Been a while since I couldn't read any reviews. But it is what it is. Keep 'em coming and I'll see them eventually! In the meantime, Sango's going to focus her attention on what's going on at the Pokemon HQ Lab, and we'll get a little taste of what artificial habitats mean for different groups of pokemon while we're at it!

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 927

While Blake and Cynthia were in the hall thinking about the situation with Sango and the awkwardness of her avoiding him recently, Sango was blissfully unaware that anything was wrong as she booted up her tablet.

It wasn't wrong for Blake to be worried. After all, Sango HAD kind of been pulling away from him over the last few months in her efforts to get over her crush. Even though she wanted to maintain her friendship with him, it was still difficult for her to come to terms with her feelings. It was a tightrope that she had been walking, trying to balance being around Blake while also giving herself enough space to quietly get over her feelings for him.

Unfortunately, it hadn't worked so well. Because of her penchant for overworking, she hadn't spent nearly as much time with Blake as she would have liked to, and had ended up convincing him that there was something wrong between the two of them. At the same time, in spite of her best efforts, her heart still hadn't budged and she remained having a crush on him regardless.

Suffice it to say, Sango wasn't really accomplishing much of anything in spite of how hard she was trying to move on.

In the end, however, none of that had anything to do with tonight. Contrary to Blake's worries, Sango hadn't turned him down because of that gap between the two of them, it hadn't even crossed her mind at the time. She in fact HAD genuinely wanted to spend time with him, to maybe try and get back to that point of friendship they were at.

But the fact that Blake was trying to give his girlfriend some space had made that impossible. Now they were in a situation where Sango was going to be hanging out with Ayame without letting Blake know, and because of that Blake now believed that she didn't want to be around him anymore.

Thus, Sango had done something rather rude, even though it was with the best of intentions. She wasn't aware of it, and it certainly wasn't her fault, but it was a conflict that she would have to prepare herself for eventually.

In the meantime though, her night would be better spent on the things she actually wanted to do, namely joining Marion and Ayame on the tour. So while Blake worried in the hallway, Sango called Marion back, and was greeted with a beaming smile.

"Hey there Sango! Welcome back!" Marion chirped. "Can you see things a little better now?"

Sango beamed back at her. "Yeah, Marion, it's a lot clearer. And wow, you're right, this place really is pretty cool!"

She was admiring all the different habitats for pokemon. As a student aiming to be a Pokemon Ranger she had a bit of experience when it came to how pokemon interacted in the natural world, and the sort of ecosystems they preferred. Because of that, seeing a laboratory like this, set up to artificially generate an ecosystem for wild pokemon, made her heart feel light. It was definitely a great step forward in her eyes.

"Man, I'm so jealous of you, Marion," Sango sighed wistfully. "You got to work at a place like this, taking care of wild pokemon…"

Marion grinned. "Hey, you know, you're only a first year so it's still not too late for you to switch career paths and decide to become a Pokemon Conservationist, you know!"

Sango had to laugh at that. "I might be jealous, but sorry, I'm not that jealous. I'm perfectly happy continuing my goal of becoming a Pokemon Ranger, thank you very much."

Marion sighed and shrugged, giving Sango a "what can you do" face. "Well, don't say I didn't offer," she chortled. "I could definitely give you a recommendation, though!"

"Thanks, Marion, you're great," Sango said. "But wow, you guys are really going on a tour to a lab like this, huh?"

Marion nodded her head, turning to Professor Jovi. She walked over to the professor and presented the tablet to her.

"Professor, this is my friend Sango, the one I told you about," Marion explained. "She's studying to be a Pokemon Ranger right now, and she really has a lot of respect for Pokemon Conservationists like you, you know!"

Jovi smiled down at the screen. "Well, hello there Sango! I'm Professor Jovi, and I'm running this research lab! I've heard a lot about you from Marion, you know!"

"R-Really? About me?" Sango said, blushing in spite of herself. She didn't think that she had done anything that noteworthy, after all. But then, Marion was Marion, and she was absolutely the kind of girl to make something out of nothing in the best of ways.

"Yeah, while she was working here, she kept talking about how much she wanted to show you around someday if she got the chance, and about how it's all thanks to you that she ended up working here in the first place," the professor laughed. "So I guess we have you to thank, huh?"

