We couldn't do as much as I wanted to with these characters, but with the Elite Four, we almost never do.

Once inside the Blazing Chamber, to Calem's surprise, they found that it was not hovering over a pit of lava. It did have two tall pillars of fire, but Malva herself was sitting on a throne at the back of the room, not even pretending to be a dragon.

"The Champion said to take it easy on you," she said once Calem had taken his place at the battlefield. "But, considering I'm all but fired anyway, she shouldn't have any control over my actions."

"She's still your boss," Calem reminded her, his hand twitching toward the Master Ball. "If you're all but fired, shouldn't you be trying to get back on her good side?"

"There's no recovering from where I stand." She stood up, still not impressed with Calem. "Still, I suppose she'll be watching me with a surveillance camera or two. Just to make sure I play by her rules."

"She'd put a surveillance camera in here?" Calem looked around, but there was no sign of anything in a place where it wouldn't be destroyed by the fire.

"Who can tell? Perhaps her friend rubbed off on her."

With a little smile at their confusion, Malva chose a Pyroar as her battle partner. A female Pyroar, from the look of it, and one that matched her trainer's confident look.

Calem had a confidence of his own as he sent out Yveltal.

"Maaw-haaw!" the bird cried as it took its place on the field. Calem and Serena watched as Malva's Pyroar let her ears twitch back, like a pet Meowth encountering a Charizard for the first time.

Malva either didn't notice or didn't care. "It's just a Pokémon," she told her Pyroar. "Any other Pokémon can be beaten! Yveltal is no different!" Pyroar whined a little, but Malva ignored it. "Open with Flamethrower!"

Calem had a counter for that. "Oblivion Wing!"

It took three hits instead of one, which was a little unfortunate. But Yveltal won the battle, and proved why legendary Pokémon got to be legendary in the first place.

The second member of the Elite Four was completely unfamiliar. And Calem knew that if he had met this guy before, he would have remembered.

The man, who announced himself as Wikstrom, was wearing a suit of armor on a normal day, not even on his way to a renaissance fair, and it was clear just from looking at him that he was a Steel-type master. But the strangest thing about him was not his outfit, but how he seemed to even speak like an old-fashioned knight.

"So you are the pair who defeated the wicked Lysandre!" His voice boomed, echoing slightly in the room called the Ironworks Chamber.

"That would be us," Calem confirmed, one hand reaching for Pyroar already. This shouldn't take too long.

"My heartfelt thanks to the brave knight and fair lady. Surely, you are more than worthy of what our Champion has planned."

"You're going easy on me, too?"

"I must honor the decree of my superior." Wikstrom removed a Pokeball from his belt. "If she says that you get an easier fight, I shall make it so. It is the least that I can do."

And he sent out a Scizor. Calem momentarily considered sending his own Scizor to battle, and almost did when he saw that Wikstrom's Scizor didn't have a Mega Stone.

In the end, however, he didn't want this journey to go on any longer than it absolutely had to, and he went with his first choice. Scizor would probably enjoy being the last resort against the Champion, anyway.

"Pyroar! Fire Fang!"

This one went down in a single shot. But at least Wikstrom admitted that Calem had been fair.

Third in line was the Dragon-type master. Her name was Drasna, according to the sign in front of the Dragonmark Chamber, and once they reached her, she was much more normal than the first two.

"You've defeated two of us already?" She didn't stop smiling, but it wasn't creepy at all. "I expected it to take longer, even with the Champion's new rule."

"Wikstrom used a Scizor when I had a Pyroar." Calem shrugged. "Malva was a little harder than that."

"But that does explain a few things," Drasna laughed. "Do you plan to use a type advantage to defeat me, too?"

Calem thought of Sylveon, but he didn't say yes. "It all depends on how you plan to counter Ice or Fairy Pokémon. Wikstrom made the mistake of assuming I didn't have a Fire-type on my team."

Drasna's smile turned a little bit smug. "Then tell me. Do you have an Ice-type, or a Fairy-type?"

Calem reached for Sylveon's ball. "Take a guess."

So she did. She threw her Pokeball, and out came a purple seahorse-like creature that looked covered in sewage. Calem had his suspicions, and Serena's Pokedex confirmed it to be a Dragalge, a Dragon/Poison hybrid. No doubt she sent it out to counter any Fairy-types her opponent chose.

