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Chapter Text

As he and his Kalos friends stood outside Goodra's new cave, saying their final goodbyes to his old dragon-type before they moved on to the Kalos League, Ash allowed himself a moment to wonder if his new arrangement with Goodra would actually pay off.

He wanted to believe that he could make it, and it wasn't that he didn't have faith in his Kalos team, but after the way things had gone in the Unova League… well, anyone would feel anxious after that kind of loss, right?

It had been over a year since that battle with Cameron, and Ash still couldn't decide if he was more annoyed that he hadn't chosen a better team or that he would have lost even if he'd not had the advantage of having six Pokemon when Cameron only had five.

Granted, he wouldn't have liked winning that way, but at least under those circumstances they might have had a chance to have a rematch with the right number of Pokemon that would have tested both him and Cameron more fairly, unlike when they made mistakes like letting Oshawott get overpowered by Hydregion or Ferrothorn lost to Pignite.

Still, he'd come a long way since the way things had fallen apart in Unova, and with the additional support of Serena, Clemont and Bonnie, Ash had faith that he still had a good chance if he could get through the first few rounds of the Kalos League. Once he had the option of using all six of his Pokemon, he'd have access to a new team that he'd trained to their peak and had proven themselves against all kinds of opponents, as opposed to the more mixed training of his Unova Pokemon…

"Hey!" Bonnie said, looking curiously over at another part of the swamp, her head on one side as Dedenne's ears perked up from her shoulder. "What's that?"

"What's-?" Ash began, before he heard the strange lilting sound that Bonnie must have heard. For a moment he was prepared to put it down as just the sound of another creature native to these wetlands, but that idea was put to the side when he realised that he didn't recognise the noise despite the warden's assurance that they'd seen everything the wetlands had to offer.

It did sound familiar, but it wasn't the kind of familiarity he associated with a recent encounter; that was the sound of something he'd encountered quite a while ago…

Curiosity sparked as he tried to follow the noise back to its source, Ash hurried over to a small cluster of bushes, his mind only partly aware of Serena, Clemont and Gooda close behind him, Pikachu still clutching onto on his shoulder while Bonnie and Dedenne ran alongside him.

He knew that it was probably going to just be a Pokemon that had recently arrived in the wetlands from somewhere else, but there was always the possibility of finding something new, and just because some Pokemon were more familiar than others didn't mean that it wasn't interesting to see another one…

Then he reached the middle of the cluster of bushes and saw exactly what was floating in the middle of the small pool of water at the heart of the bunch, and his eyes widened in shock.

"Celebi?" he said, staring at the small green creature incredulously, mind flashing back to his brief friendship with Sam and the nightmare of fighting Kodai's attempts to harness Celebi's powers for nothing but his own selfish benefit.

"Celebi?" Clemont, Bonnie and Serena repeated with the same degree of incredulity.

"As in the legendary time-travelling Pokemon from Johto?" Clemont continued, looking between the creature and Ash in surprise as Celebi floated over towards them, a curious smile on its face. "And you just… have you seen it before?"

"Once or twice," Ash said, waving awkwardly at Celebi as it waved back at him, leaning him and Pikachu to exchange uncertain smiles. "I mean, I helped protect one from a Pokemon hunter in Johto, and there was this time when some guy in a small town in Sinnoh was trying to use Celebi to help him see the future…"

"You found one in Sinnoh?" Serena looked at Ash in surprise.

"Ah, look at it!" Bonnie said, ignoring Serena's questions while she smiled happily at Celebi as the small green creature floated over to drift around the group, looking at them with a thoughtful smile. "It's so cute!"

"Bonnie, be care-" Clemont began, before Celebi's thoughtful smile changed as it looked upwards, head cocked to one side as though it was listening to something. As Ash strained his ears, he heard a strange ringing sound that sounded vaguely familiar, followed by Celebi flying upwards as it began to glow with a brilliant green light.

"Oh no," Ash said, suddenly remembering Sam's story about how he'd come to the future in the first place. "Everybody, get back-!"

Even as he spoke, Ash knew that his warning was too late, as the wetlands around them suddenly appeared to be visible through a strange blue filter while some kind of golden circle expanded behind Celebi, and then the entire world was filled with a brilliant white glow that seemed to block out everything but his friends, Pikachu, Dedenne and Goodra. For a moment, the four humans and three Pokemon seemed to be floating in nothingness, everything around them warm but blank, nothing visible but white light and the seven of them, but just as Ash thought he caught a glimpse of a flash of green light and some dark figure off in the distance, he only had time to turn his head to try and see it better before the white light vanished, and the group all fell down a few feet to the ground below them.

Looking around, Ash was relieved to see that everyone else was with him and apparently unhurt, but it was easy to see that whatever Celebi had done had moved them somewhere else. Where they had been in the wetlands just a moment ago, they were now on a simple path between trees and open fields, not dense enough to be called a full forest but not quite as open as the wetlands.

"Uh… what just happened?" Serena asked, looking anxiously at Clemont and Ash.

"I… don't know," Ash said at last, looking uncertainly at his surroundings. "I mean, I've met Celebis before, but they never just did something like that; there was one time it happened to someone else, but everything he said suggested that it only happened because the Celebi was under threat and wanted to get away…"

"Under threat?" Clemont looked at Ash sharply. "What could threaten a Celebi?"

"Long story," Ash shrugged as he checked over Pikachu and Goodra, not wanting to dwell on the unanswered questions of what had happened to Sam or the dark time when that man in the iron mask had briefly taken control of Celebi. "Still, if we can just work out where we are, we can probably get…"

His voice trailed as he suddenly heard a pair of voices from further down the road, looking up just in time to see a dark-skinned man and a young red-headed girl walk around a corner in the road, the man wearing brown trousers and a green sleeveless vest over an orange T-shirt while the girl wore denim shorts held up by red suspenders over a sleeveless yellow top as she carried a Togepi.

"Brock!" Ash yelled, standing up to look at his old friends in surprised glee. "Misty!"

"Pikachu-Pi!" Pikachu yelled, joining Ash as he hurried over to greet their old friends, leaving the other three humans looking after Ash in bemusement.

"Uh… Ash?" Misty looked at him in surprise as he stopped in front of them.

"Yeah, I know you weren't expecting to see me, but in my defence, I wasn't expecting this either!" Ash smiled as he looked at his old friends, Pikachu running up onto Misty's shoulder to hug the side of her face. "I just ran into a Celebi and-"

"A Celebi?" Brock looked at him in surprise. "Another one?"

"Yeah, for a legendary Pokemon, we really do keep running into that one, don't we?" Ash smiled at Brock as Pikachu jumped from Misty to hug Brock's leg. "I mean, Johto, Kanto,Sinnoh, and now Kalos? I know that it's a time-traveller, but-"

"Ash, what are you talking about?" Misty looked at him in confusion. "Sinnoh? Kalos? When did you go there?"

"Huh?" Ash returned her confusion with his own uncertain stare. "Misty, I know it's been a while, but I thought Brock told you-"

"Sorry I got held up back there, guys," a new voice said from around the corner Brock and Misty had just walked around. "Bayleef just didn't seem ready to go back in her ball yet; I had to keep chasing her…"

As the speaker rounded the corner, the voice trailed off as he took in Ash's presence, Ash stunned into silence as he did the same.