"W-Well, I just did what anyone would do," Sango laughed, feeling a little embarrassed.

Professor Jovi cleared her throat and handed the tablet back to Marion before turning to address the rest of the students.

"Well, now that we have all the members of the tour gathered here… I guess… I might as well get started on showing you around, sound good? Let's start with-"

"The fishies!" Marion cheered automatically.

Sango rolled her eyes and smirked. Who would have guessed that would be where Marion wanted to go first?

Professor Jovi wasn't at all surprised either, shrugging her shoulders. She'd expected no less from the girl she'd gotten to know over the past few months.

"Certainly, the fish it is," she agreed, leading the students over to the large fish tank mounted in the center of the room.

The tank had looked impressive from far away, but up close, it was even more imposing. It reminded Ayame of going to the aquarium, it was nearly three times as tall as she was, and filled with countless Water type pokemon.

"Now, as you can see, we've divided our enclosures for Water type pokemon in half," Professor Jovi explained, gesturing to the habitat next to the fish tank, which was composed of an artificial beach. "The reason for that is because of the abundance of Water type pokemon that exist, and the different environments they thrive in."

"That's right!" Marion said, cutting into the professor's speech. Her eyes were shining as brightly as the lights illuminating the fish tank. "In fact, the Water type is the most commonly-occurring type of pokemon, found in over 70 different family lines! Isn't that just amazing? They make up approximately 16% of all known pokemon, with new species still being discovered!"

It was clear to everyone that Marion was the residing expert on Water type pokemon here, and desired to share her knowledge on the subject more than anything. So with a smile, Professor Jovi stepped aside and let her continue to explain.

…Of course, she would never tell the students all the things that she had personally learned from Marion while the girl was working here. That would just make her look incompetent at her job. But she was happy to give the fishing enthusiast her spotlight.

"Now, are there any questions?" Marion asked, looking out across the students. Her eyes landed on Sango, who was watching from the tablet that Ayame was now holding.

Through the screen, Sango could see the hopefulness brimming in Marion's eyes. It was clear that the girl had so much more that she wanted to say, and she was trying to will Sango to ask questions that would give her the chance to implement her knowledge.

Sango didn't take the bait though. She knew what could happen if Marion got on a roll, and that wasn't going to be good for anyone. So she remained silent.

It turned out, however, that Sango hadn't needed to go to that extent to begin with, because she wasn't the only girl here who could get Marion talking.

"I'm still confused," Lila said, furrowing her brow. "I know it makes sense that Water types are the most commonly occurring type of pokemon, but what does that have to do with the enclosures that you raise them in? Wouldn't it be better to just make the fish tank even bigger so that all the pokemon could fit inside of it?"

Ayame winced. As a member of the Caretaker Course, that question was actually painful to her. No, raising pokemon wasn't as simple as shoving them all into a single enclosure. Some pokemon thrived better in certain environments than others did, and this was one of those examples for sure. But she didn't say anything, and let Marion handle the question.

"Oh, I definitely get what you're thinking!" Marion said, her eyes shining with excitement. She practically swooned. "And boy, wouldn't it be great if we COULD just raise our pokemon in a single controlled environment? Wow, just imagine a fish tank filled with every Water type pokemon imaginable, that sounds just lovely!"

She sighed in disappointment. "But unfortunately, that's not how this works. In fact, the types of environments that are suitable for pokemon can vary drastically even among pokemon of the same type!"

Lila still didn't get it. "I mean… that makes sense, I guess, but I don't really see if that way," she admitted, feeling a little guilty that she was so confused.

"I'm also a little confused," Darla admitted, coming to her partner's aid. "Do you think you can explain things a little more directly why these Water type pokemon behave so differently in different environments?" She asked.

Marion nodded.

"How much do you gals know about breeding pokemon?" Marion asked. It was a surprising question to say the least, and not one anybody expected to be asked at the Pokemon HQ Laboratory, except maybe Ayame, who understood what Marion was getting at.

"I, uh… not a lot," Lila admitted. She was in the Appeals Course, not the Caretaker Course, after all. She glanced at Ayame for some assistance.

But before Ayame had a chance to fill in any blanks, Marion had already swept things up in another continuation of her point.

