EDITOR'S NOTE: "Just a warning - I wrote and edited this chapter almost completely alone in one week, while the internet was down for most of it. There was a lot of caffeine and pencil-related pain involved, and I didn't do anything I wanted to with Glacia. But I got it done."

Brendan eventually discovered that Wally had a Key Stone himself. Both of them had saved their Megas for the final round, and now it was Mega Aggron against Mega Gallade.

It was not a good match. He should have saved Banette for the Ralts evolution. He still had Grumpig standing, and if necessary he could switch to Beldum and a Revive or two. But he had expected a Gardevoir, and Steel-types had an advantage over Fairy-types...

May had no comment on the type match, choosing something different. "Where did you find a Galladite?"

"Item trades," Wally replied. "Found an Audinite. Swapped it to a girl who said she was from Unova." He switched his attention back to the battle. "Gallade, Close Combat!"

"Forget it," Brendan said as his Mega took the hit. "Come back, Aggron, let's have Grumpig handle this!"

Mega Aggron gave him a grateful smile as she disappeared. Grumpig might not have had a Mega, but he had enough of an advantage over Gallade's Fighting-type to make the Psychic part irrelevant.

A few Psyshock attacks later, Mega Gallade stumbled backward to Wally, fell to his knees, and after a few moments of trying to get back up, conceded defeat like the warrior he was.

Wally called him back, and it seemed like he was trying not to scold his Pokémon. "I thought training would be enough to beat you," he said, clearly bitter about the loss. "I even evolved my Kirlia into Gallade so I could get rid of his Fairy-type weakness to your Aron or whatever she was when we battled last. And you still defeated me."

Brendan patted Grumpig on the head as he fed him a red Pokeblock. "It's amazing how strong you get when you're stalked by evil teams at every turn." At Wally's childish reaction, he laughed. "We're still friends, right?"

"I guess." Wally looked down at his Pokeballs again, then up at May. "What about you? Have you been in more Contests?"

"No," she answered. "Too busy saving the world to wait for the next rank of Cool contests. I caught a Torkoal and Absol for when I get back to it, though."

Wally looked impressed. "Do you have an Absolite?" he asked excitedly. "Because if you don't, I know where to get one. Or maybe a Swampertite, that's a little harder but..."

"I have a Mega," May interrupted. "I wouldn't mind an Absolite for Contests, but my La...um, this one is good enough for battle."

Wally remained unimpressed. "I know you have a Latias," he said, and she whistled innocently. "I talked to your dad."

"But I like to keep her secret from outsiders. An Absolite will be fun. What do you want me to do for it?"

"I want a battle with Latias," Wally said, as if it was an everyday occurrence that he ran into a legendary trainer. "According to myth, she and Latios were closer to demigods than full-blown Olympus-dwellers. If I battle her, I might have a chance to win."

"So I get the Absolite if I beat you?"

"Or if you lose. I just want a chance."

"Are you part of a Mega Stone black market?" Brendan asked suddenly. "Do you buy stolen Mega Stones from people?"

"What?" Wally wasn't even offended, just surprised. "I find them or buy them from specialists, like everyone else. What have you been getting into since our last face-to-face meeting?"

Brendan stayed quiet. Wally took that to mean he'd won. "I'm going to train more. I have the Elite Four and Champion coming up, and if I lost against Brendan, I can't be expected to win against them." Brendan joke-punched his arm. Wally had recovered from his mystery illness enough to punch back. "But Brendan might want to give it a shot. They might take it easier on somebody who stopped two criminal organizations from destroying the world."

"Really?" Brendan turned to May. "Then we have to go and prove our identities. Let's go."

"I'm not helping you battle," May objected.

"Then don't. Just be a good little cheerleader." May glared. Brendan grinned. "Now, onward to victory!"

Brendan didn't spend much time at the Pokémon Center/Pokemart fusion. He dropped his Pokémon with the nurse, decided to go and spend all of his money on Full Restores and Revives, and then he picked them up. There wasn't much to tell.