"Ah," Ash said, as he and Pikachu stared wide-eyed at the unexpected sight of themselves facing them, the other Ash wearing the white-sleeved blue jacket, dark T-shirt and blue jeans that he'd worn when he first started his Pokemon journey so long ago, along with his old green backpack. "I… wasn't expecting that."

He supposed he should have realised that there was something wrong with this situation when Misty was carrying Togepi, but he'd just been so excited to see her again than he hadn't thought about it…

I have no idea what just happened, but clearly things just got very complicated.

Chapter Text

"So… right," Ash said, looking awkwardly at the young man who had to be his own past self (and that was a weird sentence to think under any circumstances), surprised to note that he was actually at least a head taller than his past self. "Uh… sorry about this?"

"Sorry about- who are you?" the younger Ash looked at him in indignation. "Is this some weird Team Rocket thing?"

"Team Rocket?" Ash repeated, looking incredulously at his past self. "Firstly, there's too many of us, and secondly, why would they dress up as you to fool you?"

"They dressed up as us that time-" Clemont began.

"That was to fool the town, they weren't trying to trick us," Ash corrected his newer Gym Leader friend before he looked back at his first two travelling companions. "Oh, sorry guys; these are my new friends, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie; you already know Pikachu, Bonnie's carrying Dedenne, and that's Goodra."

"Hi-" Clemont began, before Brock rushed past the two Ashes to stand in front of Serena.

"Hell-lo there," Brock said, in the rushed and eager tone of voice that was disturbingly familiar to Ash even after almost two years since he last saw his oldest friend. "As Ash just mentioned, my name's Brock, and I take it that you are Serena? Please tell me what such a beautiful young woman such as yourself does while accompanying our mutual friend on his great journey through life?"

"Uh… I'm a Pokemon Performer?" Serena said, shooting a bemused glance at Ash as Clemont, Bonnie, Dedenne and Goodra looked at Brock in bemusement.

"A Pokemon Performer?" Brock repeated with his usual enthusiastic grin. "How fascinating? What does that involve? And may I assume that a ravishing beauty such as yourself is particularly-?"

"OK!" Misty cut in, stepping forward to grab Brock's ear and pull him away from Serena. "Let's just stop things right there before you embarrass us any further…"

She paused to glare over at Ash (and what did it say about how much he missed Misty that he realised he'd even missed her glaring at him like that?). "You really should have thought about how Brock would react to her; if you're really… well, you from the future, haven't you learned anything about him yet?"

"It's generally been easier for me to let Max or Croagunk handle that, and in my defence, he never did that to May and Dawn," Ash pointed out with an awkward shrug, suddenly wondering why Brock had never reacted that way to May and Dawn and briefly wondering what the breeder-turned-doctor would have thought of Iris, before he glanced down and noticed Bonnie looking at Misty with a familiar eager smile. "Oh Arceus…"

"You're a-!" Bonnie began, trying to push past Ash to kneel in front of Misty, only for Ash to grab her by her backpack and haul her back before she could actually get into position.

"Please don't do that," he hissed, urgently crouching down in front of Bonnie, not sure why he was reacting like this to something that normally made him smile. "It's just… Misty is…"

"Oh," Bonnie said, giving him a teasing smile before she nodded and looked back at Misty. "Sorry; forget I said anything!"

"Uh… sure," Misty nodded uncertainly at the little girl.

"Pika?" two voices said simultaneously. Looking down, Ash wasn't sure how to feel when he saw Pikachu looking at his past self, the younger Pikachu slightly shorter and the older one with brighter fur as they walked curiously around each other.

"Pikachu?" the younger Ash said, looking uncertainly between his older self and the two Pikachu. "Is he… they… I mean, are they?"

"Pikapi?" the younger Pikachu said, looking back at his trainer for a moment before jumping onto the shoulder of his trainer's future self, nuzzling his cheek with an approving "Chaaa!"

"Hey, buddy," Ash smiled at the younger Pikachu before he turned back to his past self. "Uh… hope this sorts that out."

"You mean…" young-Ash stared at the other him in shock. "You're really me?"

"Yeah," Ash nodded. "And believe me, I did not plan to come here."

"You don't remember this?" Brock and Clemont said simultaneously as they looked anxiously at the older Ash.

"Pika," the older Pikachu put in from the ground, holding up a paw and shaking his head as though to confirm he didn't remember this either.

"Uh… is that important?" Serena asked. "I mean, maybe it just means-"

"Serena, I might be an idiot at times, but this isn't forgetting that I've seen Pokemon from space more than once; this is meeting myself," Ash turned to look impatiently at her. "If this happened to me before, I would remember it!"

"OK, this is getting a bit confusing here," Misty cut in, looking uncertainly between the two Ashes. "I mean, I thought things were confusing enough when Sam dropped in with Celebi-"

"You've met Sam?" Ash looked sharply at Misty before he slapped his forehead. "Oh yeah, you mentioned that I'd have run into 'another' Celebi when you thought I was… well, the younger me…"

"Ash?" Misty looked at him in confusion as his voice trailed off, looking upwards with a growing smile. "What is it?"

"When all those other Celebi came to save the one we'd met…" Ash said, smiling as the pieces fell into place. "That's where I saw that portal before!"

"What?" Clemont looked at Ash in confusion.

"When I was travelling with Brock and Misty, we had an encounter with a Celebi where it was nearly killed before… well, it did something that brought in a bunch of other Celebi to help heal it," Ash explained.

"Other Celebi?" Serena looked at Ash in confusion. "I thought one of the reasons Legendary Pokemon were… well, Legendary was that there was only one of them?"

"That's a very common misconception about legendary Pokemon, actually; they're rare, but there are different examples of particular legendaries in each region, although they tend to stay in a particular area to limit contact between them," Brock put in. "I mean, there are rumours that certain legendary Pokemon are the most powerful of their species, like an 'Alpha' of their species, but for various reasons nobody's willing to test that theory even if we knew how we could do it safely."

"That… actually makes sense," Ash nodded thoughtfully at Brock. "I mean, I'm fairly sure I've encountered at least three different Articunos in different places-"

"Three?" young-Ash looked at his future self in surprise. "When was the third time?"

"Oh, that was when I was taking part in the Battle Frontier-" Ash began.

"Stop!" Brock yelled, looking urgently at Ash. "Don't tell us anything about the future!"

"Huh?" the two Ashes looked at Brock in surprise.

"We can't know anything about the future in case we end up changing it!" Brock said urgently. "Just the fact that Ash knows he's going to encounter another Celebi is bad enough; can you imagine what would happen if-?"

"Brock," Ash held up a hand to stop his old friend, "I appreciate you worrying about… well, our future, but like I said, I've already changed things by coming here when I don't remember this happening before-"

"But he's right," Clemont said, urgently looking between the two Ashes. "Your past self's already aware that he's going to be travelling with us in the future; if he learns anything else about-"

"Uh… Clemont?" Misty raised her hand. "I get why you're worried about Ash changing things, but… well, we've already established that Ash doesn't remember any of this happening in the first place, so if he's changing things just by being here, why hasn't his memory changed already?"

