do now, right? I'll give you a clue… it starts with 'R' and ends with 'W'. And there's 'EVIE' in the middle. Too hard? Eh, I give up.