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Temporal War

"Ash!" Brock looked urgently at his friend as they ran along the road that would take them to Ecruteak City, the older Ash setting a surprising pace as the rest of the group struggled to keep up with him. "Can we just talk-?"

"No time!" Ash said, barely even panting as he ran; evidently his future travels had given him a fair amount of experience at setting a firm but even pace when he had a clear destination in relatively close range. "We have to get to Ecruteak… I have to know…"

"Know what?" Brock asked, glancing back to confirm that Misty and the others were still with them; Clemont had actually picked Bonnie up to give her a semi-piggy-back ride with some strange robotic arm in his backpack, allowing the older sibling to be sure that his young sister wouldn't get left behind, but in general their expanded group was maintaining a fairly even pace. "What are you-?"

"Future consequences… remember?" Ash said, reaching up to make sure that Pikachu was still gripping onto his hat. "If I'm wrong… you don't need to know it…"

"Can you slow down up there?" Misty yelled after them. "You realise… you're falling behind-"

"I can do this!" young-Ash yelled, tone indignant even as he panted for air while struggling at the back of the group.

"I know… my limits," Ash nodded back at his past self as he kept up the pace, acknowledging how tired his past self must be but refusing to sacrifice the speed he desperately needed right now. "We'll get there… maybe I'll be wrong… either way-"

His assessment of the situation was interrupted when the ground below them shook and suddenly the seven humans and their four active Pokemon fell into the hole that had just opened underneath them.

"What the- what just happened?" Serena looked sharply around the hole, the humans lying on top of each other as the Pikachus and Dedenne scrambled to the top of the pile.

"Oh God," Ash groaned, suddenly wanting to slam his head against the wall of the pit. "They had to show up now…"

"Prepare for trouble!" a familiar red-haired woman said from the top of the pit.

"Make it double!" said the blue-haired man alongside her.

"To protect the world from devastation!"

"To unite all peoples within our nation!"

"To denounce the evils of truth and love!"

"To extend our reach to the stars above!"

"Jessie!"

"James!"

"Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!"

"Surrender now or prepare to fight!"

"Meowth! That's right!" the talking Pokemon in question put in.

"Team Rocket!" Ash heard his younger self and the rest of the group say, glancing back to smile briefly as his younger self, Misty and Brock exchanged surprised glances with Serena, Clemont and Bonnie. "You know them?"

"Yeah, they're still around," Ash observed, shrugging slightly as the other six humans in the pit turned to look at him. "I mean, I had a few months without them when I was in Unova, but considering the scale of what they nearly did after that, it's actually good news when they do show up all the time…"

"Hold on; how do you know us?" Jessie looked pointedly at Ash.

"An' what's that about yous meetin' us in Unova?" Meowth added.

"And who are you anyway?" James asked, crouching down slightly to stare into the pit more directly. "We never saw anything to suggest the twerp had an older brother!"

"Oh for…" Ash groaned, slamming the back of his head against the wall of the pit in exasperation before he got to his feet as best he could to glare up at his long-time 'frenemies'. "Are you kidding me? I mean, are you really this stupid? You've been following me for over two years by now and you haven't realised that I'm him?"

"That you're…?" James began uncertainly.

Screw this.

Ash had no idea what prompted this particular response, or even how he did it in the first place, but he was too frustrated to realise that he was doing something that should have been impossible. Grabbing a part of the wall of the hole around him, he hauled himself upwards from the floor of the pit, only needing to repeat himself a couple more times, hand over hand, before he had climbed out of the hole with a show of strength that even briefly surprised himself. He glared at Team Rocket as they stepped back from him in shock, before he stepped forward and held out a palm towards Meowth.

"OK," he said, addressing the cat-Pokemon directly, "I get that you're not a dog Pokemon, but you've got to have better senses than these two do, and the only Pokemon I've known longer than you is Pikachu; if you can't work it out from this, you're all bigger idiots than I thought you were."

"Uh… OK…" Meowth said, tentatively sniffing at the offered hand before he stepped back, staring at Ash incredulously. "No way… twerp?"

"Pika!" Pikachu said as he held onto Ash's shoulder, looking at Meowth with a particularly satisfied grin.

