Fennel's Laboratory

"Do you think this is it?"

"Well," said Miya, looking back and forth between the directions Professor Juniper had sent her and the front door before them, "it's gotta be the one."

"I thought we'd be going to a lab," said Jiro.

They were amid streets upon streets of condominiums. This was the last street; its back was to a forest. The directions had led them to the last house on the row.

"Me too." Miya reached over the front gate and opened it. They walked up the concrete path to the steps and Miya knocked gingerly on the front door.

Inside, something fell.

Miya and Jiro exchanged glances.

They heard footsteps and a key turning in the lock. It swung open to reveal an eager girl with glasses and two perky buns on the sides of her head. Certainly not a pokémon professor?

"Good morning, Dr… Fennel?" Miya asked cautiously.

The girl grinned. "Oh, hey there. I'm not Dr. Fennel. I'm her little sister, Amanita. You're Miya, right? She told me you were coming. Come on in!" She stepped back and ushered them inside.

Miya and Jiro took of their shoes as they looked around the place. It certainly looked like a house, not an institution of science.

"Who are you?" Amanita asked Jiro, peering at him curiously.

"Hey. I'm Jiro." He stuck out his hand, which Amanita shook wholeheartedly.

"Are you trainers?" she asked.

"Well, I am," explained Jiro. "Miya has an assignment from Professor Juniper and she and I are traveling together." Miya nodded to confirm this as Amanita's big eyes, magnified behind her glasses, looked her way.

"Oh, well that's nice. My sister's upstairs. Follow me!" Amanita bounded up the staircase to her right and Miya and Jiro trotted up behind her.

When Miya saw the room they entered, she understood. This looked much more like a lab. There was a desk and several bookshelves near the landing, and around the corner was lots of machinery and lab equipment. Miya had no idea what any of those things were. A munna floated serenely in the corner near the window.

"Wow," Jiro declared. "Wow."
"It's kinda messy," said Amanita sheepishly. "Here they are, sis," she called to someone ducked behind a computer.

The person stood up, and Miya knew that was Fennel. She wore a long white coat and she had even longer midnight-black hair, pinned out of her face with a delicate flower hairpin.

"Hi! You must be Miya," she said, standing and walking over to shake Miya's hand. "It's nice to meet you. Aurea's told me a lot about you. Who's your friend?" she asked, smiling in Jiro's direction.

"This is Jiro," Miya replied. "He's just gotten his trainer license and we're partners for this year."

"Ah, that's right. I remember. She told me about that too."

Jiro jumped in. "I'm sorry, who?"

"Oh, I suppose I'd better introduce myself better. I'm a scientist and I believe one of my friends, Dr. Aurea Juniper, is responsible for sending Miya here. My name is Amethyst McCarley. Fennel is a nickname and a pseudonym I use to publish my research in the scientific community. Most of my research I conduct in the lab right here," she gestured across the room, "and my sister here, Amanita, is a real genius." Amanita blushed. "She's a computer and technology whiz, and I could hardly perform much of my research without her."

"Well, I don't know about that," said Amanita bashfully, bobbing up and down on her feet.

"What kind of research do you do here?" Jiro asked.

Fennel's eyes twinkled. "Well, you know how pokémon and humans who are closely bonded have some sort of psychic link between them? Where you both can just understand each other? We're wondering if pokémon have the exact same connection with one another, or something different. We're hoping that studying their dreams will help us find some common threads between different species, and possibly give us insight into how they view their own origins." Fennel locked eyes with Jiro. "Also, we're wondering if there's some way to amplify this psychic field between pokémon and humans. It would revolutionize battles, for sure." She winked.

Jiro raised his eyebrows- this news would certainly pique his interest, Miya was sure- and he tried to feign neutrality, but failed.

Amanita laughed. "Trainers."

Fennel turned to Miya. "I'm sure Aurea gave you quite the task of reporting my findings back to her, did she?"

"Yeah. Helping her out with research is the whole reason I'm out here," said Miya.

"Well, I've been abroad at several international conferences recently. I'm happy to relay my notes along."

"I think that's what she had in mind."

"There were a lot of interesting presentations. Amanita, could you send them to Miya's Pokédex? The ones I have in that folder."

Amanita nodded and sat down at the desk and began furiously clacking away at the keyboard.

Fennel made her way back to the machine she was standing behind earlier. "Do you know what this is?" she asked.

"No idea," answered Miya and Jiro in unison.

"This is a machine that lets us monitor a pokémon's dreams. A pokémon lays here," she said, patting a cushion. "As you can see, it's pretty small and this machine can only accommodate small pokémon, so we don't get the widest sample size." She shook her head. "We hook a pokémon to this computer and give it a dose of dream mist, which can act as a sedative. When the pokémon falls asleep, we can compose a visual and auditory projection of its dreams by connecting Shae here to the machine as well."

The munna drifted over.

"That's Shae," commented Amanita, who had finished at the computer. "You should be able to view the presentations anytime you want, Miya."

"Thanks," said Miya. "I'll check 'em out."

Fennel continued, "This is a machine that's a real staple to our research. Do you have any pokémon who would want to try it?"

"I bet Milo would love this," said Miya. Milo was usually the adventurous type. She called him from his poke ball and explained the machine to him. "You sit here, and you go to sleep with some dream mist, and the machine and this nice munna named Shae will record your dream. It would help Dr. Fennel with her research. Do you want to try it?"

If the dream mist tasted good, Milo would try it.

Miya laughed. "I think that means he's in."