Author's note: I feel compelled to issue a warning about this chapter, due to how uncomfortable it made me to write it. If you're squeamish about the idea of characters performing a post mortem analysis of a deceased Pokémon, feel free to gloss over the middle section of the chapter. You'll know when you find it.

"Cuckawwwww! Cuckawwwww!"

The crowing of a rooster, a sound that Andrea hadn't heard in nearly five years. For the first sixteen years of her life, it signaled the start of a new day, and just like the old days, it served the same purpose once more. Despite the terrible condition of the room, she felt well rested as she rolled out of bed. She wandered over to the window and peaked through the tattered blinds; the golden glow of the rising sun bathed the area with welcoming warmth, and not a cloud was visible in the sky.

Patrick, on the other hand, looked as if he hadn't slept a wink the entire night. His bright red hair was an utter mess and dark bags rested under his eyes. He placed his hand on his forehead in a failed attempt at relieving his suffering, and a stream of obscenities flowed through his mind like a river. "This bloody god damn room. There should be laws against this." he thought.

"You look terrible..." she commented.

"Nothing's changed, then," he said in attempt to inject some humor into his suffering. He groaned heavily as he sat up. "How'd you sleep?"

"Well enough, I think."

"No, how?" he asked, then remembered the speech he gave the previous night about making do with what he had. He stumbled to his feet and tried to put on a stoic face. "Ready to get started?"

She crossed her arms as she gave him a glaring look. "Are you?"

"I'll just be a little tired, that's all," he said. "Maybe breakfast and some fresh air will wake me up."

Breakfast passed by quickly and uneventfully. Both ordered the same thing: cinnamon-seasoned toast drenched in butter alongside a generous helping of sugary apple chutney, further complimented with scrambled eggs and two strips of bacon. Andrea ate like a queen, as her usual meals over the past four years, be they breakfast, lunch or dinner, were rarely anything other than the blandest and most tasteless ramen imaginable. Such was the price of progress, she always told herself, and that she should be happy she had even that. Patrick, on the other hand, was less enthusiastic about it and couldn't even finish his meal.

With breakfast out of the way, the two started their day with the short walk across town towards the Gates Dairy Farm. The dairy farm was larger than either had expected. Both knew that it was one of the largest in the country, but they were surprised to see how just expansive it was. An impressive array of pipes, wires, machinery and storage tanks, a small factory in its own right, were the hallmark at the center of the property. As they approached, they passed by the Miltank pasture. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary; the 250-member herd grazed peacefully on the muddy grass, blissfully unaware of the fate that potentially awaited them.

"Look at 'em all..." Patrick commented.

One of the creatures approached the fence as they passed by and mooed loudly to grab their attention. The Miltank was covered from head to toe in filthy and gnarled pink fur, with dozens of black spots, speckles and stripes adorning its massive, rotund body. Two blunted horns sat atop its black head, and its deep blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight as it awaited their attention.

Andrea couldn't contain herself as she passed by. "Awww! Aren't you just adorable!?" she squealed as she offered her hand out. "Look at how pretty you are!" She quickly devolved into gibberish as she patted and rubbed the overjoyed Miltank all over.

Patrick looked as if he was dying of the plague as he watched the two. "Dr. Reiland was right... you shouldn't judge a book by its cover..."

She turned around and stared a hole into him. "What was that?"

"Nothing, nevermind," he said.

The sound of hooves racing across the dirt crept up behind them. As they turned around, a large, white equine creature was blazing towards them with blurring speed. A thick mane of gorgeous, fiery red hair ran down its neck, across its back and down its tail. Atop the creature was a rugged looking man, adorned from top to bottom with tattered and patched denim clothing, complete with a bright white felt cowboy hat.

"Easy, easy!" the man shouted as he pulled back on the horse's reins. The creature came to an abrupt stop and circled around as the man studied the two with a critical and sharp glare. "May I help you?"

"We're looking for the owner of the farm," Patrick said.

"That'd be me," he said with a polite nod and an offer of his hand. A thick, rural drawl hung over his words, yet there was the unmistakable charm of a country gentleman surrounding him. "Dennis Gates, I run this place. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Patrick shook his hand and immediately felt the crushing grip of a vice. "I'm Patrick Adelaide," he said before he motioned towards Andrea. "And this is my assistant, Andrea Dennison."

"Hi," she quietly chirped as she shook his hand.

"Dr. Reiland sent us to investigate the problem with your herd."

