Hey, you know the drill. I don’t own anything, except my own original characters. There’s only one so far. I think that since nobody in a position to sue me will actually read this I won’t put up any more disclaimers. I’ll just use one at the beginning of each story which can cover all the chapters, okies? ^_^

The sliding doors of the pokémon centre swished open as we ran inside.

‘Nurse! Nurse Joy!’ The pokemon Nurse shuffled into the lobby.

‘Hello kids, what can I do for – OH MY GOD, WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT GROWLITHE?!’

‘We’re not sure, but it’s really weak. We need you to do something for it, please?’

‘I can try, but it’s in pretty bad shape. It might be too late already. Here, help me bring it into intensive care.’

I followed the Nurse to a small room and set Growlithe down on the table.

‘Why is its fur yellow?’ I asked, hoping she could shed some light on the Growlithe’s odd problem.

‘Hmmm… it might be sick. A pokémon disease might be able to change its colour like that. It didn’t bite you or anything, did it?’ She was using a stethoscope to check his heart rate.

‘No. He seemed too weak to do anything.’

‘Good, good… well, I’ll do all I can. I’m afraid there’s nothing else you can do. You can come back to see me in about an hour.’

I left the room feeling very depressed and stared at my shoes. I didn’t even see my friends running up to me.

‘What did the Nurse say?’ Gary asked earnestly.

‘Huh? Oh, she’s checking on him.’

‘Well, shall we start looking for the Gym?’

‘Yeah, I suppose…’

‘What happened in there?’ asked Meowth. I told him about falling into the hole, the three strange shapes in the tunnel, and the beaten up Growlithe I had found down there. By the time I was done we had reached the Gym. I walked in, not bothering to watch where I was going, and slipped.

‘WAAAUUUGH!’ I cried out and my companions pulled me back so that I wouldn’t fall. ‘There’s no floor here!’ I looked up. The entire Gym was dark. A few torches showed an arena-sized floor which we were on one side of. I felt it with my foot – just a few feet in front of us the floor simply ended.

‘I am Morty, the Ecruteak Gym Leader,’ a voice echoed. ‘Have you come to challenge me?’

‘Y-yeah,’ I stammered, understandably a little shaken that this gym seemed to have no floor. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’

A man stepped out of the shadows at the other end of the gym. ‘Very well, this Gym battle will now commence. We shall use three pokémon. Go, Gastly!’

‘Gaaaastly!’ said the flickering purple gas that just appeared from nowhere. I thought for a second; I had nothing with a direct advantage if this was a ghost type gym.

‘Ok, go Spike!’ My Cyndaquil bounded out of his pokéball. ‘Spike, there’s no floor over there, so stay on our side!’

Spike nodded. ‘Cynda!’

‘Okay Gastly, let’s begin! Night shade attack!’

Spike had nowhere to run. Gastly glowed and emitted a strange purple aura, making Spike cry out in pain. I groaned. How was I supposed to win when my pokémon were trapped like this? Then I remembered the Growlithe I had left behind at the centre. I wondered if he was all right and whether Nurse Joy had been able to help him…

Spike’s screams brought me back to the real world. He was being licked by Gastly and from the look of it he was already paralysed. I forced myself to pay attention again.

‘Spike, it’s time to fight back! Flamethrower!’ My pokémon let go a stream of fire from his mouth, which seemed to hurt Gastly considerably. Spike panted; he was getting tired.

‘Gastly, use hypnosis!’

‘Spike, smokescreen!’

Gastly’s hypnosis was lost in Spike’s cloud of smoke. He was safe for now, but then again, Gastly was made out of smoke. He had disappeared into it.

Suddenly I saw the ethereal gas about to lunge into another lick attack. ‘Use ember, quick!’ Spike’s flames flared up high, burning Gastly. It seemed to be unable to fight.

‘Return, Gastly,’ Morty growled while reaching for his next pokéball.

‘Great work Spike!’ I called, just as something strange happened. My Cyndaquil glowed brightly and started changing shape. He grew bigger and, as the light died down, I could see that his body was longer and flames sprouted from the top of his head and on his back. He turned and blinked at me.

‘Quil! Quilava, quilava!’ he said happily.

‘All right, you evolved, Spike! Way to go!’ I was happy, but I saw that after the evolution Spike still had a lot of scrapes and bruises. ‘I think you should take a break, Spike. You’re hurt. Go sit with Gary, okay?’ He nodded and limped over to the sidelines, looking glad to be out of battle for a while.

