When I borrowed my cousin's copy of Yellow a bajillion years ago, I just continued on with his save file, and managed to beat the Elite Four and catch Mewtwo for him. Then somehow my sister got a hold of my Game Boy, started up a new save file, and overwrote the data after she got bored of playing for like 10 minutes. She would've only been 4 or 5 at the time, so I'm surprised she managed to do that, but both of us were still pissed after all the effort we put into that save.