Thanks to everyone for waiting for it, and even more thanks to my reviewers.

I woke up that morning feeling rather funny. Nothing serious, of course, just frequent head-rushes when I stood up, and sometimes I felt dizzy. I didn’t think it was worth bothering to tell the guys anything.

At first, the travelling today seemed to be perfectly normal. We walked on a dirt track through fields of long grass either side. The grass would wave in the wind, and every so often it would rustle sharply, and Gary or myself would leap into the foliage hoping to find something interesting, or catchable. I, in particular, was hoping to make a catch today, to make up for the recent losses to my pokémon team. I began to suspect that a pair of Nidoran were playing a trick on us as I jumped into the grass again, but still found nothing. The flowing grasses were at least as high as my waist – you could crouch down in them and not be seen, I realised. Just as I was about to get up and head back to the path, I heard a voice…

‘Surprise!’

It was a voice I couldn’t place, but one I knew I feared. In panic I tried to get up and run, but very quickly the air filled with a thick white smoke and I felt dizzy again. I tried to fight off the insistent urge to sleep and cried for help.

‘Gary! Meowth! Anyone…’

I couldn’t fight it any more and my words died in my throat. It wasn’t long before I hit the ground.

* * *

The next thing I knew, I was pulling myself awake. I lurched up from the ground, knowing that it was very important to wake up quickly, but I couldn’t recall why. Then I remembered the attack; the smoke; the danger…

‘Gary! Meowth! Where are you?!’ I called urgently.

Gary’s head appeared a few metres away in the long grass. He staggered haphazardly towards me.

‘Wha… what happened this time?’

In the flash of recollection you sometimes get when revisiting an unconfronted memory, I realised the owner of that voice I’d heard just before the attack.

‘It was Cassidy! That girl Rocket! I know it was! They’ve used that gas on us before,’ I finished my string of sentences with a sad tone. ‘Hey, what happened to you?’

‘I heard you yelling and tried to run towards where the sound was coming from, but before I could reach you this cloud of gas hit me and I guess I fainted.’

‘…They didn’t actually attack you?’

‘No. They must have been after you, but the gas got me too.’

They attacked me. Something clicked.

‘MEOWTH!’

I looked about frantically and was about to run through the grass to look when I heard a groan.

‘Ow. My head…’ Meowth was standing behind us, looking disorientated and hurt. I ran over and quickly grasped him in a hug.

‘I thought you’d gone again…’ I said, before breaking apart to look at him. He was covered in dirt. ‘What happened?’

‘I heard you yelling,’ he replied, ‘so I started to run over. But then I tripped and fell all the way down a Nidoran burrow. I hit my head…’ he finished pitifully, giving it a rub.

‘Well, that seems to be okay then,’ Gary concluded brightly, and I experienced some relief. ‘Those Team Rocket twits came to grab Meowth again and gassed you, but he’d fallen down a hole so they couldn’t find him. I suppose they got tired of looking and left.’

His interpretation seemed to fit, but something was bugging me. Cassidy and Butch didn’t seem the type to leave without a prize.

Gary was looking at me oddly. ‘Where’s your backpack?’

I was suddenly gripped by the urge to swear. All of my fear had been used up and now I was into anger. My backpack, which, funnily enough, usually resided on my back, was nowhere to be seen. I searched the grass for a few minutes before coming across a flash of light blue.

‘Guys! I found it!’

It was in a crumpled pile where the Rockets must have dumped it. I felt awfully violated that those creeps had been through my things. I picked up the bag and felt immediately saddened by the weight which it had lost. They’d been stealing.

