Blackthorn's Aid #1

Jackson pulled out his phone as he got a notification about a video message. The trainer was sitting in his apartment with his pokemon, Atlas, sleeping at his feet. He saw that the message was from Professor Blackthorn, the leading pokemon expert in the region. As he opened the video Blackthorn’s face appeared on the screen.

“I’m sending this out to trainers who have worked with me in the past. There’s been some concerning developments in Murkhaven. The water quality has greatly decreased and is thicker than usual.” The professor explained. Jackson hadn’t really heard of any of this before besides Murkhaven being heavily covered in fog. “I’m requesting that trainers go there to collect water samples so we can study them. We want to try and get to the root cause so we can heal the environment!” 

Jackson sighed, yet another request from the professor. Although he admired his work the trainer already had a lot of things to deal with. However, the professor also typically offered a financial reward. He was always in need of credits considering the financial difficulties that had affected him and much of the region.

“Looks like we need to do some investigating again.” The trainer said to Atlas as the pokemon woke up, arching his jaws in a wide yawn.

It had taken quite some time to walk to Murkhaven, leaving Jackson’s prosthetic leg rather sore. At this point he was ready to get the water samples and go as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, Atlas seemed to still have plenty of energy as he trotted next to his trainer with a wagging tail.

The forest around them was rather spooky with its sickly trees and thick, sludgy water. Jackson didn’t necessarily feel scared walking through Murkhaven, but it was rather unnerving and not somewhere he wanted to stick around at. 

The trainer approached the sludgy waters as he pulled some clear jars from his backpack. Atlas was standing next to him, watching curiously. Jackson crouched down  and dipped one of the jars into the water, doing his best to not get it on his hand. He wrinkled his nose at the scent of the putrid waters. The professor was certainly correct about something being wrong here.

Jackson filled a few more jars as he set them in the grass next to him. Atlas inched forward with intrigue but backed away quickly once he got a good whiff of the jars. The smell was certainly much worse for him considering his amazing sense of smell. 

The trainer took some tape out of his backpack and began to wrap it around the jars. He may have gone a little overboard with the jars having multiple layers of tape to ensure the lid didn’t come loose. Jackson knew if it spilled in his backpack he would be throwing it away immediately, which was something he wanted to avoid.

Atlas’ ears were perked up as he scanned the forest around them, also feeling the unnerving energy. Jackson got up as he slung his backpack over his shoulder. “Come on buddy, let’s get out of here.” He said as he gave Atlas’ thick neck fur a tussle. The noctyena’s blue and yellow tail wagged as he began to walk ahead. Now that he was walking behind his pokemon the trainer noticed that his legs and belly were covered in dark mud. Jackson let out a long sigh, realizing that he would have to try and get all of it off the pokemon.

As they left the swamp Jackson saw a river that finally wasn’t filled with sludge. He coaxed his partner pokemon into the water, the noctyena splashing into the river happily. The water around the pokemon grew darker as just standing in the river starter to clear off some of the mud. Jackson did feel a bit bad about spreading the sludgy mud to another river, but currently he didn’t really have another option. 

Jackson cleaned the mud off Atlas until the pokemon’s belly was white once again, although some of the smell lingered. The noctyena continued to splash through the waters happily, clearly thinking this was a fun game. Jackson smiled as his pokemon bounced around.

The trainer took a few moments as he pulled out his phone. He pulled up the message that Professor Blackthorn had sent him. Jackson quickly sent him a message saying he had collected multiple jars of the swamp waters that he would soon be bringing to his lab. He then took off his backpack to glance at it for a moment, relieved that none of the jars had leaked.