The route on from Dendemille to Anistar passed close enough to Dahara that everyone agreed it was a good idea to take the detour, and so the friends set off towards the desert city.
On the first day of the journey, though, there was a crack of thunder overhead towards the evening.
"Uh oh," Serena said. "That sounds like worse weather than normal."
"It sounds like maybe I should ask Rayquaza for help?" Ash suggested.
"That's probably not a good idea," Clemont replied. "I know it's miserable being out in the rain, but there is the desert nearby and the rivers that go through it need all the water they can get. Instead of changing the weather we should just try and find somewhere to stay."
"Searching," Arc announced. "I have found a location: the Lost Hotel. It is not far from here."
They made a beeping sound. "Caution. The Lost Hotel has several negative reviews. It seems to have a reputation for the owner bullying trainers into Pokémon battles with their Pokémon at stake."
"That's terrible!" Bonnie gasped. "What does being at stake mean?"
"It means that the trainer loses their Pokémon if they lose the battle, right?" Ash checked. "That's… yeah, that's awful. That's exactly the kind of thing you don't want a Pokémon battle to be about, it should be a test of skill and friendship but you should never have a battle you're not okay with losing."
"Then maybe we need to teach that owner a lesson," Pikachu suggested, cheeks sparking.
"I don't know," Ash said, shaking his head. "Like I say, you should never have a battle you're not okay with losing, and I wouldn't want to lose you, Pikachu."
"Then what do we even do?" Clemont asked.
The sky made a rumbling noise.
"Well, I guess we do need to stay out of the rain," he added. "But apart from that, I mean."
"Welcome to the Lost Hotel," the clerk said. "My name's Weston, and, uh… sorry about the furnishings?"
"It looks like it hasn't been replaced or updated in ten years," Serena judged, then glanced at Braixen. "What do you think, is that about right?"
"It could be a bit more or a bit less," Braixen replied, flicking her wand around before expanding it out to a staff with a reversed Minimize. "But yes, ten years is about right."
"Well, we did open ten years ago," Weston said. "And the owner doesn't really believe in spending money on something like that. Or on a hotel."
He winced. "Sorry, that was unprofessional of me. Let me start again. Welcome to the Lost Hotel, would you like a room?"
"Yeah, we'd like to stay for the night," Ash confirmed.
"How many rooms, actually?" Pikachu asked. "Does anyone want a separate room?"
"I would prefer not to stay in a kennel," Zygarde stated. "I do not even know if this place has kennels, but I wanted to be up front about it. There are limits to woof."
Sorting that out took a few minutes, and then they were being led through the hotel when one of the lights flickered.
"Rotom, is that you?" Weston asked.
"Rotom?" Ash repeated. "Rotom are interesting Pokémon, Professor Oak's working with some of them to be intelligent phones! Sort of like Arc, but different."
"Do you have a Rotom here?" Clemont added.
"I used to," Weston replied. "But… well, it's a long story."
"We've got time," Serena said.
They listened, over the next few minutes, as Weston explained about Rotom – and about how the Lost Hotel had ended up like it was, and why the Lost Hotel was called the Lost Hotel.
The hotel had originally been built by Weston himself, but on the opening day ten years ago a trainer called Mantle and his goons had come to challenge Weston to a Pokémon battle – a battle where the hotel itself had been the prize for winning.
Weston had agreed to the battle rashly, and his Rotom had been panicked by the idea of battling Mantle's Krookodile – meaning that Rotom hadn't battled at all, and Mantle had won by default. He'd changed the name to the Lost Hotel, because Weston had lost it, and Rotom had never shown itself afterwards – and the hotel itself had been gradually run into the ground from lack of investment, as Mantle spent all his time bullying guests into Pokémon battles and the poor reputation spread.
"What are you doing, spending so long away from the front desk?" demanded someone in a pair of tinted shades. "Get back to work!"
"Of course, Mr. Mantle," Weston said, hurrying off, and Mantle turned his attention to the friends.
"That's a pretty cool Pokémon you've got there," he said. "What do you say we have a battle?"