I went through a mental inventory while removing things from my bag. The essentials, check; changes of clothes, check; maps and torches, check… my lovely birthday present, the camera? I was relieved to find that I’d put it in a side pocket which they’d forgotten to look in, along with my badges. As soon as I saw my badges case I gasped in the fear that they might have been taken, but the Rockets seemed to have completely overlooked that pocket, thankfully. But there was still a decent amount of bad news. All the pokéballs which usually lined the bottom of my bag were gone. The normal balls we stocked up on in every town… and my speciality balls that Kurt had made from us out of apricorn. They were gone. Well, mostly. It seemed that Team Rocket didn’t have time to waste, and they had just grabbed the balls that they could carry, leaving just a few at the bottom. Two normal red-and-white balls were sitting, minimised, in the depths of my backpack. After feeling around a bit more, I found a green ball with a smaller orange splodge – a Lure ball. That was something. And one which looked mostly like a normal ball but had some extra yellow patterns on the side – a Fast ball. Just this was still a tiny amount compared to what I’d lost. Then I noticed something else in the dark shadows of my bag, another ball, jet black, with a red stripe and a golden lining. A Luxury ball, the one made from the green apricorn. I was just a bit happier after I found that.

‘What’s up?’ Gary inquired as he came over.

‘They stole my pokéballs. Most of them, anyway. All I have left are two normal ones, a Lure ball, a Fast ball and a Luxury ball.’

I saw that Meowth wasn’t looking at me, he was facing the ground. He seemed sad.

‘It’s not your fault,’ I said defiantly. ‘I don’t care how much of my stuff they steal. I won’t give you up.’

He looked up with an expression that seemed to be a mix of guilt and gratitude.

‘Let’s press on then,’ I said. ‘We should get going. Maybe we’ll find some more pokémon somewhere. It doesn’t matter how many balls I have or don’t have if I can’t find anyone to put in them.’

So we went on. After walking for a while I felt light-headed, and my throat felt quite sore. I thought that this must be a side effect from all the sleeping gas. I tried to take my mind off that and looked at the scenery instead, but I noticed something happening as we went along. The amount of grass beside the path got less and less, in fact, there was a noticeable decline in any life we could see. The path got wider, and dustier. Soon we were trying not to kick up clouds of sand. The next thing I knew, I looked up, and we had left the green fields far behind. We were in a desert.

At least, that’s what it looked like. Perhaps badlands would be a better word. At any rate, I couldn’t see another living thing at all. It was just sand and grit to the edge of the horizon. Here and there a huge, jagged boulder stuck out of the sand. And it was really warm.

We carried on as normal for a while. Gary was the one with the map, and I would follow whatever route he took. Even if it meant getting enormous amount of sand in my shoes on the way. Which, by the way, is very uncomfortable.

Then I started to notice the heat more and more. Before long I could feel sweat on my brow and my head was swimming.

‘Gary… is it meant to be this hot?’ I asked tiredly.

‘Hot? It’s not really hot. Quite warm, I’ll admit…’

What? Was he playing about? The heat seemed to be building up under my skull. How could he say this wasn’t hot? The sun seemed to be burning down on us. I was quite sure the sun had actually moved a few light years closer to us. I was half thinking about going into my pack for some sun cream, but suddenly a wave of nausea came over me. I staggered and tried to stop walking, but everything was spinning… I tried to call out to my friends for help, but no words would come, and I lost it as I toppled over.

* * *

I woke up for the third time that day feeling rather annoyed at my latest loss of consciousness. But as I looked around my anger was replaced by awe. I was lying on damp, soft grass. All around there were trees and bushes, and a little way off I could see a few pokémon wandering about. I turned around and found a nearby pool of water, so I cupped my hands to pick some up, and had a drink. Then I splashed some water onto my face to try waking me up. It had to be the most refreshing water I’d ever felt or tasted. It was a wonderful place, I thought, looking about. It was so full of life – all that earlier on in the desert and the unbearable heat must have just been a dream. My old worries and fears certainly did seem a lot further off in this place.

I got up and proceeded to have a look around. As I wandered I could hear and sense movements close by. I realised that some pokémon were hiding in the bushes, watching me, but not wanting to show themselves. It wasn’t a scary thought, so I carried on.

When I got past some trees I doubled back and peered around more carefully. Just beyond there were some pokémon having a conversation. A Dugtrio and a Miltank.

‘Triotriotrio…’ ‘We found another one… a little injured, but still…’

‘Mildu, mildoo…’ ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.’