"So there are all sorts of different Egg Groups, right?" Marion explained. "Stuff like 'Monster' Egg Group, and 'Field' Egg Group and what not. Those are the different groups of pokemon that are compatible for breeding together, and span across all the different types of pokemon."

Lila still didn't see how that answered her question. Was she just an idiot or something? Of course, she had no way of knowing that Marion was simply using her question as an excuse to just go on another rambling explanation about Water type pokemon and fishing, which Sango of course had already picked up on.

"I know a little something about egg groups," Darla said, coming to Lila's rescue again. "For example, one of the Egg Groups is the 'Dragon' Egg Group. It contains all the pokemon of the Dragon type, while also pokemon like Charizard and Gyarados that aren't technically Dragon type but still resemble dragons anyway."

Darla wasn't technically correct, there was one Dragon type pokemon that wasn't in the Dragon Egg Group, but she didn't feel the need to elaborate further.

"That's right," Marion nodded. "Even though pokemon of the same type are often in the same Egg Group, that doesn't mean that's always the case. And there are even some pokemon that are in no Egg Group whatsoever! But that's not the point we're talking about now," she laughed. "No, right now we're going to talk about the Water Egg Group."

"Oh, so Water type pokemon have their own Egg Group!" Lila gasped. She didn't know why that was important but she wanted to act like she understood something. In spite of how often she played the idiot onstage, Lila was in fact very intelligent. And her persona had led her to develop a bit of a complex about how other people perceived her.

Basically, Lila didn't like it when people thought she was an idiot, except when she was intentionally trying to make them think that. And right now, not understanding anything about Egg Groups and habitats and all that nonsense was making her feel very much like an idiot.

Thankfully, Marion was happy to explain things in as much detail as she could want.

"It's not as simple as that," she chuckled, holding up three fingers. "In fact, there are three different Water Egg Groups!"

Well, that threw Lila for a loop. Her jaw hit the floor.

"Th-Three? Seriously? Why?" Lila asked in disbelief.

"Like I said, Water type pokemon cover a wide spectrum of pokemon," Marion explained. "Breeding basics tell us things like 'Fire types breed with Fire types' or 'Flying types breed with Flying types', but as I'm sure Ayame over there can tell you it's a lot more complicated than that," she said, nodding to Ayame.

Then she turned to Professor Jovi. "Isn't that right, professor?"

Professor Jovi nodded. "Yup! Every pokemon fits into their own Egg Groups, and can intermix with pokemon in that Egg Group, even if they're entirely different types of pokemon! It's all about what kind of pokemon they are, if that makes sense!"

Lila was still struggling to understand. She glanced helplessly over at Darla, feeling rather pathetic about how little she knew.

"It's like this," Darla said, sighing. "You know my Altaria, right?"

"Yeah, of course!" Lila said, nodding.

"Well, Melody is in both the Dragon Egg Group and Flying Egg Group," Darla explained. "Which makes sense, given she's a Dragon/Flying type. And that means that she could, in theory, mate with any pokemon in either of those two Egg Groups. Even a more draconic pokemon like a Charizard, or a reptilian pokemon like Seviper, or heck, even a Milotic, those are all pokemon that are part of the Dragon Egg Group."

"Wow! Yeah, I think I kinda get it!" Lila said, nodding excitedly. "But then, she could also breed with bird pokemon too, right? Because they're in the Flying Egg Group!"

Darla nodded. "That's right. Even with a pokemon like a Crobat that isn't actually a bird, because it's in the Flying Egg Group it can still breed with bird pokemon."

Marion blinked in surprise. "Wow, Darla, you actually know quite a lot about this stuff!"

"Of course," Darla said, puffing her chest out with pride. "As an expert on Dragon type pokemon it makes sense that I would be aware of something so obvious."

Lila sank a little. Just as this whole thing had started to make sense to her, Darla just had to go and rub Lila's nose in the fact that she didn't really know all that much about Fairy type pokemon herself. She had no idea what Egg Groups her pokemon were in.

Luckily, before the tension got awkward, Marion was happy to seize control of the flow of the conversation again.

"So back to what I was saying, there are actually three different Egg Groups with the 'Water' classification," she explained. "We can think of them as Water 1, Water 2, and Water 3. Now, pokemon in the Water 1 Egg Group are pokemon like the ones you see in that enclosure over there," she said, pointing to the artificial beach.

