worktodo | 005 | Saffron City

TESTING: VALIDATION

☉ SAFFRON CITY LABS ☉
1212 Amber Lane, Saffron City, Kanto
Audio: (555) 765-3666 — Text: (555) 756-6732
John Deerling, Ph.D., Laboratory Director
Toxicology Report
Report Issued: 10/09/2012 14:40

Patient Name: REDACTED
Patient ID: 20H914G
Chain: 421335
Age/Level: 30L
Gender: M
Species: PARAS
Workorder: 125781

Specimens Received:

ID: 001
Tube/Container: CLEAR GLASS VIAL
Volume/Mass: 5g
Collection Date/Time: 9/01/1989
Matrix Source: "STUN" SPORE

Positive Findings:

SEE ATTACHED SHEETS FOR DETAILED ANALYSIS

~
[It's afternoon waning toward evening in Saffron City, and at the moment Albert Rosenfield can be found in one of the city's small Pokemon parks, a briefcase stowed securely on a nearby bench and a pink rubber ball in one hand. With him today are his Scyther, obediently hovering near the bench and briefcase like a good underling, and his Poochyena, who appears to be more interested in the ball than anything else.

Albert, meanwhile, is spending the majority of his time giving the ball a series of thoughtful squeezes in his hand while he thinks, but occasionally rears back and lets it fly in a surprisingly graceful arc — at which point Gandhina unfailingly tears off after it, paws scrabbling at the grass and dirt as she hurtles off into the distance to retrieve her toy.]

The problem isn't going to be isolating it, it's going to be getting it to stick around long enough to do any good. However those mushrooms came about, evolution or divine design, you've got to give them some credit — we're looking at pretty nasty stuff here. Direct contact ought to be the easier of the two to handle, once we come up some way of making the neutralizing agent stick. Respiratory...unless you've got any bright ideas, we're gonna need a mask.

[At this point, Gandhina comes charging back with a now-somewhat-slobbery ball in her teeth, and Albert crouches down to retrieve it from her, but sets it aside and stays down to examine her adorable puppy muzzle and jowls.]

Hold still, you dumb mutt — you know, I was going to say it'd be a problem to cut off the use of your jaws with a rig like that, but anything that keeps you from picking up everything under the sun —

[Pleased by the attention and presuming these words of her master's are praise, Gandhina's tail is wagging at about a mile a minute.]

Dummy, grab the tape measure and toss it over here. Not the easiest task in the world without a set of opposable thumbs, I know, but hey, you're a bright bug, I'm sure you're up to the challenge.

[And then, as a Scyther leans over to retrieve the aforementioned tape measure, he abruptly notices that the Gear is on and quickly — and probably a little guiltily — shuts it off.]

~
[Later, a more intentional bit of commentary from Albert hits the network.]

So whose bright idea was it to hide all the tolerable cities on the other end of a six-hour train ride? Skyscrapers, business districts, a concert hall. Five minutes out of the station and I'd already counted eight coffee peddlers.

Now all that's left is to turn a corner and come across a bakery selling thirty-one flavors of pie, and by golly, we'll have ourselves the makings of heaven here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[No, Albert. You abandoned a four-year-old.]

What's a mass spectrometer?

[He is still a little annoyed, but he's...grudgingly feeling the need to learn things. What have you adults done.]

[A four-year-old by technicality only.]

Oh, right. Every day's a learning experience.

[SIGH. Okay, Professor Rosenfield, here we go again. Use small words and make it Viking-accessible.]

You put a sample in the machine, the machine does science to it, and then it gives you back a list of all the chemical components that are in the sample.

[Well, he sure feels four right now. After a moment of thinking on that explanation, Hiccup frowns.]

Kanto can't be the only place with machines that do science like that.

[That would just BE RIDICULOUS.]

Well, the facilities in the places we've been visiting on our marvelous journeys thus far give new meaning to the word "primitive", and I didn't really feel like reinventing the wheel just to get the same results I could've gotten out here.