The Dugtrio sank into the ground and tunnelled away. Revealed behind him, lying on the floor seemingly asleep, was Meowth.

I ran over instantly.

‘Meowth…’

The Miltank looked at me. ‘Ah, you’re awake.’

‘That Meowth is my… friend,’ I said, changing my sentence to end with friend instead of "he’s mine", because that didn’t seem to be appropriate. I realised that I wasn’t actually basing my knowledge of Meowth’s identity on anything, couldn’t it be any Meowth? I supposed it could, but somehow I knew anyway. ‘Uh… what’s going on? I’m really confused…’

‘I would like to explain the situation to you,’ said the Miltank sadly, ‘if only humans understood pokémon speech…’

‘Oh, no, no,’ I said hastily. ‘I can understand you just fine. But what am I doing here? What’s happening?’

The Miltank seemed very taken aback. Meowth chose that moment to wake up.

‘Uhhh… where am I?’ He got up. ‘And how did I get here?’

The Miltank was even more surprised. ‘Well, well! Look at that! A pokémon who speaks human and a human who speaks pokémon!’

Before I could do anything, I saw that Meowth was quite hurt, and that’s what the Miltank seemed to concentrating on too. She raised her hoof and touched Meowth on the forehead, and then started shaking her tail. As it shook, a lovely sound like a ringing bell seemed to emanate from it, and the Miltank gave off a calming blue light. The light crossed over to Meowth and he seemed to find the experience quite pleasurable. Then the light faded, and all of Meowth’s wounds were gone.

‘I suppose I need to give you an explanation then,’ said Miltank. ‘You are in the legendary Pokémon Sanctuary. All around for miles there is nothing but harsh desert, but here, within these walls, there is an oasis of constant life.’ She pointed upwards, and I could see how it fitted. All around were the lush plants, the trees, water and pokémon, but all of it was enclosed within huge stone walls which reached right up to the sky. All the way at the top there was a circle of blue sky. ‘This place is our home, and we keep its location very secret. If any human comes near, we have Exeggutor who go out and hypnotise them, and they just walk away to a safe distance, with no memory of seeing this place. We are here to send help to any pokémon who gets in danger out in the desert. Although we do help humans in…’ she looked at me, ‘special cases.’

With this new information I could sort out what had happened. ‘Yes… I collapsed from the heat… but Gary said it wasn’t that hot at all.’

‘You were ill,’ said Miltank. ‘You had the faint symptoms of a human disease. Most likely a human cold. It’s all cleared up now, but your body was trying to fight the infection by raising your temperature. The added desert heat combined with that put you in danger. Why do humans do that? They call it a "cold" when what it does is make you warm… what’s with that?’

‘And you found me and saved me by bringing me here,’ I said, a little scared at the thought of the serious trouble I would be in if not for the pokémon.

‘The scout decided to bring your Meowth friend along afterwards, since he was injured,’ she said.

So I’d been saved by the pokémon, and Meowth’s bruises from falling down that hole earlier were mended… but what about –

‘Exegg-exeggutor!’ An Exeggutor was running over, trying to get Miltank’s attention. The large tree-like pokémon with lots of heads seemed rather frantic. ‘There’s someone there! Human trying to get in! We can’t hypnotise!’

‘Is it a young male human, wearing lots of blue and with cute brown spiky hair?’ I asked.

The Exeggutor looked bewildered but slowly nodded most of his heads.

‘That’s Gary. He’s our friend too. Will you let him in?’

Miltank sighed. ‘I suppose yet another one would be alright…’

I thanked her for the favour while the Exeggutor waddled off to tell his brethren. A few moments later Gary came running onto the scene through the cave-like opening in the wall of rock.

’You would not believe the trouble I had getting here…’ he said upon seeing us, but then his attention was drawn to the beautiful foliage around him. ‘Wow…’

We decided to piece the story together, now that we were all here, in chronological order. I started us off:

‘So we were in the desert and that’s when I fainted… it felt really hot to me, but you two didn’t seem that affected. Miltank says I was a little ill, but I’m okay now… I did feel kinda funny this morning…’

‘Hmm? You did?’ said Gary, blinking. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t think it was a big deal. So anyway, what happened after I passed out?’

