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"Heh." I shook my head then took a bit from my sandwich. After I got the beak-full down, I thought for a moment. "Well, that as far as I can imagine, not much else to do around here in this massive city. Apart from the Pokeathelon, but thats something we can possibly see on the way out of Goldenrod to Ecruteak..." I said.

Ryan would just listen in. He would pull out HIS pokedex and start flipping through data. once again his badge case would slip out of his pack and onto the table.

Ryan smiled. "Yeah, it is. You are welcome to take a look. It has Kanto, Jhoto, and Orange Islands." he explains to Aden.

"Kanto and Jhoto, I figured." Aden commented as he took the case for a moment and opened it up. To him, the Kanto ones looked kinda plain. A rock? A waterdrop? A feather? Not bad, but maybe there was better. As for the Jhoto ones, he was interested in the rest. A glimpse of what he was going to be working for here... though, looking at the last set of four made him gulp. Especially what he figured would be the seventh and eighth badges.

But, then he saw those last ones. Five badges that he was utterly confused about. "I'm... not even sure what to make of these ones, though."

"Huh..." Either way, Aden was a bit surprised. "I think I'll be leaving those islands alone for now, though. Interesting ones either way."

"Yeah, definitely something to worry on later..." He wasn't so sure if he wanted to know about the deal with those gyms. For all he knew, it was stuff that'd leave him going "what the heck" way too many times.

Ryan frowns. "I would have to disagree on that assessment. Even though they are not part of the main Pokemon League, which consists of the five main continents, they are still officially recognized by that governing body or else the Gyms wouldn't be allowed to issue badges or sanction fights.

As for it being like the Pokeathelon, there is a greater amount of responsibility on the trainer in the actual challenges, requiring equally fast recognition skills as their pokemon, and having the ability to think of things outside the box. This is the pattern through the first three gyms. But then the 4th Gym is a Double Battle unlike any other, where if even one of your 2 pokemon faints, you lose the match. Then you have the final battle which is a full 6 on 6 contest and the field changes once the Champion Gym Leader loses 3 of his pokemon. And you never know what combination of fields they will spring on you.

The Pokeathelon is nothing more than those contests you hear about in Hoenn and Sinnoh augmented to form around a team of pokemon, where the only interaction from the trainer is selecting his team and explaining the game rules to them. You have to trust your pokemon to do the right thing, which can be a gamble.

So as I see it, the Orange Islands may not carry the prestige of a Kanto or Jhoto, but they are more than some glorified time sink for bored trainers or those who know they have no hope of beating Whitney and have failed at being a trainer. " Ryan explains, defending the Orange Islands the best he could.