"That's…" Clemont began tentatively, before he signed in frustration. "I don't know."

"You don't?" Bonnie looked at her brother in surprise.

"There are ideas about how this might work, but there could be any number of explanations for it, really," Clemont said, a defensive edge to his voice. "Even with Pokemon like Dialga and Celebi, we simply don't know enough about how time travel works as a scientific concept to know how it can affect the world around us. It could be that just us being here has created some kind of alternate universe so our history is unchanged while this timeline is now on its own path, it could be some kind of side effect to do with how Celebi travels through time in the first place, or the fact that we're in the past is causing the changes to be suspended as far as we're concerned…"

"We'll… take your word for it," Serena nodded uncertainly at him.

"So… do we need to worry about him- me- you know what I mean- changing my history, or not?" the younger Ash looked urgently at Clemont.

"I… don't know," Clemont shook his head apologetically.

"Well, we can't just stay here and hope we'll get home on our own, can we?" Bonnie put in. "We already know Ash; Misty and Brock have to be nice too, right?"

"It's not a question of them being nice, it's-" Clemont began.

"Look," Ash cut in as he looked at the Lumiose Gym Leader, "I get that you're worried about changing history or something like that, but Bonnie's right that we need help if we're going to get home; we might as well stick with… me… and Misty and Brock until we get to the next town…"

He sharply turned to look at his past self as the thought came to him. "Where are we anyway?"

"What?" his past self asked.

"I mean, you've already met Celebi and Sam, but what happened to you recently?" Ash explained. "I just… well, I get Brock's point about not wanting to change history, but if you want to help us, I'd like to be sure I'm not going to screw things up for myself, so I need to know what you've done already so I can work out what we need to worry about."

"Well… I just got the Mineral Badge from Jasmine…" Ash said uncertainly.

"OK, thanks," Ash said, taking a moment to think before he replied. "You haven't caught a blimp or got a call from Professor Oak yet, right?"

"Professor Oak?" the younger Ash looked at himself in surprise.

"OK, so you haven't yet," Ash nodded in understanding. "Right then, so if you just got the Mineral Badge but you haven't had that call from Professor Oak yet… we'd need to catch that blimp to get back to Ecruteak City if you want to get to Eggseter City…"

"To where?" the young Ash asked.

"Ash!" Brock and Clemont looked urgently at him.

"I'm not giving you details, Brock, I'm just saying when you all have to be somewhere," Ash corrected his old friend before he turned back to his younger self. "The point is that, if you want to help us try and get back, you've got a couple of weeks' leeway before you need to be somewhere by a specific time if you don't want to miss out on something important to your future, so if you want to help us… well, you've got the time to do it."

Ash just hoped he had his timeline straight in his mind; he'd need to double-check the diary on his Pokedex to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything else that had happened at this time, but after getting the Mineral Badge, he was fairly sure the next big event was him winning Phanpy's egg in that race against Gary. Professor Oak's lab should be able to last a few more days without Bulbasaur if he missed that particular call, Team Rocket's attempt to steal the various Eevee evolutions from Sakura and her sisters had fallen apart without him getting involved, and he didn't see how him not being there would have any impact on Team Rocket breaking that Crystal Bell and drawing in Suicine…

"Well…" the younger Ash looked uncertainly at his future self for a moment before he smiled in approval. "If you think we've got time… I mean, I can't exactly not help myself, can I?"

"Then again, can we ever stop helping anyone?" Ash smiled.

"Good point," Misty and Serena noted, looking at each other in surprise at their moment of synchronicity.

"But… do we have to go with you?" Clemont asked. "I mean, the risk of changing history; if you've already met a Celebi, couldn't we just go back to where you met that one and-?"

"I don't really think that Celebi's likely to have stayed around that forest after it nearly died," Brock noted grimly.

"And even if it's still there, do you really want to take a couple of months walking back to that forest on your own?" Misty put in. "And that's before you take Ash's usual incompetence with directions into account…"

"Hey!" Serena and the younger Ash looked at Misty.

"That's… a fair point," Ash nodded awkwardly at his old friend, wondering what it said about himself when he realised his younger self was looking incredulously at him. "Hey, we do tend to get lost…"

"Yeah, but-" Ash began.

"Ash," Brock looked at the younger Ash with familiar exasperation, "are you really about to argue with yourself?"

"…Good point," the younger Ash smiled awkwardly, before looking at his future self. "Uh… sorry?"

"Don't worry about it," Ash nodded reassuringly at his other self before turning to address the whole group. "OK, if we keep going, we should be able to catch a blimp that will take us to Ecruteak City quicker than we could have done on foot, and from there we can work out where we'd be likely to find a Celebi that could send us home."

"And then we... well, you go to Celebi and we continue as normal?" Ash's younger self asked him.

"Pretty much," Ash nodded.

They might be in the middle of a difficult situation, but it couldn't be that hard to find clues to a Celebi's presence when he'd already encountered three of them…

Chapter Text

A few minutes later, with Goodra returned to his old Poke Ball to keep him hydrated, the two Ashes and their respective groups of friends were back on the road, heading towards Ecruteak City. As far as Ash could remember from the first time he'd made this journey, as well as a quick glance at the diary notes he kept on his Pokedex, they were still on schedule for that encounter with the lost milk-cans that would lead to them getting a chance to catch a ride on that blimp, so for the moment there was no reason to worry that he was going to make them miss anything important.

And I'm not Dawn and I'm not explicitly saying it, so there really shouldn't be any kind of problem so long as everything goes smoothly…

It was strange, but even though he recognised that they were in a potentially dangerous and extremely complicated situation, Ash had to admit that he was enjoying the current shift in his circumstances. With all eight of his Kalos badges collected, no reason to believe that they'd be 'late' getting back to the future (as much as anyone could be late for anything when you were talking about time travel), and a full team of Pokemon on his belt, he was ready to get back to Kalos whenever they got the chance, and in the meantime he could retrace his steps, get a new perspective on some of his old trips and friends, and even technically catch up with his old friends.

For the moment, he'd fallen behind the main group, letting Brock and Clemont lead the way to their next destination while he stayed at the back to discreetly check his Pokedex to make sure he was remembering everything correctly. In a strange way, he supposed that he was actually lucky he'd arrived in Johto at this particular time in his travels. Considering that the next few weeks after he'd got the Mineral Badge included him sending Bulbasaur to Professor Oak's lab, that run-in with Suicine during that mess with the Crystal Bells, and the Extreme Pokemon race that would result in him winning Phanpy's egg, these few weeks had been fairly clear in his mind ever since, which at least made it easier to know what he had to be 'worried' about him changing.

He might not know for sure how much importance he should place on Brock and Clemont's fears about how he might change the future if he told anyone about what was going to happen, but he was still fairly sure that the Extreme Pokemon race was the most immediate future event where he absolutely had to be there. It shouldn't take them that long to get to a city where he could work out where he, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie could find a Celebi to take them home, and once they knew where to go, his past self, Brock and Misty could get to Eggseter, win Phanphy's egg, and continue as though this whole mess had never happened.

