A powerful flap of Charizard's wings propelled the wind out from underneath him, lifting him into the air and into a mid-air drift. His thick body swung like a pendulum, suspended, making him glide back for a moment as his tail swung beneath him to get the right momentum. Once he had mustered the strength, steering himself, he punched his wings down and launched up, gaining height among the bright lights of the enclosed arena of Malva's Elite Four chamber.
Serena's long hair whipped around her as she watched Charizard ascend, reaching enough of a height that he could strafe from, enough speed and momentum to move quickly when dodging attacks. Reaching to keep her hat on, she took a step back and looked towards Malva, watching where her and her Houndoom paced at their end of the arena.
"Alright Charizard," Serena said with a breath, steeling herself. "Use Focus Blast!"
The swirling ball of energy for the attack pooled together in Charizard's outstretched arms, glowing and flashing brilliantly, aura swarming all around the flashing core of it. The piercing sound of the attack charging echoed throughout the high walls of the chamber, growing to become more shrill.
Though Serena's gaze lingered on where she had watched Charizard ascend, she turned to look back at the Houndoom and its position on the field. She saw a bright surge of light beside her. Before she could even consider what was on the other side of it, she felt an intense warmth rushing out towards her, the sound of air rushing and billowing out. She looked toward Houndoom and met with a full Fire Blast attack in its place, encompassing her vision. Swirling columns of fire expanded out in plumes, glowing at full intensity as they expanded into a full torrent. Serena's normally calm and collected demeanor was shattered, her eyes going wide as she looked into the face of the attack—it wasn't aimed at Charizard, it was aimed at her.
The gentle warmth had grown in a near instant, peaking into an intense heat that tinged every inch of skin that had wasn't covered. She could feel it smarting everywhere, her brain unable to comprehend what was happening when the fire got close. Shielding herself would have done her no good, but even that didn't cross her shocked mind—she just stood there, unable to understand, unwilling to understand.
A cooling gust of air whipped through Serena, suddenly rushing in front of her. Her wide eyes looked at where the plumes of fire that had launched out were converging to make for the final blast mere inches from her chest, watching as a bright blue flash of light emerged from the center. The gust of air Serena had felt from behind was Charizard, and the Focus Blast attack had been directed in front of her to diffuse the Fire Blast. The sudden expansion of energy from the exploding blast was like getting hit by a jet engine, landing squarely in Serena's chest. It knocked her back, toppling over where the heels of her boots would have absorbed the momentum and sending her straight for the rubberized flooring of the arena. She landed on her arm, her legs skidding out the side and forcing her into a roll, her hair becoming tangled as her arms made a weak, last ditch attempt to shield herself.
"Chaaaaarraaa—!"
For a moment, the only thing that Serena could feel was a small tingling sensation that had traveled through both of her arms. It felt like she had been electrocuted, and as the sensation passed back out through her fingertips—what little feeling was left passing down through her legs and surging off of her toes—she slowly came back to the moment around her.
Charizard had landed in a crater of his own making—an impact that Serena had been too dazed to feel or remember, she thought, in the same string of dazed thoughts that had made her wonder why her Charizardite-wielding Pokemon had a black hide in that moment—and was now holding ground opposite where Houndoom was on the battlefield several dozen feet away. The tattered, thin black wings that Charizard was wielding on his backside fluttered stiffly in the resulting wind, holding their ground.
It was dark in the chamber. The lighting effects that had set the mood in the chamber had gone out, knocked aside from the explosive force of Charizard's Focus Blast. What was once purple track-lights that trailed grooves in the steel walls and bright flares of magenta light from the bottom edges of where the floor met the walls was now dark and steely. The bright red auxiliary lights had failed to turn on from the sudden loss of power, but through vents in the wall came bright flashes of blue light hidden beneath, where server lights and other electronic panels blinked their tiny LEDs and made the arena feel like some kind of futuristic prison.
