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Feedback: Always appreciated

AN: Essentially a 'filler' chapter as this just shows Ash prepping for the upcoming battle, but I can assure you that the next chapter will feature far more emotionally significant moments than this one, including one scene I've been waiting to write for a while…

Temporal War

"You're sure?" Ash looked urgently at Clemont as his friend sat in front of the Pokemon Centre's computer. It had taken a few moments to convince the rest of the group to leave him and Clemont alone to run the search he was thinking of, but right now Ash had a clear plan and couldn't afford to deal with some of the questions he might get from his friends if he had to explain everything to them, even if he'd needed Clemont's expertise to run the right searches and be sure that what he was planning now was even necessary.

"As sure as I can be, anyway," Clemont shrugged as he looked back at his friend. "You have to remember that I'm working with outdated technology here, Ash; computers advance so quickly that I'm having to make more than a few adjustments to accommodate the limited systems I'm hacking-"

"OK, but the point is that it looks like this… Cyrus isn't in Sinnoh right now?" Ash's younger self asked.

"No," Clemont shook his head. "He was meant to make a speech after that museum opening in Pastoria City mentioned in the article we found earlier, but he apparently cancelled it a short while ago and nobody knows why."

"In other words, he's almost certainly coming here now," Ash nodded.

"That seems like a bit of a stretch-"

"Cyrus is ambitious and arrogant, but he's also cautious; he only got as far as he did when I met him because he maintained the illusion that he was just a businessman," Ash explained. "He wouldn't cancel an important talk like that unless something big happened, and when his future self is walking round here it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to assume that's what drew his attention."

"Good… point," Clemont nodded uncertainly at Ash. "But you're sure that-?"

"We need to do this alone," Ash nodded at his friend. "You, Serena, Bonnie, Misty and Brock are already as strong as you can be; you work on a way to track Cyrus so we can be sure where he's going, and I'll work with… me… to get some back-up."

Clemont still looked at Ash in a slightly bemused manner, but he nevertheless nodded in understanding as he walked away from the computer, leaving Ash's younger self to walk back over to his future self. The two exchanged brief nods before the younger one sat down in the seat that Clemont had just vacated, reactivating the video phone feature as he made an important call.

"Ah, Ash," Professor Oak said as the vid-screen made a connection to the lab, smiling politely at the screen. "That's actually good timing on your part; I was just-"

"Hoping to call me to ask if I could send Bulbasaur over?" the younger Ash asked.

"How did-?" Professor Oak began, before he realised just who was standing over Ash's shoulder. "Ash… who is that?"

"I'm Ash, Professor Oak," Ash smiled at the professor who had given him so much useful advice over the years, even if most of it hadn't happened from his perspective. "It's a long story, but I'm from the future and I got dragged back to this time by a Celebi with a few friends of mine."

"You're from the future?" Oak looked at Ash with a brief sense of wonder before he shook his head and looked urgently at him. "Ash, you cannot-"

"I've already had lectures about the risks of changing history, Professor, and they're not important right now," Ash cut the professor off. "If it was just my friends and me here in the past, I'd probably agree with you- Arceus, I'd probably have not even bothered calling you about this so I could just get home without anyone else knowing- but to get to the point, there's someone else back here who's going to be a serious problem if I don't stop him doing something drastic."

"Really?" the professor looked sceptically at him.

"You know me, Professor," Ash retorted. "I'll admit that I can be an idiot sometimes- and frankly I'm starting to realise I'm worse than I thought I was- but do you really think I'd make something like this up?"

"…A fair point," Professor Oak conceded before he looked at Ash with new resolution. "I take it you called me for a reason beyond telling me about all this?"

"Yeah," Ash nodded, as his past self held up three Poke Balls, including one with a distinctive small lightning-bolt above the release button. "I'm going to send you Bulbasaur, Totodile, and Pikachu's Poke Ball, and I need you to send me Snorlax and Heracross in turn and then get in touch with the Charicific Valley so I can get Charizard sent over as soon as possible."