‘I didn’t know what had happened, or why, but I know we wouldn’t be able to carry you or anything. So I was thinking of using our pokémon to help, but suddenly this Dugtrio digs past and sees you, and it looked kinda worried. Then it goes underground, and reappears right underneath you. And another one came up under Meowth. Then it starts carrying you two off. I didn’t know what was going on, or what to do, so I just tried to follow you. I wasn’t as fast as the Dugtrio, but I could still see the earth churned up from where they’d been. It turned out they’d been heading towards this huge rock mountain, which was this place… not a mountain then, I suppose. And those Exeggutor wouldn’t let me in. They kept trying to hypnotise me, so I closed my eyes and looked away from them, and told them I had to get inside.’

‘I remember most of it, but I guess I fell asleep on the way here. It was nice and warm and the Dugtrio was rocking so soothingly…’ Meowth added sheepishly.

‘I just woke up here and the Miltank told me that this oasis is a pokémon sanctuary for those who’ve been hurt or got sick out there. I’m really glad they were here…’ I just trailed off, and nobody said anything. The silence was very awkward. I looked around, and saw a Beedrill buzzing down to us. But he wasn’t interested in the humans; he wanted to talk to Miltank.

‘Spptttzzzz! Spttzz, sssspttzzzz,’ it droned. ‘Miltank, this has gone on long enough. We’ve just had to deal with no less than three humans in out midst, and now here are two more. Many of the other bug pokémon are worried that you’re jeopardising our sacred colony,’ by colony, I assumed he meant the pokémon living in the oasis, but it was a strange word use.

‘Mildoo, miidoo!’ ‘We aren’t opening our home to the public, Venomsting! The previous humans were a coincidence. It is unlikely that the same situation will arise again. And this time the female human was in danger. Are you saying that you would rather have her die, than have us open our gates to the needy?! We have been blessed with a haven to live in, but we do not own it. It does not matter, we will make sure they remember nothing when they leave anyway.’

I was immediately worried by the last part. What were they going to do with us? Still, Miltank had been quite forceful in defending us. I made a mental note not to get on the wrong side of a Miltank in the future.

The Beedrill seemed placated and flew off, and Miltank addressed us again. ‘I think it would be best of you three stay here tonight. Dusk will come shortly, and it will be unfit for you to leave. We will see you off in the morning.’

Then she left, assuming we could take care of ourselves. The pokémon who had been hiding in the bushes and trees were still there, watching us. They seemed less wary, so I could see them now – Mankey, Kakuna, Weepinbell and Spinarak, and there must have been many others too. I realised that they must hardly ever see any humans, so they decided to watch from their hiding places.

We walked over nearer to the lake and proceeded to set up our night-time things. A couple of logs from dead trees or branches were lying nearby on the ground, close to the woods, so we pulled them over to make seats to rest on. I announced that I was going to walk away for a while, and the others acknowledged it, so I went off quietly.

As I walked, I could see everything around getting dark very quickly. Having such a small skylight up there, it wasn’t surprising that the sunlight drained this fast. I could see a few pokémon making their way towards their beds. Then I finally found Miltank again.

‘Miltank?’

‘Mi-doo?’

‘I, uh… I was wondering whether it would be okay if we had a fire going. It might get rather cold…’

Miltank considered, then nodded. ‘Mil, mildu.’ ‘I’m sure you’ll be very careful.’

‘Oh, we will. And… I wanted to thank you, and all the other pokémon as well, I suppose, for helping us…’

‘That’s quite all right.’ She said it with the tone of a mother speaking to a slightly naughty, but forgiven, child. I was about to go, but I hesitated for a moment too long and knew she would sense my indecisiveness.

‘What else do you want to ask?’

‘Erm… I’m not sure exactly…’ That was true. Ever since I’d had these doubts I had been wondering, but to say it out loud seemed to be going too far. I was almost afraid of it, and ashamed at the same time. Miltank waited for me to get my thoughts in order.

