Fine, Fine, I'm the One Who Doesn't Measure Up

The Qualifiers ran until two thirty in the afternoon before finally reaching their last stretch. Once these final competitors finished, the system would automatically match up tomorrow's Preliminaries opponents on the big screen.

Mingyou hadn't gone to Ash's venue. He'd come to Tobias's instead, which was also the liveliest. Even for the Qualifiers, the stands were almost packed.

Everyone had come to see Darkrai. Word had spread that the legendary bringer of nightmares would appear in a match, and a sight like that was far too rare to miss.

But the Qualifiers were just one-on-one battles between randomly drawn opponents. All they were likely to see was the instant Darkrai knocked its opponent out.

Even so, the Qualifiers were anything but dull. The battles were fierce!

No one wanted to travel for so long, finally earn eight Badges alongside their companions, and come all this way only to be eliminated without a fight.

Quite a few rookie Trainers who had clearly only recently begun their journeys sat down and cried after losing, as if they'd failed their college entrance exams. But no one would remember them. The only person anyone remembered was the tournament's ultimate winner!

The last Qualifiers match at this venue was about to begin. It seemed the organizers had deliberately arranged for Tobias to be in the final group to keep the crowd's excitement high.

"Finally, he's up..."

Mingyou narrowed his eyes slightly. He held a huge bucket of popcorn, though it had long since been emptied by Munchlax sneaking handfuls from it. Mingyou didn't seem to have noticed and kept popping imaginary popcorn into his mouth.

The moment Tobias emerged from the competitors' tunnel in his red cape, cheers erupted. He showed little expression, though, merely looking at his opponent with the air of a man