Despite the good news of a 3-day vacation grazing the ears of the interns, no one cheered. On one hand, they knew that this break was for them to unwind and freshen their brains away from the effects of the abduction attempt against Anthony, even though he himself is aware of this arrangement.
On the other hand, they're still quite sad that their friends and their Pokemons are now gone. Prof. Oak looked at his students who didn't have the happenings that students should have when learning that they are having a vacation, making him sigh once more as he, alongside the interns, went their separate ways.
Unlike before, when the interns were somewhat big in numbers, there are only 7 of them left. This made all of them automatically unable to form circles and instead bundle up into one and talk with each other as they asked Anthony if it's okay to recount how he escaped the Team Rocket grunts and what his mom looks like when he's being saved. Anthony, who hid the feeling he has that the children around him only care about his mom's performance in the mission, recounted it in great detail.
Anthony took note that these bastards looked disappointed that he finished the job before his mom was able to save him. Anthony felt wronged somehow while looking at their 'you could've failed to get out of your predicament to make it more interesting' faces. However, all of Anthony's thoughts stopped as just when the 7 interns were about to cross the gate of the lab with two Lopunnies watching over on both sides, they suddenly saw a woman of advanced age.
She has blond hair and wears a purple head maid outfit, something that oddly suits her as she lets a Gengar float in her right while a Mimikyu is on her left shoulder, shyly waving its shadow-made hand into the interns who dazedly looked at Elite 4 Agatha. As the interns waved back and Anthony gagged Mary's mouth to stop her from shouting, the interns shifted their gaze to the stretcher being pushed by another Gengar at the back of Elite 4 Agatha.
The stretcher holds a person, apparently a woman, from the bulge in her chest area, covered in a blood-stained bandage. Only the holes of her nose are not covered with bandages, and several parts of her limbs, ribcages, and even the lower part of her skull seem to be protruding out or caving in unnaturally all over her whole body. The interns also seem to hear some faint groaning sound, as if the 'injured' lady can feel excruciating pain from the very air that touches her skin indirectly through the blood-stained bandages.
Anthony can even see some blood in their trail, making the medics beside Gengar frown with concern that their patient will soon die of blood loss.
Seeing this, the interns who got a little excited from seeing the elite 4 Agatha suddenly went silent as a chilling fear and shock crept out of their very souls. Instinctively, they associated the mangled woman who followed Elite 4 Agatha with the Elite 4 herself. As soon as the 'patient' disappeared from their sight, the interns who were still rooted in their spots due to the lingering fear and the general disturbed feeling they felt from imagining themselves being in such a sorry state, started a discussion among themselves.
"Did she do that...?"
"No, even if she's a ghost-type trainer and is known to be quite creepy when she's with the Pokemons, she's still a civilized Elite 4 member... most probably... maybe the injured woman is a collateral of Team Rocket's doing..."
"But why would Team Rocket need to mangle a person like that..."
Anthony listened silently and sometimes chipped in on the topic that quickly got away from the suspicion of Agatha. However, Anthony is more inclined to believe to the ones that believes that Agatha may have had a hand in the woman just got her whole body being destroyed, given that the woman is part of the Team Rocket that invaded the medical unit. This is because he knew of two things: dark type Pokemons were used to specifically target the Ghost types of Agatha, something that all interns knew, and also the note that Agatha had given to him.
'Everything is fine as long as they're not dead.'
It was a very simple note with a very straightforward meaning, and surely no person who said such a note will also abide by it.
_Maybe she's a vengeful person... but who am I to judge? Pokemons are very intelligent beings with a great affinity for getting close to humans, plus I saw humans in my previous life jail, other humans for harming a cat they didn't know... but still, I feel like the woman should be left with some dignity..._
Anthony shook his head while noting that he felt like Agatha just made the girl alive to make her suffer, and not because she was afraid of committing murder and mutilation of a corpse at the same time. In the end, the children weren't able to come to a definite conclusion and decided to get out of the lab and inform their respective Pokemons of the 3-day vacation and their new arrangements that would be announced after it.
When Anthony got back to his room, he saw Miltank and Zubat in the sink, brushing their teeth and preparing to take a bath; their spirits remained sullen to neutral, with tendencies to silently sigh and slump their shoulders when they remembered their friends. Before making them do as they intended, Anthony gave them a brief of what the meeting with Prof. Oak and the 3 days vacation would be like, which made them a little bit more spirited.
For now, Anthony, who will have a vacation starting tomorrow and doesn't have any classes today, also decided to rest with his Pokemons. This is not only for them to cheer up, but also for him to catch up on his studies that went stagnant during the week when he has to train Miltank, though this is mostly theories only and most are about Pokemons, especially those that he's interested in catching and those that are common within the trainer spheres.
Though of course, he made it a point to also get to know other Pokemons that they might need to fight in the future.
_Tommorow, I'll become a tourist..._
___________
"The operation to abduct Anthony Dover and extract the truth about the retirement of Ben Dover has failed. Prof. Oak has been putting the greatest pressure he can put on the government to make the lab the most secure place on the planet, and Elite 4 Agatha seems to be looking for us in hot pursuit. Not only that, the base leader is nowhere to be found."