Who knows? Maybe Team Rocket won't even pay attention to Sakura's family or the Crystal Bell when they see that I'm here…

It was strange to think about how he almost wanted Jessie, James and Meowth to drop in, but as annoying as they could be, at least when they were bothering him and his friends they weren't doing anything to anyone else.

However, for the moment, Ash was content to let his mind drift slightly as he contemplated something he'd said just after their arrival.

He hadn't thought much about it when he'd brought the topic up, given everything else he was dealing with that moment, but looking back now that he had a moment, he had to wonder why he'd forgotten about the idea that Pokemon could come from outer space. His encounters with Rayquaza and Deoxys weren't exactly moments that easily slipped a person's mind, but he'd still acted as though meeting Beheeyem and learning that it came from space was a complete surprise…

Why would I forget that? Ash asked himself.

He was aware that he wasn't the sharpest bulb in the box at times, but getting over-enthusiastic when trying to make his first catch in a new region was him being keen to make new friends; forgetting that he'd seen Pokemon that he knew came from outer space was just… stupid.

"Uh… me?" Ash's younger self said, breaking into Ash's train of thought.

"Yeah?" he looked over at his younger self, who had fallen behind the rest of the group to talk to him, the two Pikachus looking curiously at each other from their positions on their trainers' shoulders.

"I mean… I get that you can't tell me anything specific about the future," young-Ash said, looking awkwardly at his future self. "But… well, you've still got Pikachu, but you also have… Goodra, right?… as part of your team…"

"Only for the moment," Ash corrected his younger self. "Goodra is … he's making his own life now back home; he was happy with me, but it's… it's like Lapras, you know?"

"He was on his own until you found his family?" young-Ash smiled in approval at his future self.

"He… got separated from his friends in an accident, and I probably shouldn't say any more," Ash said, looking thoughtfully at the trainer he'd been; he appreciated Brock and Clemont's warnings about future knowledge, but that kind of general statement couldn't hurt so long as he didn't give any specific dates or places. "That wasn't the only thing you wanted to ask, was it?"

"…No," young-Ash admitted, smiling sheepishly at his future self. "It was just… well, you've got one Pokemon I haven't seen before, so I wondered…"

"To answer your question, I've started basically going back to basics for each new region I visit," Ash confirmed for his younger self; he was trying to keep Brock's rules in mind, but it surely couldn't matter if he got the idea on his own or basically gave it to himself. "After the Johto League was over, I decided to try a new challenge for myself and go to the Hoenn region with only Pikachu in my party. It's a bit more challenging, but it let me focus on catching and training new friends rather than just relying on the old guard all the time."

"You… started over?" young-Ash looked at himself with a new air of apprehension about him.

"I didn't release anybody; I just left all the other Pokemon on my current team at Professor Oak's lab to train and spend more time with each other while Pikachu and I went to Hoenn," Ash clarified, guessing what his younger self was thinking given the precedent set after he parted with Charizard and Squirtle. "I do the same thing whenever I go to a new region these days, but I can still call on the rest of our old Pokemon whenever I want, and they've all assured me that they like staying there."

"Pika Kachu!" Pikachu said from Ash's shoulder, nodding in confirmation.

"Chu ka pika?" past-Pikachu asked, looking curiously at himself.

"Pika," Pikachu nodded with a reassuring smile.

"That's… good to know," young-Ash said, looking at his future self with a new sense of curiosity. "So… if you've-"

"I probably shouldn't say any more," Ash cut his past self off with a warning hand. "I mean, this is just… I think we're starting to talk about stuff that's getting a bit too personal for… well, everything Brock said."

"Right…" young-Ash said, looking tentatively at his future self as the two fell into silence.

Frankly, Ash was glad that his argument had worked; he knew very well that he could be particularly stubborn when he really wanted something, but it also helped that he knew how to convince himself not to push.

Studying himself as the younger Ash walked alongside him, Ash briefly wished he could give his past self some of the advice that was tossing around his mind, but told himself not to fixate on that; after he nearly ended up erased during that mess with Arceus, he knew better than most not to risk tampering with history.

Looking back at where Ash was literally talking to himself, Misty wondered what it said about her life these last few years that she was only partly surprised at how strange this current situation was.

She knew for a fact that most trainers could go through their whole careers without ever seeing a legendary Pokemon, and yet since joining Ash on his travels she'd encountered at least six, depending on whether you counted Dragonite as legendary or just powerful or if that Entei qualified when it was 'just' created by the Unown. With that kind of precedent, the idea that Ash would have to deal with this kind of time-travelling incident in his future almost made a warped kind of sense, even if it was a very drastic situation for him to face.

That said, she was trying not to think too much about the implications of the fact that Ash and Pikachu were the only members of the group from the future that she recognised; the idea that she'd leave Ash some day…

"So…" Misty looked curiously at Serena and Bonnie, after the three girls had been walking together in uncertain silence for a while, "how did… you meet Ash?"

"Clemont told us we shouldn't-" Bonnie began.

"Yeah, I get that your brother's worried about changing history, but that's only a problem if you tell him, surely?" Misty pointed out, trying to ignore the nagging part of her mind that couldn't stop worrying about why she felt safe asking these questions. "I mean, Ash is up there talking to… himself, and we're all the way back here; Ash can make sure the younger him doesn't hear anything… incriminating, and you can answer a few questions for me that I won't tell him."

"She… makes a good point," Serena nodded at Misty, before she looked back at her. "Anyway, we're all from Kalos, but I actually met Ash a few years ago- which is probably only a couple of years from before now- when we were both at Professor Oak's Pokemon Summer Camp."

"You met him at Professor Oak's Summer Camp?" Misty looked at Serena in surprise.

"Yes," Serena smiled. "He helped me out when I got lost and hurt my leg in an accident, and just… he made me feel better about myself when I wasn't enjoying the whole experience."

"Really?" Misty couldn't stop herself from staring at the blonde girl as this young woman so neatly dispelled so many ideas Misty had once had about the significance of her own friendship with Ash. "You… you've known Ash for that long?"

"Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?" Serena smiled at Misty, apparently ignorant of the reaction she'd inspired. "Anyway, I went home shortly after that, and we fell out of touch when he started his journey, but when I saw a news report that showed him in Kalos… well, I decided that it was time to start my own journey to catch up with him."

"You started your journey… to meet Ash?" Misty looked at the girl with a new sense of confusion, suddenly lost for how she should feel about that news.

"That was… part of it," Serena conceded with a smile. "It took me a while to work out what I wanted to do with myself, but I eventually found my niche as a Pokemon Performer, and… well, I'm doing OK."

"Right…" Misty said, making a note to look up what a 'Pokemon Performer' actually was, as well as how it differed from events like Trixie's Pokemon Circus.

"So," Serena looked at Misty with a curious smile, "what Pokemon do you have?"

"Well," Misty smiled, glad to get onto a different topic, "there's Togepi, obviously, but I also have Staryu, Goldeen, Psyduck, Poliwhirl, and I just recently caught a Corsola."

