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Chapter 23

"Reasons Behind the Child Catcher"

When Giovanni would get what he wanted, he would do whatever it took to achieve the goal whether it was ensuring that a certain Pokemon was in his possession or using Pokemon to carry out a killing, assassination or massacre. For you see, he had always had a desire, as far as after the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie. That goal would be to take over the Vatican and install himself as a supreme leader of the Catholic Church. He had a perverted goal of wiping out Christianity from existence and have the entire world worship him as the new savior.

However, he needed to kill the Pope and there was only one way to kill him…with a Poison type Pokemon.

"Giovanni," asked his loyal assistant, Steven as he prepared to use his front as the Viridian City Gym Leader. "I can't help but wonder about something."

"What is that, Steven?"

"The Child Catcher, in Manila," he answered. "What do you see in him?"

"Fear and terror," Giovanni replied with a sinister smile. "For you see, the Child Catcher is employed in the service of dictators who want nothing more than to see a particular group erased…but the Child Catcher in my view, is a servant of Team Rocket tasked with forcing an innocent child and a Pokemon to kill for the glory of this organization."

"Giovanni, if I may something," Steven said, knowing that there were boundaries being crossed that he didn't want to have crossed. "What are you expecting to get out of killing his holiness? You know that they will just elect a new pope out of their kind."

But Giovanni didn't seem to be bothered by this as they approached the stairs for him to climb up into the gym.

"Yea of little faith, Steven," chuckled Giovanni as Persian climbed up the stairs first. "I intend to erase all aspects of the faith and rewrite it as I see it. For you see, I plan to send a little present to the Vatican to thank them for submitting to me."

As he watched Giovanni climb up the stairs laughing evilly, Steven wondered if perhaps his friend and confidant of nearly seven years was perhaps going a bit overboard.

…

Back in Manila, we continued to question Alexander and he was now going into details about a strange figure that was supposedly working for Team Rocket.

"Alex," I asked, looking over towards the tape recorder recording the interview. "This Child Catcher whom you are talking about…is he the one who kidnapped you from your home?"

"Yes, he was offering me my favorite candy…Hershey's. I followed him into a bush and it wasn't until too late did I discover that…it was a cage."

"Definitely something out of 1968 if you ask me?" remarked Tim to Detective Pikachu.

"I don't know what happened next," confessed Alexander. "But the next thing I knew, I was taken to this group from Team Rocket and they told me I was going to be a martyr, a contributor to their success. They went onto say that I was their property now."

When I heard the word "property" you can be sure I was starting to get pissed off. To hear that Team Rocket considered both Pokemon and people as "property" was right along the ranks of slavery. But they weren't the traditional slaves, they were basically weapons to get what Team Rocket wanted.

"Alex," I sighed, feeling nothing but sympathy for him. "I'm sorry. No one deserves to be treated like this."

At that moment, the reluctant Team Rocket agent lowered his head and sobbed loudly. Being a father myself to Tim, I knew that the sooner we got the Child Catcher off the streets, the sooner things would be a little safer for the children of Manila as well as the Pope himself.

…

"Sick motherfuckers," I muttered under my breath as we left the interrogation room. "How could they do this? Resurrect a famous character and force it to make innocent people property as well as Pokemon?"

"Maybe it's their way of asserting their authority. They are considered crooks…"

"Crooks?" I scoffed bitterly. "These aren't crooks…they're terrorists who steal Pokemon and use them to kill for their own personal thrills, Tim. Whoever this child catcher is, he's going to feel the full weight of the law!"

Naturally, I had self-control, but even that wasn't an option at this point. The sooner we put an end to this, the better.

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