The falling trainer suddenly started slowing down, a geyser of wind cushioning his fall.

He landed safely on the ground; I was astonished at the scene.

'What move is that? Elites are not supposed to do that, are they?' I thought, amazed at the pure manipulation of the wind.

A Zubat of the swarm screeched knocking me out of my stupor.

'Did Cet talk with his fellow brethren to not attack me? Is that a normal Zubat thing or something to do with awakening?' Many questions swirled in my mind after seeing the Zubats retreat to their cave.

'Whatever! Let's concentrate on climbing this cliff for now,' I decided and resumed my climbing, unable to make sense of what had just happened.

As time went by Amanda too started taking frequent breaks, unlike me.

I was 20 to 30 meters away from Madlyn, who was 10M behind Amanda.

"I am going to surpass you soon, Amanda" I shouted making her glance at me.

I don't even know whether she heard me, but she stopped setting up sticky clips to rest, only using random ledges to rest before continuing her climb.

I cursed my big mouth as Amanda increased the distance between us again.

As I climbed questioning my intelligence and impulse control, I heard Madlyn scream causing me to look up.

She was fumbling for a grip and started to fall, unable to catch herself. I caught the rope beside me and started weaving it into crevices and cracks beside me, hoping to stop her fall.

The fall would have been just a minor setback before I taunted Amanda, but with Amanda discarding the use of sticky clips and Madlyn only not using new ones to anchor herself.

She will most likely rip through two or more clips before spending her momentum, the damage it could do to a person doesn't need a special mention.

She fell through beside me and her rope tightened around the cracks, stopping her fall 5 meters below me.

"Are you okay?" I called out.

"Yes!" she replied, her safety gear done its job it seemed.

"What happened?" I asked as she slowly reached me.

"A Paras startled me," she said looking shook up.

"Thank you," she said untying the haphazard knots I did with her rope.

"You should thank the Elites, I decided to implement my haphazard plan believing they would act if you can get hurt because of it," I said looking down to see the lineup of Elites.

"I would have taken a broken bone over losing in the first round of the gathering anytime," Madlyn said, keeping up with me.

"Ha! I thought you would think like that," I exclaimed with a grin on my face.

I looked up to see Amanda staring at us with serious eyes before she released her Charmander.

"Clever, she understood what caused your fall," I said seeing her Charmander take the lead and climb the cliff like a.. lizard, with its claws easily finding purchase on the cracked surface of the cliff.

"That she is," Madlyn muttered and glanced at her Pokeballs with regret.

"By the way, I thought there would be more Elites present, an Indigo league participant would have more elites in his team, than the number present here," I asked searching for my next rest spot.

"You can't be serious," Madlyn spoke incredulously, her voice jumping a pitch.

"You know that a Wild Elite is different from a Trained Elite right?" she asked testing the strength of a root, before pulling herself up.

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"Of course, trained elites would have awakened in their previous stages whereas the Wild Pokemon becomes Elite by awakening in their Apex or Alpha stages," I said thinking back on the newspaper articles I read.

"Wild elites are equal to the champion-level trained Pokemon. My father says the league named wild Awakened Pokemon as wild elites to not intimidate common people. But the official reason is how only wild elite and elite, in some cases interim, can pass their moves to their offspring with a hundred per cent chance," Amanda said, slowing down her climb.

'I thought Madlyn was the silent type, but it seems she is quite chatty when you get to know her,' I thought digesting the info dump.

"Do champion-level Pokemon manipulate their typings freely?" I asked thinking back to Swanna and the recent use of the wind by the Wild elite.

"Yes, you didn't think Pokemon stopped growing in power after 3rd evolution, right? Pokemon have long lives, what did you think an average trainer does as most of them will have Pokemons which would have spent a considerable amount of time in their last evolution forms after a decade of training," she asked with a slightly erratic breath.

"Breaking into the champion tier is very tough, most trainers spend their entire life trying to break into the champion tier with little success."

"You should look up Ace League and its requirements," she said wincing slightly.

