"Ah, speaking of lab reports, you should pass your previous ones to me."
Prof. Josie seem to just snap a fold in her brain and remembered something she has been thinking to have forgotten. Anthony and Mary almost snorted out loud, because of their sheer force of will, they avoided getting glared at by their research advisor as they just silently put their lab reports in front of them and picked up the new ones. Anthony once again focused on the title of the lab activity, which he found odd.
And because he did, he raised his hand, and after Prof. Josie acknowledged him, Anthony spoke.
"Why are ghost types excluded in this census?"
This question is seconded by Mary with a nod. After all, this exercise in Lavender Town could be a good opportunity to learn how to handle wild Ghost-type Pokémon that are known to be quite wild with their hypnosis move, which the majority of them know. Better yet, Prof. Josie can accompany them and give them the ropes of ghost-type handling, so that in the off chance that they would be able to catch and earn the respect of a ghost type, they would be ready.
In this 2 v 1 situation, Prof. Josie responded calmly, though she seemed to be incapable of showing any emotion other than calmness.
"Well, it's indeed logical to give you an on-field experience, but the thing is, the concentration of Ghost types in Lavender Town is very high, and they can form some teams or groups to use their illusions to trick you, and in the worst case, make you go insane. I can't train you and protect you at the same time, so don't worry about training yourself to handle ghost types."
Prof. Josie then nodded as she looked at the two.
"Also, I think Prof. Oak still have something in store for you, after all you will graduate in the second week of December while you need to submit a physical version of the IMRAD of your research that has been submitted and/or approved by a journal, so maybe that would be the focus of your activities in your last 1 month and 2 weeks of your internship so you don't have to worry about experiencing handling ghost type Pokemons. For now, focus on the scope of your activity."
For a moment, Prof. Josie looked at her students carefully, and when he gauged that they were able to understand and come to terms with her explanation, she continued to explain their activity by pulling out 6 pouches with circular yellow soap on it. Anthony, who was just mulling that the explanation of Prof. Josie was sound, noticed that the soaps seemed to have no smell, which he was confused about, as well as Mary, who slowly grabbed one of the pouches and smelled it.
"What is this professor? Why does it have no smell?"
Josie picked up a pouch and then smelled it too before replying.
"This is a type-specific repel. This item is laboratory grade, and only researchers can legally use it since it's something that can mess up an ecosystem really badly, as it lasts for months for intensive data collection, unlike the commercial and mass-produced varieties that affect all Pokemons but only in a short amount of time. As for why it doesn't have any smell, this is because only ghost types can smell it, and if you want to feel what Ghost type feels like, you can try to smell smelling salt."
Prof. Josie said as such in one breath, making the two flinch a little. Mary, who, of course, has some access to the internet, knew what a smelling salt is and apparently makes people wake up by force, an unpleasant force, while Anthony, who actually didn't experience corporate slavery in his previous life, experienced procrastination that would make him lose his job if he didn't overcome it, so he knew what a smelling salt felt like.
This made Anthony, who intended not to add anything more to the conversation, start their preparations already, instinctively muttering.
"That seems too much for repealing Pokemons..."
Mary, who only knew in theory how smelling salt works, nodded, which made Prof. Josie nod.
"I think so too, but it's better that our interns hallucinate and possibly lose their lives because of malignant Ghost-type Pokémon. Remember, Psychic types may be one of the most dangerous, but ONLY IF you did something to them first. Ghost types are sometimes just automatically choose you to prank and even send you to your graves."
Prof. Josie seemed to be in her lecture mode as she paused and looked at the interns, who were shocked to see such an airhead use a tone not as flat as her default one.
"Plus, one of the reasons Lavender Town is very popular is because it's a concentration of retired trainers or coordinators who buried their Pokemons their in the Pokémon Tower, and some of them are blaming themselves for it, making their negative emotions more delicious for Ghost types and subsequently making Ghost types born there stronger than average."
Prof. Josie again said in one breath before looking at Anthony and Mary, who already realized her point. After all, the most important thing is that no Pokémon and humans are harmed at the same time during their interactions, and surely, the Pokémon labs have made the 'soap' repel of ghost types non-lethal (though ecologically destructive if misused by the wrong people). This understanding is seen by Prof. Josie accurately, which made her immediately say:
"Any more questions?"
Anthony and Mary looked at each other for a moment before looking at Prof. Josie and shaking their heads. Prof. Josie then said:
"Alright then, that would be all. Remember that you will be staying at an inn prepared by us beforehand, and avoid going to the Pokémon Center because it's too congested by trainers flocking to it because of the Pokémon League season starting. Don't inconvenience yourselves and others if it's not an emergency."
Anthony and Mary nodded at this before getting out of their seat, bidding farewell to Prof. Josie and getting out of the conference room. Prof. Josie sighed at this and then looked at the empty room for some time before also going out of it.
This time, since she slept for an ample amount of time, she didn't lock herself in the conference hall.