"Hence why you're sending Pikachu's ball over with the other two?"

"I know it's bending the rules at best, Professor Oak, but… I… assured me that we need all the firepower we can get in every sense of the term," Ash's past self explained, even if he was clearly as confused about the tenses involved in this mess as Professor Oak was.

"Which is also why I'd appreciate you giving Bruno or Prima the number of this Pokemon centre so that I can talk with them," Ash said. "We need back-up, and I've got some ideas based on who I've worked with in the future and who we're dealing with right now, but I need one of those two to vouch for me before I start talking to anyone else."

"Because you know something about your future contacts that might convince them to listen to you if you have Bruno or Prima to verify you're not just some prank caller?"

"Pretty much," Ash nodded with an awkward shrug. "I mean, I get that I probably came across as a bit of an arrogant idiot to Prima-"

"Hey!"

"You know what we were like then," Ash corrected his past self before turning back to the screen. "The point is that she and Bruno are still the best chance I've got to convince who I need that I'm serious… I mean, the Elite Fours and Champions of each region do keep in touch, right?"

"It's irregular, but they keep the lines open in case it's needed," Professor Oak conceded, looking thoughtfully at the two Ashes for a moment before he nodded. "Very well; give Tracey a few moments to get back here with Snorlax and Heracross, and I'll make the necessary arrangements with the Charicific Valley and Bruno… just so long as you understand that I am placing a considerable amount of trust in you-"

"Which I appreciate and assure you that I won't break," Ash nodded at the professor before looking over at his other self. "Send them on."

"You're sure we should send these ones?" the younger Ash asked.

"Believe, me, I agree that Totodile and Bulbasaur are pretty tough even at this point, but you were going to have to send Bulbasaur to the lab soon anyway, and we don't need Totodile to provide Water-type resources when we have Greninja and Misty's team to cover that," Ash assured his past self. "Bayleef's pretty tough, Noctowl has a few tricks that remain unique even in my time, Cyndaquil has enough firepower to make up for being relatively new to the team, you've barely seen what Heracross can do yet, and Snorlax and Charizard remain some of my strongest even in my time; trust me, we're making the right call."

"Obviously I can't speak for the other details, but I can confirm he's right about the first part anyway," Professor Oak put in. "As… your future self… said, I was going to ask you to send Bulbasaur over to help us with a territorial dispute in another part of the lab…"

"He's on his way, and he'll be fine," Ash smiled at the professor. "Trust me; your lab is going to be a much more peaceful place once Bulbasaur settles into his niche."

"I… suppose I'll see what you mean soon enough," Professor Oak nodded at Ash in tentative understanding. "Good luck, my boy."

"You'll know how it played out as soon as there's anything to tell you," Ash responded before he ended the call, looking over at his other self with a brief smile. "Well, at least we're making progress, right?"

"Yeah…" Ash's younger self agreed, looking uncertainly between the Poke Balls in his hands and his future self. "Are you sure this is-?"

"It's Cyrus," Ash cut his other self off. "It's necessary."

He didn't know exactly what Cyrus was going to do here, but he wanted to be sure he was ready for everything that man could throw at him.

"He's really… together."

"What?" Serena looked at Misty in surprise as the group sat around the centre's lounge area, noting the water trainer looking thoughtfully at the two Ashes.

"I mean, it's not that he's completely unfocused, but I've never seen him put this much effort into any of his gym battles," Misty explained, indicating the older Ash. "He always trains his Pokemon, and it's not like he slacks off a lot, but whenever he's going for a major battle he generally just dives right in and that's it."

"Are you saying Ash is-?" Serena began indignantly.

