A Promise's Worth
..

[Future] Ash's Shack
10 Years into the Future

"I'm Dexter, a Pokédex programmed by Professor Oak for Pokémon Trainer Ash Ketchum of the town of Pallet. My function is to provide Ash with information and advice regarding Pokémon and theirtraining. If lost or stolen, I cannot be replaced."

"Well," Ash said while giving the man's Pokédex back. "I guess I have no reason to doubt you."

"Guess not." The man replied. He placed the Pokédex back in his pocket. "We'd better get moving. We have to get back to your time to collect the Time Gears."

"Right. How exactly are we going to.. Travel back in time?" Ash asked, puzzled.

"We have to go to Dusk Forest to meet Celebi. There, she can transport you back to your time. Let's just hope we don't encounter any resistance from that wretched Sableye pack." Said the man. He grabbed his supplies and took one PokeBall from a drawer. It had a lightning mark on it.

"That's Pikachu?"

"Yeah."

"I'm surprised he went into the PokeBall." Ash commented.

"Well, he hasn't been exactly in top form for the past month or two. He can barely stand." The man replied, looking at the PokeBall with a concerned look. "I reckon he was poisoned during one of our skirmishes with Dialga's minions. Sadly, I ran out of herbs I can use to heal him."

Ash looked in his pack for something that he could give his future self. Fortunately, he still had one of the Full Restore he had bought in preparation for the second round of the Grand Conference. "Here." Ash said as he threw the healing item. "Hope he gets better soon."

"Thanks." The man smiled. "I do have a question before we go."

"Shoot."

"Whatever happened to your arm?" the man asked.

Ash was rather taken aback by this question, his reaction shown on his face.

"Did I bring up bad memories?"

"No, no. It's just.." Ash looked at the man's right arm to see that it was completely fine. "I thought that you'd have an artificial arm too, being the future me and all. I guess I've been under the impression that you had one too."

The man stayed silent for a while to think. "You raised a valid point, though. Why would you, the one from the past, have something that I have no recollection of having?"

"Well, in any case, in regards to your earlier question. My right arm was severed by Cyrus' Crobat on Spear Pillar."

"Is that so..?" the man said. "Well, waiting around here doing nothing will most certainly produce zero results for now. Let us go to Dusk Forest." The man exited the shack, followed by Ash closely behind him. "Did you bring the supplies?"

"Yeah, I've got them right here." Ash replied, tapping his bag. "How far do we have to walk?"

"Two days, at most. It's not as far as our trip from the Tower to the shack." Said the man while locking the door of his shack.

"Great, more walking."


"Well, we certainly got here fast." The man claimed, checking the time on his Pokedex. "Actually, scratch that. We're about to hit the forty-eight hour mark."

Ash looked up to the gray sky. "Hard to tell the time with the sky like that. So what's the deal? Did the planet stop rotating?"

"I do not know." The man answered.

"Are we still orbiting the sun?"

"That, I also do not know. It would be impossible to determine that, since we are unable to tell if the paralysis reached outside the planet, or if it's limited to the planet only. I'm more inclined to believe that we are still orbiting the sun, since... Well, I think the Time Gears exist only for this planet only. Think about it, this planet alone has five of them" the man explained.

"Ah, I see.. Wait, there are five of them?" Ash asked in surprise.

The man turned to Ash and gave a quizzical look. "Yeah, didn't you read the reports you had?"

Ash took the papers from his bag again, and gave the pages containing information about the Time Gears one more look. "You're right.. Wait, how did you know what this report was about? You collapsed before you could even read it the other day."

The man laughed. "I wrote the damned thing, of course I know what it's about."

"You wrote this thing? Did you leave it behind when you went to my time?" asked Ash.

"Something like that, I guess. I left it in one of Team Galactic's secret spots in Indigo Plateau before I tried to gather all the Time Gears." The man replied. "Ah, we're here."

The two had arrived at an entrance to a forest, greeted by what seemed like formerly lush and green trees, now shells of their former glory. "Man, this looks depressing." Ash blurted out spontaneously.

"Yeah? Try living in a world like this for ten years." The man shot back.

"Ah, right.. Sorry."

"No problem, you're new here." Said the man. "Now we need to find Celebi and go to the Passage of Time."

"The Passage of Time?"

The man signalled Ash to follow him. "Yeah, it's located a bit deeper into the forest. It's used to take long distance trips, such as a trip to the past. I used that last time I went back to the past. Unfortunately.."

"Unfortunately..?"

The man shook his head and continued walking. "It's nothing. You'll see when you get there."

"..Right."

Ash followed the man for another while. The paths in the forest were extremely ragged, making it difficult for them to maneuver through. They arrived in a clearing before Ash's guide finally stopped.

The man looked around and took out some berries from his pocket. "Looks like our transport is here."