In the darkness, Serena could hear laughter, and as she tried lifting her stiff, sore body from the ground she looked over towards where she had seen Malva in the first place. There was nothing left but a dark silhouette.
"Speaking of, fueling the fire—ahahaha!" Malva laughed heartily, unable to keep herself from gloating.
Serena could smell the burnt, rubberized coating that had been worn away in the arena floor, but more importantly she could smell that burnt smell on herself. None of those things mattered to her, she couldn't keep her attention away as she listened to Malva gloating.
"You can kiss goodbye to any thought of proceeding in this challenge, the Elite Four, or even as a Pokemon Trainer," said Malva. The laughing, mad side of her had subsided, and even though she was still gloating and clearly enjoying having Serena under her thumb, having the tide of battle so clearly turned in that moment. Instead, she had turned to taunting, almost explaining out the schedule of events that had now changed in order to keep Serena from violating it. "You might consider yourself lucky to be the first person to have ever died in an Elite Four challenge… It's a rather prestigious honor, and a good way to go out after being the trainer to singlehandedly defeat Team Flare…"
The room was going dark. Serena couldn't tell if it was from the power in the room fading or her own failing constitution. She reached out with a hand, grasping at the ground to see if she could pull herself up, discovering that she really couldn't. Surviving the attack may have kept her in one piece, but she was in far worse shape than she had initially thought. It was miraculous that she hadn't broken a single bone yet, but her skin felt like it had been flayed, and the energy she once had minutes ago seemed to have been sapped away. She could feel a tingling sensation in her leg like it was falling asleep, but she knew it was from the absolute loss of blood.
"Of course, you and I might know that you didn't truly die today. You might have a few extra bruises, a broken bone or two when I'm done strapping you into the lift, but you won't die. That might not come for a long time. But once it does, once it does… Calem's transformation will be complete. Killing you is the only thing that stands between him and truly embracing his future with Team Flare."
Serena couldn't even reach the bag in front of her. She hadn't even had it on her person when she had fallen—she had fallen past it when she had been knocked back. It was close, but not nearly close enough. Her fingers clawed at the floor, knowing it was still impossible to get up from the floor, but unable to listen to the new sound she was hearing: the sound of Malva's clicking heels as they crossed the battlefield.
In the darkest corner of the room, a fire suddenly erupted. A pipe that had become exposed from the ensuing blast suddenly had the contents it had leaked onto the ground catching fire, setting up a low set of flames that flickered up from the ground. The dark figure of Malva appeared fully within Serena's vision, getting steadily closer. Up above, she heard a pressure valve release—supposedly the sprinkler system—but nothing came through, something Serena knew deep down was by design.
"Of course, that's what I like about you, that fight in you. If I had to kill you now because you put up that much of a fight, I certainly wouldn't shed any tears for my heinous mistake."
"Aazaaaaarrd!"
A sudden shot of blue flame erupted from Charizard's open jaw, pummeling forward until it rammed the space of floor beneath Houndoom. The sudden blast knocked Houndoom upward, toppling him into a backward arc until he slammed into the back wall behind him with the deafening crunch of steel on steel. The sheer speed and fury at which the fire shot out from Charizard rocketed him upward, his wings expanding out from where they had been tucked close to his backside as he caught himself on the air and balanced himself. As he flapped and kept himself in position in mid-air, he craned his long draconic neck to point his head like a cannon, puffing out his chest just enough to bellow out the fire inside and readying several more shots.
Though Houndoom had slumped to the base of the wall, where the steel door behind him remained shut, he had barely recovered before three more shots landed out in front of him. At the back edge of the arena where Malva and Houndoom had occupied space moments earlier, the arena floor was hit so hard by the shots that the explosion out from the ground where the shot had landed appeared almost before the surging blue tail of Charizard's fire had. Chunks of thick, rubberized flooring exploded out from the crater before dozens of smaller chunks sputtered out, smoke emerging from where the blast had dug out into the metal platform beneath. The edges of the rubber flooring glowed brightly, turning to red, natural flame. The superheated chunks inside glowed like coals, small flames kicking up from inside.