_______________
Lavender Town is a small town that seems to refuse to develop into a city despite its booming economy due to the yearly influx of trainers that either want to visit the graveyard to strengthen themselves and their Pokemons or to catch a strong ghost-type Pokémon. Furthermore, this town is in the literal corner of two routes: Route 8 to the west, going to Saffron, and Route 12 that can either connect to Vermillion or Fuchsia (though Vermillion is more of a trainers and experts only route while Fuchsia is more mainstream) to the south.
In the said direction, the wooden bridge that seems to have conquered its destiny predetermined by time is connected directly to a pavement made by the continuous trail of trainers coming and going to the Lavender Town, making the grass retreat to the sides as if to pay respect to their monarch. At this time, the said 'monarch' of the grasses and flowers is a pink-colored Pokémon with 4 cow nipples on its belly and black undertones on its head and the sides of its body. In its back are two kinds of bags: a backpack for the clothes of the two humans that are accompanying it and a shoulder bag for the equipments issued to the same humans for their data collection task for their internship.
Anthony and Mary, who were walking towards Lavender Town was given bags of Pokemon foods for different types, stockers to indicate that a Pokemon was already counted and the keys to the inn they will stay in alongside a clipboard with thick sheets of information tabs for the owners of the Pokemons to fill in (they will also fill it themselves when they get to the part where they will be censusing wild Pokemons inside the Town).
These are obviously too heavy for the children, so they decided to ask Miltank to carry their things, which Miltank happily obliged, even skip hopping as it did so.
_Hm, apparently, this census will take two days since we have to go around the town, and census wild Pokemons are exceptionally hard. I also felt like the town is much bigger than a town suggests, I hope we can start something for the wild Pokemons census today before resting, though unlikely._
While Anthony is walking, he is considering how to speed up the census process; he really doesn't have Pokemons that're responsible enough to split up the tasks with them. Zubat is small and technically just a child (though stronger than an average Zubat child), while Miltank is very energetic despite already being contained by making it tire out first thing in the morning through its jogging; it's impossible to just give it to them.
_Ugh, I want to write the Introduction to the IMRAD already. The data collection itself is not hard, but it's not like the biodiversity index of Fuchsia only consists of one number for every year that we will request. We will have to graph the state of different types of Pokemons before being able to create an interpretation for the significant relationship between the biodiversity index and the noise pollution index. This is not to mention that we have to explain the 10-year trend of both noise pollution and the biodiversity index of a city..._
In this study, there are 4 possible directions on how to analyze the biodiversity index that they would soon acquire: to immediately use correlational formulas on the index, which is the shallowest and easiest, use the index by district and then a general correlation formula, which is rigorous but doesn't align with their lab since they're researching about environmental science and not city planning (or that's what they were talking about) and by types, which can be potentially noisy but it's not like all Pokemon types are present in Fuchsia. Lastly, they can also choose to use a specific Pokémon type and then use every species of it inside Fuchsia as their research focus.
The last one is the least troublesome in their part, as this means they can choose normal types, which have mostly Meowths and Persian, and some others, which are very sensitive to noise, meaning they were able to properly gauge if something is being done by Noise pollution to drive them away. In this regard, they still have to discuss this with their adviser, Prof. Josie, later in the follow-up edit after they go around Lavender, counting domesticated Pokemons, though the Professor already said to narrow down the scope as much as possible, even though they already did as she can't obviously do that for them.
This idea of narrowing down to a single type is already thought and agreed upon by Mary and Anthony, though they are already far away from the lab and in the middle of the sea when they were discussing this and were immediately briefed by the head of the satellite lab, so they don't have time to report it and instead will be discussing the idea later at night when they rested in the inn, online of course.
"So, what are you doing?"
Anthony, alongside Zubat atop his head and Pikachu and Skitty on both shoulders of Mary, looked at the latter, that has been furiously typing, swiping, and deleting texts in a document file all the while they were walking. Obviously, Mary wanted to finish the introduction of their IMRAD, focusing on their idea. The document also has their newly tentative title that's just waiting for approval: Effects of Noise Pollution on Normal Type Pokemon Biodiversity Index in Fuchsia City.
"I... I want to finish this as fast as possible....!"
It seems like Mary is quite immersed in what she's doing, and from what Anthony can see, it seems like she's enjoying scrolling down the website that's equivalent to Google Scholar in the Pokémon world to look for references. Anthony, who had found this particular part of the research before when he was still a student, as the most hateful, was impressed. However, he still pulled the phone out of Mary's hand, making the little lady shocked and a little angered.
"Hey!"
Mary said as she raised her hand, making her two Pokemons hop out of her shoulders and then just walk with them. Anthony calmly looked at Mary and then pointed at the front that presented the entrance of the not-so-small town of Lavender Town, known for their infamous Pokémon Tower.
"Let's do what we were supposed to do first, okay?"
Mary's angered expression eased up for a moment as she sighed and nodded.