"Wait a- you mean he's really-?" Jessie looked incredulously between Ash and Meowth, leaving Ash to grin at the sight of Team Rocket's leader genuinely admitting that she was completely lost.

"But… this can't…" Meowth began, before Pikachu jumped down and whispered something in Meowth's ear, prompting the cat to jump back and stare at the mouse in shock. "No ways; how'd you-?"

"Pika Pikachu," Pikachu smiled at Meowth with a slight edge to its grin.

"Meowth?" Jessie looked at her teammate in confusion. "What did it say?"

"Somethin' from that time me and Pikachu got stuck together on that island wi' giant Pidgeot an' Rhydon," Meowth said, looking shakily between Ash and Pikachu. "An' he's definitely too old to be the Pikachu we's been trackin', which means…"

"He is from the future?" James looked at Ash uncertainly. "But… I mean, surely Pikachu could have-"

"You wrote a letter to Jessiebelle after you met her that she'd basically consider a marriage certificate and had Growly bury it near your family's Sinnoh estate once you realised how controlling she was."

"What?" Jessie and Meowth looked sharply at a suddenly pale-faced James.

"Oh Arceus…" James whispered, looking at Ash in horror. "You… you saw that?"

"I never read the letter personally, but I did help you get away from Jessiebelle when she almost found it," Ash clarified, glancing back as he heard sounds from behind him to see Bulbasaur and Bayleef pulling the rest of his friends out of the pit. "And I could probably mention a few things to Jessie, but they involve stuff I learned about on later journeys, and to be blunt I'm not sure when you got interested in any of that-"

"OK, OK, OK, we believe you, you're the future twerp!" Jessie said, before her expression faltered as she focused on his shoulder. "Wait a minute… if you're from the future…"

"Yep," Ash nodded, folding his arms as he looked firmly at the trio, only peripherally aware of his friends taking up position behind him. "You never win."

"What?" the trio yelled indignantly.

"I mean, I'll acknowledge that you make a few good captures over the years, and you're part of a few of my more important fights, but that's the point; you made legitimate captures and you helped me deal with some particularly big problems," Ash clarified. It was probably bending the rules to give them even this much, but even if he didn't want them to succeed at stealing Pikachu, when they weren't trying to capture other peoples' Pokemon he was strangely fond of the trio in a weird way. "Maybe you should just take a look at your lives and ask yourselves if you really want to keep on struggling to achieve a goal you know you won't succeed at-"

"NO!" the trio yelled, moving back to glare at Ash as they pulled out their Poke Balls.

"Maybe we didn't steal Pikachu in your time, but if we've won sometimes that just gives us all the more reason to keep trying for this goal!" Jessie said resolutely, before she and James released a familiar pair of purple Pokemon.

Barely restraining himself from expressing his nostalgia at the sight of Arbok and Weezing, Ash glanced back to see his younger self move into position alongside him, the two exchanging a brief smile before turning back to Team Rocket with the same command in mind.

"Pikachu, Thunderbolt!" Ash and his past self yelled simultaneously. With that simple command, the two Pikachus leapt from the shoulders of their respective Ashes and launched the attacks at Team Rocket, the double attack sending the criminal trio flying backwards with their usual scream.

"Whoa…" Misty said, looking up in awe as the two Ashes turned back to look at their friends. "That was… pretty cool."

"What can I say?" Ash shrugged, reaching up to stroke Pikachu's head. "Pikachu's had a couple of rough patches, but he keeps on pulling himself back together when it counts."

"Rough patches?" Misty looked curiously at Ash.

"Can we not talk about that?" Brock cut in as he looked between them in exasperation. "Honestly, you just told Team Rocket that they're destined to keep on trying and failing; couldn't that-?"

"They were always determined to steal Pikachu and it's not like I told them anything vital; can you honestly blame me for wanting a chance to vent?" Ash looked at Brock in exasperation, before he turned back to look down the road. "We'd better keep going; we still have to get to Ecruteak."

"Can this really be-?"

"It's important," Ash said resolutely. "Trust me."

As his friends nodded at him, he turned and resumed his run back down the road, praying that his fears would turn out to be nothing important.

Team Rocket had been dealt with easily enough, but if he was right about Cyrus…