‘Would it be okay… with you, I mean, if… if someone wanted to stay?’

‘Have you discussed it with him?’

Her interpretative accuracy caught me off guard. ‘Well, no… I wanted to make sure it would be allowed before I said anything.’

‘Any pokémon who finds its way here is always welcome with us,’ she said vaguely before walking away.

I walked back to our little camp still pondering, and not even noticing the sudden darkness which was blanketing the oasis. When I got there I found the Gary had kindled a roaring fire.

‘Well, thanks for waiting!’ I said somewhat angrily. ‘I went to ask Miltank if we were even allowed to have a fire here.’

‘I was cold,’ Gary justified. ‘And anyway, I used water from the lake to soak the ground first. We’re not going to set light to anything.’

We ate some scraps for dinner, and we also found some of the fruit that the pokémon here ate, and had some of that. It was getting close to the hottest part of summertime, so lots of fruit was out to be eaten. It also meant that the temperature wasn’t too low, or it would have been colder, but if it hadn’t been I suppose I might have made it further through the desert earlier.

With the high stone walls around, it was about as dark as it gets at night, but it wasn’t quite time yet for bed, so we just stayed up talking. We had the fire for illumination anyway, so it was quite easy to see. Meowth and I sat on one log, Gary sat opposite us on another, with Umbreon lying by his feet.

‘No way!’ I gasped. ‘You were actually in the Indigo League last year? But you must have only just started pokémon training.’

‘Yeah, I started a couple years ago, and last year I got past the first few rounds at the Indigo Plateau. But I’m gonna go further this time around for sure.’

‘And to think, while you were doing all that, I was stuck at home and wishing that I could go journeying too.’

‘They really wouldn’t let you go? You have a real passion for pokémon. I’m surprised you didn’t just up and leave.’

I giggled. ‘You think so? I didn’t really want to go against my parents. It was only another term of school to sit through, but then I just had to sit and wait again for ages until they finally let my apply for my licence.’

Meowth chimed in. ‘School’s not that bad, is it? I mean, they feed you and all, it’s not like you were out of the street, fending for yourself like I was when I was a kitten.’

‘Aww,’ I said, patting Meowth on the head and then scratching behind his ear. ‘It’s not the school itself really. Learning can be a big bore, but it won’t kill you, I suppose. The hard part was the people you have to put up with. I was always surrounded by girls who can’t see beyond the various piercings they’ve got at the end of their noses. All they ever thought about were their hair, their make-up and their accessories.’

Gary nodded. ‘I know the type,’ he said airily. ‘They’re pretty, but they can’t tell which side of a pokéball is up.’

‘None of the girls I knew could really be considered pretty. And it’s not just the way they think, it’s the fact that they do everything as if they’re the best people in the world at everything, and you know they look like an idiot, but there’s absolutely no way you could get them to understand because they’re so damn thick.’

‘There’s a fine line between pitying a moron and being angry with him,’ said Meowth.

‘They’re much worse than pokémon. I think, on the whole, pokémon are just better than humans. They understand you much better. But the way those people went on about pokémon was really terrible. They talked about them like a disease that needs to be avoided at all costs. I can understand if they were scared of pokémon because one might hurt them, because that’s just down to distrust and being misguided. But they were so big headed, they made it so that their problem with all pokémon was brought down to their inferior level, like pokémon were disgusting because they’d mess up their clothes or perfect nails.’ When I’d finished my face had turned into a snarl.

‘What about you?’ Gary asked me.

‘They knew I didn’t have a problem with pokémon at all, so I think they decided that I was just ignorant, and they’d open my eyes to the awful image-degrading qualities pokémon had soon enough. But then they found out I actually liked pokémon… I was beyond help. An outcast. They mostly avoided me. …They called me a freak.’

Meowth looked up at me sharply, but said nothing.

‘Of course, I didn’t care what they said. I knew pokémon were really wonderful things, and I couldn’t wait to get to know some as a trainer. I only ever had one real friend in school, but she moved away some years ago before I left. I’m just really glad I escaped. I’m finally back in the world where people love pokémon for what they are.’

