TRAINER TIP: Never trust a man with a name scheme coming from "mortuary" with your destiny.

The Kimono Girl from the dance hall encouraged the three to go out to the Burned Tower, saying that they would likely find at least one person they were searching for waiting there, whether it was the Gym Leader or the red-haired boy.

And so that was why the three of them were waiting outside the Burned Tower, each of them trying to convince one of the others to go in first.

"Kris is the oldest," Ethan declared, poking her in the back. "So I say she goes first."

"You're the leader of this group!" Kris protested, wiggling away from his prodding hands. "You go first!"

"But you want to be a researcher like your uncle, right?" At his friend's weak nod, Ethan grinned. "Well, science needs courage. So, you go in first, and if you don't get torn apart by ghosts, Lyra and I will follow."

Kris looked ahead, and swallowed hard. She opened Hoppip's ball, and turned to the grass creature with half-hopeful eyes. "Come with me?"

Hoppip spiraled into her waiting arms, making soothing sounds as her trainer walked through the ancient door.

Ethan and Lyra followed shortly after, and all three were mildly disappointed that they wasted that much fear for nothing. The only things they saw were a gaping hole in the floor, too many Rattata to count, and two guys talking about something that probably didn't concern the trio or Silver. One was tall, blond, and very good-looking, while the other had his back to them and was holding out his cape as if he were a Batman imposter. The blond was clearly not impressed.

"Are we going to sit around here all day, Eusine?" he asked critically, and the caped man lowered his arms. "I get that you're excited, but I got a call from Whitney -"

"Well, we all know Whitney has an enormous crush on you," Eusine retaliated, not seeming to notice his friend's quick glance downward. "She'll call again. In the meantime, you have more important things to worry about. You promised to help me hunt down Suicune, remember?"

The blond gripped the ends of his scarf in his left hand and held them above his head, pretending it was a noose, and tilted his head so it rested on his right shoulder. Eusine rolled his eyes and turned around, only to notice the three kids standing there. His eyes widened, and he rushed over to take a better look.

"You three look like you could be of assistance," he said enthusiastically. His eyes were focused on Kris, and she was clearly uncomfortable with that fact. "Long ago, there were three Pokémon that perished in the fire that burned down this tower. The legendary Ho-Oh brought them back to life in magnificent new bodies, and the way you all look reminded me of them."

"Us?" Ethan repeated weakly, and Eusine nodded, looking away from Kris to focus on her friends.

"You, good sir with your yellow and black hat and oddly-shaped hair fringe, remind me of the beast of lightning, Raikou. The girl dressed as Mario, with the brown hair and fondness for red, brings to mind the beast of fire, Entei." But then he looked back at Kris, a longing in his eyes that made her very uncomfortable. "And this young one...she clearly resembles the purest of the beasts, the most beautiful and incredible beast of water. She is clearly a Suicune."

"And you," the blond said, pulling his friend away from the kids, "are clearly a creep." He looked back at the trio, apologetic already. "I'm so sorry about my friend. He's...really into the legends of Entei, Raikou and Suicune. Especially Suicune. I guess seeing three kids with vague similarities was enough to set that obsession into motion." He held out his hand, the other one firmly grasping Eusine's cape to keep him in place. "I'm Morty, the Ecruteak City Gym Leader."

"I'm Ethan," the boy said, shaking Morty's hand enthusiastically. "I'm your next challenger."

Morty pulled his hand away, looking back at the girls. "And they are Kris and Lyra, I take it?"

"How did you know?"

"Whitney gave me a call and told me all about you." He glared at Eusine, silently threatening him if he said a word, but Eusine was examining the hole, and grumbling about how it was too dark for him to see more than outlines of what lay beneath. "Look, I know you want a chance for the badge, but until Eusine is completely satisfied with his search here, he won't let me go back to the Gym. Why don't you kids go and explore the city? The Kimono Girls have a dance theater that's probably open -"

"Been there, done that," Ethan said, his hand reaching for Togepi's ball. "We'll help you guys out. Besides, it's my destiny to meet Raikou." And ride it like a horse, he added in his mind.

Eusine snapped to attention, and thanked Ethan repeatedly. "Then we should look together!" he cheered, fist-pumping the air. "With Raikou in your destiny and Suicune in mine, we shall manage to capture the legendary beasts before that red-haired jerk gets a hold of them!"

Lyra's eyes widened. "You guys know a red-haired jerk, too?"

"Yeah. Morty was in the middle of a battle with him when I climbed through the Gym windows and dragged him out." Eusine pointed to the other side of the hole, where there was indeed a pale figure with hair of a darker red than they remembered Silver to have. "He's right down there."

