… a large round stone about the size of his hand. It shone in all sorts of colors from the light reflecting off of it, sort of like a prism.
"You said this new product Silph Co. created is called the All Stone, correct?" said the man holding it.
The executive was silent, his eyes wide in shock and his shoulders hunched in defeat.
"This All Stone, from what I hear, can evolve any pokemon that aren't otherwise able to evolve with a stone. This will be perfect for building up an army of pokemon to fight for us. We just need a test subject."
Rose gasped when she saw his eyes immediately dart to the sack containing Sage. It wiggled a bit as the pokemon tried to get out, but his little claws weren't strong enough to tear through material. The leader grabbed the sack from the burly man, quite roughly, and opened it. Inside, Sage was still growling like a rabid dog. The hand holding the stone approached him slowly, which caused him to lash out a grab his wrist with his powerful jaws. A sickening CRUNCH obviously meant that he'd managed to break bone.
The leader immediately dropped the stone and screamed in pain, but Sage still held on. The executive, reacting with lightning speed, ordered his dog pokemon to attack the remaining men. The one with his gun held to Delilah was brought down first, whose gunshot barely missed her shoulder, so she took the opportunity to release Jade from her confinement. She went after the burly man, but was swatted away like an annoying fly by one huge hand. She fell to the ground, but immediately got back up.
"Looks like I'll need some more pokemon for this." Delilah said as she took out a pokeball from her pocket.
It expanded into about the size of an orange, and then she threw it to the ground. It popped open and in a bright flash of light, a yellow cat-like pokemon came out.
"Alright Kadabra, use telekinesis!"
With sheer psychic power, the pokemon lifted up the burly man high up into the air and threw him into another man nearby. They were both knocked out cold. The leader finally shook Sage off and threw him into a wall, which nearly caused him to black out. Sage sat there on the ground, disoriented.
Rose attempted to run to his side, but a newly-released Ivysaur stood in her way. It was about to tackle her when Jade came flying out of nowhere and tackled it first. It quickly got back on its feet and reciprocated with Vine Whip.
The remaining Rocker member had managed to escape, running back down the stairs and probably out of the building itself. The leader had released his own Ivysaur, which battled the dog pokemon one on one.
"Don't let that Ivysaur get the best of you Growlithe!" yelled the executive from the sidelines. "Fire Blast it!"
The Growlithe did as it was told and let out a great burst of flame that immediately scorched its attacker. Once the Ivysaur was down for the count, it went after the other. Jade and Growlithe both headbutt the remaining Ivysaur and sent it flying into the leader, who was holding his arm in pain.
What Rose had not noticed was that the leader had backed up just before being hit, kicking the Stone across the room. It skidded across the tiled until it stopped right where Sage was sitting, still in a daze from being thrown into the wall.
"Sage, NO!" screamed Rose. The Stone was lightly touching his foot, but this was enough to cause a strange reaction in the little blue pokemon. He glowed white and began changing. His jaws became bigger and he himself grew taller. The spines on his back grew and more sprouted from his head. The once kind look in his eye disappeared and turned into a fierce glare.
Sage was no longer Sage, but an entirely different… thing altogether. When the white light had disappeared, he looked down at his newly evolved body. Rose ran to him and hugged him with tears in her eyes.
"Sage, what happened to you??" she cried into his little blue shoulder. He didn't hug back, only stood there in confusion and annoyance. He pushed her back a little, clearly uncomfortable with the closeness.
"Sage…?" Rose said as she looked into his eyes. "Don't you remember me? It's me, Rose. You know me; I'm your best friend…"
"Kadabra, use Hypnosis!" commanded Delilah. Her faithful pokemon let out a number of visible brain waves from his forehead, putting the Ivysaur and the leader to sleep.
At this moment, the police had arrived. "What the hell happened here??" demanded one of them. There were about five of them standing there in the doorway.
Delilah explained the whole ordeal to the officer while Rose still kneeled in front of Sage. He looked around the room uncaringly, ignoring her kind words.
"Wow, and you guys handled them all by yourself?" asked one of the other officers.
"Well, not without some help." responded Delilah as she looked over at Rose, who gave her a small smile.
"How did you know where to find us though?" asked Geoffrey, who had chosen to stay out of the battle the entire time because of his lack of pokemon.
"You wife contacted us when she saw that your house had been broken into and you weren't there." responded another officer.
Geoffrey's wife walked in as he said this, looking pale and scared. In her hand, to Rose's relief, was the guitar she had left back in Pewter City, along with the backpack Delilah had bought her. She handed them over to Rose with shaking hands, then looked over at Geoffrey.
"Mon amour!" she said as she ran into his arms. He held her close as she cried on his shoulder, whispering calming words in French to her. Rose wished she knew what that felt like, to be held and comforted after such a traumatizing event. She looked at Delilah, who was still talking to the officers.
Then Rose noticed the Stone lying on the floor, still glistening. She picked it up, making sure she didn't get it too close to Sage, and handed it to one of the officers.
"We don't need this, it's not even ours." she said. "We were supposed to be delivering this here until Team Rocket took it from us." The officer took it in his hands and showed it to the man next to him.
"Thank you very much for capturing these guys." said the officer who was talking to Delilah. "We've been looking for this particular group of Rocket members for months. I think a reward is in store for you guys."