The ground shuddered powerfully as Charizard then landed on his hind legs, the momentum from launching himself down onto the ground making him skid to a stop just before he might have inadvertently fallen into the crater beneath. He grasped at the end of the crater to hold himself up with a lanky, Mega-Evolved arm, his free arm pulling back up from behind him before launching down into the pit beneath for a powerful punch. The entire ground around him shook from the resulting blow, the powerful sound of steel shredding ricocheting up out of the pit as he pulled his arm out for another punch, and then another. The sound of him hitting something solid beneath the buckling steel was almost cringeworthy, but it didn't stop Charizard from pounding repeatedly at it until the first sounds of it buckling came.
There was a hissing sound—Serena realizing that he had been hitting at a pipe. She looked up through the darkness, beyond where the first fire had begun, looking to see near the door where the platform they were standing on dropped-off and several pipes ran beneath steel panels on the wall to run beneath the floor—precisely where Charizard had spotted them and acted upon that educated guess.
"He's going to burn the whole place down…" Serena gasped, weakly, unable to comprehend what was happening.
The pipe fully burst, and for a moment the rush of liquid that plumed up into a steam engulfed Charizard's craning head in a white fanning geyser. It almost immediately turned into a jet of pure flame, exploding out and rocketing up like a jet engine. All around Charizard, the craters he had made earlier were now erupting out from the pipes he had exposed. Even his flameproof hide was getting marred by the incredible heat, forcing him to wail and raise his head out from the plumes of fire as they settled into an intense bonfire, his body a dark shadow in the incredible rise of fire.
It was then that Houndoom came sailing out of the back, launching himself through the fire and flames to land atop Charizard, pinning him to the ground. They skidded together, Houndoom on top of the pinned and writhing Charizard. The long neck that craned from Charizard's body batted his head around to gain some kind of momentum that might have wrestled him out from Houndoom, his face glowing with where flames had gouged into the hide on his face—something that Houndoom took plenty advantage of when he slammed down a paw onto his neck to pin him, reached his head down and unleashed another torrent of Fire Blast flames.
The sprawling flames that reached out and blasted out over the floor from where Charizard's screeching, squirming head was spread out over the floor quickly, superheating sections of the floor. Beneath the new, glowing patches of floor that had revealed weaknesses and deep cracks that ran through the rubberized coverings of the steel plated floor, the fissures grew to become greater and greater, until they ruptured out and became geysers of flame from the pipes beneath—just like Charizard's craters. All around the battlefield, massive explosions punched out through the arena floor, further out from where Charizard and Houndoom presently wrestled—all falling into Charizard's plan.
It seemed that the rules didn't apply any more, and though Serena couldn't understand Charizard's plan she had managed to drag herself to her back. On her belly, she had pulled her body along the ground, praying silently that a pipe wouldn't go up in a fiery explosion beneath her as she reached for her bag. Her hand had gone inside, reaching for the contents as she grasped for a Pokeball, instead feeling something very different.
"There's the fight I was talking about!"
Malva grabbed for Serena's arm, getting a strong grip and flipping her over, forcing her onto her back. A powerful surge of pain came from it, even though it was the one place she thought couldn't have been burned. Dazed, trying to get herself a sense of place after her frail body had been flung about so easily on the comparatively hard floor of the arena, her eyes opened wide to look into Malva's overshadowed face. The pink, prim hair that had once seemingly been sculpted to perfection around her head was dark with sweat, hanging down in ragged and seemingly demented shaped in places that had come loose. The red, goggle-like sunglasses that obscured her eyes flickered with the reflections of the flames in the room that were now climbing up the walls, looking like the gatekeeper of the hell that Serena was now in.