Calem immediately took his hand off Sylveon's ball. "Good guess."

Drasna's laughter grew louder. "Do you have any other Pokémon that can type-advantage over a Dragon?"

"I don't think I have a Pokémon that can type-advantage over Poison," Calem admitted. But he already had a different ball in his hand. "But I do have one that might work. Scizor, take it down!"

The red Pokémon appeared facing Calem, as if scolding him for keeping him out of the action for this long, but immediately turned back toward the Dragalge and prepared for the battle to begin.

Drasna called the first move. "Use Surf!"

Scizor took the attack, and the wave sent him so far back he almost crashed into Calem. Calem, in retaliation, held his Key Stone above his head.

"Scizor, Mega Evolve and show off your Iron Head attack!"

The transformation was as immediate as Serena remembered, and Mega Scizor launched right into the attack as soon as the light faded. But Dragalge wasn't going down in one hit, and hit again with Surf. Calem and Scizor decided to follow with another Iron Head.

After the third round of Surf and Iron Head exchanges, both trainers decided to use a Full Restore to bring the Pokémon back to full health. Of course, once they were both ready to fight again, the exchange of the same attacks continued as if there had never been an interruption in the first place.

In the end, though, Drasna was restricted to a single Full Restore for each Pokémon she used in battle. This is what allowed Calem and Mega Scizor to claim their victory.

After defeating three of the Elite Four, Calem entered the Flood Chamber feeling more confident than he'd been since he began his challenge. He had Eddie to face whatever this Siebold guy threw at him, and if for some reason Eddie wouldn't be as effective as he could be, he could use Trevenant or Yveltal instead.

So, when he approached the throne and saw a man, his blond hair somehow both flat and fluffy, he almost forgot the fact that if he won this battle, he would go up against the Champion, who might not hold herself to the same standards that she asked of her minions.

Fortunately, Siebold was more than willing to remind him.

"You do know that the Champion might not take it easy on you?"

Some of Calem's confidence slipped away, but he answered with as much of what remained as he could. "It doesn't matter if she does or not," he said. "I regularly defeated the girl who defeated Lysandre. I can take the Champion, no matter what she decides to do."

"If you can even reach her."

"This battle's already as good as won. She's the only real challenge in this building, if that."

Siebold's serious demeanor cracked just a little bit. "Then let's see how much of that confidence you deserve. Go, Barbaracle!"

For what was not the first time, Calem found himself at a loss for words at the new Pokémon standing in front of him. He'd even seen a Barbaracle before, even if he'd never learned what it was called.

But his momentary confusion didn't stop him from picking up his Chesnaught, and he was rewarded with the opposing Barbaracle looking mildly terrified.

Siebold, like Malva, wasn't impressed. "So that was where your confidence came from," he said, as if it were a new observation. To him, it might have been. "But I'm afraid I've prepared for Grass-types on this one. Use X-Scissor!"

"Spiky Shield!" Calem called, and Eddie put the barrier up seconds before the X-Scissor hit.

Now Siebold looked afraid. "I forgot it could do that," he admitted. Then he shook it off. "It can't keep it up, Barbaracle! X-Scissor again!"

Shaking off the damage from the Spiky Shield, Barbaracle went back for another attack. Eddie was hit this time, but Calem went with a different plan.

"Wood Hammer!"

The attack hit Barbaracle directly in the chest, and the opponent fell directly at Siebold's feet, unable to continue the fight.

Siebold called Barbaracle back into the ball. "I suppose you did deserve to have that level of confidence, after all. You've defeated all four of us, which means that you get to battle the Champion."

"And tell her that I might not have made it if she didn't set that one-on-one rule," Calem said, trying not to laugh.

Siebold didn't seem surprised. "She told us you might say that," he said. "She set the rule in the first place because she wanted to battle you herself. She was looking forward to it."

"She's heard of me?"

"I don't think there's a person in Kalos who hasn't heard of you two by now." He said it completely seriously, which made Calem a little bit nervous. He hoped that there weren't any rumors going around that he and Serena were Flare agents that had a change of heart.

He didn't want people to think he wore that uniform.

But Siebold all but shoved them out of the Flood Chamber before Calem could ask him what he meant, and he felt he had no choice but to simply heal his team in preparation for one of the biggest battles of his life.