3rd week of February, Tuesday, 7th month of Anthony's reincarnation to the world of Pokémon, 1 month and 3 weeks since he decided to become an intern under Prof. Oak's wing, one of the requirements to be an associate field researcher. The bright yellow rays of the rising sun slowly bathed the town of Lavender, first its iconic landmark, the Pokemon Tower, and then the houses, the Pokemon center, and Poke Mart, symbolizing another day of casual or rigorous work of residents, trainers, and some coordinators who are visiting the town.
They would either be continuing their escapades to the Pokémon Tower, waiting for their Pokémon to recover, or going out of the Town early in the morning and heading towards Route 12 or Route 8. However, none of these are the goals of the said interns, Anthony and Mary, as they woke up at 6:30 in the morning and immediately did their morning preparations.
The explanation of what IMRAD is, which is a shortened term for Introduction, Methodology, Results, and Discussion, as well as the question and answer portion, has taken a good 2 and a half hours of their time, finishing at around 8:40 pm when they started at around 6:10 pm. Normally, this time is rookie numbers to children such as Anthony and Mary, who are still full of energy, and normally they would still be able to continue writing the introduction and methodology of their research paper; their energy was already sapped when they went all around Lavender Town to ask people how many Pokemons do they have.
While most people are rather accepting of some people who are annoyed as their worst encounter, they still felt mental and physical fatigue despite already resting by taking a night shower and having dinner, so in the end, they decided to postpone their research writing and move it after they finished the undomesticated Pokémon census. They planned to finish the task by the afternoon, report the completion of the task to the satellite lab, and then go back to the center of green development, and then start all of the write-ups that they have to do, like their lab reports and the research itself.
_This would be a very productive day..._
Sighed Anthony as he had breakfast while waiting for Mary to finish taking a bath, which would usually take half an hour. He doesn't have anything to do while eating except scrolling away to the posts of one of the only 3 people he's following on Pokegram, Cynthia which he have become mutuals with a week ago, there was not really much information that could be gleamed as she was just taking groupies with gym leader Koga of Fuchsia city Poison type gym and gym leader Sabrina of Saffron City Psychic type gym, only her current location can be gleamed.
Strangely enough, Anthony noticed that every time a den of Team Rocket has been found, and members either caught or have their tails being sniffed by Interpol, Cynthia would be there.
_Two cities swept from the feet of Team Rocket in a week, that's quite fast..._
If Anthony's not-so-good deduction on how the Interpol works, then the sweeping of cities would only be the first phase of the operations, and would be finished geographically fast, and a long battle of attrition would happen.
_My time perception's been warped since I always speed run GBA Pokémon titles every time I want to have a trip down memory lane... it seems like people here, they still haven't realized that Sylph Co. has been under the control of Team Rocket for some time now... should I speed the capture of them by telling them this?_
Anthony tapped the icon of Cynthia's profile in his messages, which stopped on their first conversation when she had a picture with his parents, Mama, and baby Kangaskhan; however, he shook his head in the end.
_I would get my mom and dad into trouble if I did that, though... after all, they are known to be uncooperative to the world government and can barely be swayed if it's something that can benefit themselves or their son, which is me. If I just suddenly said that I know the main hideout of Team Rocket, then the Interpol would immediately suspect that Giovanni can make a deal that would benefit them better than the world government... and as far as I'm concerned, my mom and dad hate Team Rocket down to their very core..._
Anthony looked at the door of the bathroom, which was still closed, and decided to just focus on the task. Just as he did so, the chat head of Cynthia popped up on his screen. Apparently, the future champion of Sinnoh had sent him a video. When Anthony opened it, he saw Cynthia waving at the camera while floating, enshrouded by a purple-colored light.
"Say hi, ma'am Sabrina!"
Cynthia shouted to the lady on her back, who is more mature than her; she has long black hair with bangs that cover her forehead, as well as red-colored eyes that seem to look indifferent to all of creation. Gym leader Sabrina casually nodded before again spinning around the sky with Cynthia, floating through her (alleged) psychic power. Anthony kind of wants to ask Sabrina if it's true that she can turn people into dolls, but decides not to since he wouldn't want to turn into one before even losing to her in a gym battle.
_Oh right, Sabrina turned her mom into a doll... will Cynthia be alright? Or is this Sabrina the one in the game? Right, it's Red and Blue that are battling for the championship, so maybe... eh, let's make sure._
Anthony immediately replied as he remembered that Sabrina is a very dangerous person in the anime.
"Are you alright?"
Cynthia saw his message and then, after a minute, replied.
"Yes, gym leader Sabrina is hard to fight, she doesn't speak verbally when commanding her Pokemons! Also, she's not a fan of talking physically, as you can see. Why do you ask?"
Anthony sighed in relief. It seems that Sabrina is the Sabrina in the games and not in the anime, who almost committed unintentional murder with Ash and friends. After ensuring the safety of Cynthia, Anthony replied.
"Nothing, your life seems to be more colorful than mine."
