Evil Overlord List: Team Rocket Edition!

1. If I ever start being consistently foiled by a 10 year old traveling child with a Pokémon, I will commit all my crimes at least two towns away from their location.
2. If I am ever challenged to a Pokémon battle, I am to say "no" while having a scyther ready to ambush the trainer from behind and cut their head off. What? guns don't exist in Pokémon world, not after Gen 5.
3. If one of my schemes is foiled by said child that would otherwise succeeded without their presence, I can simply wait for them to move on and try again.
4. I will not try to capture a legendary. It never helps.
5. If I ever get powerful enough to run my own organization, I will find the three most bumbling fools of it and send them to hound the 10 year old child constantly while telling the bumbling fools that their cute mascot Pokémon is one of the most powerful Pokémon in existence. This will ensure that the three bumbling fools will distract the child forever, make the child underestimate the rest of my organization and allow my actual competent operatives to work without the bumbling fools screwing everything up. After all, it seems to work for Giovanni.
6. Keep in mind that Pokémon breeding exists. one could say, make a killing by getting a ditto, stealing a rare Pokémon then selling the offspring of that rare Pokémon on the black market for a hefty profit, rather than just selling the one you steal.
7. I will not try to "pokeproof" my inventions to steal Pokémon. All that means is that they will figure out the trick to destroying it or use a different Pokémon than the one its intended for to destroy it. Instead I will invest heavily in Dark Balls.
8. If I ever get a Snagem machine, I am to put it on and use it immediately. Not leave it lying around for the protagonist to steal and use for good.
9. If my motivation is to "free all the Pokémon" or "help the environment" in some ecoterrorist manner, I will shut up about it, go back my job and donate to the charity of my choice.
10. If I have one of the Elite Four members loyal to me, and this Elite Four member is the face of the local region news media, I should be more subtle about the propaganda she produces than "TEAM FLARE IS STYLISH AND AWESOME LETS ALL DESTROY MOST OF THE WORLD FOR TEH BEAUTY".
11. I will encourage all my grunts to study the type chart and to capture a full team of six Pokémon. The number of schemes foiled by simply not having enough Pokémon to equal the 10 year old child's team is alarmingly high.
12. If I ever need to set up puzzles to keep the 10 year old child out, I will make sure that to get past the doors they have to answer high school math problems. This is sufficient protection against adults as well.
13. If I ever find a master ball, I am to destroy it. I'll never get to use it anyways, and the 10 year old child will probably use it to catch the legendary.
14. I will use the cuteness of small Pokémon to lure the 10 year old child into traps. They are after all, 10 years old.
15. If the child trying to foil me is Ash Ketchum, I will simply make my base into a stadium with a tournament. He will never defeat me then.
16. If I ever have no more need for my secret headquarters, I will clear out all my grunts and rig it to explode, activated when the 10 year old child gets to the end.
17. I will keep track of all children with only one parent raising them. They tend to be the ones who go forth to foil me
18. Given that Professors are the ones who start 10 year old children on their journeys, target them first before they have a chance to give anyone Pokémon
19. The Pokémon league seems incompetent. Perhaps try becoming Champion first, then become a crime lord. No one suspects the region's Champion to be the villain, and there is no higher authority to watch you.
20. The Pokédex is filled with inaccurate, ridiculous information, take efforts to keep it that way and keep the real Pokémon information to myself in a book. No one reads those anymore.

 

21. If I ever find that the Pikachu I'm trying to capture can actually damage Ground types with electric attacks, I am to film it and show it to amoral scientists to gain credit for the discovery. I will then offer a high reward to any amoral scientist who can catch it for studying, thus increasing the number of people who will try to catch it, on the caveat that I get access to whatever method to reverse engineer this onto other electric types for my own use.