"I'm saying that if he's this focused on something… well, I'm really starting to worry about what we're going to be dealing with," Misty cut the other girl off, looking at the two Ashes with a tentative smile. "But on the other hand…"

"It's good to see him focused on something, right?" Brock finished for her with a smile. "I mean, it's like you said, really; he'll train his Pokemon, but when the time comes he's fine just diving into his next big match and winging it."

"To be fair, he did try and pick for type advantage in the League fields."

"And decided to go with someone completely new in his first and fourth battles rather than go with his more familiar allies."

"Which worked out very well for him-"

"Uh… are you saying you're proud of Ash or worried about him?" Bonnie cut in, looking in confusion between her two newest acquaintances.

"Oh, we're proud that he's changing his methods, we're just… it's surprising," Misty shrugged, lost for a better way to explain things to the little girl.

"For us too," Clemont observed.

"It is?" Brock looked at the young inventor in surprise. "You mean he's-"

"Still diving in with his usual line-up and basically taking a chance to see how it all plays out?" Clemont nodded. "Like you said, it works for him for the most part, so I know I've never felt like it was my place to criticize how he was doing, but if we're dealing with someone who nearly destroyed the world… well, I can see how he'd want to take precautions, but he's being so much more careful than I'd expect…"

"Ash did say that Cyrus captured several legendary Pokemon last time-" Serena began defensively.

"And we don't even know what Cyrus is trying to do this time, but Ash thinks he needs to do all this to deal with him…" Misty cut the other girl off, before looking over at where the two Ashes were animatedly talking to someone on the video phone. "I don't know if I should admire his resolution or worry about how things reached a point where he feels like he has to do this."

On another level, Misty wondered what it said about Ash if he was suddenly showing all this potential after a few years' development (or however long it had been for this older Ash since he was the Ash she was travelling with, and Arceus time travel was confusing) when she'd never been able to give him that kind of kick herself.

Did I make him feel like he wasn't good enough?

Misty might not be a psychologist, but she'd had a few talks with doctors about her issues with her sisters before she'd originally left Cerulean City, and one idea that had stuck with her and made her leave was the idea that if people kept being told they were useless, they'd eventually stop trying to improve because they genuinely didn't think they could do better.

Had she spent so long criticising Ash that he'd basically become stuck in a rut in terms of his skills as a trainer because she made him think he couldn't do better?

In some ways, contacting Bruno had been the easiest thing he'd had to do in the last few minutes. Telling anything to Professor Oak had been a risk, even if Ash appreciated that Oak was probably one of the few people he knew right now who might understand the risks of time travel as a genuine scientific concept, and the upcoming conversation with Cynthia was going to be a challenge, but Bruno was so zen already that he'd basically taken Ash's report that he was from the future in his stride. Ash didn't know if Bruno had done some independent research into his history after they met during that mess with the giant Onix or if the Fighting-type master's own training had given him some great insight into people that made it easier for him to recognise that Ash was telling the truth, but once he'd heard Ash's awkward explanation about the encounter with Celebi and been told that he needed to talk to Cynthia, Bruno had passed him on to the elegant Sinnoh champion in a matter of moments.

"Yes?" Cynthia looked at him curiously from the vid-screen, apparently unchanged from when Ash would 'first' meet her a couple of years in the future. "I understand you had something important to tell me?"

"Cynthia," Ash said, looking urgently at the champion he liked to think had been a good friend in the future, "my name is Ash Ketchum, and I'm this kid's future self."

"Kid?" Ash's past self looked indignantly back at him.

"Compared to me, anyway," Ash clarified with a slight smile before he looked back at the screen, fixing his gaze on the Sinnoh League champion he had been destined to meet for the first time in a couple of years. "And I need to talk to you because I need your help, and I know you can help because I know you in the future."

"You do?" Cynthia looked at him with a certain tentative scepticism.

"'When every life meets another life, something will be born'; you saw that at the Amity Square Ruins and it means a great deal to you, doesn't it?"