It was Silver, after all, just with the darkness making his hair seem less obnoxious than it really was.

Silver, as always, was not pleased to see any of them. Silver, as always, had declared all three to be "weak" and tried to imply that they should give up. Silver, as always, tried to chase them away when they didn't take the hint.

Silver, unlike before, actually showed some concern when Lyra almost fell down the hole.

"Stupid girl," he grumbled, getting down to pull her up. She was hanging from the weak floorboards surrounding the hole, but as the backlight from her Pokegear flashed across three peculiar outlines, she saw something that would be hard to see just from looking down.

Three statues of strange creatures, Pokémon-like beings that combined dog, cat and fox traits. One a bright blue that matched Kris's hair almost exactly, one bright yellow with black stripes that did vaguely remind her of Ethan's hat, and a creature with floppy brown fur, a red crest on its head, and rings on its legs that slightly resembled the tops of her own socks.

If these were statues of Entei, Raikou and Suicune, she had to admit, Eusine wasn't completely out of his mind. They did kind of resemble Lyra and her friends...in a vague, almost-nonexistent sort of way.

"Come on, stupid!" Silver insisted, grabbing Lyra's sleeve and hauling her up onto the floorboard. "You don't want to die, do you?"

"I wasn't done looking!" Lyra complained, and Silver looked back at Ethan and Kris, who had nearly fallen over the edge themselves when trying to save her.

"She knows what she's doing," Ethan insisted, and then lowered his voice to speak to Lyra alone. "What were you doing?"

"Finding you and Eusine a clue to your destinies," she whispered back, before pushing herself into a standing position. "So, Silver. Thank you for making sure I wasn't going to die down there."

Silver grunted, pretending that he hadn't cared enough to want her alive and that it was merely that he didn't want to watch a death.

"So, why are you here anyway?" Kris asked, and Silver glanced down.

"I was looking for a lead on Entei, Raikou and Suicune," he admitted. "I thought I could impress them with my strength. But it's useless. Those statues down there are just statues."

"Did you know Team Rocket was in the dance theater?" Ethan asked, and the name sent the familiar shiver down Silver's spine. "I thought you would want to help us stop them."

"I don't help anybody," Silver insisted. "Go away."

"Not yet," Lyra protested. "I want to get a picture of the statues down there. Are there any stairs?"

"Check with the Gym Leader and the lunatic." Silver turned to leave, his hand at his belt, fingertips resting on a Pokeball. "And I suggest that if you don't want my Quilava to roast you alive, you should leave me alone from now on."

"Don't worry about that," Kris retaliated. "We'll just pretend you don't exist. Seems to work for you with everyone else."

Silver inclined his head, acknowledging her presence, and left before either of the others could make him stop.

"Shouldn't we go after him?" Lyra asked.

"Who are we chasing again?" Kris appeared genuinely confused. "Never mind that, I want to check out these statues. And, hey, look - Morty's standing right in front of stairs!"

"Huh. They do kind of look like us."

Lyra giggled at Ethan's statement. "I know. It's weird, isn't it?"

Ethan wasn't paying attention. His eyes were on the yellow and black statue, the long sharp teeth in particular. "I had a dream like this once," he admitted, reaching out to touch the statue. "Except the Pokémon was a Magikarp the size of my house, and my mom wanted to feed it catnip..."

"Shut up, Ethan," Kris and Lyra said in unison.

Ethan took their advice, and fell into a deep silence. Which was why neither of the girls knew what he was doing until he climbed up on the Raikou statue's back, waving his baseball cap like a cowboy hat, fulfilling his destiny in what had to have been the most embarrassing way. But, before either of them could yell at him to stop fooling around and get down, something happened.

The statue started to move.

Kris and Lyra watched, both stunned into stillness, as the Raikou statue suddenly became the real Raikou, and the real Raikou was not happy with the current situation. Letting out a loud roar and a jolt of electricity, it threw Ethan from its back and ran off with stunning speed, leaving behind three very terrified children and two still-sleeping statues.

Lyra approached the Entei statue carefully, hoping it wouldn't come alive and try to roast her like a barbeque rib. "Um, Mr. Entei? Or Miss, whichever you are? If you can come alive and bring Raikou back, I'd like to force Ethan to apologize." The Entei statue did not move. "Suicune's still asleep, so if you don't want us to ask it for help..."

But it still didn't budge. Ethan tried to pull Lyra away. "Come on, Lyra. There's plenty of other places they could be hiding. Maybe it was only Raikou that was pretending to be a statue."

"But Ethan! I know this thing is alive! I just have to make it show us!"