‘Since there was no substitution rule in this battle I hope you realise that your Quilava now counts as a defeated pokémon,’ Morty said with a hint of a smirk on his face.

‘I know. But I’m not going to make my pokémon fight when it’s obviously wounded.’

‘Hmm. You are quite an honourable trainer. Too bad it’ll take more than honour to beat me! I choose you, Haunter!’

I was getting worried. It was no walk in the park to defeat Gastly, and now I had to beat its evolved form. I threw out my pokéball containing Marina. I didn’t like to make her fight; she was young and Lapras’ don’t like battling, but she seemed to be my best bet.

‘Okay, Marina, you’re going to have to stay put. There’s no floor to this gym. Let’s begin then, water gun attack!’

She shot a few streams of water at Haunter, but it kept vanishing and reappearing out of harm’s way.

‘Use confuse ray, Haunter.’

A crackling beam of energy formed next to Haunter. I quickly advised Marina to counter the attack with her own confuse ray. The pokémon shot their attacks at each other. The beams connected in the middle and cancelled out.

‘Pick up the pace Haunter! Try your shadow ball attack.’

Haunter formed ghostly energy between its hands and fired it. Marina was hit.

‘Come on Marina, ice beam!’ She raised her head, forming a crystal blue ball inside it, and fired jagged ice lightning bolts at Haunter. It dodged out of the way and she fired again. Haunter floated down into the black pit under the arena and the ice beam was headed directly for it… but it stopped just in front of Haunter, hitting something and freezing into a floating slab of ice. Haunter zigzagged around the room and she kept up the onslaught of attacks, missing every one but hitting some sort of invisible object so that it froze. She managed to hit Haunter sometimes and caused some damage, but he was too fast to lose enough HP. When Marina was too tired to perform any more beams somehow there was a frozen bridge that twisted over the battlefield.

‘Morty, what is that?’ I yelled over.

‘Well, you don’t think the Pokémon League would allow me to have a gym with no floor, do you?’ he said very matter-of-factly. ‘So I made the smallest floor I could – a thin winding path made out of glass to make it invisible. But don’t worry, my ghost pokémon can pass through glass easily. Just because you can see it doesn’t change anything! Keep using shadow ball, Haunter!’

‘Great,’ I thought. ‘So there was a floor all along, but I couldn’t see it. And it’s a tiny irregular glass path. I could ask my pokémon to walk on it, but I don’t even want to think about what would happen if one fell off. And Morty’s ghost types can pass through the glass…’ the first parts of a plan started to form in my head. Unfortunately Marina was getting pummelled by shadow balls. I could see the path clearly, it floated over the pit in the middle of the gym, covered with ice. There was no way a pokémon could stand steadily on that thing… ‘Hang on!’

‘Marina, use mist attack!’ She opened her mouth and a thick cloud flowed out over the battlefield. The air fogged up, making it hard to see. ‘Okay, now water gun!’

The mist and what remained of Spike’s smokescreen stopped Haunter from seeing the attack. Water slapped against it and Morty’s second pokémon finally fainted.

‘Fine,’ Morty concluded. ‘Let’s finish this! Gengar!’

‘Gengaaaaaar!’ The final evolution of Morty’s pokémon floated above me, grinning insanely and cackling. I closed my eyes to stop myself being carried away.

Once my brain had calmed me down I directed my Lapras to try a water gun on her new adversary. She made a light hit before Gengar countered with a powerful shadow ball. It hit her on her body, she whined and fell over, exhausted. I sighed and called her back into her pokéball. His Gengar was very powerful. But I still believed I had one pokémon that could beat him.

‘Hey Meowth, get over here!’

‘What? Me?!’

‘Yeah, come on. I need you to battle for me.’

‘But why?!’

‘Because I think you can do it.’

‘But…but…I….can’t…’

‘I know you don’t think you can. Do you know why Spike and Marina battled for me just now? Because they trust me. They knew they would get hurt, but they still battled for me. I just need you to trust me right now. Please?’

‘Alright, but I don’t see what good it’ll do.’

Meowth walked out onto the short space of battleground in front of me before the big pit of nothingness.

‘Okay Meowth, I need you to walk out onto the ice bridge.’

‘Are you crazy?!’

