Disgusting Delivery

Spoiler:

The archen of the rescue team flinched when he looked upon the great marshlands before him. It was full of...water. As a rock type the pokemon hated water. He had no ability to float like a duck or a normal bird and he could barely swim. The Archen sighed as he stared at the water, he still had not entered it just yet. He would have to look through all of this liquid to search for the black sludge...how was he going to hold it anyways? It would damage him if he held it...it only healed poison types and damaged others, so why had he accepted the job anyways? He looked at the reward and sighed, "This better be worth it..."

The shadow moved through the familiar cattails and walked over the tiny lakes that had formed in the Cattail Marsh. At night this place was a beautiful one, yet dangerous. Once the sun rises over it however, the beauty leaves, leaving behind only a murky, dangerous swamp. And in this swamp full of mud the Gengar was supposed to find some Black Sludge.
Now this was going to be a fun mission.
William already knew it.
A few times had he visited this place already. Each and every time it ended in something, that was very close to a complete disaster, which had only barely been avioded each and every time.
This place. It didn't like William.

Acro paused when he spotted something purple in the distance. It seemed to be round and small. Was it William again? The Gastly? He sighed as he looked at the water again...he wanted to go to his friend, but the water...The Archen was fed up. He leaped into the water with a loud splash and forced his way closer, only then did he realize that the "ball" had arms and legs. This was not a gastly, but curiosity made him stay, just what was this pokemon and who were they?

As William wandered further through the marshes, he heard a loud splash followed by seeing a familiar shade of orange through the few plants. Was it Acro? No, that couldn't be. Acro hated this area, especially because of the water. He would know better than to return here again.
But as the Gengar moved closer, it became clearer and clearer, that this indeed was the Archen.
William's already bizarrely wide grin grew even wider as he recognized the familliar face.
"Heya! What brings you here, Acro? I thought you had enough of water and especially this area."
It truly was a surprise to find the rock type here. The last time he all but vowed never to return here.
This was interesting...

This pokemon knew is his name? How was this? He had never met a pokemon like this..."H-Hi..." The pokemon spoke of Acro coming here before, the only pokemon he had come here to before was with William...was this William evolved?
"Wi-William?" he asked the Gengar, not sure if it really was the gastly. The pokemon sounded like his ghostly friend, but was it just a mimic? Acro pushed the thought out of his mind. He was being too suspicious of others once more. He awaited a reply, hoping that this pokemon really was William the used-to-be-Gastly.

William couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the mixture of confusion and supressed fear the Archen was displaying.
"Not quite. It's "William" and not "Wi-William", my dear friend. it has been a while since we last met, don't you agree? So why are you here? Did you get lost? Because to be honest I can't think of any other reason for you to visit this place again."
William was a bit embarassed that he hadn't even considered, that Acro wouldn't recognize him in this form. Thus he tried to hide it behind the lighthearted remarks he was making. However his interest in the Archen's reasons for coming here was a genuine one. It was just too interesting a matter to ignore.

Well the creature was William all right. The Archen was a bit unsettled on how the pokemon pointed out that he had stuttered once more. Acro spoke, "I-I came here for a job...there didn't seem to be anyone taking it so I thought that I would...I guess the guild messed up again on who's taking the job though."
The Archen was happy to be with his friend, as usual, but the pointing out of his stuttering made the Archen nervous.

"What? Again? While I definitely don't mind being here with you, that board staff really should be replaced. How can one get that careless? Anyways...you've taken this exact mission even though there were many others in areas with much less water. Are you trying to overcome your hydrophobia? If so, then that is most commendable. Still...this Black Sludge is higly toxic. You could have been seriously injured just by touching it. Type disadvantage and a very dangerous item. Are you trying to get hurt?"
William didn't really believe Acro just having taken this mission because noone else seemed to be willing to take it. For that his hydrophobia would have been far too severe in the Gengar's opinion. No, he had to have had another reason...

(You still don't have to apologize for that. ^^)

"Can we please just get started on the mission?" Acro sighed. Truth was, he was careless and did not look at the location before accepting the mission. He hoped to get this mission over with as quickly as he could, since his hatred for water pushed him to hurry.
"Also it's not a phobia, but more of a hatred for it.." Acro could not help but mentioning. He instantly regretted saying such a thing, and figured that the water was making him irritable.

"Well...if you say so, then we should begin I guess..."
Silently the Gengar moved through the marshes, apparently just walking over the many pools of water without sinking in or even creating the slightest ripple on the liquid's surface at all. In fact William didn't show much difference from a shadow moving through the foggy landscape at all. As the Shadow Pokémon this was one of his abilities.
A short distance away William stopped again, waiting for the prehistoric bird to follow him, the same wide grin still stuck on his face. Acro was already annoyed, so the Ghost type didn't want to worsen the situation.

Acro was confused by this new William. How had he evolved so soon? Did the species evolve early? The Archen wondered just when he would evolve, was he close? Would he be able to fly soon? Acro paused and looked up at the sky, was he ever going to soar there? He ripped his attention away and back to the wet ground he stood upon when he heard a small splash in a slightly deeper area, "What was that?" He spoke as he witnessed some cattails sway against the wind as if something had moved it.

This dice is not existing.

Surprised William turned around as well.
"Wasn't me. I'm not even touching the ground here. I think this means, that we should prepare for battle."
Of course. They had only taken a few steps yet and there already was something after them. Did the Gengar have this bad luck because he was a Ghost? Did his presence in this world cause some kind of rift in spacetime? Did he smell like steak? The Poison type was already running out of explanations for his tremendously horrible luck. Not that it would have mattered. The bad luck would stay. Probably forever. But if there wouldn't be any fighting involved, the mission wouldn't have been posted at the guild. It was a small price to pay for acceptance.

Acro was surprised to see a tympole leap out of the water and leap over him. The tympole seemed to have been trying to tackle the archen, but overshot the attack and ended up leaping over him and splashing water all over the pokemon. The tympole decided to turn against the large shadow pokemon. Its cheeks emitted an odd noise as bubbles formed at its mouth and shot towards the gengar.
Acro was to shocked from the surprise attack to do much, and simply used double team, creating copies all around the gengar and the Tympole.

Almost as surprised as Acro, William found himself unable to dodge the attack, taking a hit straight to the face. For only a split second the huge grin vanished from the Gengar's face. Managing to stop himself from falling over, once again William's darkest memories were summoned up and brought into the shape of a ball. As this Shadow Ball wasn't made out of actual shadows, one would have to be knowledgeable in the Jungian theory of psychology to understand the origin of its name. A shadow is the part of a sentient being, that they would prefer to ignore. Their weaknesses. Their pain and sorrow. And a Shadow Ball concentrated that Shadow of the user of the attack and transmitted these negative feelings over to its target to scramble their mind with the uncomfortable thoughts within. Without proper control, a shadow can cause major psychological damage. And that was exactly, what William was trying to do.

The Tympole was struck by the attack, but more of a clip on the tail as it attempted to dive back in the water before it came near. The tympole swam about into a more deeper area and decided to try the Archen once more.
Acro was struck by a stream of bubbles as he searched around frantically for the creature. He was knocked into a more deeper part as well and sank up to his neck. The tympole jumped areas and began to bash into the Archen. Acro managed to pull himself to higher ground just before the pokemon dealt another blow to his side.