As my Dex rang, I jumped out of my bed ready to face whatever challenges the elites were going to test us with.
I ate a very light breakfast even though the delicious food kept on calling me.
"Trainers should be present at the main gate in 1 hr. I repeat every trainer should be present at the main gate in 1hr."
A loud announcement rang through the camp, making me hurry to an empty battlefield for the morning training.
We completed our morning training in the nick of time and ran to the camp's entrance.
'Wow, so many trainers,' I exclaimed.
Nearly 200 trainers were present, taking up the whole camp's entrance.
I ran through the crowd searching for my friends.
I flinched as someone pinched my neck.
"Hey! Are you searching for us?" Amanda asked as I turned to glare at her.
Deciding not to encourage her behaviour, I exchanged pleasantries with Madlyn, ignoring Amanda, which made her sputter in indignation.
"Do you know what the challenge is going to be?" I asked still ignoring Amanda as she tried to interrupt me.
"I have an idea, but nothing concrete," Madlyn said, following my charade.
"You guys!" Amanda fumed bringing a small smile to Madlyn's face.
More instructions were delivered to us, making me and my fellow 200 trainers walk for more than three hours.
Amanda and Madlyn conversed softly throughout the walk. I also saw Ken and Mike, they too looked bored at the long walk.
Generally, I jog most of my journey and after nearly a month of jogging, I found an acceptable pace and stuck to it, walking now and then to take breaks. So, this long walk was getting on my nerves, making me fidget with excess energy.
Most of the path we walked on was a narrow dirt path, just enough for a single person, making us form a line to travel.
Due to this, I was not able to properly talk with anyone to fight my boredom.
Just when I was about to battle the treacherous roots and bushes surrounding the dirt path to hear the conversation of the girls, we broke from the thick forest into an opening.
A gigantic cliff was present before us, nearly taking away my breath due to its size.
It was huge, covering a radius bringer than our camp with small cave-like openings in it.
An Exeggutor appeared in front of us, as I was gawking at it, towering over every trainer.
It bought a table full of food along with it. The aroma wafted into the group of trainers making more than one's stomach rumble.
The Exeggutor teleported giving us time to eat our lunch.
I began piling the food on my plate, hell-bent on not repeating the same mistake as today's morning.
'Should I release Cet and Nia?' I wondered after I finished my lunch.
Just when I touched my Pokeball to release them, the Exeggutor appeared again.
The trainers formed a crowd around it as the Pokemon waited for everyone to get ready.
"You will have to reach the other side of this cliff by climbing it. Only one Pokemon is allowed in this round, choose wisely."
I grunted not liking how every Psychic Pokemon can speak into my mind.
"How are you to help us if we fall?" A girl asked raising her hand.
"Don't worry about that."
The Exeggutor's voice rang again in my mind, the Pokemon had a deep and serene voice.
"Here comes your protectors for his round. And you will be disqualified from this gathering if you are required to be rescued," The Exeggutor continued speaking into our minds, its eyes locked onto mine and moved on, surveying the crowd.
Thinking of how the Exeggutor would be an excellent Legilimens because of its three heads, I was late in looking above as cries rang in the crowd.
2 Fearows and a Pidgeots landed in front of us toppling most of us to the ground as the wind followed their lead, sweeping onto us.
'Scary,' I thought looking at the shining beaks and claws of the Elite Pokemon.
As I turned towards the Exeggutor one more Psychic tree was standing beside it.
As murmurs from the crowd settled down at the appearance of elites, I raised my hand prompting the Exeggutor to nod its head at me.
"Is climbing gear allowed?" I asked, causing murmurs again.
"You can use it If you have one. But only the safety equipment is allowed. Any devices that will replace your effort to climb are not allowed." The Exeggutor announced.
Cursing my luck, I decided to wear my backpack even though the cliff looked at least 800M.
'Welp the sun will set while I am climbing this thing,' I thought taking out a flashlight and attaching it to my bag for easier access.
We made our way to the cliff and started climbing, the cliff was long enough for 200 members to climb it without getting into each other's way.
Amanda gave me a challenging look, before unfurling her climbing gear.
She wore a safety harness and started climbing the cliff like a lizard, making me gape at her speed.
More Trainers exhibited the same speed as Amanda, dropping my already hanging jaw to the ground.
"That's why you shouldn't skip classes, Leon" she taunted me, looking at my gobsmacked expression before going back to her climb.
Madlyn clapped my shoulder and copied Amanda.
Cursing at the unfair world, I started my climb.
This was going to be my first climb, so I fumbled around a lot before finding a steady rhythm.
I looked above to see how Amanda doing, only to see her bashing some nails into the cliff attaching a stick clip and taking a rest by hanging to it.
She looked down at me and gave a peace sign, before taking a sip from her bottle.
I gritted my teeth at that.
'The Elites are supposed to support normal trainers, No normal trainers ever buy climbing equipment,' I thought feeling betrayed, unless you are thinking of going off route, which is very risky considering you will be climbing a rock in the middle of a monster-infested jungle along with whatever monsters made the cliff or rock their home.
Only the starter kits the rich buy have something as useless as climbing equipment.
'At least, the Exeggutor didn't announce that this is a race,' I thought taking deep breaths at my perceived injustice.
Three hours went by but I only covered half the distance of Amanda and a dozen other trainers.
Madlyn was one of the fastest climbers too. She was using Amanda's rest spots to cut down on the setting up time.
I on the other hand must climb slowly as I don't have a safety harness to fall back on like some of the trainers here.
If I fall, I will get eliminated, unlike people with harnesses who can restart from their last sticky clip.
I thought that my lack of harness and experience would make me the slowest, but I steadily climbed the cliff not taking any breaks.
'All the jogging I did helped, I guess,' I thought looking below me.
I left behind nearly 100 trainers, some of them were out of shape, but the healthy trainers also didn't have my stamina making them stop to rest, wasting time. And it was even more time-consuming for trainers without harnesses as they had to seek out ledges to rest.
I continued climbing the cliff, deciding to take a rest after I reached the tunnel-like structure above me with a small ledge.
Heaving, but not reducing my speed I reached the hole in the cliff and sprawled onto its ledge, releasing Cet for my protection.
After catching my breath, I observed the cavity in front of me.
The sun's light illuminated the hole's floor, making me venture into it to get a better look.
The cavity ended 4 meters into the cliff.
I was disappointed, I was hoping for a shortcut to the other side of the cliff.
Just when was about to curse at my wishful thinking, I heard something rustle above my head.
I slowly raised my head to look at the cave ceiling and was greeted by darkness, the sunlight only illuminated the cave's floor, leaving thick darkness near its ceiling.
I carefully made my way out of the hole and resumed my climb and after covering some distance I shouted at Cet.
"You were supposed to alert me to their presence Cet."
The Zubat just tilted his head at me and went back to sniffing and licking strange rocks.
I clicked my tongue and continued climbing.
Not even five minutes passed after my rest before I halted my climb, due to a scream.
A horde of Zubats was screaming in unison as a trainer was flailing his hands at the horde in panic standing on a ledge, the same ledge I was on before.
He fell from the ledge, screaming, unable to maintain balance after getting a load of Pokemon to his face.
'Damn! That could have been me,' I thought looking at Zubats calming down before retreating into their cave.
I think we will cross the target today, but sadly I must prepare for an exam tomorrow. So, the bonus chapters will be released tomorrow at the same time as today(9:30pm-IST).
As I promised I would release the bonus chapters after we hit our target, here they are.
................................
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.
"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.
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