‘No, now get going.’

He shakily stepped onto the frozen glass while Gengar floated above, concealed in the mist and smoke.

‘Gengar, just use shadow ball.’ Dark energy was forming…

‘What do I do, I’m gonna get hit!’ Meowth yelled back.

‘Don’t move! Stay where you are!’

‘But-,’

‘Please trust me! Don’t move!’

Gengar fired the gassy purple mass. It soared through the air… and Meowth didn’t move a muscle. The ball went straight through him and down into the pit.

‘Huh? What happened?’ Meowth asked no one in particular.

‘All right!’ I cheered.

‘NO!’ yelled Morty. ‘Gengar, keep firing!’

Gengar’s smile seemed to have been turned upside-down.

‘Keep walking, Meowth!’ I said happily. The plan was working so far. He carefully walked out to the middle of the floating ice path, completely ignoring Gengar’s desperate attacks which just passed through his body and disappeared.

‘Okay Meowth, stand ready.’

‘Gengar, I’ve had enough of this!’ Morty shouted. ‘Lick that mangy cat NOW!’

Gengar stuck out its tongue and floated downwards as fast as it could, through the sheets of mist and smoke. I saw it blink. That smokescreen must have irritated its eyes just a little. I waited as Gengar dropped quickly towards Meowth, ready to lick the life out of him, just until he got closer….

Counting on Gengar’s hindered eyesight and forward momentum, I acted. ‘Meowth, slide!’

Meowth pushed himself backwards and skated gracefully out of Gengar’s path. The jagged ice met the ghost pokémon on the way down. It crashed, slamming into the frozen sheet, and it didn’t get up.

‘What? Gengar, move, now!’ Gengar was either disobeying its master or it was somewhere it couldn’t here him.

‘Gengar’s fainted, Morty. That means I win,’ I said with a hint of pride.

‘Really? We won?’ Meowth was in disbelief. ‘All right! I won!’

‘Huh,’ said Morty while recalling his beaten pokémon. ‘I guess I underestimated you. I suppose you earned your Fog Badge.’

Another Haunter appeared and floated to me over the abyss. It handed me a piece of silvery-blue metal. I quickly inclined my head to thank him and Morty, then ran for the door. I didn’t worry about Gary and Meowth, Gary had to fight Morty next anyway. I burst through the gym doors into the sunlight and sprinted towards the pokémon centre with only one thing on my mind: Growlithe.

* * *

My gym battle had taken more than an hour. I ran through the centre’s sliding doors, feeling angry at myself for forgetting about him after concentrating on my match with Morty. As I reached the front desk I realised that I probably couldn’t have won if I had been worrying too much.

Nurse Joy sat at her desk, reading a pokémon magazine. ‘Oh, you’re the young lady who brought in that Growlithe.’

‘Yeah. Is he all right? Can I see him?’

‘I checked him over and put him in intensive care. Come with me through here.’

We walked through to a room filled with small glass cases containing beds, and each one had a pokémon inside. All of them were asleep. Some looked hot and restless, maybe suffering from a severe bout of influenza, and others had heavily bandaged limbs and other injuries from battles gone awry. On the whole it was not a happy place.

There was a large window at the rear of the room, letting in the sunset light. I could see the Growlithe in a chamber in a corner and walked over as quietly as I could. It was so quiet in here – it seemed that any noise I made would wake up the invalids.

When I looked through the glass all I could do was put my hand over my mouth to stop myself from gasping. It just looked so…. pitiful. Bandages had covered up most of his body, only a few tufts of creamy fur could be seen. I could hear him wheezing and watched the rise and fall of his chest. Parts of fur around his feet were quite alarming – they were a sickly yellowy-green.

‘It doesn’t look good, does it?’ asked Nurse Joy beside me. ‘Don’t worry, he’s in better condition than he looks. I’ve treated his wounds and given him some steroids and Calcium, and he’s healing remarkably quickly. I bet he’ll be up and as energetic as ever in a few days.’

I still leaned over the glass, feeling only slightly relieved.

‘I think we’d better leave now. I’d like to ask you some questions.’

‘Yeah, sure….’ I mumbled, following her out of the room.

Back at the lobby the Nurse sat down again and clicked around on the computer.

‘It’s just a patient file. I need to fill in some details for various reasons. Now, you found this wild Growlithe…. where?