Gary undermined the moment. ‘Okay, cool.’ I’m convinced he did that on purpose.

‘Hey, I’ve got an idea!’ I jumped up suddenly, grabbed my backpack and rummaged through it. ‘We may have to leave tomorrow…’ I took out my shiny camera, ‘but I want to take a photo to remember everything.’

‘Why?’ Gary mused. ‘It’s not like everything’s going to have changed tomorrow…’

I didn’t answer him, but he didn’t resist anyway. I set up the camera on a convenient nearby rock and ran back to sit on the log.

‘We need to say a word,’ I said while trying to pose.

‘Why?’ said Gary.

‘If we say a word in unison all our expressions will be co-ordinated.’

‘Oh no! I’m not having a photo of me looking like I’ve just said "fluff"!’

‘Why fluff?’

‘Oh, this stupid photo at my 7^th birthday party where they told me to say fluff and I…’

*FLASH*

The camera had taken the picture and sparks were floating around in my eyes.

‘I bet we look like a bunch of complete idiots,’ said Gary firmly.

‘I think my eyes were closed,’ said Meowth worriedly.

I picked the camera up and looked at the picture on the digital screen. ‘It’s all right,’ I concluded, ‘we look fine. At least we’re being natural.’

I got the camera to print out a few copies of the picture and one got passed around, then we realised that it had become pretty late, so we put out the fire, rolled our sleeping bags out on the grass, and hopped in. I didn’t take off any clothes, except for my shoes, but that’s how it usually worked on the road. Unfortunately the only time I got to use my pyjamas was at a pokémon centre.

I lay in my sleeping bag for a while, thinking about whether or not I was making the right decision, and whether it was the right thing to do. A bit later I heard Gary snoring. That was a bad sign – I usually fell asleep before him. Why wasn’t I asleep already? I checked my watch and it proclaimed the time to be past midnight. Then I started worrying. I needed to get some sleep so I had enough energy to deal with tomorrow. I suspected that a lot of walking would be involved. Eventually I gave up on sleeping and got out of my bag. Meowth was curled up next to it so I tried not to wake him as I tiptoed past. I went to the sparkling blue lake and watched it for a while, sitting on the grass. Finally, I decided to stop thinking about myself and do what was best for my friends, even if I wasn’t happy about it.

‘Can’t sleep?’ At first I was scared to hear another voice talking to me; I thought everyone would be asleep and I would be alone, but Meowth was standing behind me.

‘Not really,’ I whispered. He came over and curled up next to me. ‘I thought you were asleep?’

‘Sorta. Even in your socks, you’re pretty loud.’

I just sighed and looked at the water again.

Meowth folded his arms defiantly. ‘Look, pokémon can always tell when something’s wrong. I may once have tried to be more like a human, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely oblivious when my trainer’s not right. So what’s the matter?’

I just looked at him. Then I gasped and clapped my hand to my mouth in fright. I didn’t know how, but however it is that pokémon communicate with each other, and without meaning to, I had just told him what I was planning to do.

He just looked vulnerable and sad. ‘You… you’re going to leave without me?’

‘I didn’t mean to say that!’ was all I said.

‘But you did say it! And you can’t have lied!’ He was angry now. ‘So what is it? You’re just going to ditch me here, in the middle of nowhere?! Maybe I’m not good enough for you and you don’t want me anymore!’

‘How can you say that?!’ It was my turn to be angry, and I was talking louder than I should have been. ‘Meowth, I don’t want to have to give you up! I don’t want to see you go! But…’ I tried to talk more softly now, ‘it doesn’t matter how I feel. They only thing that matters is that you’re safe, and we’re actually in a place that’s safe. You have to stay here…’

‘No…’ he croaked.

‘Yes,’ as much as it hurt to do so, I continued. ‘We’re leaving tomorrow… and you’re staying behind.’

