Back at the lab, Tracey was in the middle of feeding the smaller Pokémon when Gary wandered in.
"Hi, Tracey," Gary said sullenly.
"Hey, Gary," Tracey replied in an equally somber tone. "What's up?"
"I just came from the bank. I was looking for Grandpa's will, but it's not in the safe-deposit box. Do you know if it might be around here somewhere?"
"It might be in the safe over there," Tracey said as he pointed to the small gray box sitting in the corner next to Professor Oak's desk.
"I don't have the combination," Gary said. "Did Grandpa ever give it to you?"
"Yeah, he did," Tracey sighed as he finished pouring out a bowl of Poké Chow for the three Rattata waiting eagerly at his feet. After putting the bowl down on the floor, Tracey went over to the safe, twirled the dial back and forth, and pulled open the door. He peered inside and rummaged through the contents until he found a manila envelope. "This is it." He handed Gary the envelope.
"Thanks," the other boy said quietly as he opened the envelope and discovered that it did contain his grandfather's will.
"So how's your sister doing?" Tracey asked. He was fond of May and had a serious crush on her. It had broken his heart to see her sobbing uncontrollably over her grandfather's casket at the funeral.
Gary shrugged his shoulders. "She's all right, I guess. She's heading back to college tomorrow. And I guess I'm gonna go with her."
"You are?" Tracey replied, surprised.
"Yeah, Grandpa wanted me to go live with her, seeing that she's my only living relative now," Gary replied bitterly.
And Gary was bitter. During the entire service he had stared at the pair of caskets with a hard, angry expression on his face. He was furious at his grandfather for abandoning him and furious that his grandfather had killed himself because of Ash's mother.
"Oh yeah, do you want this?" Tracey asked as he offered Gary a small velvet box.
"What's that?" Gary asked with a puzzled expression.
Tracey opened the box and showed him the ring with the golden Kadabra. "Professor Oak bought this for your grandmother years ago, but he said that she died before he was able to give it to her. He gave it to Mrs. Ketchum a few days ago…" Tracey felt himself starting to choke up again. "It was her engagement ring." Tracey brushed back a tear. "Do you want it?"
Gary's face hardened. "Because of that damn ring and Mrs. Ketchum, my Grandpa is dead. You can throw it in the river for all I care!" As Tracey closed the box, Gary began to read the document in his hand and his face grew pale with rage and disbelief. "I don't believe it…that son of a…"
"What's wrong, Gary?"
Gary gave Tracey a sarcastic, bitter laugh. "All these years I thought Grandpa liked Ash better than me, and this just proves my point. Hell, he even chose Ash's mom over me."
Gary handed the document to Tracey, who began to read it. Halfway through the will, Tracey gasped.
"Oh my God! Professor Oak left a quarter of his estate to…"
"To Ash," Gary completed the phrase. "To poor, little neighbor boy Ash."
"But Professor Oak also left you and May each a quarter of his estate," Tracey said as he continued reading the text of the will and then squeaked in surprise. "And me, too. Oh man, he didn't have to do that." Tracey began to feel tears of gratitude for his former employer forming.
"Well, he did," Gary fumed as he snatched the document out of Tracey's hands and stuffed it back in the envelope. "I've gotta get this to the lawyer's office. Come on, Umbreon," Gary motioned to his Pokémon as he stormed out of the lab.
---
"If you had waited one more day, then I would've been able to buy the ring from him and given it to you!" cried a distraught Jiraldan as he sat in the expensively decorated office of his business partner. "You didn't tell me that you were going to kill the woman! Why didn't you wait?"
"First, Jiri, you are mistaken," said the equally well-dressed man on the opposite side of the huge wooden desk. "I wasn't the one who killed Delia Ketchum. My associates were unfortunately a little overzealous in their attempt to obtain the ring. And the reason I didn't wait was because I'm not going to let that ring get away. You are convinced that it is the original?"
"Yes," Jiraldan nodded.
"You had better be telling me the truth, Jiri. Because if you're not…" Jiraldan's eyes grew wide with fear at the expression on his partner's face. "Bring me the ring," he ordered as he tapped a button on the intercom on his desk. A burly, dark-haired man dressed in a black suit -- obviously a bodyguard -- entered the office and handed the man at the desk a small paper envelope.
"Excellent," smiled the envelope's recipient. He tore open the envelope and out fell a small gold ring -- a ring that contained a small square sapphire flanked by two diamonds. It was the birthstone ring Professor Oak had given Delia on her birthday the previous year.
Jiraldan's mouth went dry with fear. "That…that's not the ring."
The man on the other side of the desk's head shot up. "What do you mean, 'this isn't the ring'?"
Jiraldan, who was trembling visibly, repeated, "This isn't the ring Professor Oak showed me."
The man on the other side of the desk stood up and crossed over to where his business partner sat cowering in his chair. "Jiri," he said in a low, dangerous voice, "you know what I do to people who double-cross me."
Jiraldan shook his head violently in protest. "No! I don't have the ring! Your associates must've taken the wrong one!"
"If you're lying to me, Jiri…" His partner's hand shot out and seized him by the throat.
"No," Jiri choked as the hand on his throat tightened. "I swear to you, I don't have it!"
His attacker regarded him for a second through narrowed eyes, then released his grip. "Bring in Angelina and Gabe," he barked to his bodyguard. The burly man disappeared for a moment and reappeared with two teenagers in tow. Both were dressed in black and had a scarlet "R" on their chests.
"My colleague here," the teenagers' boss gestured to the coughing Jiraldan, "says that the ring that I sent you to get isn't the one we were looking for."
"Sure it is, Boss," insisted the tall, red-haired boy somewhat nervously.
"You said to get the ring from the bitch in Pallet Town and that's what we did," smirked the pretty blonde girl with a cruel expression.
"I believe I said get the ring with the golden Kadabra on it, did I not?" continued their boss with an air of dangerous calm.
"You…you said get the ring from that Ketchum woman, and that's what we did, Boss!" the boy named Gabe insisted.
"Does this look like a golden Kadabra?" their boss said as he held up the ring that was sitting on his desk.
The two teens gulped nervously and looked at each other, realizing that they had made a huge, potentially fatal mistake.
"And another thing," the sapphire ring's new owner continued calmly, "I don't recall ordering you to kill the woman, either."
"We didn't have any choice!" Angelina spat. "She kept screaming and that crazy Pokémon of hers kept trying to attack us. We had to shut them up somehow!"
"Team Rocket is not in the business of killing people, Angelina. And since neither you nor your partner can remember that, much less remember what a Kadabra ring looks like, then I'll have to find a way to refresh your memories." He signaled to his bodyguard, who stepped forward and roughly seized the arms of the terrified Rocket grunts. "Mistakes like that will not be repeated as long as I am the leader of Team Rocket," he said with chilling finality. "Take them away."
The two men, one terrified and one satisfied, watched as the bodyguard led the stunned teens away. Finally, the darker-haired man returned to his desk, sat down, and began twirling the sapphire ring back and forth in his fingers. "So, Jiri, where do you think the ring is now?"
"I…I guess it must still be at Professor Oak's place if he didn't give it back to his fiancee."
"Then I guess we should pay a condolence call to the Oak house, shouldn't we?"
And Jiridan knew from the malicious smile on Giovanni's face that paying respects to the late Professor Oak wasn't his partner's intent at all.