Ash turned to the direction the man was looking at and saw a Pokémon flying toward them. Having expected a Celebi like the one he saw long ago with Brock and Misty, Ash was quite surprised at the color of the Celebi before him. The legendary time travelling Pokémon was gleaming in a pretty Pink color. "It's.. Pink."

"It's a shiny one." The man said while giving the Celebi the berries he had. "She's a docile one."

Ash raised an eyebrow at the man's claim. "She? It's a female? I thought legendary Pokémon don't have genders."

The man shrugged. "This one seems to like it when I refer it as a female." Said the man while petting the Celebi. "Let's go, we have to reach the Passage of Time as soon as we can."

The two continued their walk in the forest while they exchange some more information about themselves. However, it was mostly Ash that did the talking, as the man claimed that he did not have much to share, except for the story he had told Ash in the shack. Ash explained how things turned to worse with Cyrus on Spear Pillar, and how he miraculously survived the ridiculously high fall. He then continued to describe his life after he survived the incident, how terrible it was working for Team Galactic, and about Dr. Raito. He also told his future self about the meeting with the Champion of Sinnoh, and how they started a romantic relationship.

"Champion of Sinnoh, huh? You're good." Commented the man.

"Well, I'm not really sure how it happened myself." Said Ash while blushing a little.

"Sounds like you've been through a lot also." The man added.

"It pales in comparison to yours, though." Ash replied.

"It seems we'll have to cut this short." The man said when they arrived at yet another clearing.

Faced with a dead end, Ash could see what seemed to be carcasses. "Well, this is.. lovely. I imagined the Passage of Time would be a little prettier than this. You know, just a little."

The man laughed it off. "Heh, you sarcastic bastard."

Ash stretched and turned to the man. "Let's get this show on the road, then."

"Right. Celebi, prepare to transport Ash back to the past. The one you sent me to a little while ago." The man said to the Celebi. The time travel Pokemon gave an affirmative response and started concentrating.

"Wait, you're not coming with?" Ash asked.

"Celebi can only send one person back for a period of time."

"And how long is that?"

"A couple of months, give or take. Celebi here isn't exactly in the best shape. But by then, your world will have started to paralyze already. Besides, someone's got to hold them off and cover Celebi while she transports you back." The man said while nodding his head in a general direction.

"Them?" Ash asked in confusion. He looked at where the man was signalling and noticed the pack of Sableye started to scramble out of the trees. "How did they get here?"

"Hell if I know." The man stated. "Listen. You can't afford to mess up back in your time. Not unless you want the world to look like this."

"..Leave it to me. I'll stop the world paralysis and restore your time back like how it was before the event." Said Ash as he looked through his bag for his last Full Restore. "Here, take these too, then. Might help you out a bit."

The man took the Full Restore and looked at it briefly. "Heh. Thanks. This will be useful." he then turned to look at the Celebi. "Looks like your portal is ready."

Ash turned around to see that an object similar to what he had been through when he encountered the Dusknoir. "So what do I do? Jump in?"

"Pretty much." The man said, greeted by the cries of the Sableye shortly after. Looming behind the dual Dark/Ghost Pokemon was the Primal Dialga's subordinate, the Dusknoir. "Might want to hurry, Ash. "

"Right. And thanks for everything. See you around, Ash." The younger of the two said as he turned around and jumped in the portal.

"Likewise." The man said as he grabbed his one and only PokeBall. He threw the ball in the air and called out his partner. "Pikachu, go!"

"..Damnation to the ones that intervene.." The Dusknoir stated as he began to open a portal, however, quickly interrupted by a strong surge of Thunderbolt.

"You're not going anywhere." The man said as he smirked.


Ash looked around to see a distorted space. He found it quite hard to discern the basic directions. "Seems the laws of physics don't exactly apply here.. Then again, this is a space-time portal." He said as he nervously chuckled to himself. "Now then, where do I go from here.." As he looked around, he noticed a strange source of light. Deciding that standing still will do no good, he approached the strange light.

Once there, the light grew enormously, blinding him. Ash opened his eyes to see a familiar scene. A scene he had been playing in his head countless times. "No.. How?" He said in disbelief as he saw the leader of Team Galactic standing tall on Spear Pillar.

"Without your Pokémon, you're just as useless as the next guy on the street, aren't you, The Champion of Sinnoh?" said the blue-haired man while he was taking out a red chain from his pocket. "Now, I'm going to pry open the Dimensional space."

"Stop right there, Cyrus!" the blonde-haired trainer shouted, while trying to take the red chain away from the man.

Cyrus, who had anticipated this, quickly ordered his Pokémon to stop the champion in a violent way. "Crobat! Air Slash!"

"No! Get away from there, Cynthia!" Dawn said, who was being kept busy by a number of Galactic Grunts attacking her with multiple Pokémon. May, who had just finished her share of Grunts, came to help Dawn.

