Camping(2)

I finished my exercises shortly after Rune returned with a few dead water types native to this region. A Mantine which was more or less a manta ray pokemon with a white belly and dark blue back as well as a short ribbon like tail. A Buizel that was a large otter pokemon with orange fur and sort of blue floatation sacks on it's neck. It also had two tails that it could rotate to propel itself through the water even faster than it would by using just it's limbs.-

Finally there was a pokemon I ABSOLUTELY refused to cook, a Shellos. Shellos had two main varieties that looked drastically different from the other with one being bright blue and green and the other being pink and cream colored. The easiest way to describe a Shellos was that it was a chihuahua sized sea slug with a slimy body and a head that consisted of a sort of crest on the top and two large eyes and a toothless mouth. While I could cook the thing I very much didn't want to since from my understanding they had the consistency of snot even after cooking.-

Rune was a bit disheartened by my rejection but shrugged and ate it raw which made me shudder in disgust at the mere thought of the sensation. The first two pokemon species he hunted though were much more normal. While we waited for my other pokemon to get back I got to work cleaning the corpses properly. For the Mantine I had to skin it very carefully to get at the delicate white flesh below that tough layer. Much like normal rays the main portion of the body lacked much meat and was mostly organs while the wings were where all the good stuff was, well minus the liver that had a useful oil in it.-

For the Buizel I skinned it and removed the organs and bones before directly cutting up all the meat into a fine mince since it was far too tough whole to be worth utilizing as is. I packaged and put the harvested food in the freezer pocket of my bag right in time for the rest of my pokemon to show up for dinner. I divvied up the food and we all tucked in without hesitation before going to bed after it was all gone.-

The next morning we all ate some berries for breakfast before scattering to do our own things. I didn't know what the others did but I, Hades and Yani went into the forest and nearby coast to forage for anything worth grabbing. The trees were the sort not too bothered by the close proximity of the ocean and were haphazardly grown or rather overgrown which told me they weren't planted by a person. My x-ray vision came in handy as usual here as I could find Sinnohen silver truffles hidden under the undergrowth which was a wonderful find. These truffles were unique to Sinnoh and highly coveted by many chefs for the rich flavor they had.-

Once cleaned of the dirt on them they shined a dull silver color which was how they got their name. Unlike normal truffles though this variety didn't have a particular area in the region that they could be found but grew everywhere though there was a catch. They had no scent at all which meant that finding them was a matter of either luck or straight up cheating like what I did. Still I only ended up finding three decent sized truffles despite looking for the whole day.-

We of course also found many other regional flora that could be eaten, some prized others mundane. The most interesting in my opinion had to be the mutant oran berry plant though. Unlike the normal oran berries that were about the size of a tangerine and blue these berries were the size of grapefruit and dark purple. Normally purple was associated with ghosts or poison in this world but that wasn't the case this time. The berries were in fact more nutritious and delicious than the normal variant which I was quite thrilled with. -

Berries mutating like this was quite rare as the things were stupidly stable genetically speaking and thus didn't change even when planted in say a desert or the side of a frigid mountain. That said it wasn't unheard of for it to occur though no one was sure what exactly was the cause for it in any of the documented cases. Even in this case I saw nothing around the bush that should have this sort of effect on it. I didn't leave a single berry on the bush either as besides the benefits of eating the berries I could also use my plant manipulation ability to grow each and every berries seed into a new mutated bush.-

A couple of the seeds though I fully intended to send to Birch in Hoenn as I figured he'd be quite happy to have a few mutant berry bushes for the sheer research value if nothing else. I would like to specify that with my ability I could forcefully mutate a berry plant if I wanted to but didn't plan on it since I felt it cheapened something so rare. Anyways after foraging for the day we headed back to the camp where I got started on dinner which was an ungodly amount of stir-fried rice with Mantine and Magikarp bits alongside some veggies.-

Naturally I had to make batches in order for there to be enough for everyone and I even got a visitor while I was cooking. "Huh? I would have thought you'd use premade stuff to feed your pokemon and judging from the smell I'm a bit jealous of your pokemon." Byron said as he walked up to the campsite. "Not saying theres anything wrong with using the premade stuff but if I can I prefer treating my pokemon to as high a quality meal as possible."-

"I suppose it also helps that I'm a master chef and expert alchemist and thus can turn damn near anything edible into a delicious meal if I needed to." I said without looking his way. He hummed in agreement "Nothing wrong with a trainer treating his team well at all. I must say though your Tyranitar is gorgeous. Smooth stony carapace and she has this natural presence to her that reminds me of a legendary." he said eyeing Gaia appreciatively which she accepted proudly.-

"She was my first pokemon you know. She's also the most powerful pokemon on my team as well. My ace if you like." I said with a smile. "Really? I knew she was your starter, hell everyone does, but most, myself included, thought that Entei or Spiritomb were your aces." he said surprised. "I can see why someone might think that since I tend to have one of them with me at all times. But the truth of the matter is that I'd rather have her with me instead but she's simply too large to do so." I said honestly and with a little helplessness.