"Sir, if I may also connect, with how Hana and Ben Dover being our greatest headache that even almost made us disintegrate into dust during that accident, and how they were trained to decrypt situations despite supposedly just being Pokémon trainers... the Interpol might have already been on their way to purge our remaining double agents inside their organization..."
Team Rocket Leader Giovanni looked at the grunt, his eyes glazed, while his chest heaved with heavy pants. Long ago, the fate of his table being destroyed was met as anger filled him over the failure of the high-stakes operation that made them risk their double spies in the Interpol and the most important lab of the Kanto Region.
All of these are because of the retirement of Ben Dover, who was an active executioner of their bases before hanging up the jacket, and such a grim ripper that he is, how can Team Rocket just sit down and accept that he just doesn't feel like causing them headaches anymore? Giovanni believed that Ben is preparing for a big move, especially since another headache named Red and the current champion Blue are in their hot ass too.
It was a perfect plan; it tapped everything left in their core for it to succeed, yet it still failed.
"How was Hana able to get her son out of it? Surely she doesn't want to scare the spectators of the tournaments?"
The Team Rocket grunt, with a nervous expression, looked at the part of the report, one by the Interpol communications department mole.
"The spy said: It's because of that kid."
Giovanni's glazed eyes froze. Another problem seems to have budded.
______________________
Prof. Oak's office, right after meeting the interns that are now down to only 7.
Prof. Oak has instructed all of the professors under him who are in charge of the other labs in different parts of the Kanto region to simultaneously give handwritten letters of request one by one to the Interpol for a force to secure their labs. Despite him knowing that Team Rocket may have most likely exhausted their last bit of bases that they have just rebuilt after being almost eradicated by Hana many years ago inside the code of the World Government, he knew that he had to put pressure on them to protect his future interns.
If they still didn't give in, then he would have to use some of that 'Rival of Elite 4 Agatha' remaining on him and storm the office of the Interpol President. Of course, no one wanted a respected academic such as himself to lose his patience.
That's why there's already a preliminary person securing the dorms.
After mulling for a while, Prof. Oak was about to pick up the first document of his day to mitigate the loss and write lots of explanations to his stakeholders, such as the seasoned trainers that entrusted their Pokemons to his lab, coordinators, and more. It was a headache, just like Anthony had guessed, and amidst this headache, a knock suddenly reverberated at the door, and when Prof. Oak permitted the entry, he saw his secretary holding a USB.
"What's that?"
The secretary, after putting down the USB on the professor's desk, respectfully and succinctly replied.
"It's the data of all the Pokemons of Team Rocket that they used in their failed operation. Apparently, they're stored by Anthony Dover and Mary Hane, two of the remaining 7 interns in the PC virtual box."
Prof. Oak was silent for a moment before smiling.
"Pen a letter to the Interpol to transfer all of those Pokemons in the witness protection program. I will give them the ethical permission to use non-violent moves of Psychic types to extract all information they know about Team Rocket."
At this reply, the Secretary became rather confused.
"Without them addressing you for it first?"
Prof. Oak shook his head.
"Yes, why accept my authority if I won't use it, right?"
The secretary didn't talk anymore.
_________________
"How can this place be called a town when it's this huge..."
Such were Anthony and his Pokemons (who have already recovered from their depressed state after all of those efforts from Anthony), questioning as they head to the conference room again after finally finishing their 3-day vacation. During that span of time, they went and really became tourists, they asked people where this or that place was and even learned of the 'Pallet Museum' where they display statues, donated equipments and statues of people and Pokemons that brought fame to the town.
There are honestly a lot of people Anthony doesn't know, as they were not introduced in the game or in the anime (hell, the museum itself doesn't exist in the game or anime). But he did recognize the current champion, Blue, and a statue of his whole team, as well as his black shirt framed on the wall. Prof. Oak is also here, the most prominent figure of this town in modern times.
He has his whole team and himself as a trainer statue, and himself with the Pokedex model 1, the dissertation that led to the Pokedex, and the abstract of the IMRAD version of the dissertation, all in a framed copperplate. Furthermore, there are all the first pages of the research papers published every time there's an upgrade to the Pokedex.
Anthony realized that Prof. Oak seems to be the Lebron James of Pallet Town with how he has two different careers being successful. Anthony wondered how Prof. Oak would look if he suddenly decided to be a coordinator with his Pidgeot, Braviary, or Taurus.
However, he stopped thinking of such stuff as he sat down on his own rolling chair. Miltank, that's in a good mood due to the vacation yesterday, also jumped on one before spinning around.
The Prof. who was already inside the room, looked at this scene and nodded while smiling as if satisfied. Prof. Oak then made his secretary distribute a piece of paper, yes, another letter. Anthony, by principle, read the heading first.
"Letter of Permission from the Kanto Pokemon Professor for logistical assistance in data collection of interns to the Kanto Pokemon Research laboratories."
Anthony's eyes lit up a little at this before going back to normal. He feels like he is finally able to do something researcher-like.