"Oh, good! You're here earlier than I expected!" Mr. Gates said with excitement. His demeanor shifted rapidly, marked with a sigh. "Poor girls... I just don't know what's been going on with them."

Patrick nodded. "That's what we're here for. I have to warn you, it could take some time for us to figure this out, but we will. We have a few early ideas... My assistant is thinking it might be a problem with the cattle feed?"

"The feed, you say?" Mr. Gates scratched his chin in thought, then shook his head. "I don't know 'bout that. Problem's only come up in the past two weeks, and we've had that feed since the harvest last year."

"It wouldn't hurt to look, would it?" she quietly asked.

"'spose not. I'll take you to the main storage silo. Something could'a happened to it a couple weeks ago." He dismounted from his steed and patted her on the side. "You head back to the stable, ya hear? I'm going to show our guests around." The Ponyta neighed loudly and began to trot away as Mr. Gates led Andrea and Patrick deeper into the farm.

"What do you use to feed them?" Patrick asked.

"Oh, you know, all sorts of stuff. Wheat chaff, grass clippings, soy beans, corn... I see 'em pickin' at the nettles on the stone walls on the edge of the pasture all the time, too."

"Nettles? How long has that been going on?"

"Since I was your age, son."

"I doubt they're the problem, then."

Mr. Gates shrugged. "I'm not convinced it's a problem with their diet. If it were, I'd probably have lost a lot more of them by now."

It was a quick journey to the grain silo that sat at the heart of the Miltank pasture. Along the way, they questioned Mr. Gates about the day to day happenings on the farm. He hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary in the weeks leading up to the first Miltank's death two weeks ago, or anything since. When asked about the other Pokémon kept on the farm, Mr. Gates informed them that the problem had only been plaguing the Miltank herd. What they learned wasn't useful for figuring out what was happening, but it did help them to narrow down a few early theories.

Mr. Gates unlocked the maintenance hatch on the silo and swung it open. The musky smell of damp, old wheat billowed out into the field. "I don't know what you're gonna look for, but have at it." he said.

Patrick patted Andrea's shoulder. "I'm gonna let you handle this one, Andrea."

Anxiety bubbled to the surface as she looked at him imploringly. "M-me? All alone?"

"Yeah. I want to see if you can figure this out. If you start feeling like you're in over your head, let me know. I'll give you a hand."

"I think you're making a mistake, but I'll try," she said as she grabbed two big handfuls of the cattle feed and dropped it onto the table beside her. "Let's see..." she muttered to herself as she brought up the Accu-Scan app on her R-Kit. She clicked through the various options until she found a physical data scan and began the process. Just as before, a holographic beam shot out of the top of the R-Kit and began to scan the grain in a rapid orderly fashion.

"Working..." the R-Kit said in a robotic voice. "Compound mixture detected. Displaying detected components: 67% wheat, 17% corn, 10% grass, 6% soy protein. Further details can be found below." An impressive array of information about the cattle feed appeared on the screen, though a majority of it was useless to her investigation. She scrolled through the mountains of data looking for anything that, to her, looked out of the ordinary. Eventually she came to something that seemed useful:

MICROBES PRESENT: N/A
MICROBE WARNINGS: N/A
FUNGI PRESENT: Trace amounts detected, thorough lab analysis required.
FUNGI WARNINGS: N/A
TOXINS PRESENT: N/A
TOXIN WARNINGS: N/A
CHEMICALS PRESENT: Somatotropin
CHEMICAL WARNINGS: Somatotropin

"Somatotropin?" she asked. "That sounds familiar, but I can't quite remember..."

"Growth hormone. Ya know, put a little extra milk in the udder." Mr. Gates answered. "There's a lot of them... hippie types... they say it's bad for the cows, but it's perfectly harmless, far as I know."

She continued to scroll through the data, but nothing stood out. "Maybe I was wrong... Any ideas, Patrick?"

"Can we take a look at one of the recently deceased Miltanks, Mr. Gates? We might find something useful."

"Sure can! We've had most of them hauled away, but we had another pass overnight... Come along, she's in the barn. I'll take you to her."

Andrea turned to Patrick and objected quietly. "You're not serious, are you?"

"You did ask for ideas, right?"

She quietly shook her head, then sighed.

"Don't blame ya if you're a little squeamish 'bout it, missy. If it's any consolation, you'll have the freshest one to work with."