‘In the Burned Tower. We went there today to look around. There was a weak point in the floor and I fell through…. I heard something and went down a tunnel…’ This was the first time I had thought about what happened down there properly. Everything came back to me – the old, grimy walls and the complete, suffocating darkness. I retold everything as it came back to me about how I found Growlithe. ‘And as soon as we got out I came straight here with him,’ I finished grimly.

‘Well, that’s it,’ smiled Nurse Joy. ‘Thank you very much for helping!’

It struck me then about all these Nurse Joys, all of the ones we had met were all happy and cheerful. I realised that this was why they have this job. The kinds of things they see every day must be enough to make anyone upset, so they’re always smiling….

I went into the cafeteria to get some dinner. I got food for my pokémon too, and set out their bowls. Then I let out the ones I had: Lapras, Trapinch and Onix. Onix was rather big, but it was a large room and there were many pokémon running about anyway, so nobody noticed. I wondered for a moment whether it was a normal Onix. I had always thought of Onix as huge, brave, fearless pokémon, but I wasn’t sure about this one. Then I remembered how I had actually caught it, by screaming at him until he cowered in fear. Looking back at what happened made me feel ashamed. I wasn’t exactly sure why, maybe because I had unfairly unleashed my anger at him that should have been reserved for Team Rocket, and I also thought that I would rather have caught a pokémon in a fair fight that to scare it in there.

‘Where are Spike, Meowth and your friend?’ asked Marina, helping herself to the food.

‘They’ll be along in a minute,’ I assured her, and watched Mystik eating. It was a strange little thing. I reached out and stroked its head. It whined happily but didn’t stop eating.

‘Hey,’ we were interrupted. ‘We’re back,’ Gary walked over and sat down.

‘Oh boy, food!’ exclaimed Meowth, starting to stuff his face. Quilava, who had been with them, also found a bowl to eat from.

‘So, you got a badge too?’

‘Yup,’ Gary held up a Fog badge identical to mine.

We had our meal and chatted about pokémon related things, like Gym Leaders, training, and battle strategies. Afterwards I called my pokémon back for the night and we were ready to go to our room.

‘Y’know, after I got my badge, we went and did something else,’ Gary said, looking a bit uneasy.

‘Huh? What do you mean?’

‘Well, we thought that not everyone finds a half-dead pokémon on their birthday, and you needed some cheering up. So Meowth and I went down to the pokémart and got you this.’

‘Happy birthday!’ yelled Meowth as I took it from Gary. Gary put his hand on my back and Meowth clambered up onto my head to see better. It was an official Pokémon League badge carrying case, identical to Gary’s own, but with a clear front so you could see inside.

‘Wow! I can’t believe you did this!’ I cried, staring at it. ‘It’s great! I’ll put my badges in right now.’ I slipped off my rucksack to remove the badges from the front, but they were gone.

‘What? Where are my badges?’

‘I didn’t think it was very safe for them on the back of there, either,’ said Gary, grinning. ‘Somebody could easily take them,’ he opened his fist, revealing my four badges. I glared and took them back.

‘So that’s what you were doing back there,’ I said, knowing full well that it was only a joke. But it made me feel a little scared, knowing someone could have taken them and I wouldn’t have noticed. I pinned each of my badges into the case and snapped it shut to look at them.

‘Thank you so much, guys,’ I said, grinning as we arrived at our beds for the night.

Later on we were all in bed, Gary in the top bunk and me in the bottom. We arranged it like that until I could be trusted not to roll out and fall onto the floor. Gary was reading and I was still looking at the case.

‘Hey, Gary, when’s your birthday?’ I suddenly asked.

‘Ah, I’d rather not say,’ came the answer from above me.

‘Oh. Okay,’ I said, dissatisfied. ‘Well then, when’s yours, Meowth?’ He was curled up in a kitty-ball next to me.

‘Dat’s complicated. Pokémon don’t measure time quite the same way as humans do. We have years, but different ways of dividing it. And usually we don’t even remember, a pokémon would just wake up one morning and know that a whole year had passed since last time. There aren’t even words in the human language for some of the things pokémon have. I suppose no pokémon has ever mentioned dem to people before,’ Meowth rolled over and closed his eyes, clearly tired. ‘But, in the best way to describe it, my birthday would be meow meowth meow meow meowth.’

He seemed to be completely asleep. I put the case away and snuggled down to sleep, understanding perfectly.