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Temporal War
Walking back into the larger clearing where he'd left his friends earlier, Ash wasn't entirely surprised to find that his fears had been relatively unfounded. Team Galactic had clearly had the advantage of numbers, but when faced with two Champions and three members of two Elite Four teams, it became more a matter of when they'd manage to defeat the villainous team rather than if they'd pull it off. Noctowl, Bayleef and the younger Pikachu looked a bit worn down as they stood on either side of his younger self, but the three Pokemon were still standing strong. Misty, Brock, Serena and Clemont's Pokemon showed a similar sense of being battered but unbowed after a long struggle as they stood around the tied-up Team Galactic members, while the assembled Champions and Elite Four gathered around their opponents' fallen Pokemon.
"Ash!" Misty looked anxiously at him as the group in the clearing registered his presence. "You're… are you OK?"
"Took a few knocks, but nothing I can't handle," Ash replied, as he indicated the bound and gagged Cyrus. His arms had been bound to his chest by his old lab coat, which had been cut into strips by Talonflame and then suitably wrapped by Heracross, with another strip of cloth wrapped around his mouth to stop him talking.
"You captured Cyrus?" Cynthia looked at Ash in surprise, even as she briefly glanced down as though to confirm that the younger Cyrus was still with the rest of Team Galactic, lying bound and unconscious at her feet.
"Well, I had a bit of… help," Ash shrugged, indicating the group of Pokemon around him, each one letting out a satisfied sound. "Plus… well, let's just say I've had some interesting experiences over the years between now and the future I came from."
"Such as?" the younger Ash asked with an eager grin.
"Well, I found out a few unexpected things about myself when I visited Cameran Palace in Rota in a couple of years-"
"Ash!" Brock and Clemont looked at him indignantly.
"Look, there's not much point hiding future knowledge now, Brock; we've basically all screwed up the original course of events by capturing Cyrus and Team Galactic before I could even go to Sinnoh!" Ash pointed out as he waved his hand to indicate the assembled prisoners, before he directed a particularly cold glare at the older Cyrus. "And that's before I take into account what this… bastard did to me…"
"Ash?" Misty and Serena looked at him curiously.
"What did he do?" the younger Ash looked inquiringly at his future self, the younger Pikachu's head curiously cocked to one side as he stood on his trainer's shoulder and studied the older versions.
"Pika ka kachu," Pikachu responded with a bitter edge to his tone that prompted his younger self to look at him in surprise.
"Long story short?" Ash responded grimly, still shooting a contemptuous glare at Cyrus as he addressed his younger self. "Cyrus here basically admitted that he's been manipulating my competency levels from outside reality for the last couple of years from my perspective ever since he fell into another dimension after our last confrontation, which is the reason why I made so many bone-headed calls in some of my later major battles in the future."
"You're… blaming him?" Ash's younger self looked at himself in disappointment. "For losing a few-?"
"For the fact that I made such idiotic decisions as going into a three-on-three gym battle and believing that I could win it with only one suitable Pokemon," Ash clarified before he turned to address his other friends as well. "I mean, I admit that I can get a bit cocky, but am I really that arrogant? Thinking I can defeat an Electric-type gym with one Ground Pokemon against those numbers, to the extent that I needed to actually leave the battlefield to get another Poke Ball once my original choice had been knocked out?"
"…Yeah, that's not something you'd do even at your worst," Misty conceded, Brock nodding in agreement beside her.
"I really did that?" the younger Ash asked.
"You did," Ash nodded, before giving Cyrus a kick in the back of the leg that sent the other man to his knees. "And I didn't go looking for an explanation for it; Cyrus blatantly admitted that was his fault."
"Why would he do that?" Bruno's deep voice put in, as the Fighting-type master looked curiously at the two Ashes. "No offence intended, Ash, but that seems a considerable effort to go to when dealing with one trainer."
"It's basically because I defeated his plans in the future and left him trapped outside of time, and he's a petty bastard who decided to use whatever influence he could get back in reality to torment me," Ash explained. "Apparently it was easier for him to keep it discreet while he was screwing with me as a punishment for stopping him than it would have been to mess around with Cynthia or Brock."
"I helped catch him in the future?" Cynthia asked with a slight smile.