"No thanks," Ash replied. "We're just here to stay out of the rain."
"The odd thing is, you probably could win," Lokoko mused. "But I accept the idea that we shouldn't risk it."
Outside their rooms, not long afterwards, Weston's Rotom drifted out of the lighting.
"Could you really win?" it asked. "Really, truly?"
"My trainer's whole team is… quite strong," Lokoko answered, speaking first.
"Then… maybe you could help!" the Ghost-type said. "You could fix all this!"
"Even if someone beat Mantle now, it wouldn't fix the situation in the hotel," Clemont pointed out. "It'd take years. You'd need a time machine to get everything back to how it should be."
Rotom buzzed. "Oh!" they said. "Maybe you can help!"
"Hi, guys!" Dawn said, from down the hall, and Rotom zipped back into the lights before peering out with a nervous crackle.
Dawn waved, and her Pichu waved as well.
"There was something about time travel?" the Electric-type asked. "I retronoted it."
"What's retronoted?" Braixen asked.
"We got a note yesterday from ourselves that said we had to be here about now," Dawn explained. "It's one of those technical terms you only need if you're involved in a lot of time travel stuff, honestly, it does make things convenient if you're trying to keep to a schedule."
"Don't forget the slipshanking," Pichu said. "It's much easier to not forget something if you can just pull it from where you want it to have been, and then go back and put it there afterwards."
"So you actually do have a way to travel back in time?" Pichu checked.
"Well, I think so?" Rotom replied. "I've never actually tried, but I think I could possess an elevator and make it happen, especially by going down to negative floors. Those don't exist so it means I can just put time travel as a thing that happens on those floors, right?"
"Hmm," Pichu said, twitching her ear. "It might work. Is the elevator larger on the inside?"
Rotom buzzed. "I think it's smaller on the inside, actually."
"Well, I'm not ruling it out, but there's definitely other options," Pichu said. "First step of time travel: go into the future and get a better time machine."
Lightning flickered over her spiky ear. "Fortunately for all of us, I've already done that. So the time travel side of things is doable either way. Now, here's the important question… why do you want to time travel?"
"Well…" Rotom began.
As Rotom explained, the rest of Dawn's current team came out to say hello.
"All right, let's hear it," Clemont's Luxray sighed. "What exactly is it about each of you that's completely ridiculous?"
"I'm not sure why you would assume complete ridiculousness is involved," Dawn's Luxio said, sniffing. "I am a simple Luxio who just uses my Ability to the best of my, well, Ability."
"And which Ability might that be?" Luxray inquired.
"Rivalry," Luxio told him. "It's actually very helpful. You see, if there's anyone anywhere in the world who happens to be good at the thing I'm trying to do, unless they're male then I can set them as my rival and that helps."
Luxray blinked a few times.
"And this isn't completely ridiculous?" he asked. "How is that the kind of thing that doesn't sound ridiculous to you?"
"To be fair, it's not like she's in a normal team," Piplup said. "She's in a team with the best Pokémon in the entire world: to whit, me."
He waved a flipper dismissively. "And also some others."
While Luxray was trying to work out how to react to that, Clemont examined Dawn's Quilava with the Fire Control Gear set to maximum magnification.
"I didn't know that Pokémon with such unusual types for their species could exist," he said. "So you're Electric and Steel type all the time? Not just as part of a transformation?"
"Well, I was Electric type before I evolved," Quilava said. "That's when I got the Steel type."
"I can see a lot of potential there," Clemont mused.
"Yes, electrical potential energy," Quilava confirmed. "Though I usually run a storm cell during battles, and it's quite good in Contests too."
"Okay, I think we're ready," Dawn said. "So there's several ways we could sort this out, but Pichu left us a note about the one with the best outcome so we're doing that."
"I didn't open it until now," Pichu added. "That's proper time travel security protocols."
"I-" Luxray began, sighed, then lowered his paw. "There's no point, really, is there?"
"Step one is to go back in time," Pichu said. "And step two is to teach Rotom how to beat a Krookodile…"
"Looks like I win by default!" Mantle said.
