That night, Annie had no idea how late Misty, Ash, and Tracey stayed up or what they got up to—and she didn't want to know. She'd gone back to her own room and fallen asleep early, and by the time she woke up, it was already the next morning.
She'd been woken by the three of them banging on her door and shouting for her to get up. At first, she was furious and wanted her Little Bear to teach them all a lesson. She rarely got up so early, and those three should have known that.
But!
When she heard that Auntie Lu Li, the Gym Leader of Mandarin Island, had invited them all to breakfast before their official challenge, she finally remembered that there was, in fact, such a thing planned.
So she had to put her plans to punish the three of them on hold.
There wasn't much more to it. After Annie had freshened up, and the three impatiently hurried her along, she trudged sleepily to the dining room and ate a complimentary breakfast whose taste she couldn't even identify. Then Auntie Lu Li personally led her to a floor of the Gym's hotel building, where she saw an astonishingly large indoor Pokémon arena.
"We're here!"
"Look!"
"This is the venue for the match!"
After they entered the arena through an entrance, Lu Li pointed to the many rows of spectator seats and the regulation-sized court, which looked just like an indoor basketball court. Smiling, she continued explaining things to Annie, Misty, Ash, and Tracey:
"Pay attention!"
"In today's Gym challenge, both sides will use two Pokémon at the same time and have them work together. It's a relay battle between Pokémon."
"One match decides the winner!"
"If either side has even one Pokémon that's completely