After the words of his words, Anthony sent a photo of the clipboard in front of him, despite him eating breakfast, as well as the many Pokémon foods that they would need in the census. While talking with Cynthia, Anthony saw Mary already donning the t-shirt that would be under her lab gown go out of the bathroom, and he had already finished his meal.
"Ah, right, you're an intern in the green development lab. Then, I'll not disturb you anymore. Good luck!"
Anthony stood up from his seat before replying.
"Thank you, I was just about to take a bath."
After bidding farewell and Cynthia replying that she again had some other places to be in, Anthony took his towel from his bag and went to the bathroom after saying to Mary that she also should have breakfast. They didn't have breakfast together to save time since they wanted to finish their census work as fast and as early as possible.
While it's not particularly harder than the domesticated Pokemons census, it's messier since it's obvious that wild Pokemons inside the city don't have such a structure in their places since they need to hunt prey, scrape food in the trash, wait for food given by kind people, or even straight up migrate, especially bird Pokemons. The head of the satellite lab said that it's enough to go around the town just once since there's a margin of error considered in the computation of the biodiversity index.
Margin of error is 0.05. or 0.01 used by scientists for the accuracy and precision of a formula to be somewhat more flexible to error, it's commonly used in Slovin's formula in research in Anthony's previous world. After Anthony took a bath, Mary was already donning her lab gown and had already brushed her teeth after having breakfast. The breakfast was, of course, from the cafeteria of the inn and was brought by the two in the room, so they needed to put it back in the cafeteria before leaving the inn.
"So, where should we start?"
Asked Mary, a little bit sleepy still, as they decided to start at around 7:30 am in order to finish as early as possible, and start their research writing. After all, Anthony and Mary are so sure that the Introduction and methodology would have many criticisms, even when they thought that it was perfect.
"Apparently, a single sweep in the whole city is enough, and also we can use the help of other Pokemons by bribing them with food and making them talk with their fellow Pokemons..."
As he said that, Anthony started to look around the inn before the two circled it. Since this is the nearest place they go to, they decided to bribe the Pokemons around here, and soon, they saw a flock of Pidgeys and some Murkrow sharing some spoiled berries and scrap Magikarp bones in a single trash can.
Anthony and Mary didn't find it strange, as the rivalry mechanisms of Pokemons are quite strange, meaning only Pidgeys and Spearows are considered rivals, and in normal circumstances, they wouldn't see other Pokemons as rivals and would even cooperate if necessary. This is similar to Durant and Heatmor's relationship, though it's more of a prey-predator, the two will still most likely not be fighting Pokemons other than their counterparts on sight.
_Spearows are always more aggressive than Pidgeys on average, so they are historically driven away by residents in cities, while Pidgeys are more tolerated, so they developed the instinct to stay away from cities, except, of course, if they were tamed and caught. Though apparently they were still as aggressive as when they were in the wild, but just more understanding of their trainers..._
For a moment, when Anthony thought of Spearows, he couldn't help but imagine how his dad managed to raise a Fearow that could blast through 3 whole regions just for him to see him when he was in the hospital. Though he immediately got his thoughts together.
As Mary, Anthony, and their Pokemons stared at the Pidgeys and the Murkrows, a Murkrow saw the group and tilted its head in seeming confusion. It then poked another Murkrow using its beak and then pointed at them while also alerting the Pidgeys. Seeing this, Anthony and Mary looked at each other for a moment before tacitly agreeing for Anthony to speak first.
"Good morning, we want to census wild Pokemons that are inside Lavender Town. Can you participate? We have food for all of you."
The Pidgeys and Murkrow looked at each other while making 'pii' and 'krow' sounds repeatedly, then the Murkrow that saw Anthony and Mary pointed at the backpack that Miltank was holding on its back. Anthony and Mary, knowing that Murkrows are particularly good at negotiations more than the average Indigo Pokemons immediately opened the bag and revealed the grain-style Pokémon food.
To not gain suspicion from the Pokemons, Anthony and Mary just held a handful of the Pokemon food in their hands and waited for the Pokemons to decide. This is the best method to entice bird Pokemons to do your bidding, according to their lessons in early January, which all interns have come to master. When caught and evolved into a big Pokémon like Pidgeots and Fearow, the owner needed to be more careful, as they have long and sharp talons while still being jerky in terms of body movements.
Obviously, they applied what they learned, and soon, the Pokemons started to land in their small hands and peck on the grains on them. After a few minutes, the bird Pokemons were finally tamed and were immediately counted and given stickers to not be mistaken with uncounted ones.
"Do you know any other Pokemons that are undomesticated? We have to count them too."
As the bird Pokemons grew quite attached to the two interns, Anthony and Mary asked them, and the Pokemons immediately nodded as they flew to signal that the two interns should follow their lead. Just like that, the two interns used the Pokemons they encountered and befriended to go around the city where the wild Pokemons inhabited. They went to buildings and even the sewers, where they saw lots of Grimers and Muks being targeted by trainers to be their Pokemons.
There are also very rare Trubbish and Garbodor that would squeal happily if they saw a trainer looking at them, like in the recent Pokémon games.
This continued until it was finally finished around 11:30 in the afternoon.