<span style="font-weight: bold">â€œIâ€™m from Mahogany Town, interestingly enough, been to Blackthorn once or twice. I canâ€™t say Iâ€™m a fan of having to go through the ice cave, but Blackthornâ€™s a fairly nice place. Goes to show this is a small world, huh?â€ <br/></span><br/><br/>Though he offered an easy wave to all comers, Isaac was a bit surprised that there were so many here from Johto, and even one who'd been to Blackthorne. As one of the later stops on the gym route through Johto it tended to be a difficult enough place to get to, and like the guy said--the ice cave was a bitch. His isolated little town of dragons really only saw an influx from trainers, but at least it was never really boring.<br/><br/>"Yeah, seems there's a couple of us here. I just started 'cause like hell do I want to hear it going around the Johto circuit, and I'd much rather clean up a bit around here and get everybody up to snuff before playing ball in the home court." Honestly he just didn't want to have to get a snide little letter congratulating him after ever meager gym victory--he knew his aunt, and the witch would play nice and pretend that she was proud of him while laughing behind his back. Much cleaner to deal with Kanto first, and come around when he had beasties that could run game with hers.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">"Of course, I mean, since I've beaten the guy myself-" Gil added quickly, "It's like he wasn't even trying!"<br/><br/>"There really arenâ€™t any native dark-types here for me to study, and thatâ€™s sort of my focus in terms of research. Iâ€™m from way out in Unova; donâ€™t know if any of you have been that far away from here. At least Johtoâ€™s pretty close.â€ </span><br/><br/>"This early on, it's all just a matter of type." He said with a snort, waving it off. "Throw Alabama against him and he'd make her a lizard pancake." He nudged the charmander with a foot affectionately, and it opened a single green eye and let out a 'whoof' of disapproval before splaying out once more like a hound in front of a fire. "Roll a bulbasaur or a squirtle out, and it'll be a piece of cake. Maybe that's the point to all this, I guess--learn your freaking types. Messes with us traditionalists, but hey..." He offered with an easy shrug, waving it off.<br/><br/>It wasn't that dragon pokemon were the best--well, it sort of was--but he'd seen people trounce his Aunt and the other trainers around the city often enough to know better than to boast about it too much. Play it cool, keep 'em strong, and keep your bases covered--that was the key to it. He hoped, at least. Seemed a good enough strategy.<br/><br/>He watched as the girl rolled out her little campfire set and nodded in approval, though as he thought about it he wasn't sure he wouldn't need a cup of coffee if he was going to be chillin' with these villains all night. Which begged the question--<br/><br/>"Is anyone else even remotely tired?" He asked with a slight laugh, scratching the back of his neck a mite self-consciously. Much as he tried to avoid it, he couldn't help but feel there was a certain stigma with playing in the kiddie leagues at his age, and the youth of his current entourage didn't help distract him from the fact, with a few exceptions. "If not them I might have to take you up on that liquid fortification, it was practically a day six hours ago for me."<br/><br/>There was also the fact that he wasn't really a hiker. But the less said about that, the better, he figured.