I leaned my head towards her, instinctively seeking her lips with mine.

BOOM!

Lightning struck, jolting us from our trance before the distance between us could be closed.

Madlyn stopped hugging me and moved back.

She stared at me for a second before releasing her Squirtle and hugging it like it was a plushy.

The Squirtle appeared confused before settling down in Madlyn’s arms.

With me not knowing what to say and Madlyn refusing to meet my gaze, awkward silence descended among us.

We spent some time in silence before setting up tents.

And like the gentlemen I was I helped Madlyn in setting up hers.

After that, we silently retired to our tents to sleep, tiredness from the climb sneaking upon us.

I tossed and turned on my bed, thinking about what just happened- more precisely what would have happened without the lightning’s interruption.

I couldn’t see myself in any type of relationship and would have taken advantage of Madlyn when she was in a vulnerable state, so I was thankful for the lightning, in a way.

‘Relationships are complicated and so not for me. I will think about them when I become the champion,’ I decided and cowardly tossed the matter to the back of my mind and fell asleep.

I woke up to Cet nearly licking off the skin from my face.

After freshening up, I went out of my tent to see Madlyn dismantling hers.

Following her lead, I packed my tent into my backpack.

We silently started walking along the cliff’s top.

‘It’s called Plateau,’ I corrected myself before dismissing it in favour of looking ahead to see where it ends.

Trees obstructed my view making me unable to see the end of this plateau.

I wanted to run, but leaving Madlyn alone with a swollen ankle didn’t sit right with me.

The only thing stopping me from leaving Madlyn behind was that this was not a race.

‘Not a race. Not a race,’ Repeating the sentence like a mantra in my mind, curbed some of my impatience while walking.

It seemed like the white goat was looking out for me as our walk ended after an hour- a mind-breaking hour, nonetheless.

We stopped on the edge of the plateau as the wind tousled our hair.

The view was breathtaking.

A never-ending forest sprawled until the horizon; small mountains jutting from the forest parted the thick forest, complementing the greenery- creating breathtaking scenery.

After taking a minute to appreciate the view, we started climbing down the plateau.

I slowly left Madlyn behind(above?) as I climbed down like a monkey on drugs.

Having her in my sight didn’t feel like abandoning her, so I descended with great gusto.

‘When did my life become this complicated?’ I thought, seeing the mental gymnastics I had to do to justify leaving behind an injured friend as a small part of me still didn’t like leaving her behind, especially when there are no benefits in racing down.

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Halfway through my climb, I saw small figures descending away from me.

“Cet catch me around my shoulders and just try to hover,” I said hoping he would understand.

The ever-impressive Zubat wrapped its spindly legs around my shoulder running under my armpits.

A small amount of adrenaline made its way into my bloodstream making me raring to implement my crazy plan.

I took my hands and legs away from the rock, fully dependent on Cet to stop me from falling to my death.

Cet wobbled down slightly but regained stability quickly.

“Awesome, just don’t let me fall,” I said before grabbing the cliff.

With Cet supporting my weight, I started to descend the plateau recklessly, not caring about proper footholds or handholds.

My speed nearly tripled.

I always tried to keep most of my weight off Cet, but my whole plan was to take advantage of Cet not letting me fall.

In other words, Cet was just slowly flying us down and I was just using my limbs to not let him carry my whole weight, reducing his energy consumption.

I made my way down, stopping for small brakes now and then.

The trainers I came across just gawked at me before concentrating on scaling down the mountain.

As I made my way down, I came across some trainers rappelling down the plateau.

‘Damn it.’ I was frustrated as their climbing equipment gave them too much of an advantage.

I continued my descent cursing the unfairness of the world.

It didn’t look like I could bridge the gap between me and the rappelers.

As the gap between me and the next trainer remained the same, I took a break to let Cet recover.

I leaned down from the ledge I was resting on to see who was going to reach the bottom of the plateau first.

And Amanda was leading the descent.

She was rappelling down the cliff like she was a ninja. And the remaining trainers were just playing catch-up with her.

The day continued with no other interesting developments.

I stopped for lunch and let Cet take an energy nap before letting him carry me down.

I continued my descent when he rested, not seeing a reason to delay my descent.

I was climbing down with such concentration that I totally forgot about Madlyn.

50 meters from the ground, I jumped, leaving the safety of the walls of the plateau.

“Ready a Gust side,” I roared against the wind as we plummeted to our death.

“Use it,” I shouted after we picked up too much speed.

We slowed down for a moment and started to fall again.

“Once more,” I called out after gaining some speed, making us slow down again.

“Again,” I shouted for the last time, the usage of the gust barely countering our downward velocity.

‘I have time for one more gust, but even it wouldn’t fully cancel my speed,’ I noticed.

Just when I thought I was going to break my legs on our landing, Cet being himself came to my rescue yet again.

He used gust-side to let us glide horizontally to bleed our downward inertia.

"Hoo!" I shouted, the rush of adrenaline thrumming in my ears as we glided in a forced arc over the treetops.

‘This is what it is meant to be alive,’ I thought with a wide grin plastered on my face.

Like someone from above was mocking me, we quickly reached the treetops, getting scratched from the branches and crashed into a tent.

I rolled on my impact before standing up.

“Awesome,” I shouted, not at all deterred by our rough landing as Cet looped around me sharing my enthusiasm.

“Are you crazy?” Celia's voice thundered as she made her way towards me.

“You knew this was not a race, right?” she asked, shimmering with rage.

“Yeah,” I answered the wide grin slowly leaving my face as the adrenaline left my system.

“I saw a chance and took it. I knew I would be up by tomorrow even if I broke bones. I would just have to part with some of my money.” I answered checking my body, the scratches and other minor pains made themselves known as I left my fight-or-flight state.

The medicine in this world was advanced after all- I checked.

‘Hmm! Swollen wrist,’ I mumbled noticing the welling of my right hand.

“That was too risky for you and your Pokemon too, trainer Leon,” An old man with a white moustache and neatly pressed suit said, glaring at me, adjusting his monocle.

The small camp, where I landed, had a few tents along with some snacks.

Celia and the old man were the only people present in the camp.

“I calculated the risks before jumping. I knew Cet’s limits, he couldn’t lift me, but slowly down my fall was right in his alley with the gust-side combo. I may be a reckless guy, but I am not crazy.. at least not too much,” I said snickering, observing the old man, who was giving me quite a heated glare.

Cet having two egg moves was helping me more than I thought. He had excellent control over his flying type of energy, making it easier for him to convert the pressurized winds that smack the target sharply- a standard gust- to an even distribution of force to counter our fall.

It is essentially just a more powerful version of Sandscreen.

Celia huffed and introduced him.

“He is Alfred. He is like a parent to me, whenever mom and dad were busy, he used to look after me.”

“Don’t be too modest now, Miss Celia. I am the Reich family’s Butler. I am entrusted to help Miss Celia in running this year’s meet,” he said standing a step behind Celia, exuding a subtle air of formality and grace.

His glare became harder hearing the way Celia introduced him.

“Where is the medical tent?” I asked pointing towards my swollen wrist, ignoring his heated glare.

“You got off easy if you ask me,” Celia scoffed before pointing towards a tent.

“ARE YOU CRAZY?”

Amanda yelled while rappelling to the ground.