"Here she is, the most recent one," Mr. Gates said as he knelt down beside a deceased Miltank that was slumped over a pile of hay. Despite his assurances of it having recently passed, a horde of buzzing insects were already at work, and the stench of decay hung heavily in the air. "She looked healthy last night... Then when one of my ranchers came in this morning? She was gone."

Patrick shook his head as he looked at the deceased Miltank. "Hopefully she didn't suffer much. Let's get started." he said.

Mr. Gates tipped his hat. "You need a hand with anything, you give me a shout. I've got some Mareep to check in on."

"Thank you, Mr. Gates," he said with a polite nod. He knelt down beside the Miltank and began to give it a closer inspection, then looked up towards Andrea, who had kept a sizeable distance. "I'm going to need a hand with this."

"I... I don't know about this..." she started. "This is..."

"It's gross, I know," he answered back. "I can think of ten thousand things I'd rather be doing right now, but... are you going to help or not?"

She sighed, took a deep breath, blocked her nasal passages, then timidly approached the Miltank. Her preparation was almost useless, as the smell still forced its way into her nostrils. She dropped to her knees and slowly rolled up her sleeves, trying to put off what she was about to do for as long as possible. "W-what should I... I never..." she sheepishly bleated.

"I guess this is more medical than biology, huh..." he said. Truth be told, he didn't know what to do either. "Let's just give 'er the once over, see if something looks suspicious." He pointed towards the Miltank's head. "Try to lift her head up."

She thought carefully about how to proceed with his request. Worried about irking an increasingly impatient Patrick, she bit her lip and dug her left arm between the Miltank's head and the hay that it was resting on. The creature's head was massive and surprisingly heavy, forcing her to lift with her right arm as well. She tried her hardest to ignore everything around her and gazed up towards the rafters of the barn. Patrick slid his finger into the Miltank's mouth and lifted its upper lip. A blast of noxious air escaped the creature's mouth and was nearly enough to make her sick.

"Nothing seems out of the ordinary..." he commented as he inspected the creature's mouth. 32 well-worn molars, divided into sets of eight, rested within healthy looking gums. "Alright, you can put her down now."

She weezed heavily in an attempt to catch her breath as she let the creature's head go.

He let out a chuckle. "This is the side of science they don't tell you about in school."

"I really wish they did," she said. "If I knew that I'd be doing this one day, I'd have focused on that softball career instead."

He peeled back the Miltank's flap-like ear and began to study it for any potential irregularities. "Softball, huh?" he asked. "Were you any good at it?"

She shrugged. "It got me a scholarship, at least. They took it away after the first year, though... I never did join the team. I focused on my degree instead."

"I think you made the right choice. Softball isn't that big in this country... Besides, a career like this could be lifelong. People who get into sports are lost when they have to retire."

The small talk helped to ease Andrea's nerves. She still found the work she was doing to be utterly detestable, but she also found it easier to cut through her apprehension. "Find anything?"

He shook his head as he dropped the ear. "Nothing."

"What next?" she asked, in the hopes that they were done.

He grabbed a large tuft of the Miltank's fur and began to dig his fingers through it. "We're going to have to start digging deeper."

"Let's just get this over with, then..." she mumbled as she did the same.

"That's the spirit!"

Minute after agonizing minute passed by as they dug through the Miltank's pink fur. Each tug of the fur release more and more of the horrid smell, and for nothing; they weren't even sure of what they were looking for, but whatever it was, they weren't finding it. Patrick mused at the idea of returning to Loch Alstan and dragging the medical assistant they had met at the research center along for the job, but only as a last resort if they couldn't find anything themselves.

Just as they were about ready to give up, Andrea found a particularly unsightly white blister hidden beneath the Miltank's matted fur. A thick, syrupy substance that was lavender in color oozed from it. "Ewww... what is that?"

Patrick perked up. "What is what?"

She pointed out the blister. "This thing... Let me look for more of these."

"I think you might have found what we're looking for."

It didn't take long before she found similar blisters all across the Miltank's body, hidden from sight just below its fur. They all looked identical to the first.

"Now to figure out what the hell this is..."

The blisters looked vaguely familiar to her. "Where have I seen this before..." she murmured. "I remember... reading about something... second year's ecology unit..."

"What is it?"

She raised her R-Kit and began to flip through the apps. "During my second year of university, we focused a lot on the delicate balance of ecosystems across the world. I remember reading about something... I can't remember its name!" she shouted. "It was some sort of fungal infection brought on by contact with toxic spores, I remember that much."

He shrugged, unsure of what she was talking about.

"This thing is able to categorize Pokémon species by subtype, right?" she asked as tapped away at her R-Kit.