Though Serena had pulled her body up just enough to squirm away from where Malva had gripped her arm, even if just to make it harder for Malva to pull her in, Malva soon had another hand on her arm, forcibly pulling her up. Serena felt her own legs dropping out from beneath her—something that Malva had planned for and dragged her body back with a sharp jerk. Serena watched in horror beneath her as her sliding, weak legs glided out and knocked aside her bag—her Pokeballs spilling out and rolling across the floor, into a section where unstable fires had brewed inside of fresh craters.
"Not only are you making it easier for me to kill you, you're making me want it. Hell, you're almost giving me no choice…!"
It was then that Serena had remembered herself reaching into her bag, grasping for something that wasn't a Pokeball, and remembering that it was still in her hand. The feeling of something plastic and oblong in her sweaty, weak grip gave her inspiration when she realized what it was, and gripped it tighter in the desperate hope that she wouldn't let it go.
Her hand turned, ramming the device in her hand—a Super Potion—with the nozzle facing out and pricking into Malva's arm, her luck making the stab point be one of the main arteries of the arm. She squeezed the trigger, forcing all of the contents to unload inside of her arm.
"Aaaahhh!" Malva howled, shouting out in pain. The arm she had stabbed relinquished her grip on Serena and yanked back, her eyes wide beneath her sunglasses as she watched the once healthy flesh beneath turn brown beneath the skin, spreading up from the apex of her joint to the tips of her seizing, clawing fingers. She momentarily flung her arm, trying to get the terrible burning sensation out of it, only managing to forcibly fling out the Super Potion from where it had pricked her arm, deepening the gash.
Serena's feet finally found the ground, her numb feet finding a place to plant her sneakers. Where Malva had grabbed her arm, Serena grabbed and pulled herself up to stand, her momentum launching at Malva. Her instinct to grab Malva into a kind of hug that would normally have stabilized her and kept her from falling was used as a momentum to push Malva back, forcing her to stumble. When Malva fell away, tripping over her own heels when her ankles rolled and unable to stop herself with her dying arm, Serena was still standing, straight, her adrenaline still kicked in and making her feel as healthy as ever when she knew her body was just a lightweight husk of what it had been.
In her peripheral vision, Serena had watched as Charizard ascended to fly along the walls, firing back at Houndoom down on the ground as more and more Fire Blasts were vollied at him. Charizard was growing weaker—reminding Serena that he had been weak in the first place. The situation was growing bleaker, Charizard enduring another attack he hadn't been able to dodge, and one that was bringing him lower to the ground—right where Houndoom was ready to strike at him.
It was then that Serena spotted something gleaming at her, flashing in the growing fire light. Serena had remembered her Pokeballs, where they had spilled out.
Serena had only taken three Pokemon in with her to the Elite Four, and though they had already fainted she knew there was a Revive or two in her bag she could get to easily. It wasn't that it mattered now, there was no point in healing them if Serena knew she might just as soon die in the blazing inferno that Charizard had created. Still, it didn't stop her from running after them, hurrying after where they had remained on the ground—she needed to be with them in that moment. It was getting harder and harder to move and run through the former battlefield, as fires that had grown from their comparatively large starts with their glowing red flames, now up to towers of fire in their hottest, bright yellow forms. The bonfires that had grown had superheated the surrounding craters, making chunks of rubberized floor explode and shower Serena in their tiny crumbs as she ran through. The smoke was swirling through the air but it was becoming stagnant, thicker and thicker as the fires were now impressive and all-consuming. It made Serena's eyes burn, showing where the intense, bright yellow flames flickered up in their hottest form, choking her lungs out. She couldn't see where the distant fires ended against the walls any more, and she could barely see the flickering floor.
Serena knew she couldn't afford to bring herself down when she knew it would be that much harder to get back onto two feet again. Still, she hurried on, pressing on until she reached the ground where the Pokeballs rested a short distance away. She dropped onto her knees, feeling the intense pain of landing on them but ignoring them once she had scooped up the Pokeballs.