[Though it occurs to him that the science machines are probably not what Hiccup is actually miffed about right about now.]

What, I thought kids liked it when their parents went away for the weekend. You've got money and free rein of the house, you mean to tell me you haven't stayed up until dawn and ordered a thousand pizzas yet?

[While part of it had been the need to defend Goldenrod--Hiccup wasn't one for large cities, but he had spent enough time settled down there to think of it as a second home--it's true that science machines are not the real problem.]

Like you'd ever be a parent... Look, Berk vikings aren't all that big on solitude, alright?

[Especially Hiccup, since that had pretty much been his life for fifteen years. At least Astrid was around...]

[Look, how was he supposed to know the kid was the clingy type. ...And who said it was his job to be the guy in charge of Viking Feelings around here, anyway? Feelings are Cooper's job. Besides, he did have work to do.]

It's not like you were abandoned to the wolves. I'm catching the late train back tonight and I doubt Cooper will be far behind me. You ought to enjoy the solitude while it lasts — you know he's bringing Gordon back with him, right?

[Maybe he wasn't left in charge of Viking Feelings, but he was still left in charge of Viking Teenagers.]

You know, for an adult you're not particularly responsible.

[Though that does remind him...]

I need to pick up ear plugs...

[Thanks, Albert.]

Don't start with me.

[See, he doesn't see it as "left in charge" so much as "left in a situation where granted he was the only person of the legal age of majority but that doesn't automatically imply the attachment of guardianship responsibilities".]

And make sure you buy a lot. Bulk size, whatever it is the biggest they've got. You'll thank me later.

Fine. Not like I would have expected you to listen, anyway.

[Well, if he'd been a responsible person, he would have taken up guardianship responsibilities anyway.]

Any other advice, oh all-knowing Albert?

[WHY IS EVERYONE UP IN ARMS ABOUT THIS, JESUS. Ten-year-olds wandering through the wilderness alone? A-OK! Leaving a pair of fifteen-year-olds in a hotel room in a good part of town in a reasonably safe city overnight? HEINOUS.]

Look, if I break down into Viking-sized chunks what it is I'm doing over here — for one night, I might add — will you quit with the attitude?

[Leaving a pair of opposite sex teenagers with questionable feelings for each other alone in a hotel room in a good part of town in a reasonably safe city overnight. It does sound kind of heinous when put that way.

Hiccup silently thinks that him 'having an attitude' right now is not all that unreasonable, considering Albert has an attitude all the time, but he will zip up his lips and give the man a flat, expectant stare. Yes, he'll stop if you be educational.]

[OH FOR THE LOVE OF — don't make him get out the anatomy charts and teach an impromptu course on sex ed, you damn kids.

Sigh.]

Some of the samples I ran through the magic science machine were berries, like the ones you're growing. If I know what they're made of, I can figure out what it is about them that makes them work. And then once I know that, I can cook up fun and interesting new applications for it. Make sense?

[They would either die of embarrassment, or Astrid would break her hand from punching Hiccup so much.]

'Fun and interesting' like medicine, or 'fun and interesting' like we should be careful about what we drink from now on?

"Fun and interesting" like remember when Gandhina got blasted in the face with poison spores? Maybe we can keep that from knocking her silly the next time.

So... You want to battle it before it happens by bulking up the defenses? Or just make it more effective than berries or antidotes?

The first one. Like a shield that knows the difference between the wind and an arrow, so it'll stop the one but let through the other.

Hmn. [Alright. He can see your leaving was for a good cause... He won't be so cranky about it, anymore. Actually, he's starting to sound impressed.] And you can really do something like that? As in, it's possible where you come from?

Keep in mind that's an analogy for the longboat-proficient, not an actual promise. But chemically? Yeah, there's a lot you can do with the right stuff.

You know you could always just...train her to stop picking things up, too. Not that I don't think it's a great idea.

And that's why you're gonna make it some day, little Viking, because you've got enough of a head on your shoulders to look for more than one solution to the same problem.

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