We continued to talk about it more calmly over the next few minutes. I argued that he wouldn’t be safe as long as Team Rocket was after him, and nobody had really ever discovered this place on their own. I couldn’t even think about what would happen if Team Rocket got their hands on him, after the things Meowth had told me, and the things I’d seen for myself. I would never, ever, let that happen, so I had to do whatever was necessary to prevent it. Meowth simply argued that he didn’t want to leave, but it was only a half-hearted attempt. He knew inside that I would not let him come with us tomorrow, and he’d stay in the oasis for his own good. But just because it was for his own good didn’t mean either of us were very happy as we went back to bed. As I got back into my sleeping bag I felt so exhausted now that I was sure I’d go straight to sleep. Then I felt Meowth climbing up on top of my sleeping bag and curl up in a ball, as he sometimes did. We both knew full well that we would never, ever, have the chance to do it again.

* * *

We awoke to a bright, cheery morning where all of the flowers were dancing and the bird pokémon were singing. Unfortunately I didn’t feel that happy. Then I remembered that Gary didn’t know, so I told him what was going on, but he seemed indifferent.

Once we were all washed up and had eaten breakfast, Miltank came over to tell us our leaving arrangements.

‘When you’re ready to go, come over here and let the Exeggutor hypnotise you. They’ll make it so that you can leave here and you’ll automatically walk towards Olivine City for about an hour. Then you’ll wake up, but you won’t have any memory of where the sanctuary is, see?’

As much as I didn’t like the idea of letting myself be hypnotised, I had to agree. I certainly didn’t want to know anything about where this place was, nor anyone else.

‘Miltank, if it’s all right with you… Meowth is going to stay here from now on.’ I wasn’t looking her in the face.

‘As you wish,’ she also seemed indifferent, and walked away to prepare the Exeggutor.

We packed everything up and made sure nothing had been left behind, and suddenly it was time for the hardest part. The goodbye.

We walked over to the waiting Exeggutor, making sure we were carrying everything we needed. Meowth followed us, looking very small and scared.

I kneeled down on the grass to his level, ready to give some sort of farewell speech that had been churning around in my head since I’d woken up. But nothing came. I rested my hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye, and thought that I’d never be able to say anything that would express my feelings the way I wanted it to. Then I realised – through the power of pokémon speech, using expressions and thoughts and feelings – that right then I was saying goodbye in a thousand other, silent ways, and all my feelings, hopes, dreams, and sorrows were pouring out of me, just the way I wanted them to.

I gave Meowth one final hug, got up, and as I turned away I saw Miltank wiping a tear from her eye.

‘Wow!’ She murmured. ‘What a speech.’

I walked over to the Exeggutor who were standing ready to take us away. I looked back at Meowth one last time, waved, and said ‘Bye.’

I was trying not to cry. Gary and I turned to face the Exeggutor, and I looked into its eyes. A faint light seemed to surround everything, and I felt like my mind was slowly being erased. Then my muscles relaxed, my eyes became unfocussed, and my mind went blank.

* * *

The next thing I knew, I was standing in the desert. I shook my head, and found that Gary was next to me. All I could see behind me was desert, and I had no memory of getting here, so the plan had worked – I couldn’t have the faintest idea where the oasis actually was. But my legs were aching and I felt awfully hungry.

There was silence for a while, and we both just stood relatively still. Then, without thinking, a question formed in my mind, and I turned to ask Meowth – but for the first time, he wasn’t there. That’s when it sank in.

I suddenly let out a sob. Gary came over to comfort me, and tried to put his arm over me. A few tears ran down my face.

‘I’m… never… going to… see him again!’ I sniffled.

Gary said nothing, and seemed to understand that after that I didn’t feel like talking, and I was glad of that. He just gently started me walking, as we went on. After a while I looked up. In front I could see that the desert ended, and there was grass again. Right on the horizon, bright blue and sparkling, was the sea, and on the coast I could see the buildings in Olivine.

We didn’t say anything, we just walked on.

Remember, any feedback is always greatly appreciated. Also, please go and check my fanart section here at the Tower – you’ll find a picture relating to a scene here. Yes, well done for figuring it out, that’s what the camera’s for.