"It can," he said with a smile. "Sounds like you're onto something."

"I'm probably completely wrong," she said. A lengthy list of thousands of Pokémon appeared on the screen, far too many for her to sort through in an efficient manner. She filtered the list selectively based on what she remembered: a fungal Pokémon that thrived in a forest habitat. To her relief, the new list was only twenty-three entries long. She began to whisper to herself as she scrolled through the list. "No... no... that's not it either... is that... no... Ah! I think this is what I'm remembering! Blastcap!"

"Never heard of it."

"Blastcap, the Toxplosion Pokémon!" the R-Kit's voice began to drone. "Blastcap is a colony Pokémon composed of many parts. Unlike other colony Pokémon such as Dugtrio or Exeggcute which operate in hivemind-like groups, all of the thought processes and decision making happen in the largest mushroom, while the rest focus on nutrient gathering, defense and exploration. When a Blastcap reaches the end of its adult life, it erupts with a cloud of spores that spread through the area and settle on dead or dying trees. These spores then spread their roots and a new colony forms."

"It's a prime example of why a species shouldn't be introduced to a new environment," she said. She began to read from the information that her R-Kit displayed about the creature:

Blastcap is a species that is native to the jungles of the Mangada region's Andalla Basin, though it has a worldwide range today. In many areas, it is seen as an aggressive invasive species, due to a lack of natural predators and its reproductive methods. While there is no solid consensus as to how Blastcap was introduced to other areas, many biologists point towards the sharp rise in international trade that the Mangada region initiated in the 1940s as a likely cause, a sentiment backed up by numerous historians.

. . .

The first reports of Blastcaps within Lanark were made in 1957, when several colonies were discovered in the forests north of Steelport. By 1963, the Blastcap infestation had reached peak levels as it made its way north into the heartland. In the following year, several thousand acres of farmland were overrun by Blastcap colonies, being the main contributing factor to the Goldwheat Famine, which claimed the lives of about 20,000 people and Pokémon. Blastcap's presence was officially declared a national emergency, and an extensive campaign spearheaded by the newly founded Ministry of Wildlife aimed to contain the Blastcap population. On January 1st, 1967, the Ministry declared its campaign a success, with the last reported sighting of a Blastcap in the autumn of 1966.

"And what does any of that have to do with this Miltank?" he asked.

She continued to read from the R-Kit:

While interactions between Blastcaps and other species of Pokémon are poorly documented, recent evidence suggests that the spores it releases during its reproductive cycle are highly toxic to certain other species that are not found within its native range. in 1992, researchers in Kalos linked Blastcap spores to an outbreak at a Pokémon daycare facility that killed eight and left dozens crippled and chronically ill. The outbreak, termed 'White Pox' due to the appearance of numerous white pustules on the afflicted, was limited to Stantlers, Swinubs, Linoones, Zangooses, Tauri and the lone Slakoth at the facility, none of which share a natural range with Blastcaps.

However, other Pokémon at the facility that shared historic ranges with the Blastcap were completely unaffected. Theories about evolutionary acquired defenses to the toxic effects of the spores have been put forward by various researchers and ecologists, but there is no concrete evidence to back these theories at this time.

"But that doesn't make sense," he suggested. "Why would something like that be happening when Blastcap hasn't been seen in this country in decades?"

"Do you have any idea how difficult it is to completely eradicate an invasive species?" she asked. "The Ministry may have said their program was a success, but there's no way to be certain that they completely wiped it out, especially in a country this large." She adjusted the settings on her R-Kit and began to scan one of the blisters with it. "Perhaps I can prove my theory..."

"If you're right about this, we have a bigger problem than a few dead cows."

It took a moment for the R-Kit to complete its analysis. "Significant concentrations of fungal spores of unknown origin detected. A more detailed lab analysis will be required to determine a source." it droned.

"Is there any way we can figure this out without going back to the lab?" she asked. "Can this thing scan more effectively?"

"Unfortunately not, this isn't some science fiction television program," he said. He scratched his chin in thought as he thought about what to do next. "What kind of environment does this thing live in? Maybe we can look for it before we think about heading back to Loch Alstan."

"It says here that they're found in forests and swamps for the most part."

"A swamp, huh? There's one north of town. Want to check it out?"

She shook her head. "I don't think I'm dressed for a hike through a swamp."

"If you want to stay here and hang out with the dead cow, that's cool."

"No!" she protested. "A swamp sounds fine when you put it that way..."