Manalo Stadium.
The tournament to determine the Champion of the Alola League Conference-and thus the first-ever Alola Champion-was about to begin.
The Alola Region's preliminary round would use a Battle Royal format that no other region had ever used.
The format for these preliminaries
was similar to the battles held at the Battle Royal Dome.
Each participant could send out only one Pokémon,
and amid the massive free-for-all between all those Pokémon,
only thirty-two participants would remain in the end.
Professor Kukui had originally planned to leave sixteen,
but far more people had signed up than expected, so the preliminaries would be held in two rounds, leaving thirty-two participants in total.
"Wow!!!"
When Ash, Kiawe, Lillie, and the others stepped into the competition venue, plenty of people were already preparing inside.
"It's Oluolu!"
Ash immediately spotted Oluolu, the star Pokémon Base player.
"The fishing expert's here too!"
"Molly!"
"And Gym Leader Kahili!"
"Are all these people going to be our opponents?"
Holding Shaymin in her arms, Mallow looked around in amazement.
Practically every Trainer in the Alola Region had gathered here, along with Trainers from other regions.
Kiawe rubbed his hands together eagerly.
"It doesn't matter. I'm definitely going to win!"
"Me too!"
Spotting Ash and the others, Acerola came over to greet them.
"Alola, Ash!"
"Acerola, you're here too."
Ash and the others hadn't known Acerola had signed up as well. She hadn't told them beforehand.
Acerola explained, "Uncle Nanu brought me here to watch, and it looked fun, so I signed up while I was at it.
"I also want to have a fun match with you, Ash. I'm sure it'll be a blast."
Acerola mainly wanted to battle the Pokémon on Ash's main roster, such as Greninja, Infernape, Sceptile, Charizard, and Snorlax.
It wasn't that she didn't