"I, uh…" Weston began, then noticed a little spark of electricity. "Not so fast!"
Rotom came flying over to him, and Weston exhaled in relief. "Thank you for coming back, Rotom. And… sorry for getting you into this."
Rotom buzzed, then flew back over to the door they'd come in by, and jumped into a kind of folding red device thing held out by a kid in a blue jumpsuit.
"What's this, now?" Mantle asked.
"It's still Rotom," a girl told him. "The battle you wanted was one Pokémon against one Pokémon, right? Well, it's still Rotom against Krookodile."
Weston tensed and untensed his fists, then took a deep breath.
"Rotom, are you ready?" he asked.
Rotom made an affirmative buzzing sound, and Weston nodded.
"All right," he said. "Then… Mantle, what happens if I win?"
"Won't happen," Mantle snorted.
"Then promise that, if I win, you won't take other people's Pokémon any more!" Weston demanded. "Like this, or any other way!"
"Sure, whatever," Mantle answered, waving his hand.
Weston glanced at Rotom. "Right! Then – let's do this!"
"This battle is until one Pokémon is unable to continue," the kid in the blue jumpsuit added. "Begin!"
"Crunch!" Mantle snapped, and so did his Pokémon. The Dark-type's fangs slammed closed, narrowly missing Rotom, and Rotom replied with a green-glowing whip of Grass-typed energy that slammed into Krookodile and bounced him off the floor.
"Whoa!" Weston gasped. "I didn't know you could do that, Rotom… ulp! Dodge right!"
Rotom zipped to the side, evading a Mud-Slap attack, then took a hit from the follow-up claw swipe that Krookodile sent their way.
They flapped both halves of the device, ascending into the air a bit, then flipped around so the screen was facing Krookodile and blasted him with a torrent of water.
"How can a Rotom know these kind of moves?" Mantle demanded. "That's cheating!"
"There's no rule about which Pokémon are allowed to know which moves," the kid acting as referee said.
"And Rotom's possessing a Pokédex!" added another kid, this one with a Pikachu on his shoulder. "So of course he knows a lot about moves!"
"I don't know what a Pokédex is, and I don't much care," Mantle grumbled. "Krookodile, Dig!"
Krookodile dove into the ground with a crunch.
"Uh…" Weston said, thinking hard, then realized something. "Right! Rotom, Aura Sphere!"
Rotom could apparently use that move as well, and the sphere flew down the hole after Krookodile. The blast knocked Krookodile out of his Dig before he was meant to emerge, and Rotom followed up with a beam of flaming ice that hammered their opponent right back into the ground.
Two more loud minutes later, Krookodile did a sort of balletic spin and went flumph onto his back.
"No way!" Mantle said. "That can't be – it can't!"
He scowled. "Well, I don't care about the deal! I won't stop doing what I do!"
A very large black dragon crackling with green lightning materialized overhead.
"It would be ideal if you followed the deal," it said.
"...you make a convincing argument," Mantle conceded.
Weston had been thinking, and he walked over to Mantle.
"What is it, that makes you do this?" he asked, gentling his voice. "Don't you have something better to do?"
Mantle didn't say anything.
"What about if you try something new?" Weston added. "I could do with more staff… why not give it a try? You'd keep your promise, and you'd have a job – and somewhere to stay, too."
"And, check!" Pichu said, as they came out of the elevator into the Weston Hotel – which was now bustling, well-kept and had little screens everywhere showing a smiling Rotom. "A job well done, I think!"
"So… why exactly did we go back in time, now?" Luxray asked. "I'm still trying to work this out. Why would we go back in time to fix something that wasn't broken?"
"I'll send myself a letter," Pichu answered. "Because I did."
"Oh, you look familiar," said a voice they'd heard before.
It was Mantle, this time wearing a clerk's uniform, and he smiled knowingly.
"I should have known something funny was going on," he told them. "But, honestly, this job is the best thing that's happened to me. So – thank you, all of you."
"See?" Pichu asked. "This is what happens when you get an expert in."
AN:
Pichu keeps careful track of her Yet.