"You were right there with me, Brock, and a coordinator named Dawn, along with a few other people Cyrus probably didn't pay much attention to; he just decided to focus on me because he didn't get Pokemon contests enough to make Dawn lose them, he didn't understand how to make Brock bad at his job, and people would have noticed if he did anything to you," Ash confirmed with a smile at her, before he turned his attention down to the future Cyrus. "So the only question is what we do with this guy?"
"That's the only question?" Serena asked.
"The only question I'd hope you can all answer right now," Ash clarified as he looked around at the older trainers. "I mean, I appreciate you coming all this way to help me, but can you all really arrest Team Galactic when they haven't actually done anything yet?"
"We have their theft of the Spirit Key as a starting point, and our own reputations give us some leeway," Cynthia observed before she gave Ash a reassuring smile. "In any case, the testimony of you and your associates will be sufficient to get them on conspiracy at the very least, and we have quite a few character references who can testify that Cyrus and his associates came here with… let's say nefarious intentions." She indicated herself and the other four Elite trainers gathered around the clearing. "Not to sound arrogant, but people don't start fighting a group that includes the five of us without some kind of dark purpose."
"And that's before we get around to interrogating that version of him," Lance indicated the older Cyrus. "Add in the fact that your warnings give us more than sufficient reason to use Psychic-based interrogation techniques, and I feel confident that you've given us enough to deal with these people."
"Uh… what about… us?" an awkward voice put in. Looking in the direction of the voice, Ash wasn't sure if he should feel amused or frustrated when he realised that it was James, standing awkwardly alongside Jessie and Meowth as they stood by their robot Wobbufett.
"Good… question," Cynthia observed, studying the trio for a moment before she looked at Ash. "Your opinion?"
"Could you just-?" Meowth put in awkwardly.
"Let them go," Ash said.
"Let them go?" Ash's friends and Ash's past self looked at him in surprise.
"It's…" Ash paused for a moment before he continued. "Well, I'm not going to deny that Team Rocket are annoying and frustrating at times-"
"HEY!" Jessie protested, before Meowth and James slapped a paw and hand over her mouth and smiled apologetically at Ash.
"Like that," Ash indicated with a shrug before his expression shifted to a wistful smile as he studied the trio. "I just… in the end, when push comes to shove and there's no other way to save the day, they've stepped up to help out when I need it."
"So… spare them for the sake of the times when they help you?" Cynthia asked.
"Please," Ash affirmed.
"Very well," Cynthia said, before she turned back to Team Rocket. "You're free to go, although I'd advise you to leave that robot behind."
"Check," Meowth nodded.
"Understood," Jessie and James smiled, before they all turned around to run away from the clearing, leaving Ash to smile in relief as he watched his long-time enemies depart.
"That's…" Serena looked at Ash in confusion.
"You seriously let them go?" Clemont looked between Ash and the departing Team Rocket. "After everything they've done-?"
"Like I said, they've helped us out in the past and they'll do more in my future," Ash clarified, looking after the departing trio with a wistful smile. "I mean, just in Kalos they helped us deal with that psychotic Malamar, and they gave me a bit of help when I was dealing with bigger criminal teams in Hoenn, Sinnoh and Unova…"
He smiled slightly as he looked after the departing trio. "They're not exactly friends, I'll admit that, but in a warped way, I'd miss them if they weren't there, and not just because things tend to get worse if I don't know where they are."
"Talking of knowing where things are," Flint put in as he indicated the giant Wobbufett, "what do we do with that?"
"Just dismantle and recycle it, probably," Ash smiled. "I mean, we tend to blow up Team Rocket's machines when they're used against us most of the time; at least this way it can be dismantled properly."
"I can get behind that," Flint smiled as he patted his Poke Balls. "Infernape and Magmortar can melt it and dispose of it later on."
"And… on the topic of missing people," Clemont looked over at Cynthia, "is there any chance my sister could-?"
"Big brother!" Bonnie's voice suddenly yelled, followed by the young girl running into the clearing followed by an old man in a butler's uniform with an Abra sitting on his shoulder.
"Jervis?" Ash looked at the old man in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to assist Mistress Cynthia, and was assigned to keep an eye on the young miss here once her plane had landed until her associates had dealt with your own adversaries," the butler explained, displaying his 'familiar' nonchalance at any strange situation when he showed no reaction to Ash recognising him, while Bonnie moved away from Clemont to look at the group around the clearing.