"It's too bad that Beldum didn't evolve like Steven promised," Brendan said as they went into the first chamber. "I was looking forward to having a Metang."

"Look on the bright side," May told him. "Maybe it'll evolve before you reach the Champion. There's still hope."

The door to the next room swung open, distracting Brendan from what he was about to say. That was probably a good thing.

The man waiting for them was almost entirely bald, only a small puff of hair at the front of his head. Before Sootopolis, Brendan might have made fun of it. Now, he didn't even blink, only wished that the guy had gone for a Mohawk instead.

"So," he said, starting the conversation before the man could introduce himself, "what type do you use?"

"That was fast." The man had been warned about Brendan, that much May could guess by the total lack of surprise. "I use Dark-types, but shouldn't you let me make a speech first?"

"I'm done with speeches," Brendan said. "I've had to listen to eight Gym Leaders and two wannabe supervillains make them all through my journey. I came for a battle, not a conversation."

"But I'm paid to make the speech!"

"Then speech over the battle," Brendan suggested. "I guarantee I will not be listening." He pitched a ball. "Breloom, do the thing!"

The man didn't protest. "I'm Sidney," he said, "and this is my Absol!"

"I have to admit," May said as they moved down the hallway separating Sidney from the second Elite, "it's nice to see what Dusky's capable of."

"Dusky's a Contest Absol," Brendan reminded her. "He has a long way to go before he's your first choice in battle."

"But I don't want to be an Elite. I just want to teach him some better moves, and get Wally to give me that Absolite he promised."

"I guess." Brendan stopped in front of the door, considering something. "Can we make a trade, here and now? My Banette, your Latias."

"You want to use a legendary to battle the Elite Four?"

"Why not?" Brendan almost faked innocence, but he caught himself in time. May could see right through it. "I have a friend who has a Latias. There is nothing in the trainer rules that says legendaries can't be used as weapons to demolish the Elite Four. Why not take advantage of it?"

"I can think of plenty of reasons why not," May said immediately. "The first being that I don't trust you, but the second is that Latias is mine, not yours."

"Haven't you ever learned to share?"

"Haven't you ever learned the rest of the trainer's rulebook? If someone doesn't want to trade, you accept it instead of pressuring them."

"Fine." Brendan sighed dramatically. "I'll go through the Elite Four completely Legendary-free. Happy?"

"Very," May answered, entirely serious, and pulled him into the next room.

The second Elite was a pretty young woman, mid-twenties at most, with enormous flowers in her hair and dressed more for a beach than for work. Brendan prepared himself for a Grass or Ground user, but stopped before he sent in Grumpig.

The woman was reading. Out loud. In an empty room.

Brendan immediately altered his strategy. This was clearly either Ghost or Fairy, and given how dark the room was...

The woman looked up. "Hi," she said, her voice soft even now. "I'm Phoebe, the Ghost master."

Yeah, he'd called that one. "You read to ghosts?"

Phoebe nodded happily. "They come to me, so I hang out with them. I don't have that many living friends."

Not even Brendan could say something about that. "Choose your Pokémon," he said. "Your dead friends want entertainment, so maybe they can watch."

Phoebe's smile brightened. "They already are," she promised, as if she saw nothing wrong with the statement. "All of them."

On instinct, both heroes turned around. They saw absolutely nothing, of course, and May let the chill run down her spine.

Brendan, on the other hand, tried to suppress his fear. "And that was an excellent demonstration of why the living don't like to hang out with you."

"That's mean!" Phoebe picked her choice Pokémon off of the table. "Banette, time to play!"

Brendan's choice had long been made. "Adam, do the thing!"

Phoebe was stronger than Brendan had expected. Her Banette had known Psychic (the attack, as he'd needed clarification when she'd given the order) and had nearly won. But thanks to Blaze Kick and a same-type power-up, Adam had managed to pull through.

Now the kids were in the third hallway, and they already knew exactly what type this person used. Torkoal had been called out to be a living space heater. When they walked through that door, the third of Hoenn's Elites already had a ball in hand.

