Leaving

I wasn't awake much longer after they left as my body needed rest and that shot of energy potion was rapidly fading away. It wasn't all that strange since that was entirely why I had taken such a small amount to begin with. Aura was directly tied to ones body so naturally straining mine like this had caused me to be lethargic and tired. I ended up skipping dinner entirely and sleeping till noon the next day before I woke up. After that I packed up the stuff I'd need and all of my team minus Gaia and Yani that was staying behind to watch over the Hub.-

I then got on Runes back and we took to the sky to head south west where the coast was. It took a good few hours and I was pretty bored during that time as it was all the same desert landscape until we finally reached the coast. From there we took a break and had a meal so that Rune could fuel up for this long trip. Tank was also out but unfortunately he wasn't a royal variant and as a result couldn't take over for Rune in carrying me.-

Not to say that he couldn't simply pick me up and carry me like that but Butterfree aren't exactly known for having the strongest grips and a fall from so high up while not fatal would be unpleasant to say the least. If I had a water type pokemon that I felt could protect me and pull me along through the ocean I'd take that route since I did have the ability to breath underwater after all. While flying is all around faster than that method it would give Rune a much more worthwhile break while I traveled under the waves.-

Rune told me it wasn't an issue anyways since I only weighed about three hundred and fifteen pounds so long as I kept my spear in the bag. While that sounds like a lot a royal Charizard like Rune could easily handle upwards of a ton so he was barely feeling much strain from carrying me. In case I hadn't made it abundantly clear at this point pokemon were bona fide monsters and humanity was lucky that they were hard wired to work and coexist alongside us.-

Anyways despite him being able to carry me without much strain that didn't mean Rune could fly forever without a break. Like all Charizard Rune wasn't built for prolonged flights that last longer than a few hours. A good comparison would be a well trained marathon runner being able to go for a long while but still had limits that their bodies wouldn't let them surpass. In Runes case his species simply wasn't designed to migrate the distance between regions all in one flight. This was actually one of the reasons they rarely were found to be in another region beyond Kanto or Johto naturally.-

Don't get me wrong it did happen but in most cases it was because that Charizard had been exiled from the regions by the local tribes of Charizard or in very very rare cases simply wanted to create it's own tribe. In other words extreme circumstances were the only time a Charizard might be found to naturally arrive in a region outside it's normal two. The funny thing was that Kanto and Johto both insisted that they were two separate regions but were directly bordering each other and could in a way be considered the same place to a degree.-

You could in fact walk from Kanto to Johto without any real issue at all besides maybe the border patrols taking issue. Anyways as I was saying Rune needed to rest for a while before we could continue our trip to Rota again. While he did I did a bit of surf fishing without cheating and using my xray to see where the fish were of course. It wasn't even particularly difficult to catch a giant trevally, a large silver fish that was quite tasty if prepared properly. There were whole schools of them along the coast since fishing in this region tended to be more deep sea than anything and so the shore dwelling fish didn't know not to eat the "free" food I sent out.-

Due to not being over fished or hunted there were some truly massive specimens amongst these fish as well as the one i caught was easily six feet long and about a hundred and sixty pounds easy. Normally you'd actually want a smaller member of the species for the best flavor as the large ones meat tended to be dry and fairly bland. The trick to eating them at this size however was to put them in a soup.-

Preparing such a soup didn't take long as I just boiled out some filtered seawater so all I had for the broth was effectively saltwater without any of the grit in it. From there I added leeks, garlic, onions, some chili oil and the fish meat and bones. It was a very simple soup but it filled the belly and gave energy while tasting good so there was no reason to complain. Naturally most of the soup went to Rune but I got a few bowls as well. Tank was an herbivore though so he merely had some berries for his meal.-

The rest of my team besides Hades were in their balls in stasis mode to preserve our supplies since we only had enough to feed the three of us for the whole trip. We could restock in Rota but while we were traveling over the sea and along the mountain range foraging wasn't really on the table. After we ate and waited an hour to let the food settle it was time to head out again though this time we went out over the water. I casually used my x-ray when we did just because I could and felt goosebumps rise along my arms at what I saw.-

There no more than fifty yards from where we were just taking a break was a massive Crawdaunt easily the size of a Gyarados. Much like regular lobsters on earth the Crawdaunt pokemon were "technically" immortal and never stopped growing until something killed them. Whether that be them getting stuck in a molt or some other pokemon or disease the point stood still that only an external force could kill them. For one to get this big however it'd need to have survived for hundreds of years and may as well be considered a legendary in terms of strength at this point.-

Finding out such a monster was just casually chilling so close to you was the sort of thing that'd give you nightmares. If at any point it had decided that we were bothering it there wouldn't even be a struggle before we'd get killed. I appraised it and learnt that I was definitely not wrong to be fearful either when I saw the number it had for a level, three hundred and forty eight.

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