"So… you won?" she looked at them with a cautious smile as Dedenne poked its head out from her bag.
"We won," Ash nodded at Bonnie as he indicated the surrounding Pokemon. "With this kind of firepower, did you ever doubt that we would?"
"Well… I mean, you were so worried about Cyrus…"
"And that's why I had to win," Ash affirmed as he looked grimly down at the time-displaced villain. "Because the thought of what he'd do to the world if he won was simply unthinkable."
"And… talking of Cyrus, how did the contemporary version of him even get here this quickly?" Clemont raised an awkward hand. "I mean, we speculated that the future Cyrus arrived in Johto because he got caught up in the same event that sent us back in time in the first place, so he probably came here because we were here, but the past version was still in Sinnoh just a couple of days ago, so how did he get all the way to Johto this quickly with this many people?"
"He's a very rich man with access to some cutting-edge technology, which includes an extremely fast plane," Flint observed. "Fortunately, we had a few similar aircraft available to us when we got your message; there are more perks to our positions than just having powerful Pokemon and an intimidating reputation."
"And we appreciate you coming to help us out this fast," Ash said, before he turned to look at Cynthia directly. "On that topic, I get that this might be a bit of an imposition, but once my friends and I are gone, could you make sure… the younger me… gets here by this time?"
"That… seems simple enough," Cynthia observed, looking at the information displayed on Ash's Pokedex curiously before looking back at him. "May I ask why?"
"I have to be there to meet one of my future Pokemon," Ash explained, before he turned back to his past self. "And on that topic, if you'll give me a few minutes, I can give you a quick list of dates and places you need to be to meet the rest."
"Really?" Ash grinned.
"Ash, this is-!" Brock began urgently.
"Brock, I repeat that we already changed things by stopping Cyrus now; I get that you're worried, but if time hasn't collapsed yet, I'm not going to risk losing my future friends just because you're concerned about something that doesn't seem to be an issue," Ash said firmly. "All I'm going to give myself is the dates and places where I met my future Pokemon, and a few pointers to avoid my more bone-headed mistakes; it's not like I'm going to give you all a detailed list of every problem I'm going to face, and I'm not even going to tell you who I caught at those places."
"Why not?" Bonnie asked, "If you could avoid some of your-"
"But how would we learn from them if we never made them in the first place?" Clemont interjected, even as Ash's younger self took out his Pokedex and handed it to his future self. Ash gave his past self a grateful nod as he began to enter the dates and times from his Pokedex into his past self's 'dex, taking another moment to make sure that he hadn't entered anything incorrectly before he passed it back to himself.
"There you go," he said with a smile. "Unless taking out Team Galactic did something really weird to the wild Pokemon in Sinnoh, I'm going to assume that all you need to do is be at those places at those times and everything should be fine."
(He hoped he'd made the right call leaving Buizel off the list, but he wouldn't deny Dawn the chance to train Buizel for a while even if they weren't that compatible long-term.)
"Uh… thanks?" the younger Ash looked tentatively at the list he'd just received.
"You're welcome," Ash said, before he turned to look at his assembled Pokemon. "We've got a few things to do now, so until we can get Team Galactic somewhere secure… Charizard, Heracross, Snorlax, I think you know what to do?"
Understanding his instructions, the three Pokemon moved into position around the bound Team Galactic members, accompanied by Cyndaquil, Bayleef and Noctowl, although the younger Pikachu remained with Ash's past self. Following Ash's example, Brock sent Onix to join the new guard, with Cynthia, Lance, Bruno, Prima and Flint adding their own Pokemon to the group standing around the captured Team Galactic, in the form of Garchomp, Dragonite, Machamp, Cloister and Infernape.
"Do you really think this will stop me?" Cyrus looked scathingly at the others as their Pokemon gathered around his fallen associates. "The universe is broken, and I was merely the first person to see it; even if I am arrested, others will follow my example-"
"Cyrus," Ash walked over to the older man, drew back his fist, and punched the man directly in the mouth, "shut up."
As Cyrus fell to the ground, Ash looked back at his friends and associates and shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, but he was far past the point where he was just getting on my nerves."
"…I can understand that," Misty nodded, looking at Ash with a tentative yet sympathetic smile.