Ash saw a younger version of himself, who realized Cyrus' intentions from the beginning, had already started running towards Cynthia.

Brock, Misty and Max had just arrived in the scene, after calling help from the Police Force and taking down quite a few of Grunts.

The Ash in the vision, who couldn't make it in time by running, quickly reached out his right hand and dived forward. He pushed the champion, getting her out of the course of the Air Slash. The young trainer from Pallet Town successfully pushed Cynthia out of the way and dodged the Crobat's attack gracefully.

Ash's eyes widened in surprise. "What..? That's.. That's not what happened!" he shouted. As if on cue, he heard a roar from somewhere. He looked behind him to see a shadow of a Pokemon. "Dialga.." Suddenly, the scene around him started to move back in time, as if something had pressed a rewind button. After stopping shortly, the scene started moving again.

Ash saw his younger self running towards Cynthia again. Reaching out his hand and diving again. Again, he pushed the champion, getting her out of the course of the Air slash. However, this time it came with a price. An expense he was very familiar with. Ash was speechless as he quietly stared at the arm that was rolling towards him. "Now that is the way it happened." He said as he desperately tried to laugh off the horrible scene. He noticed that another ray of light was shining, growing enormously like the one he saw earlier. Out of vigour, Ash could only let the light engulf him.


"Well, I have to say, that was way more than a little exercise." The man stated as he was opened the door to his shack. "Glad to see you full with energy again, pal. It's been a while. Glad you're okay too, Celebi."

"Pika pi!" his Pikachu said in agreement.

The man sat down and felt the energy leave him. "What are we going to do now..? Dammit, there must be something we can do to help." he muttered to himself. He remembered what his past self had told him a couple of days before.

"Well, in any case, in regards to your earlier question. My right arm was severed by Cyrus' Crobat on Spear Pillar."

The man sighed as he let his head rest on the table. "That's not possible.. I successfully sent Cyrus to jail that time in the Spear Pillar." He stood up and looked out his window, setting his sights on Temporal Tower.

"..That's it."

"Pika?"

"I think.. This is all just a speculation, but.." the man trailed off as he sat back down to reorganize his thoughts. "I doubt that whatever my past self does in his world will do anything here. If he stops the world paralysis in his world, then.." the man stood up once more and banged on the table. "Of course! There's still something we can do here!" He quickly grabbed his bag and started to resupply.


Lavaridge Town Outskirts
..

Ash opened his eyes to see trees surrounding him. The sun was shining bright, decorated by the cries of the flock of Numel looking for food. "..Good, everything's all colourful." He got up and tried to find a wireless reception on his PokeNav. Thankfully, he found Poke Center's universal wireless connection. "Good, the fact that there's a Wi-Fi means that at least I'm not far from my original time" He let his PokeNav adjust to the current date and time while he tried to look for a path to the nearest town.

After the PokeNav finished updating, Ash quickly checked it to see the date and time. "Well, I'm definitely where I'm supposed to be.." he muttered to himself while staring at the PokeNav screen. "But I've been gone six months? I guess it was a bit too much to ask to send me exactly where I was before." He opened to map and checked his current position. "Let's see.. The closest town would be Lavaridge. Guess I'd better head there first."

"Oh, are you heading to Lavaridge?" A voice said behind him.

Ash instinctively turned around and assumed a fighting stance to see it was unnecessary. "Oh, Flannery."

The Lavaridge gym leader tilted her head. "..I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"I don't think so, but I recognize you. Aren't you the Lavaridge Gym Leader?"

"That's right, I am!" the redhead said with a bright smile on her face. "Hmm.. Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

Ash shrugged and started to walk towards Lavaridge. "Must be your imagination. I believe this is the first time we met."

"I guess it is."

The two exchanged pleasantries while on their way to Lavaridge, mostly about trivial things. Having been stuck in a lifeless time for roughly a week, the cheerful energy the hot head gym leader was giving off was a definite pleasure.

"So, you're a trainer, right? Are you here to challenge my gym?" asked Flannery.

"Unfortunately, I'm not. I'm only in town for a short while."

"Oh, is that so.. Well, this is where we part ways. My gym is right over there. Challenge me next time you're in town, then!" Flannery said as she made her way towards the gym.

Ash waved goodbye as he watched her go. "Man, what a cheerful sort." He continued to make his way towards Lavaridge Town, before he was stopped by a peculiar looking poster near the police station. He moved closer to take a better look. "What the hell is this?"

The poster had details about a man who was planning to steal all of the planet's Time Gears and destroy the planet. The wanted man had the Time Gear of Treeshroud Forest, and was responsible for the time paralysis in the forest. The wanted man's name was Ash Ketchum, at times going by Thanatos.


A/N: Final exams are not fun..