Mission #7

Jackson and his sister, Amber, were approaching the bright blue water pools that surrounded Sylvangloam, a mysterious area filled with blue-green colored plants and giant mushrooms. The mysterious part of this description was exactly why Jackson had come to the rather peculiar place at his sister’s request.

Amber had contacted him to ask for his help while she explored Sylvangloam. Professor Blackthorn had requested mushroom spore samples to study in his lab. Since she was one of the leading pokemon scientists she had eagerly offered to help with sample collection. Sylvangloam wasn’t exactly dangerous, but she figured having her brother’s help certainly wouldn’t hurt.

Their two partner pokemon, Atlas and Lumi, were walking a little bit ahead of the trainers, enjoying the nice weather. Soon enough they reached a wooden bridge that they used to cross over into Sylvangloam.

As they started to walk through the forest of trees and mushrooms they could hear sounds around them as pokemon moved around. They could even see a few hanging out in the trees or eating berries on the ground. Some of them looked up at the trainers curiously but none of them really seemed to mind their presence. Although for some of the pokemon that changed when they saw Atlas and Lumi.

“So what exactly do you need to get?” Jackson asked as they continued towards the center of the area.

“Just some spores.” Amber replied as if this immediately explained everything. Which to Jackson it definitely didn’t.

“Uh huh…” He replied.

The two walked along for a bit longer until Amber stopped to stand in a cluster of towering mushrooms. Most of them were as tall as the surrounding trees, if not taller. Jackson looked around, now more than slightly confused.

“Well where are these spores you keep talking about?” Jackson questioned as he looked around.

“The mushrooms release them, I just don’t see any in the air right now.” Amber replied as she also looked around the area. Jackson let out a long sigh, not really wanting to spend his day standing around a bunch of mushrooms. 

“Maybe we can get them to release spores.” Amber suggested as she poked the somewhat squishy mushroom. 

“You think hitting them would do that?” Jackson asked hopefully and his sister shrugged.

“I mean it’s worth a shot.” She replied and Jackson nodded in agreement. The trainer grabbed a few pokeballs from his backpack and then threw them onto the ground. In front of him two of his pokemon appeared. One of them was Chompy, a totodile/growlithe fusion, and the other one was a delta ghost turtwig named Shadow. 

“Alright, try to start hitting these mushrooms I suppose.” Jackson said to his pokemon. For Chompy and Shadow this attempt didn’t seem too successful. Given their small sizes they were just barely able to reach the bottom of the mushroom. When they were able to hit the mushroom it definitely wasn’t strong enough to release spores.

“Atlas, trying using dark pulse.” The trainer said to his pokemon. If Shadow and Chompy couldn’t reach the mushroom then he figured attacks probably could. The noctyena followed this command as he began to form a dark colored orb. He then sent it flying into the mushroom, sending small amounts of the fungus flying into the air. With this Jackson and Amber could also see sparkly spores being released into the air.

“Hurry, help me get them!” Amber said excitedly as she shoved an empty plastic jar into her brother’s hand. She stood under the spores as she held the sample cup up. The scientist had to keep moving it to capture the spores but was starting to get samples. Lumi was bouncing around as she looked at the sparkly spores with intrigue.

“Uhm are we sure breathing this shit in isn’t dangerous?” Jackson asked nervously as he also started to grab spore samples. Shadow, Chompy, and Atlas were now staring at the spores with fascination like Lumi was.

“Well no one’s gotten sick around here. Professor Blackthorn would have heard.” Amber replied confidently as she began to twist a plastic lid onto the sample jar.

“That doesn’t sound very convincing.” Jackson grumbled as he also twisted the lid on his jar. Amber rolled her eyes as she took the jars and put them into a padded case in her backpack.

“We should still get more samples. There’s a bunch of different colors and mushroom types around here.” She said while looking around, which wasn’t exactly what Jackson had wanted to hear.

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”