"Yeah," Brock put in, looking coldly down at Cyrus before he looked back at Ash. "So… what now?"
"Back to the shrine," Ash said, indicating the gap in the trees he'd walked through earlier. "Let's get this over with."
Nodding in agreement, even the older trainers moved to follow Ash as he led the way back to the clearing where he'd just battled the older Cyrus. As Ash walked up to the shrine while the rest of the trainers gathered around the strange stone formation, he waited for a moment before he placed his hand on the top of the shrine, closing his eyes and lowering his head. His past self was just about to ask what he was doing when a transparent blue-and-black form appeared above the shrine, prompting the older Ash to step back with a smile.
"Lucario," he said to the figure, nodding at it with respect. "It was you, huh?"
The Time Flowers are more mysterious than any of us imagined, Lucario replied, nodding slightly in response.
"You can talk?" Bonnie looked at the figure in surprise. "Korrina's Lucario couldn't!"
I am… an exceptional case, the transparent Lucario responded, looking at the little girl with a warm smile before he turned back to Ash. As you witnessed at the Tree, the Time Flowers could only record moments in time, but after my sacrifice in the Tree, I was… 'ascended' to a level beyond what I had expected. I have gained no new attacks, but I have gained a new degree of insight into the workings of time and space, which includes awareness of your… temporal displacement.
"Huh," Ash smiled at his old acquaintance. "So that's how you're talking to us… before you actually 'woke up'? You're reaching back from the future?"
Essentially yes, Lucario nodded. And that is also how I was aware of what you required to give your associates the power of Mega Evolution.
"I figured," Ash nodded. "I take it I couldn't do that normally?"
You required the power of the shrine to transfer the necessary energy without the aid of the required Stones, Lucario nodded. Your bond with Greninja is an exceptional case, and even that requires certain existing rules; should you wish to repeat that, you must possess the required Mega Stones.
"Good to be sure," Ash nodded. "So… how do we do this now? I mean, can we get back to our own time here, or not?"
Wait for a moment…
Ash only had to remain silent for a moment before there was a brief glow above the shrine and a Celebi appeared in mid-air, looking around the group with a cheery noise.
"Hi!" Bonnie grinned eagerly at the small green Legendary Pokemon as it drifted down to float around the four time-travellers. "It's… good to see you again?"
Celebi smiled and seemed to nod in response to Bonnie's question, before it took up a position in front of Ash with its head tilted to one side in a curious manner.
"Hi," Ash said, hoping that this was going to be as simple as it seemed. "So… can you get us home?"
The Celebi 'nodded' in response and let out another approving sound, weaving around Ash, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie as though in confirmation.
Celebi will do so, Lucario's spirit affirmed. Say your goodbyes, and you shall be sent back to your time.
"Thanks," Ash said, nodding gratefully at Lucario as he turned to look at Serena and Clemont. Nodding in understanding, his friends joined him in recalling their remaining Pokemon, before they exchanged brief nods of farewell to the Elite Four and Ash's past friends. As though acting on some unspoken cue, the rest of the group then stepped back to leave Ash standing in front of his past self.
"OK," Ash looked solemnly at his younger self, "you've got the list of where to meet everyone important in the future, so as long as you make sure you stick to that, everything else should work out. That aside, never go into a Gym battle with anything less than the full number of Pokemon permitted, don't be afraid to change your team around to give everyone a chance if you're dealing with a difficult opponent in a gym or a League match even if you want to work with familiar faces most of the time, and on a personal level…"
Ash paused for a moment, taking care to glance over in Misty's direction in a manner that his past self couldn't help but notice, before he looked back at his past self.
"Don't be afraid to share what you feel," he said solemnly. "Because no matter who else you'll meet in the future, you'll never meet anyone better than the first person who truly believed in you."
"I… I won't," the younger Ash said, swallowing apprehensively even as he looked at Misty with a slight smile. "So… be you later?"
"We'll see," Ash affirmed, forcing down his brief thoughts of concern about how whatever he and his friends had done here was going to affect the world they'd be returning to.
As though it had been waiting for his cue, Celebi spread its arms, and Ash, Serena, Clemont, Bonnie, Pikachu and Dedenne were lifted up into the air, leaving them to wave briefly at their new friends and acquaintances before everything was enveloped in white light…