The students gathered around to take a good look at the pokemon in the habitat.

"These are your more terrestrial-based Water type pokemon," Marion explained. There were a lot of different species of Water type pokemon, things like Poliwag and Squirtle and Slowpoke, Psyducks and Seels and Marills, and even a Lapras.

"Basically what that means," Marion continued, "is that these are pokemon who can thrive perfectly well on land. They do need water, of course, but they don't need to remain in water completely. They can come out of it for extended periods of time, as they like. That's the first Water Egg Group, does that make sense?"

"I think so, yeah," Lila nodded, waving at the Marills. "So basically, all the cute ones then."

Marion's smile twitched for a second. To be perfectly honest, while she loved all kinds of Water type pokemon, the Water 1 Egg Group had a very low number of pokemon that she could fish for, so she wasn't the biggest fan.

"Well, anyway, these pokemon most commonly inhabit lakes and rivers and things," Marion continued her explanation. "You can also find them on beaches and shores. Basically, they're the group of Water type pokemon that are most commonly found near the land, which is why the lab built a beach enclosure for them, so that they can exercise on land as well as swim."

She turned to the large tank.

"I have a question myself," Giselle said, curious. "Why, um… why are there only two enclosures? You said that there are three Egg Groups, right?"

"Yeah, I agree," Lila said, nodding. She'd had a similar question, but she was afraid to ask because she didn't want to look dumb.

"I'll explain that in a sec," Marion said, winking at Giselle. "In the meantime, let's talk about Water 2! Water 2 Egg Group has mostly fish type pokemon, so it's definitely my absolute favorite! And those are the kinds that you can see in there!"

She waved at the large tank of water, where a bunch of fish pokemon were swimming peacefully.

"Most of these pokemon would have a hard time on land," Marion explained. "Their natural habitat is in the water, and that's where they spend most of their time. Certainly they could come out on land if they needed to, but it would be exceptionally difficult for them because their bodies are primarily adapted for swimming."

"So most of the fish pokemon are in this Egg Group, then?" Sango confirmed. She could see things like Goldeen and Chinchou and even some brutal Sharpedo. Most of the pokemon in the tank were ones that she was familiar with, since she had just taken care of several of them back at Marion's store earlier tonight.

"That's right," Marion confirmed. "But those aren't the only pokemon in this tank, we also have pokemon in the Water 3 Egg Group!"

"So you have two different Egg Groups in the same habitat?" Lila asked.

"Exactly! Because pokemon in Water 2 and Water 3 share a lot of the same natural habitats," Marion said. "Water 2 pokemon are mostly fish, but Water 3 pokemon tend to be aquatic invertebrates. You've got your Tentacools, your Shellders, Staryus, not to mention Corsolas. And unlike the Water 2 pokemon, these pokemon CAN do okay on land, but it's mostly on a case by case basis. See?"

Marion gestured back to the other habitat.

"Krabby and Corphish are some of the pokemon in the Water 3 Egg Group that do just fine on land," she said. "Which is why we put them in that habitat, instead. Whereas a Tentacool would fare a lot better in the sea. Either way, pokemon in the Water 3 Egg Group are also fairly common around beaches, it's only the Water 2 Egg Group pokemon that tend to be found in the deep, deep sea. Make sense?"

"So one habitat is for Water 1… another for Water 2… and then you split between the two of them for Water 3," Lila said, it was starting to make sense to her. "Yeah, I think I get it."

"Great!" Marion smiled. "That's exactly what we're going for with this sort of place. Taking care of pokemon in their natural habitats, trying to find suitable environments to release them into the wild, that's part of what it means to be a Pokemon Conservationist."

Her face took a dark turn.

"The problem is, the environment is being impacted way too fast compared to our ability to create artificial environments… so even if we could, say, create a coral reef for Corsola to live in through artificial means, it's still fighting a losing battle…"

Marion's dejected expression cast a pall over the room. Seeing a girl who was normally so cheery and had just finished talking about her favorite subject with a smile now look sad was a bitter pill to swallow.

Well, Marion got a chance to talk about her favorite Water types, but as a cost of that she also had to remind us how much damage people are doing to the environment. Hopefully, with any luck, she can help stem the tide.