"Really?" Bonnie looked at Misty with a smile. "You actually have a Psyduck? Maybe that's the reason Ash chose that costume!"

"Costume?"

"Oh, we were at a Gourgeist Festival a couple of months ago… well, for us, anyway… and Ash had Pikachu dressed up like a Psyduck," Serena explained. "We were all wearing costumes I made, actually; Ash was a Snorlax, I was a Floreges, Bonnie was a Ludicolo, Dedenne was a Corphish, that kind of thing."

"You made all those?" Misty looked at Serena in surprise.

"I got a few store options and modified them to fit everyone; obviously I couldn't have made all those outfits on short notice from scratch," Serena waved a hand dismissively. "Anyway, Pikachu was dressed up as a Psyduck for the event, and Ash never explained why that particular costume choice was so important to him, but maybe it was inspired by yours."

"Really?" Misty looked at Serena with a new sense of curiosity, touched at the suggestion behind the other girl's words even if it wasn't enough to override her earlier jealousy.

"Hey," Bonnie looked at Misty with an inquiring expression. "If you have Water-types… do you have a Piplup?"

"Piplup?" Misty repeated in confusion.

"Bonnie!" Serena looked at the little girl in frustration. "Ash said that Piplup's trainer was Dawn, remember?"

"Dawn?" Misty looked at the other girls, her brief good mood suddenly faltering at the implications of that brief comment.

"Uh… that's something we shouldn't have told you, right?" Bonnie looked apologetically at Misty. "Can you just… forget we mentioned her and not mention that to Ash? So we can… well, protect the timeline or whatever Clemont was talking about?"

"Right…" Misty said, nodding in acknowledgement even as she fell into awkward silence.

She knew that she'd stopped travelling with Ash to get the money back for that bike he and Pikachu had ruined a long time ago (even if she still used it as a 'convenient excuse' if asked), but the idea that he could just move on after they parted company for some reason… the idea that he'd had so many other travelling companions that these two could confuse her with someone she hadn't even heard of…

She knew that she'd never actually told Ash how much he meant to her, but was it possible she didn't mean that much to him?

"So," Brock looked curiously at Clemont, after the two had spent a few moments walking silently alongside each other at the head of their expanded group, "how did you meet Ash?"

"I thought we agreed-"

"That Ash shouldn't know anything about his future," Brock clarified with a slight smile. "You clearly don't know me, so you can't tell me anything important about my future apart from the fact that I'm obviously not travelling with Ash any more, so… well, I want to know more about you."

"And… you aren't worried about why you're not travelling with him in the future?" Clemont looked at Brock curiously.

"Well… obviously I'm curious, but I'm fairly sure it's nothing bad," Brock replied, after taking a moment to give the question the thought it deserved. "I mean, Ash thought Misty and I were ourselves from his time when he first appeared, so I'm fairly sure I'm not dead or something like that, and I have faith that Ash and I won't have some kind of stupid falling-out, so I'm going to assume the best and leave it at that."

"That's… probably a good call," Clemont nodded at Brock before he decided to continue. "Anyway, I was the gym leader of Lumiose City in Kalos, but there was an… well, to cut a long story short, I created a robot to act as the gym leader in my place when I wanted to work on my inventions and the robot ended up kicking me out."

"The robot," Brock repeated, looking at Clemont in surprise. "You were kicked out of your gym by a robot?"

"I… did a bit too good of a job programming it, and all of a sudden it wouldn't let me in because I didn't realise what I'd given it as a deactivation code," Clemont explained awkwardly. "I was stuck outside for a few days until Bonnie and I met Ash, and then I started travelling with him so that he could reach a point where he could help me get back into the Gym."

"And did he?"

"Well… yes and no; he didn't become strong enough to challenge Clembot directly, but with some help from my dad we were able to sneak into the gym and challenge Clembot to a battle that gave me time to deactivate and reprogram it."

"Ah," Brock nodded. "And then what? You left your father in charge of the gym?"

"No, I left Clembot to do that," Clemont looked curiously at Brock. "Did that happen to you?"

"My father… spent some time away until he helped Ash beat me to get his first badge, and then he agreed to come back to the rest of my family," Brock explained, his expression briefly becoming grimmer as he dwelt on the memory of that dark period of his life. "I had to take care of all my younger brothers and sisters until he finally stepped up and took some responsibility for everything…"

"I… I'm sorry?" Clemont said tentatively.

"Don't worry about it," Brock said, his mood shifting to a more relaxed smile. "It's not that I didn't like taking care of them, but it was just… well, it was that I didn't have a choice but to take care of them; it's why I pretty much jumped at the chance to join Ash and Misty on their journey."

"They were travelling together first?" Clemont looked back at Misty in surprise.

"Ran into each other the day Ash started his journey when he stole her bike while trying to save Pikachu," Brock affirmed with a brief smile. "It's been… interesting to see them develop as people."

"In what way?" Clemont asked, before Brock heard a loud yell from further up the path just before Ash's future self ran past him and Clemont, the older Ash pulling out three Poke Balls as though he'd expected this to happen.

Brock wasn't sure what unnerved him more; the idea that they were about to meet someone else, or the fact that future-Ash had been that prepared for something that could have happened at any time…

When Ash saw the milk cans rolling down the hill, he moved into action immediately, barely stopping to think as he ran to the front of the group. Once he was sure there was enough distance between him and his past self, he tossed three Poke Balls, releasing Greninja, Hawlucha and Goodra.

"Catch them!" he yelled, indicating the rolling cans to his three Pokemon. With that command, Greninja and Goodra moved into position to grab two of the cans while Hawlucha leapt forward to grab a third, leaving Ash to take up a position that let him grab the final can before it could go too far. Hearing a voice calling out from up the hill, Ash quickly recalled his three Kalos Pokemon once he'd confirmed that the cans were now all upright.

"Hey!" the man who Ash vaguely recognised as the driver of the van transporting the cans yelled, coming into view just as the rest of Ash's group joined him around the empty cans. "…Oh, you already caught them?"

"Just lucky, really," Ash smiled, briefly anxious as he saw the man looking between him and his past self but calming down when the man showed no further signs of curiosity. Ash briefly wondered about that as he and his friends picked up the cans to carry them to the top of the hill and the driver's truck, but looking back at his younger self, he took a moment to consider how this might look from the perspective of a stranger and decided that the man probably assumed he was his younger self's older brother or some other relative.

After all, he hadn't exactly heard much about any other time-travelling incidents before this apart from Sam's trip with Celebi, his own experience during that mess with Arceus, and that thing May had mentioned after her Eevee hatched, so strangers seeing two young men who looked alike apart from a few years' age difference would be more likely to think 'older sibling' than 'time-displaced future self'.

Still not safe to meet too many people like this, but the occasional chat can't hurt…

"Thanks for the help," the man said, as he placed the last of the cans on his truck. "These things are trouble… So where are you kids heading to? Into town? The beach?"

"Ecruteak City," young-Ash confirmed.

"Why don't you hop in?" the driver suggested, just as Ash remembered (and he was suddenly grateful that their larger numbers hadn't put the man off giving the same offer). "I can get you there in no time."