Naming wild champion-level Pokemon as Elites certainly makes the unknown number of Wild Elite Pokemon less threatening. Humans don't like to be threatened after all. Especially with Humans occupying a very small part of the world with our cities here and there, the threat is more pronounced.

"The lack of your general knowledge aside, why does your intelligence fluctuate, Leon, I would have thought with the battle strategies you use and your accurate reasoning capabilities. You should have known that prank you pulled on Celia was a bad idea," Madlyn spoke with an even tone like reading about an interesting accident that has nothing to do with her.

"Hey! How did you know about that?"

"Please, it didn't take Amanda 5 five minutes to get through her mask," Madlyn said, completely falling behind me.

'Damn, that's too fast,' I thought and looked up to see Amanda climbing a ledge to take a rest when suddenly the root she was holding onto broke, making her shout.

She was too far away from us and just when I thought she was going to be eliminated, a tail burning with fire snaked around Amanda's hand, catching her.

'Hoo!' I exhaled seeing her Charmander stop her fall.

But it was short-lived as the Charmander too was slowly getting dragged down. As Amanda was hanging from a ledge, she couldn't even reach something to support her weight.

The Pokemon's claws glinted in the glow cast by the evening sun, as it used Metal claws to dig into the ledge to find purchase.

Alas, it was not enough. The Charmander was not able to dig deep enough into the ledge to make a difference.

Just when I thought there are going to fall, the Charmander flickered with energy and its claws dug into the solid rock of the ledge like a hot knife through butter.

'Oh!' I exclaimed knowing what just happened.

The Charmander made deep gouges onto the ledge and pulled Amanda up the ledge, with Amanda supporting her weight after she reached the top of the ledge.

"Hey! did.." I spoke turning back down to see Madlyn lagging way behind me.

'Hmm, she moved only 2 or 3 meters from the place I tied her ropes to,' I observed as I was more than 7 meters away from her.

"Hey! What happened?" I asked Madlyn.

"Nothing," she said and started climbing.

'She is wincing when using her left leg,' I observed after staring at her for some time.

As the sun slowly dipped down the horizon the darkness slowly invaded the world.

I switched on my glowstick that I attached to my bag at the start of the climb.

'I will have to buy more of these, I am going to Pewter after all,' I thought as I looked at the circle of light my glowstick lit around me.

It came with my starter kit and was meant for cave explorations, so it was good to go for multiple hours.

"Hey, you should quit, it's going to be dark soon and your injury won't make things easier," I shouted Madlyn.

Madlyn just shook her and continued climbing slowly.

Shaking my head at her stubbornness I continued my climb.

"See you on the other side, Leon" Amanda's voice faintly rang as she disappeared at the top of the cliff.

'1 more hour and I will reach the top,' I consoled myself, as the darkness slowly encroached upon the world.

The night fell making every trainer switch on their lights.

There were no lights behind me, other than Madlyn's, as most of the trainers below me got eliminated and some quit instead.

I could only see 20 to 30 lights above and beside me spread across the cliff, as more followed Amanda and reached the top.

I sat on a ledge and took a break. After I had finished drinking and eating some snacks, I saw Madlyn and noticed that she hadn't even moved a meter in my break.

I stared at her light for a minute feeling something amiss.

She wasn't moving.

"Hey! Madlyn," I called out.

She didn't reply.

I took out my Dex and called her, a slight sound originated from the light nearest to me confirming it was Madlyn.

But she didn't lift the call. I tried again.

And again.

She answered on the third time.

"Hey, what happened?" I asked.

"Nothing, I am taking rest. You go on," Madlyn said her voice trembling.

'Impossible! Madlyn's voice doesn't tremble, I mean I couldn't notice any change in her voice when our last match ended in a draw or even when she lost her match with me, the first time we met- not even slight anger or disappointment.'

"Hey What.." I spoke but she disconnected the call, making me curse.

I called her again, but this time her dex didn't even ring.

'Did she turn it off or something?'

Shaking my head, I resumed my climb questioning my choice of my friends.

'It's not like I am a catch myself,' I climbed leaving behind the thoughts about the stubborn girl.