"You are Brendan and May?" she asked. "The saviors of Hoenn?"

"That's us." Brendan raised a fist in a mockery of cheesy action cartoons. "You must be the Glacia that Phoebe mentioned. I accept your unconditional surrender."

"You will not be getting it. I take my job very seriously." She looked over at Torkoal. "Is this the Pokémon you will be using?"

"He's not mine," Brendan said immediately. "He's my friend's. What Pokémon are you going to use?"

Glacia looked down at the ball in her hand, moved to put it away, and reconsidered. "Walrein, go!"

Brendan had initially planned on using Adam again, but Walrein was a Water-type as well. His second choice came immediately. "Aggron, do the thing!"

As Aggron took her place on the field, Glacia noticed the Aggronite hidden under her armor. "Aggronite?"

"Would anything else work?" Brendan raised the hand with his Key Stone. "Aggron, Mega Evolve!"

With the loss of her Water-type weakness, Mega Aggron could Rock Smash her way to victory. Glacia let them go, but warned them about Brendan's final Elite opponent.

"Drake uses Dragon-type Pokémon," she said, "and only Dragon, Ice and Fairy attacks do decent damage. You don't look like a boy who uses any of those."

"I'm not," Brendan confessed, "but I have a plan. I'll go in and try to convince Drake that giving me a free pass to the Champion is a good idea."

"He won't fall for it," May tried to say, but Brendan held up a hand to demand silence.

"I am the son of a Gym Leader," he reminded her. "You are the daughter of Hoenn's top researcher. What happened to 'forget the rules, we have connections?' I thought that would be Team Breakneck's motto."

"Wally doesn't have connections."

"But he's the only one - and he's got the rest of us. Besides, we're the saviors of Hoenn! The region owes us!"

"Wallace unlocked the Sky Pillar so Rayquaza could save Hoenn," May told him. Brendan pretended he didn't hear her. "Fine, you can talk to Drake. Just don't go expecting special treatment from him."

Brendan, almost as if proving her wrong was his favorite pastime, started on his way down the hall to Drake's chamber.

Drake really didn't look like a man who would let anyone pass, even if they defeated him in battle. Or maybe it was just his impressive mustache making him look much stricter than he was. May didn't think so - the guy was wearing a coat opened with no shirt under it despite his close proximity to Glacia's room. He was either one of the toughest men on the planet, or one of the dumbest.

"Brendan and May?" he asked. The kids immediately confirmed. "The Champion told me that he wants to test you himself, so let's skip the rest of the introduction and start the battle." He tossed his Pokeball. "Get him, Salamence!"

Brendan's thought process crashed. A Salamence was part Flying-type, leaving Adam and Breloom out. It could learn Flamethrower, leaving Aggron useless. There were probably some Dark-type moves, too, so that took out Grumpig and Banette. And he didn't even consider Beldum, the thing hadn't even evolved despite Steven's promise...

"Time out!" May called. Brendan and Drake both stared at her. "I have to heal Brendan's Pokémon, I forgot to do it in the hall. Come on, Brendan!"

She dragged him into a corner before he could ask, and had released Aggron to give her a Full Restore. "What are you planning?" he managed after a moment to think.

"You and I both know your Pokémon probably can't take what Salamence throws out," May said, not even whispering, so quietly Brendan had to strain to hear. "So we'll cheat. Cheat like we've never cheated before. I'll give Aggron some Leppa Berries, too, and you take Jerry. Pass me Breloom, I know you want Beldum to get experience."

Brendan wanted to say 'Look at you, almost evil!' But he kept his mouth shut as he took Jerry's ball from her bag strap, as carefully as a second-grader stealing a cookie, and called Aggron back. Then he made sure Drake saw him give her Breloom, and said clearly, "This battle should be quick. You heal him for the next one."

Drake might have noticed. It was hard to tell. But even if he did, he didn't seem to care. "And what Pokémon do you choose?"

Brendan threw the ball as hard as he could. "Jerry, do the thing!"