"Rio."
Lucario pointed toward the second floor, where Xin Mu and Meownei could be seen by a window.
This sort of zoning-out contest tested not only the contestants but also their families. Some people withdrew because their families refused to support them. Unwilling to keep waiting around, they urged the contestants to give up and go do something else.
Combined with the shopping mall's various little tricks to speed up the competition, the number of people still holding out gradually dwindled.
With noise, tempting food, scheduling conflicts, and all sorts of other outside distractions, fewer and fewer people and Pokémon kept zoning out. In the end, Squirtle had barely any opponents left.
["Squirtle." (Young Pokémon, you still can't match this old turtle's patience. Once I outlast these last few,
the championship will be mine.)]
Squirtle believed that his greater maturity and patience made this contest a cinch.
Psyduck had fallen off the stage and been eliminated, Slowpoke had forgotten that he was competing, and Sudowoodo had fallen victim to a sneak attack from the venue itself.
Someone had broken the rules by letting out a Fire-type Pokémon and accidentally triggered the fire sprinklers. Drenched in water, Sudowoodo simply couldn't hold out.
Pokémon were active creatures by nature. Once those less active Pokémon had all been eliminated, Squirtle decided that his greatest opponent was the nearby Hippowdon.
Hippowdon looked much like an ordinary hippopotamus, except that most of his body was light brown and black.
But he was very different from an ordinary hippopotamus in the wild.
Land animals, aquatic animals, amphibians-with all those options available, hippopotamuses had practically evolved into a unique category that belonged in neither habitat.
They lived in water but couldn't swim, and one careless mistake could leave them drowned.
They grazed on land but couldn't stay