Golurk took Manectric and the little Electrike into the air, while Shen Qi brought the tightly bound Team Skull grunts into Pelipper's Fly aura.
When they took off from Mahalo Mountain Road, they could already see the sun half-sunken behind the mountains.
Gumshoos had allowed four hours for the search and rescue, and Shen Qi had used nearly three.
If he had been any slower, he would have been eliminated in the first half of round one of the Island Challenge.
"This is too hard..."
Shen Qi figured that even if he really did go over the time limit, the Alola League should make an exception, since encountering Team Skull had delayed him.
He returned to where Totem Gumshoos had been, but the place was deserted.
There was, however, an ordinary-sized Gumshoos, less than a meter tall.
He relayed the situation: Totem Gumshoos had gone to cook for the nearby wild Pokémon that could not live independently. Players who had completed the second-stage task could swipe their cards at the Sensor Post to settle their results.
"Isn't there a staff member here? I caught some Team Skull grunts."
The ordinary Gumshoos merely shook his head, saying that the captain, vice-captain, and personnel managing the Island Challenge might only arrive once the time was up.
"They're way too laid-back about this."
Shen Qi went to the Sensor Post, showed Manectric and the three little Electrike one by one within the camera's view, then swiped his challenger card to settle this stage's task.
Chapter 768: An introduction left unsaid
Gradually, challengers began returning.
From the direction leading down the mountain, a dark-skinned boy with an afro tied into a braid at the back approached, leading Pokémon Trainers in staff uniforms.
That was Hau, the grandson of Melemele Island's Island Kahuna.
In the