She cradled them in her filthy, burnt hands, looking into the clean surfaces. She could feel which ones were which—she knew them. This may have been it, for all of them.
The ground crunched behind Serena, as Houndoom approached from the side—having taken the long route around a powerful fire that had blocked off the entrance. Though he had scrapes and bruises, sections of fur matted with streaks of blood and marred with fiery assaults, he emerged alone—victorious. He halted, even though he could have attacked Serena and ended the struggle there, he wouldn't when Malva was giving a command, something Serena had known from the short encounters she had with Malva before. The movement in the corner dug the creeping dagger of realization further into Serena's skull as she had logically considered that Malva was the one to summon and stop him, even if it was just to show how defenseless Serena was.
The elegant black heels that Malva had worn were destroyed, a pointed heel hanging from where it had been snapped free of the dress shoe as she tossed it, walking barefoot across the rubble. She had used her good free arm to toss it, her other arm looking like the spotted hide of a Girafarig to Serena in the dim light as it hung with the limp swinging movements of her walking gait by her side. From her backside, she produced a small dagger, flipping it in her grasp to face the blade out like she was ready to carve a Christmas dinner, wielding the flickering silver edge as she came closer.
"It seems time will always make the best of us, Serena. It seems this attempted suicide by you to take me with you will still end in murder…"
Serena remained resolute. She didn't flinch, even as things looked grim.
"Alas, it seems, it is time to say goodbye," said Malva, the last little bit through her teeth as she looked down at Serena in disgust.
"Houndoooo…"
The wailing sound came from just behind Malva. She turned, not afraid of anything that Serena might have done in that moment, instead looking over to where Houndoom's wail was. It sounded like a death cry, like he was giving out, and indeed he was. The floor shook when he landed on his side, making an impact in the ground, his paws kicking up limply by his side like he hadn't intended to stop himself from falling as limply as he had. Though Malva was keen to write it off as simple heat exhaustion, that explanation wasn't enough—he was mortally wounded, his passing out coming from suffering from his injuries. As she turned back to look at Serena, a look of conflict passed through Malva's face—her eyes obscured beneath the sunglasses, but clearly searching the room and looking, wondering if she too would be able to survive this unscathed.
Malva then looked down to Serena. At first she was satisfied, seeing that Serena's posture had shifted in her weakness, but as she thought about it and looked on, it didn't make sense at all.
Serena had sat herself back on the floor, planted in a sprawled position on her posterior, looking like she was in the midst of a crabwalk that would have walked herself into the fiery pit behind her. As Malva looked into her dirt and ash-stained face, her cheeks marked with the darkened materials of what had fluttered down from the ceilings after rising on plumes of smoke, her eyes were steely despite their glossy nature in the light of the fires. Down below, as Malva looked down, Serena had kicked her sneaker off, laying in a pile of smoldering rubble, and her stockinged leg was reaching out, outstretched. She had taken something from it, something that had been stashed inside the shoe, and she didn't need to look very far to see the two disposed devices—devices for feeding Revive packets into Pokeballs. They were empty, used, and when Malva looked up in terror towards Serena she saw the two Pokeballs resting in her grip, fingers primed over the release buttons.
"Say goodbye to this."
Serena raised her arms, reaching them out and holding them straight. Her fingers found the release buttons, readied to press them, and—
Just then, a shrill cry broke the terse ambiance of crackling fires, coming from just above. Both Serena and Malva knew exactly who it was, telling themselves as much when they looked at each other.
"Zaaaaarrd!"
The thrush of wings rose sharply above the fires behind them, momentarily sending their flames elsewhere and darkening Serena's surroundings. She felt an impressive rush of air from behind her as Charizard flew in from behind. A set of clawed toes grasped for Serena's outstretched arms, gripping them firmly as to hold on as she suddenly felt the weight of Charizard pulling her off the ground. The block in Serena's thoughts stopped her from triggering the release, and not to make the same mistake twice she held onto the Pokeballs in her hand, refusing to let them fall away inside the building.