"Huh?" young-Ash said.

"Sounds good," Ash smiled at the other man, glancing around at his friends. "Come on; let's go."

"You're-?" Brock began.

"I'm sure," Ash nodded reassuringly at his old friend. "We'll be fine."

Chapter Text

As they reached the small airport with the blimp that would take them to the Moomoo Ranch just outside Ecruteak City, Ash smiled as another piece of the impromptu plan fell into place.

Just like he'd hoped, with this blimp ride they could get to the city easily enough, and from there it would just be a simple matter of him and his friends finding somewhere they could meet a Celebi while his past self, Misty and Brock continued on their journey.

OK, maybe it'll turn out that the nearest place to find one is that forest we met Sam, but at least this way we'll know for sure…

He felt a little bad that he'd stopped his past self from calling Professor Oak, but right now he felt that it would be best to take Brock and Clemont's concerns about changing history into account so that nobody learned that he, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie were in this time who might ask more awkward questions about it. So far anyone looking at him seemed to be assuming that he was his past self's older brother or some kind of other relative, so at least he didn't have to worry about too many potentially awkward questions while he was here. Carter- the man who owned the milk-cans- had picked up their tickets easily enough, but he'd just told them that they had more than an hour to wait until the blimp was going to take off.

"So… since we've got the tickets, what do we do now?" Bonnie asked.

"We eat?" Ash suggested, as he and his younger self took out their Poke Balls.

"You can't-" Brock began.

"Brock, I get where you're coming from, but I can't just leave my team in their balls as long as we're here just because you think it's risky," Ash apologised to his old friend. "They need to get out and eat, and it's not like I'm going to give… him… a full list of where and when I caught them; I might not even remember more than the basics when the time comes for him to meet them."

"He's right," Misty put in, smiling teasingly at the younger Ash. "I mean, this is the guy who sent a Caterpie against a Pidgeotto on his third day as a trainer; he tends to be very 'in-the-moment'."

"…Should I be offended?" past-Ash looked at his future self.

"It's Misty; she means well," Ash smiled, before he tossed his Poke Balls into the air. "OK then, everyone; time to eat!"

Past-Ash basically copied his future self as he tossed his Poke Balls into the air, the rest of the group did the same as the area around the airport became filled with Pokemon. Taking in the sight of Greninja, Talonflame, Hawlucha, Goodra and Noivern standing alongside Bulbasaur, Bayleef, Cyndaquil, Totodile and Noctowl, with the Pikachus on their respective shoulders, Ash couldn't stop himself from smiling as his old friends stared in confusion between him and his past self.

"Hey guys," he said, walking forwards to crouch down in front of the five smaller Pokemon that comprised his past self's current team. "I get that this is really weird, but… well, I'm from the future."

"Pikapi Pik Pikachu ChuPik," Pikeachu added, running forwards to stand in front of Ash, looking reassuringly at the teammates he hadn't fought alongside for so many months, the electric mouse soon joined by his own past self, who offered a few awkward assurances to the rest of the team.

"Bulba?" Bulbasaur said, looking uncertainly between the two Pikachus for a moment before he turned to Ash. "Saur Bulba?"

"That's me," Ash grinned at his old friend. "Good to see you, Bulbasaur."

He might understand that Professor Oak's lab needed Bulbasaur as an ambassador more than he needed the Grass-type on his team, but that didn't mean that he didn't miss this particular old friend.

In a strange way, that was probably the reason he'd suggested that they feed their Pokemon out here right now. With his own Pokemon too large to fit inside the airport building, his past self wouldn't be inspired to call Professor Oak about his latest win, which would mean there was no reason for Oak to ask him to send Bulbasaur to the lab.

A part of Ash felt guilty at the thought that Professor Oak would have to deal with the Pokemon conflict for a couple more days, but it wasn't like a group of arguing Pokemon were going to cause any serious damage to the lab because Bulbasaur didn't get there on schedule…

"Wow!" Misty said, her voice drawing Ash's attention away from his original Grass-type to look at her as she stared in awe at Greninja. "Who's this?"

"Oh, that's Greninja," Ash smiled. "He was my first catch in Kalos."

"Water-type, right?" Misty smiled as Greninja looked at the young redhead with a pleased smile in his eyes.

"Yeah," Ash nodded. "He's… well, I've had a lot of water-types since now, but I like to think I learned a lot from you about how to train them to their full potential."

"Really?" Misty looked at Ash with a tentative smile, as though unsure how she should feel at that news.

"Tal?" Talonflame squawked, reminding Ash that he hadn't explained everything to his Kalos team yet either.

"Oh yeah," Ash smiled at the flaming bird as he turned to address his modern team. "Guys, this is a bit strange, but… well, we're in the past, and this is my younger self; Pikachu can introduce you to everyone."

As the two Pikachus leapt down to talk to their respective teams, Ash turned to smile at his original travelling companions. "Misty, Brock, these are my new Pokemon; Greninja, Talonflame, Hawlucha, Noivern, and Goodra."

"Lot of birds in this team, aren't there?" Brock looked at the five Pokemon with a smile.

"Things just worked out that way," Ash shrugged, even as he appreciated Brock's point; three Flying-types at once was an unexpected emphasis. "I'd tell you more, but… well, future knowledge; you said so yourself."

"Right," Brock nodded, looking uncertainly at the gathering for a moment before he finally smiled and tossed out three of his own Poke Balls, releasing Geodude, Crobat, and Pineco (As Ash recalled, Brock had often avoided releasing Onix unless they were in a more isolated area or facing a particularly big battle). Taking that as a cue, Misty, Serena and Clemont tossed out their own Poke Balls, revealing Staryu, Goldeen, Psyduck, Poliwhirl, Corsola, Braixen, Panchum, Sylveon, Bunnelby, Chespin and Luxray, Dedenne scampering from Bonnie's bag to join the others as Togepi chirped enthusiastically in Misty's arms.

"Wow!" Serena looked at the assembled Pokemon with a grin.

"They're so cute!" Bonnie said, running over to enthusiastically hug Psyduck as it stared blankly back at her.

"Just… don't do anything to Pineco," Brock looked uncertainly at the little girl, even as he began to lay out the food for the various Pokemon. "He… has a tendency to explode."

"Oh, we deal with that with every one of my brother's inventions," Bonnie said dismissively.

"Inventions?" Misty looked at Clemont with a smile. "You're an inventor?"

"I'm… I do what I can," Clemont said, blushing slightly as he looked at Misty.

"He just needs to get some better ideas for names and stop everything exploding the first time he uses it," Bonnie observed with a resigned grin.

"In Clemont's defence, everything he makes does do what he created it to do; it just doesn't always stay intact for long once it's done its job," Ash pointed out with a brief smile.

"Uh… thanks?" Clemont nodded at Ash before he glanced around "I'll… just wait with the Pokemon."