"It… it did," Cynthia conceded, looking thoughtfully at him. "But if you think that convinces me you're telling the truth-"

"Your grandmother is Professor Caroline at the Celestic Town Historic Research Centre," Ash continued, praying that at least some of the facts he was about to recite weren't that well-known. "You have a holiday home in Undella Town in Unova that's tended by a butler called Jervis when you're not there, you take ages to consider what kind of ice cream cone you'll pick even when you always end up going with your original choice, and your primary Pokemon is a Garchomp, but you've also used a Gastrodon and a Glaceon."

"…Is that right?" the younger Ash asked, looking uncertainly at the screen.

"That's… all true," Cynthia conceded, looking thoughtfully at the two Ashes. "I mean, someone could find out all that, but it's hard to imagine who'd be aware of some of those details if I'd never met them before now, and Bruno and Professor Oak both vouch for you…"

"I appreciate that," Ash nodded at her. "This is going to sound weird, but you have to believe that I'd never have tried to call you like this if it wasn't urgent… Cyrus Schemmel is a psychopath who's come back from the future and is probably going to try and destroy the universe."

"…What?" Cynthia looked at him in surprise.

"I know that this is a bit of a stretch, but it's true," Ash affirmed. "When I came to Sinnoh for the first time in a couple of years, Cyrus was the head of Team Galactic and he wanted to capture a set of legendary Pokemon so that he could trigger… some kind of weird rift that would basically unmake the universe and allow him to remake it in his image."

"What?" Cynthia repeated. "You can't be-"

"I'm serious," Ash affirmed. "You can worry about temporal paradoxes and the consequences of me telling you about all this later, but right now all that matters is that you've got to send help to the Ilex Forest; Cyrus from my time is heading there, and I'm sure he's going to try and harness the Celebi that lives there to use it for himself to do… whatever he's going to do."

"You don't even know?" Cynthia asked.

"I admit that I can't know what he's going to do, but Cyrus was planning to destroy the universe a couple of years in the future; you don't go from being completely sane to thinking something like that's a good idea in just a couple of years! Maybe he took a while to work out how he was going to do it, but I'm certain he'd decided what he was going to do a long time ago, so I think we're pretty safe to assume that he's just as determined to screw with reality now as he was when I saw him in the future."

"Fair point," Cynthia conceded. "But I can't just-"

"I'm not asking you to do much," Ash affirmed. "I just need you to confirm that the Cyrus of your time isn't doing anything he shouldn't be and keep an eye on him while my friends and I go after him now."

"So he doesn't call himself for help?"

"At the very least," Ash nodded. "I get that this is asking a lot from someone you've never met, but you have to believe that I wouldn't ask you to do something like this unless I was sure the risks of doing nothing were greater than if I didn't call you."

"…Very well," Cynthia acknowledged with a solemn nod at Ash. "I'll get in touch with some of my contacts so that we can keep an eye on Cyrus and his contacts; if you think you can deal with the… Cyrus… you're dealing with down there-"

"He came back by himself, so he can't have that many resources on him," Ash affirmed. "Although if you could help us make travel arrangements to get to Ilex Forest before him…"

"I can look into that," Cynthia nodded. "We prefer not to use it most of the time, but as Champions we have certain privileges; I can see about arranging a special to get you from Ecruteak to Ilex fairly quickly."

"Thanks," Ash smiled. "Good luck at your end."

It was probably overkill, but as he ended the call, he felt better knowing that he'd done what he could to limit the risk of Cyrus getting back-up; with Cynthia and his friends each looking into their best chance to get to Ilex on short notice, all he needed to do now was wait until Liza sent him Charizard, and then he and his friends could get going and catch up to Cyrus.

Waiting right now might be frustrating, but he wouldn't get anywhere if he ran off on his own; he had to hope that the various steps he was taking right now were going to work out in his favour.

Arceus, I'm not sure if I should be worried about Cyrus having back-up or worried that I'm putting too much effort into something that might be simpler to deal with than I'm worried it will be.