Rose smiled and so did Delilah, proud to have done such a good deed. Sage stood there next to Rose with a look of complete indifference on his face. Jade waddled up to him and snuggled close to him as she always did, but was immediately swatted at with sharp claws. She cried out and ran to Delilah, who picked her up and stroked her back.
"Come down to the station, we have something for you." the officer said.
Rose, Delilah, Geoffrey, his wife, and all the pokemon followed the men back down the stairs and outside. It was raining just as hard as before, but at least those huge winged dinosaurs were gone. They must have been captured.
The police station was a couple of blocks from Silph Co. It was a small building compared to the humongous skyscraper they were just in. Before walking in through the front doors, Delilah returned all her pokemon, including Jade.
"Ah, Officer Frank, how's it going?" asked a man standing at the door. He was addressing the officer whom Delilah was speaking to earlier.
"It's all good." said Frank with a smile. He explained what had happened that day to the man, who looked thoroughly impressed.
"So do you want me to get the, uhh…?"
"Yes Joe, and make sure you be careful with it." Frank responded. The one called Joe went to a door towards the back, pushed it open, and quickly stepped inside. Rose and Delilah looked at each other, then back at the door. Finally, Joe came back out with a small carrying case, much like a miniature suitcase. He came over to the girls and opened it up. This caused both Rose's and Delilah's eyes to widen.
"This is your $5,000 reward for capturing those Team Rocket members." said Frank. Since the three of you helped, then the three of you can split the cash.
When this was said, Geoffrey promptly stepped in. "I can't take the money." he said. "I didn't do a thing. They deserve it much more than I."
"Are you sure?" asked Rose. "There's an awful lot of money here."
"I am sure."
Joe shrugged and handed Rose the money. She and Delilah looked at the many neatly-stacked bills in awe. Neither of them ever had this much money in their lives. Rose counted out $2500 and gave it to Delilah, then shut the case and put it carefully into her bag. Delilah put her share into her own backpack.
"I guess this is where we say goodbye." said Frank. "We need to bring these two back to Pewter City." He motioned towards Geoffrey and his wife. "Unless you'd like a ride back too."
Rose, realizing that her objective was finally complete, said "Well, I'd like a ride back to Pallet Town if that's alright."
"Pallet Town?" asked Delilah.
"Well yeah, I did get the package to Saffron City. It wasn't the way I had planned, but at least it's here now. Professor Oak said he had something for me if I did this for him."
Delilah stood there in silence, thinking it over a bit.
"If you don't want to come, that's alright." Rose said. "Actually, didn't you say you needed to get back to Celadon City to visit your mother?"
"Oh, yeah, that's right…" said Delilah quietly.
"Then I guess this is goodbye." Rose said sadly. She held out a hand to shake Delilah's, trying to blink away the tears forming in her eyes. She didn't even know why she felt like crying; she had only known Delilah for a few days. It might have been because she was the only person she had ever been so close to before.
With a smirk, Delilah took her hand and shook it. "I'll see you around then brat." she said.
"Alright, come on." Frank said as he waited there. "I have three different stops to make and it's getting late. It's already 6 o' clock."
The four of them were led outside once more. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still full of grey clouds. Waiting for them were four horse-like pokemon with flames their backs, pawing at the ground impatiently.
"This Rapidash will take Delilah straight to Celadon City," said Frank as he approached one and pat it on the neck, "and the other one will take you to Vermilion City where a boat will be waiting to take you to Pallet Town." He was speaking to Rose and Sage. "Geoffrey and his wife will have to be taken through Mt. Moon from Cerulean City to get back."
Rose nodded, even though she had no idea where any of these places were. Frank helped her up onto her Rapidash along with Sage. Surprisingly, the flames on its back didn't burn her at all. She discovered that she could actually hold onto its mane as if it were real hair. Sage held onto her from behind, looking somewhat annoyed. Geoffrey and his wife were seated onto their own Rapidash while one of the officers took the lead with his. Delilah was seated behind another officer on the same pokemon.
When everyone was all set, Delilah's Rapidash set off towards the west where Celadon City must have been. She looked behind her at Rose until she was too far away to be seen. Then the two Rapidash carrying the others took off towards the north.
"Alright," said Frank, sitting on one of the last remaining horses. "Your Rapidash will follow me, so don't worry. Just hold on so you don't fall."
With those last words, both Rapidash ran off towards the north. Towards Vermilion City. Rose hung on for dear life, not at all used to riding any kind of pokemon. Looking at the ground racing under her only made her dizzy, so she instead looked up at the passing houses. Soon, they were on a lone path with nothing but trees surrounding them. Up ahead, lights from a distant town could be seen.
Once again, Rose was on her way to a new town. New sights, new people, new everything. Unfortunately, she wouldn't be staying for long, seeing as she had to board the boat there right away to get home.
This made her think of her mother, and what her reaction would be if she saw her daughter after having been gone for so long. Rose wouldn't let this worry her too much though. She would only be stopping in at Professor Oak's lab to get whatever it was that he wanted to give her, and then she would be leaving once again. She knew there was a river near there, which led to the ocean. There had to have been something out there she could discover, and she could finally have Sage help her across the waves.
Rose smiled at the thought of having a destination in mind. She was finally free to do what she wanted, to go where she wanted.