As Clemont walked over to crouch down beside Bunnelby, Chespin and Luxray as they began to eat, Ash wondered what had prompted Clemont's sudden reticence; his friend was normally fairly comfortable discussing his inventions…

"Pikachu… looks a bit more comfortable with Togepi," Misty interrupted Ash's train of thought. Following his old friend's gaze, Ash smiled as he saw the small egg Pokemon, now on the ground with the others, playing with the older Pikachu and Hawlucha, Noivern looking on at its smaller 'parent' Pokemon with an affectionate smile from nearby.

"Well… let's just say I've owned my own Pokemon eggs since we travelled together," Ash shrugged, glancing over to be sure that his past self wasn't near enough to hear this before he looked at Misty again. "Actually, Noivern was the most recent one; I found his egg a few months ago just before he hatched as a Noibat, and he basically became part of the team even before I actually caught him."

"Huh," Misty looked at the large bat in surprise before shooting a brief smile at Ash. "So you've become a parent yourself, huh?"

"I… don't think about it that much," Ash admitted, shrugging slightly. "I mean, I get why you keep Togepi safe, but my eggs… well, they were always more eager to start battling than Togepi was."

"You always seem to get the challenging ones, don't you?" Misty looked at Ash with a smile. "Squirtle, Primeape, Muk, Lapras, Chikorita…"

"It shows they have spirit," Ash grinned back at her. "They challenge me to grow as a trainer just as I help them grow in turn."

"Good approach," Brock nodded at him.

"And… no repeats of Charizard?" past-Ash asked his future self.

"No," Ash affirmed.

"Ash," Brock looked at the older trainer.

"I'm not saying any of them were perfect, but I'm just confirming that none of my future Pokemon are going to try to burn me every time I send them out," Ash affirmed.

"One of your Pokemon tried to attack you?" Bonnie looked at Ash in shock.

"Charizard… had some problems after he evolved from Charmander," Ash shrugged at the little girl. "He got over it a few months ago in this time, but it… well, it's not something I'd want to repeat."

"Good to know," past-Ash smiled at his future self. "I mean, that I won't have to go through that again, anyway…"

"Anyway," Ash clapped his hands together and looked around at his friends, "let's just chow down and get on that blimp; the sooner we get to Ecruteak City, the better."

And the sooner I can get to a private environment where I'll be less inclined to accidentally slip up and say more than I should…

Chapter Text

Sitting in a corner of the blimp's passenger area, Ash smiled wistfully as he stared out of the window at the landscape below him.

He enjoyed travelling around the world to see everything it had to offer, always looking for something new across the horizon, but for every Lavender Town or Trovita Island he wouldn't want to go back to, there were also those places like Celadon City or Cianwood City that he wished he'd been able to spend more time exploring before he had to move on to catch the next big event in time. He would never regret all the people he'd helped and the amazing friends he'd made, to say nothing of the wide range of Pokemon he'd met that had agreed to join him in his travels, but there was always a part of him that regretted how hard it was to keep in touch with everyone afterwards.

And what does it say about my life that I have to resort to time travel to re-tread old ground? Ash mused to himself, shaking his head as he glanced around the blimp. Brock, Clemont, Bonnie and his younger self were chatting in a table in the middle of the room, while Misty and Serena were sitting awkwardly on either side of a table in a corner, looking around at nothing in particular.

Ash briefly wondered what had prompted such unconventional behaviour from the two girls, but decided it wasn't worth thinking about too deeply as he turned his attention back to his own self-analysis.

He didn't know if it was some side-effect of the time travel, or if seeing himself was forcing him to think more about how he had or hadn't changed since these days, but either way, as he looked back on his life, he found himself stuck on the idea that he should have made more effort to keep in touch with his past. Even when he'd gone through Kanto again to compete in the Battle Frontier while May was competing in a new round of contests, he'd never actually gotten around to looking up old friends beyond Misty joining them for the first few days before her sisters called her back to Cerulean. May and Dawn had visited him after they parted company rather than him visiting them, he'd run into Todd, Cynthia and Clair by sheer chance on later journeys even if he'd been glad to catch up with them…

"Who's Dawn?"

"Dawn?" Ash looked up at Misty in confusion, her voice jolting him out of his train of thought as his oldest human friend sat down opposite him. "How do-?"

"Serena and Bonnie mentioned her when they asked me if I had a… Piplup?" Misty explained, looking uncertainly at this older version of the boy she'd met between Pallet and Viridian so long ago as she indicated the other young woman in the corner. "I just… I mean, I get why you can't tell… you about the future, but I was wondering…"

"I get it," Ash nodded at her in understanding before he glanced around the blimp's passenger area, confirming that Brock and his past self were off in another corner. Considering that Misty was never going to be in a position to meet Dawn before his past self was already travelling with her, so long as he made sure she understood not to tell his past self anything of what he was about to tell her right now, it couldn't be too much of a problem for him to answer that question. "Anyway, Dawn's a young Coordinator I travelled with… well, that I will travel with, I guess is the right term now… when I was in the Sinnoh Region."

"Coordinator?"

"It's… well, you know how some of the Orange Crew had me complete certain tasks with my team rather than just asking me to defeat them in a straightforward battle?" Ash explained. "Coordinators basically do that on a full-time basis in Pokemon contests; the first round consists of a range of Coordinators demonstrating a certain skill or talent that their Pokemon have beyond just their raw strength in a battle, and the second round sees the top… it's generally eight… coordinators actively battling against each other, but the goal is mainly to make their Pokemon look good rather than just to knock out the other guy."

"That's… interesting," Misty said, looking at Ash curiously. "Have you… taken part in many Contests?"

"Me?"

"Well, you've always gone in for every Pokemon-related competition we've found in the past, so I figured…"

"I've tried them once or twice," Ash shrugged. "You've got to keep in mind that most of the stuff I've taken part in when we've been travelling together are just local events with specific prizes; contests are part of a large-scale league, and I'm not that interested in being a coordinator full-time, so I just gave them a shot a few times when everything just felt right."

"Such as?"

"Well, one of the contests I took part in was an unofficial event before I ended my current journey, another time one of my current Pokemon expressed an interest in Contest battles and I thought I'd give Aipom a shot at it, and the third time just seemed like a good opportunity to test some new Water techniques."

"You competed in a contest to test your Water Pokemon?" Misty asked, a tentative smile on her face as though she wasn't sure how to feel about that revelation.

"It was this big contest event called the Wallace Cup that focused on Water Pokemon; Brock, Dawn, May and I met up with the organiser a couple of days before it took place and he convinced me to use the event to explore a few new techniques," Ash shrugged. "I didn't win it, but I got some more interesting ideas about how to use Buizel in later battles-"

"Hold on; Brock was with you?" Misty looked at Ash, her tentative smile replaced by a new intensity as she looked at him. "And who's May?"

"I… travelled with her when I went to the Hoenn region," Ash said, looking awkwardly around the blimp passenger area; he suddenly thought he saw the back of a familiar head-

"Hoenn," Misty said, drawing his attention back to her with the sheer weight she managed to put into that brief word. "And was Brock with you there too?"

"Well… we didn't go there together, but he followed me there shortly after I got there and-"

"Right," Misty said, standing up suddenly and walking away. "I get it."

"Misty, you don't-" Ash began as he stood up.

"Don't," Misty interjected, looking firmly at him. "We have to worry about the whole 'don't change history' thing, remember?"

