After saying this, Prof. Oak, who didn't even get an assistant when going to the emergency and a short meeting with the powerhouses of the world government, pulled out a rolled-up bunch of letters of internship cancellation. On it is a simple letter that says:
"In line with unforeseen danger not endorsed or otherwise are too advanced for the age and perceived capabilities of my child, I ___________________, parent of _______________ gives my signature as testament of my decision to pull out my child from the Associate Field Researcher internship."
At the end of the letter is a line with a 'Signature above printed name' and a line that has Samuel Oak, PhD, and the Pokémon Professor's signature on it. Hana looked at the distributed letter and looked at her Anthony, who immediately shook his head. Surely, Anthony didn't scooped Pokémon shit in a sandy desert biome just to quit because some bad guys failed to kidnap him; he started it, he will finish it.
Hana smiled lightly at this before crumpling the letter and putting it in her pocket as if she was not worried that her son would be put in grave danger again. On one hand, she knew that Prof. Oak would not let this slide, as she had seen firsthand how Prof. Oak protects anyone under him, and second, Anthony had just decimated adult men and women who held him at gunpoint; she was so sure that he would be smart enough to stall for time for someone to save him if this were to happen ever again.
Better yet, Hana bet that her son can save himself as long as nothing goes wrong. Furthermore, Hana and Ben's Pokemons have some friend Pokemons here that they're quite close with, so she's sure that he would be fine.
_I would just save him again if he got into a situation... plus, I don't think Anthony would be happy if I pulled him out without him agreeing to it, I don't like my son holding a grudge against me..._
Other parents saw that, looking at Hana oddly, even Glen's mother, who was just here for the sake of it, looked at her with a 'why did she do that' face. However, the parents are not particularly close to her, and the fact that she's a famous figure made it so that no one questioned her.
As the letters were handed down one by one, Prof. Oak said.
"Discuss this matter carefully with your family, and you can give your answers tomorrow. Please go to the Kanto hotel, about 2 streets north of this lab. It's a hotel used to accommodate a larger number of interns, though it's being used as a guest room for parents most of the time because interns have been in very low numbers and our dorms have been enough until now."
After Prof. Oak went out of the front, all the parents dragged their children who still had pale expressions, though Andrew and Mary seemed calm like Anthony.
_Very few seem to be as calm as us... me because I'm an adult and was able to get out of it, making my impression of Team Rocket not as tough as they should've been credited for. Andrew apparently has the same kind of parents as mine, so he knew that he would not be forced to get out of the internship... Mary is Mary and wanted to be like my mom, so she would be arguing with his dad because of this, I bet..._
In the end, all Anthony could do was sigh with sympathy for the headache of Prof. Oak, as he knew that he couldn't do anything about it. For starters, he's not the leader of the interns and not the best at being a 'field researcher' in terms of grades (though he might be if one talked about Pokémon battles).
"Mom, let's go to my dorm, I have to make my Pokemons take a bath... me too._
Hana nodded.
_______________
The moment Anthony and his mom woke up, hugging together with Miltank and Zubat being in between, the PC inside Anthony's room suddenly rang out. Anthony is the first one to wake up, followed by Hana and Anthony's Pokemons. Together, they listened to a voicemail given by the secretary of Prof. Oak.
"7 remaining interns, please wake up and help your former batchmates move their luggage. You can use this opportunity to say goodbye to your friends. All activities for today are cancelled, and after the packing of luggage, all remaining interns will have a meeting with Prof. Oak."
Anthony's mom, Hana, sighed at this and tapped Anthony's head. However, Anthony is sure that his two friends will not be getting dropped forcefully by their parents.
_Man, those parents submitted the papers at night, talk about protective..._
Anthony is not particularly saddened at this, as his circle only consisted of him, Mary, and Andrew, who is quite hell-bent on being a researcher. Zubat, however, is different as its ears immediately droop down while its head hangs low.
"Zuuuu..."
Anthony heard it whimper, which made Miltank jolt awake as it heard its senior quite sad. Zubats are known to be social animals. In the wild, they're known to move in packs to 'prank' trainers with their Supersonic, and in captivity, they are known to try their best to befriend all Pokemons and people in their vicinity.
Because of this, Zubat has a lot of Pokémon and human friends that they made with and without Anthony knowing, and now that they're leaving due to circumstances that they couldn't prevent, they can't help but feel sad.
No one saw it coming, not even the owner of the place, and Zubat is not a deranged adult who will blame others because of a disaster that couldn't be predicted. The closest that could be blamed is Prof. Oak, but Zubat sees him as a friend too, and Prof. Oak made it so that only when interns are free to come and go without an associate field researcher with them did the plan of Team Rocket able to come forward.
For Anthony, the security is good enough for a lab, though they're not equipped with enough authority and staff to forcefully sift through their guests and employees, and Prof. Oak will surely demand forceful powers from the government, citing this incident.
Anthony and Hana can't help but caress the head of Zubat, but it didn't make the situation any better; Zubat still snuggled its head to the two fingers. This went on for about a minute before Anthony was finally able to convince Zubat to at least say goodbye to its friends and make sure to make promises of getting back together.