And with that, she began poking Entei, hoping to wake it with force if it wouldn't wake up because of her voice. Entei didn't respond to her touch, either...until, that is, she accidentally poked it in the eye. With a roar to match Raikou's, but fortunately no flames, the beast of fire dashed after its sibling and left behind the still-sleeping Suicune.

Kris watched it go, and gently gave the Suicune statue a hug. "I am so, so sorry about my friends," she whispered, softly stroking the purple stone mane.

Surprising no one, the Suicune statue chose that moment to come to life. But instead of roaring and running away, it merely lifted a paw and patted the girl on the head, as if it was trying to comfort her. "Trust me," it told her, its voice a quiet growling sound instead of the loud roar, "You will learn to live with it, perhaps even like it." The creature broke free of her arms, and glanced around at the trio. "But now I must go. It is in another's destiny to see me, after all."

And, taking careful aim, the beast of water leapt straight up, through the hole, and they heard its rapid footsteps and a different thud from the floor above their heads.

As Ethan, Kris and Lyra climbed the stairs to the main floor, they saw Eusine babbling excitedly and Morty, leaning against the wall, trying to catch his breath.

"Did you see Suicune?" Kris asked, unable to stop the twitch at the right corner of her mouth.

"I hope so," Morty snickered as Eusine struggled to find words. "It knocked him on his butt."

Eusine glared at his friend. "As always, Morty, you are the definition of maturity."

Morty held out his hands in surrender. "I can't help it if I think watching that was funny," he objected. "It's always funny when it happens to someone else."

"Do you need to dunk your head in a bucket of cold water to calm down, then?"

"I think I do, actually." Morty nodded toward the kids. "I'll be at the Gym if you need me. I'll see you later."

Ethan paced outside the Pokémon Center, the group's collective team all watching him. After hearing that Morty was a user of Ghost-type Pokémon, Ethan had decided that Slowpoke, at least, was unable to participate in the battle. But at the moment, he was disappointed in himself and his friends. Twelve Pokémon among them, and not a single Dark-type.

"Normal-types are good," Lyra pointed out. "They resist Ghost-type attacks."

"But Normal-type moves don't do anything to Ghosts, either," Ethan whined. "Togepi knows Metronome, but other than that, none of his moves will do any good, and who knows the odds of getting something done. Does Skyrocket know any non-Normal attacks?"

"Well, if he eats seeded fruit, he can learn Bullet Seed..."

"Which is an illegal move for a Furret."

Kris didn't seem to mind that part at all, instead stroking her Hoppip's little leaf propeller. "You had a Bayleef use Bite to get the Plain Badge, and you didn't complain at all when Skyrocket attacked Falkner to earn you the Zephyr Badge. And, after all, you shut down Team Rocket's Slowpoketail operation. Just claim protagonist-centered morality."

"But this is an even-numbered badge! I beat Bugsy fair and square, so I want to do the same with Morty." His eyes landed on Eevee, who stepped to the side to hide behind Sudowoodo. "Hey, Lyra, why don't you evolve your Eevee into an Umbreon?"

"Because I want him to choose what he becomes," Lyra replied instantly. She looked down at the terrified Eevee. "Do you want to be an Umbreon?" He shook his head. "There you go. No Umbreon for us."

Kris was checking her Pokedex, examining her own Pokémon. "You can borrow Chomper and Snubbull," she offered, indicating the Croconaw and the pink dog. "They both know Bite. Add that to Avery and Pidgey, and you've got yourself a nice team of four."

Ethan looked Chomper in the eye. "What do you say?" he asked. "Do you want to be my Pokémon for a while?"

Chomper considered, and nodded enthusiastically. Ethan gently stroked his snout like he'd seen Kris do hundreds of times, and turned to the cranky-looking dog. "What about you? Will you help me out?"

Snubbull turned her back on him. "Unless I get treats, I only take orders from Kris."

Kris rolled her eyes. "I'll give you a good-girl star," she almost sang, as if she'd understood. "You know that four good-girl stars in a row means human food, don't you?"

Snubbull's eyes grew wide, and she immediately began to think about what kind of human food she would ask for. She had no problem with Pokémon food and berries, but human food just smelled so delicious...Perhaps she'd start small, a sandwich or a ginger cookie...

She snapped her thoughts back to reality. This would only be her second good-girl star, she reminded herself. But she turned around and gave Ethan the biggest, cheesiest doggy smile she could manage. Ethan grinned back.

"All right, then," he declared, calling all his Pokémon back into their balls. "Time to get trading. And then..."

"We go to the Gym?" Lyra offered, but Ethan shook his head.

"Not yet. We trade, and then we take on wild Pokémon for practice!"