"Wow! That Shiny Metagross is so cool!"
The silence was broken by the chubby Sophocles. His offbeat remark instantly eased much of the tension Kiawe and the others had been feeling.
Kiawe, his face stern, asked Su Hao, "Who are you, and why did you come out of an Ultra Wormhole?"
They did not question Cynthia's presence, since they had personally seen her riding Garchomp up from Poni Canyon below while they were on their way here.
Su Hao's gaze lingered briefly on Cynthia and Garchomp before sweeping over Kiawe, Sophocles, Lana, and Mallow. Understanding dawned on him.
So Kartana's Ultra Wormhole opened in the Alola region?
Now that he had learned some useful information, the rest would be much easier to handle.
"I'm from the Kanto region. Just call me Su Hao. This is Metagross, one of my Pokémon partners."
Su Hao explained with a smile, showing no hint of guilt whatsoever.
After all, perhaps due to some under-the-table deal between the Arceus of the two worlds, when he had come to the Pokémon world for the Trial last time, he had directly received a legitimate resident identity.
Otherwise, he would not have been able to become the acting Gym Leader of Pewter Gym, nor would Lance have taken him directly to Cerulean Alliance Headquarters to choose a reward during the Team Rocket incident at Mt. Moon, where he obtained Virizion's Broken Horn.
Hearing Su Hao's introduction, Kiawe, Cynthia, and the others all froze. Mallow, sitting on Flygon's back, murmured, "He's from the Kanto region too, just like Ash..."
At the mention of Ash's name, both Su Hao and Cynthia seemed to catch a keyword and spoke at once. "You know Ash too?"
Cynthia was genuinely confused, while Su Hao was pretending. After all, he had long known that