_If they were allowed to be trainers... every parent has different levels of protectiveness, after all._
With that, the 4 woke out of their bed, made a simple wash up, and made it outside the dorm. At that moment, Anthony and Hana were immediately greeted by all sorts of flying and running Pokemons in the hallway, emitting sad and whimpering noises as they looked around for their friends.
Some Butterfrees, Beautiflies, Cascoons, Silcoons, and rarer ones like Pikachu, Bulbasaur, or even Ivysaurs are all crying in the corridor while their intern partners, parents, and the 7 remaining interns helped them get all their wares and luggage. All assistants and associate field researchers are just too busy heeding the command of Prof. Oak, whom Anthony is sure to be angered by all of these.
_They might be storming the Interpol headquarters in Kanto with letters of request by Prof. Oak or something similar..._
Anthony guided his saddened Pokémon to their friends to tell their final goodbyes.
"ZUAAAAAHGGG!"
"MIIIIIIIILGHHKKK!"
Anthony was quite startled, and even Hana's eyes widened a little.
"Son, I have to get back to our house. Glen and his mom were already back in Viridian last night."
Anthony silently nodded, though he felt like his mom found it a pain to help in these mass dropouts of interns; he didn't ask about such matters and instead quite hurriedly went to Mary's room.
Upon seeing Anthony, Mary, who was caressing her crying Pikachu, nodded a little.
"Are you alright?"
Mary and Anthony didn't have the time to talk that much yesterday, as everything happened too fast. Thus, she was quite worried about her friend despite his survival.
"Yes, as Prof. Oak said, I managed to get them somehow."
Mary nodded, now she let Pikachu go outside to start crying with the Pokemons too. While the former did this, Anthony saw a blackened rope mark on Mary, making him ask a question.
"Do you still want to be an associate field researcher? Those marks in your hands look horrible."
Mary, who had finally mustered the courage to get out of her bed, looked at the marks in his hands and nodded.
"My dad and I had a... very good talk yesterday, and we decided to let me stay here. In any case, one of the parts of your job description is to be a mini authorized agent of the world government when being tapped anywhere, so this much danger should be training for our future job... though I understand the worries of parents because this is supposed to be something that we only get to experience when we're already in the field."
Anthony nodded at this as he made way for Mary and walked alongside her. The two then saw Andrew playing a flute known by Anthony to wake up sleeping Snorlax. In this world, however, it can be used to calm down Pokemons in general, but the tone is very specific and needs a very good musician to create, and another extensive training to use, plus it will only work when the Pokemons are emotional like this one, and will do the reverse, which is the principle of how to wake up a Snorlax.
This can also be used to annoy people if you suck at playing it, which may have been a better explanation of how Red woke Snorlax up.
"He can play the Pokeflute..."
Mary looked at Anthony, who also nodded as he looked at their quiet friend.
"Well, he wanted to be a serious researcher."
In this regard, the two were quite ashamed as all they were trying to do was to learn things that would benefit their Pokemons, and regarding the ability of the Pokeflute to calm Pokemons down, they could do that themselves.
Anthony particularly realized that maybe he should make his plans for becoming a PhD more concrete.
Andrew saw Mary and Anthony, and he, who was busy pacifying the Pokemons, didn't stop the flute and instead just made a thumbs-up sign before continuing his coaxing. Anthony and Mary immediately nodded, knowing that Andrew would be here to stay.
Knowing this, the two immediately sighed before helping the dropouts get their luggage out and put them in a truck that would then deliver them to the airport of Pallet Town. As you would've expected from a Town that houses the Pokémon Professor and is being visited by other Professors from different regions, having an airport is normal, plus not having a port is inconvenient enough.
In the end, Anthony, Mary, and the other interns can load all the luggage after an hour. After that, all interns that remained, which consisted of Anthony, Mary, Andrew, and another 2 girls and 2 boys, were ordered to go to the conference room of the lab, which had become large enough to accommodate all the remaining interns.
Seeing that only very few interns remained, Prof. Oak, who looks quite tired, sighed at this and tried hard to maintain his smile.
"Good morning, did you say your goodbyes to your friends?"
All of the remaining interns nodded at this as they silently got to their seats. For now, to not overstimulate the sad Pokemons that were calmed down by Andrew, all of them let their Pokemons sleep some more in the dorm.
Later, they would just give them a summary of what the meeting is all about.
After another sigh, Prof. Oak continued.
"You did know of the incident that happened yesterday, causing a huge shakeup in your numbers and, of course, in your supposed lineup of activities. While I deal with it and make sure that you and future interns will be safe from anything that might endanger you and them, all of you would have to be informed of the following."
"First, no bond assessment tournaments will happen again in your batch as your number is too low for this; instead, all of you will have to take photographs and make comprehensive lab reports about the progress of your long-term project... Also, from today on, your receptionist will be from the Interpol, so don't bother him a lot as he might get scolded."
After a brief pause, Prof. Oak continued.
"Second, I would like to give all of you a 3-day break to freshen up your minds and get it out of the sorrowful feeling of your friends going away. After those 3 days, your new activities will be announced and assigned."
Prof. Oak sighed, grabbed a pile of papers in front of him, and succinctly said.
"That's all, you're all dismissed, take a good vacation."