Prologue
The man slowly inched his way up the sheer rock face. One false move and he would fall several hundred feet to his death. He moved carefully, checking every potential foot and handhold to make sure they would support his weight.
His name was Giovanni Roketo and once he had been the leader of the greatest pokemon crime syndicate the world had ever seen; Team Rocket.
His empire had covered most of the Kanto and Johto regions but he had had dealings with corrupt trainers in nearly every region in the world. He had been rich beyond his wildest dreams; there had been nothing that he couldn't obtain, either legally or illegally.
Then he had met a young boy called Ash Ketchum, a pokemon trainer with great potential. Time after time he had thwarted Giovanni and Team Rocket's plans. Giovanni's fortunes took a turn for the worse, membership figures dropped as did profits and soon he was having to sell off valuable assets to cover his mammoth debts. Eventually Giovanni came to realise that Team Rocket was finished and there was no sense in going down with a sinking ship. He officially disbanded the criminal organisation and disappeared, leaving his ex-rocket administrators to fend for themselves.
He had wandered aimlessly across the world, searching for some way of restoring his fortunes. Everywhere he went he head tales of the "great" Ash Ketchum, now an accomplished trainer. At one point Team Rocket reappeared under the leadership of Giovanni's old administrators and began to search for their lost leader. Giovanni began to consider returning to his old position when another message reached him; the new Team Rocket had already disbanded again, his admins had failed the same way Giovanni had.
For the next few years Giovanni continued his wandering. He trained his already formidable pokemon harder than ever so that when he decided to return he would be unstoppable. Then Giovanni had learned of a powerful relic that could truly make him unbeatable. After much searching, Giovanni managed to deduce the location of this item; a remote mountain range far from civilization and now the relic was almost within his grasp, just a few feet above him was a small plateau with an entrance to a cave, his goal.
Giovanni was inches away from the plateau and for a moment his greed overtook him. He reached out blindly for the top of the cliff, forgetting all of the safety precautions that had got him this far. The rock he grabbed onto broke away from the rock face and for a moment time seemed to stop…
Giovanni waved his arms franticly as he began to fall backwards and by some miracle, he managed to grab hold of the top of the cliff with his other hand. Now he was hanging precariously from the cliff face with his feet waving in the air and his other hand flailing around uselessly. He began to feel his other hand lose its grip and swore. This was how the great Giovanni Roketo was going to die, alone and forgotten, far from civilization, he thought morosely.
Suddenly a strange vision seemed to appear on the plateau above him, standing there laughing his head off was that child! Ash Ketchum, gloating over the great Giovanni? He would never allow it!
Summoning his last reserves of strength Giovanni reached out with his other hand and clutched the edge of the plateau. With a great roar of triumph and exhaustion he pulled himself up and over the top, collapsing onto the stony ground. The vision faded almost as suddenly as it had appeared.
Giovanni lay completely still, resting after the epic climb. After he had rested for a few moments he heaved himself up onto his feet and strode towards the cavern.
It was a scorching day and the sun hung in a cloudless sky, Giovanni's t-shirt was soaked with sweat and he was perspiring madly but inside the cave was freezing cold.
It was tiny, hardly a cave, more like a large alcove. Directly ahead of Giovanni was a small plinth and atop it lay the object he had come all this way for. He picked it up; it fitted comfortably in his hand. It was hard to imagine something so small could be so powerful. The cold seemed to radiate from it and he slipped it into his backpack, making sure it couldn't fall out.
Giovanni walked back out of the cave and looked out to the horizon, it was time for him to go home, he had unfinished business to attend to.