Though Serena could feel herself getting lifted off the ground, it didn't stop Malva from rushing at her. With only one functioning arm, she saved her battle cry for later and stuffed the handle of the knife between her clamped teeth—something that looked strange with her polished, straight white teeth and her perfect lipstick. She managed to jump at Serena, getting an arm around the backside of Serena's neck. She then threw her legs around Serena's backside, grasping her legs around above her hips and relinquishing where her arm held Serena. She expertly dropped the knife into her hand, readying it to stab.
"Do you think—haah— you could take off without me?" Malva gasped, out of breath from holding herself so tightly. The muscles of her core, just outside her belly, were the lone thing keeping her up.
The added weight made Charizard only move laterally, unable to lift himself with the two of them in tow. He flapped desperately, groaning in anguish as he felt his trajectory slipping backwards. Where both Serena and Malva were dangling brushed over a powerful bonfire that had risen even higher than it had before, driving Serena's legs through where the flickering tips were reaching up.
"Aaah!" Serena shouted, her legs brushing with the intense flames. She had kicked her legs up to pull them away, failing to get the right momentum and having to swing them back down dangerously close to the flames. As she had, it put her dangerously within the territory of the fire, and she made her next swing count.
"Aaarrizaaaa!"
A panicked wail came from above Charizard, making Serena look over towards where she felt Charizard's leg beginning to squirm and writhe. Malva had plunged the knife into his hind leg, truly trying take them both down.
The grip that Charizard had on Serena's upper arm was suddenly relinquished. Though Serena had felt herself dropping down to the side, it hadn't stopped the momentum of her upward kick. She had only seconds to think, and as she dangled by a lone arm, she drove the one foot with a sneaker still on it into Malva's face. The inside corner of her foot rammed into the side of her face, colliding in a powerful blow, knocking her free.
The legs that had grabbed at Serena's hips suddenly loosened, sprawling out as Malva slipped down, her whole body turning away from where Serena had landed a powerful kick. Though her limp arm had obviously flung free, her other arm was flying away too, taking the knife that had plunged into Charizard's leg and sending it in a spiral, hurtling away into the darkness of the chamber. Serena's other leg, the stockinged one, had managed to ram her toes into Malva's crotch, blocking any attempt for Malva to grab back with her legs and hang on in the strange, acrobatic way she had before. It sent her into a spiral, flipping backwards head first, hurtling down towards the ground. Malva disappeared beneath a flaring column of fire from one of the bonfires that had grown to such intensity.
"Chaaarriii—zaaaaarrddd—!" A victorious howl came from Charizard as he found new strength, his injured leg grabbing for Serena and gripping it with no thought to how hard he was grabbing her.
Charizard's wings angled with an upward swing of his body. Serena felt like she had crested the highest hill of a roller-coaster, her body being taken down at full speed as Charizard dived down into the flaming pits of the former arena. Just when Serena had wondered if Charizard had really succumbed to the same kind of weakness that Houndoom had, Charizard then banked around, swinging the two of them in a hard arc before coming back up at full speed. Through the haze and the smoke, as they raced to the top and blinding speed, Serena thought she could see a dim glimpse of sunlight just up ahead.
Serena then felt an incredible rush of wind she hadn't felt before. A vent had opened, seemingly part of an emergency mechanism that had attempted to pull out the smoke from the sealed inner chamber of the Elite Four arena. The round slot in the ceiling had revealed rings of vent flaps that had opened, a small motor humming as it pulled out all of the smoke it could. Both her and Charizard were flying at full speed, Charizard seeing it as an escape route.
Serena watched, just past where her legs dangled down, looking at the destroyed arena below. Down below, standing on a clearing, watching Malva was there.
With a powerful, thundering boom, the vent tore from its housing on the rooftop and was launched sky-high as Charizard barreled through, sending them high into the evening sky. They cleared the plumes of smoke that had risen above the building, only minutes before the roof finally collapsed.