#(also there's a bunch of lysandre quotes scattered through this)

[chaserainbows]

Here we will fix Calem’s rival arc with a hammer ✨enhance the rival Calem experience✨, one step at a time

Calem’s the son of influential trainers who’ve won numerous accolades all over the world. Because of that, expectations were high and he was taught a very competitive mentality, believing that the only thing worth dedicating himself to was aiming for number one- and that if he’s not good at something, or if it doesn’t bring him success, then it’s not worth his time.

His friend group is important to him because that’s one of the few places where he doesn’t have to think about competition and can just be himself. However, as the most experienced trainer of the lot, he ends up standing out anyway and that makes him gradually start falling back into old habits.

All of them represent different aspects of a Pokémon journey:

Tierno wants to build an unique team and partake in sidequests;

Trevor wants to find all kinds of Pokémon and complete the Pokédex;

Shauna wants to discover things at her own pace and make good memories;

And, finally, Calem wants to compete in the Kalos league and become the strongest trainer.

Since all of those different aspirations involve the same basic steps of traveling the region, catching Pokémon and fighting other trainers, Calem’s knowledge is useful for the entire group, making him act as a mentor of sorts.

He sees each of his friends’ goals as something to learn from- someone standing at the top would need good teamwork, knowledge about many different Pokémon species as well as a good sense of adventure- but at the same time he had a hard time seeing them as anything other than temporary fads they’d eventually get over, since he was taught that any self-respecting trainer wanted to be the best.

One day, a girl around his age moves in from a distant region and becomes his neighbor. Reasoning that she most likely didn’t know anyone there and that it must get pretty lonely, he made an effort to integrate her into his social circle and help her acclimate to living in Kalos. Later on, he was surprised to learn that Sycamore wanted her to join his group of assistants, but figured that since he was already teaching everyone else the basic steps of being a trainer, having one more protégée would hardly be an issue.

(It did make him feel a bit jealous that she got handed a starter Pokémon so easily when he went through all the effort of getting the professor to take everyone else in as assistants, but figured that it probably had something to do with her mother’s reputation and kept it to himself.)

With his journey actually beginning, much like in the canon games he wouldn’t be fought in earnest until later on in the plot. Instead, he’d convince his friends to fight as a way of getting stronger, motivating them to compete and rise to stardom with him while also giving them advice on how they can improve. Basically a walking tutorial. Any boss fights he gets during that point (since in the canon games he doesn’t get anything) would be very lighthearted, with him blatantly holding back to help Serena get the hang of being a trainer.

(So, basically, in the Amano timeline there would be WAY more rival boss fights because Shauna only having two is a crime)

However, as the plot progresses, one thing becomes clear- he’s the only one who actually cares about rising to stardom. For his friends, being able to handle themselves in a battle was more of a necessity than something they actually enjoyed, so they had no intention of competing alongside him- that made him worried, since from his perspective they were wasting their potential on frivolities like building uncompetitive teams, documenting Pokémon without training them or wandering around without a purpose. In fact, his own determination to win was starting to make him drift apart from them, and that was the last thing he wanted.

He wanted things to stay exactly as they were, with his friends close to him and progressing in the same direction. Because of that, his encouragement to make them improve becomes less of a selfless act of benevolence and more like pressure to keep them in line.

This reaches a boiling point when they’re told to compete for the Mega Ring and his friends outright refuse. Calem can’t hold back his frustration at their perceived laziness any longer and questions why they’d all want to give up on something that could help every single one of them- it’d give Tierno his own niche as a performer, it’d give Trevor access to nearly undiscovered knowledge about different Pokémon species, and it’d give Shauna unique memories to hold on to. He wants to be stronger, and Mega Evolution would give him an advantage over other trainers, but that doesn’t mean he wants his friends to hold themselves back for his sake. What he does want is for all of them to become strong together.

With that in mind, he decides to compete for the Mega Ring to show that he’s different from all of them- conflicting egos are what drive this world, so he’s not gonna roll over and accept defeat without even trying. He fights Serena seriously for the first time, but even after doing his best ends up losing, and that makes him realize one thing.

Things have permanently changed, whether he likes it or not, and his best is no longer enough. If he’s not Calem the great trainer, the one who excels at everything and leads the path for others to shine… then who is he?