As Misty walked off to another corner of the passenger deck, Ash noticed his younger self look up from his talk with Brock and Clemont to look uncertainly between Misty and himself, but was grateful beyond words when the younger him stayed in his seat, even as he looked after Misty with a saddened expression.

Our relationship all over, Ash sighed at the fresh reminder of how complicated things had been back when he'd travelled with her. I never liked it when I hurt her, but we argued so much that it was always so easy for us to screw things up…

And why does that hurt so much?

He'd never bothered to compare any of his friends to each other, particularly when they had so many different strengths and interests, but even if he'd never say it to anyone else, there was always something about Misty that just…

Scanning the small passenger area to take his mind off that particular thought, Ash wondered if it had been this busy last time he'd caught this flight. It was a relatively short trip, and the flight was mainly intended to be a cargo run to the ranch rather than taking passengers as its main business, but he'd decided to catch a rest on the original trip when he found himself reminiscing about his time with Bulbasaur, and it had been a long time for him-

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he spotted someone sitting in the corner of the passenger area, the man's face turned away and his shoulders hunched so that the only thing visible was the top of his blue hair and the back of a long black jacket that gave the impression that it was rather old, as though the man had been wearing it for a long time-

"Why don't you ever talk about them?"

"Huh?" His attention drawn back to his own part of the passenger deck, Ash was surprised to find himself disappointed as Serena sat down opposite him, the aspiring Performer looking at him with new curiosity.

"Misty and Brock," Serena clarified, recognising that he wasn't going to answer her question. "Why didn't you mention them before now?"

"I didn't?" Ash was genuinely surprised at that.

"I… You know, you've never even really talked about anyone you've travelled with before now," Serena said, hesitation soon replaced by an intense glare he wasn't used to seeing from the normally light-hearted girl he'd met at Oak's Summer Camp so long ago. "I mean, you told us a little about Dawn after we visited the Ambrette Aquarium, but you didn't really tell us much apart from that she had a Piplup as her starter, and now-"

"I didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings," Ash cut her off, looking at her apologetically before his shoulders slumped and he sighed. "It's just… it's hard, you know?"

"Travelling with people?"

"Remembering the people who aren't travelling with me any more," Ash clarified, swallowing slightly as he turned to look at Brock, wondering how the aspiring Pokemon doctor was coming along with his studies back in the present. "I mean, it's always an amicable split- we just reach a point where we'll have better luck achieving our dreams if we're not travelling together any more- and I'd never want to hold them back from doing what they love, but it's…"

He sighed. "Just because I understand that moving on doesn't mean they don't care about me doesn't stop me from feeling bad that I'm not enough for them any more."

"Oh Ash…" Serena looked at him with growing sympathy, reaching over to squeeze his hand. "And it's… it's harder for Misty, right?"

"How-?"

"It's the way you look at her when you think nobody's looking at you," Serena clarified with a soft little smile. "She was… important?"

"She was the first person I met on my journey after I got Pikachu, and the first person who started travelling with me afterwards," Ash said, feeling the inadequacy of that description but somehow unwilling to tell Serena any more right now. "Misty… her leaving hurt, but that was mainly because she's the only one who didn't want to leave."

"She wasn't?" Serena sat back, looking at him in surprise.

"You've seen that she specialises in Water Pokemon, right?" Ash explained. "Well, that interest goes a bit beyond it just being Misty's personal favourite type; her family are the leaders of the Cerulean City Gym back in Kanto."

"They are?" Serena looked over at Misty with a new expression of awe before she turned back to Ash. "You've travelled with two Gym Leaders?"

"Well, five if you want to get technical; Cilan was one of the Gym Leaders in Unova with his brothers, May's dad was a Gym Leader in Hoenn, and Iris was being considered as a successor to another Unovan Gym Leader even if she wanted to focus on her journey right… then…" Ash shrugged uncertainly, only to be left feeling even more uncomfortable as he took in Serena's expression.

"You've known that many Gym Leaders that personally?" she looked at him with a new sense of sorrow. "I thought… well, I thought we were-"

"Hey," Ash cut her off, surprising himself with his sudden knowledge of what she was about to say. "I may have… well, I'm not saying there aren't some people who stand out more than others, but I've never thought of any of the people who've travelled with me as… I mean, May and Dawn were both coordinators, but I never even thought about treating Dawn like she was a substitute for May or something like that! You're all important to me because you're my closest friends; I'd never choose between you all!"

Serena looked probingly at him for a moment, but finally sat back and nodded at him, a tentative smile on her face as though she was trying to understand something she didn't want to face. Ash would have continued his explanation about why Misty's departure had been difficult for him, but faced with Serena's pained expression, he suddenly felt as though saying more would have been trying too hard to justify his feelings where Misty was concerned, and he was suddenly sure that he didn't want to put himself in that kind of position.

For a moment, the two temporally-displaced travelling companions sat in silence, staring at each other from across the table, until Serena stood up and walked back to the corner of the room she'd been sitting at originally. Ash briefly glanced around to try and find the blue-haired man he'd noticed earlier, but realising that the man had left the passenger area, he eventually turned to look out of the nearest window out of a lack of anything else to pay attention to.

"Pika?"

"Just… human stuff," Ash shrugged, looking down at Pikachu as his oldest friend squatted on his knee. "I never even realised how tricky my relationships were until now…"

"PikachuPi?"

"She's… part of it," Ash acknowledged, glancing over at where Misty sat in the corner, arms folded around Togepi as she pointedly looked anywhere in the room but at him. "I mean, I knew I missed her, but I just… I never realised how much I missed her until I saw her there, and then…"

Lost for words, he shook his head and smiled wistfully down at his starter. "I'm an idiot, huh?"

"PikaPi ka Pikachu," Pikachu said, hopping onto Ash's shoulder to affectionately nuzzle the side of Ash's face, as though reassuring Ash that, idiot though he might be, he was still Pikachu's idiot.

"Thanks, buddy," Ash said, reaching up to scratch Pikachu's chin gratefully before he settled back into his seat, letting his mind drift out of a lack of alternatives.

Thinking about how much he missed travelling with Misty in the present was something he would probably have had to face eventually, but this wasn't the time for that. Hopefully if he stayed away for the rest of the flight Misty would calm down enough to remind herself that the Ash she was travelling with hadn't done anything to her yet, and once they arrived at their destination, everything should go smoothly enough. Once they'd reached Ecruteak City, he, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie would work out where they should go if they wanted to find a Celebi, he and his friends from the future would go there, and his younger self could continue his journey relatively uninterrupted…

Arceus, let it all go smoothly.

Clemont and Brock were right; when you started thinking about it, time travel was really complicated; the sooner he could get back to his own time, the better.

Just like the last time he'd taken this particular trip, Ash wasn't surprised when he found himself waking up as the blimp came into land; the flight itself might not be long, but when he spent so much time walking it was a relief to be able to zone out for a while. Once he rejoined the rest of the group as the blimp went into land, Ash was relieved to see that Misty has being perfectly friendly to his younger self after their earlier talk, which at least meant that he shouldn't have anything to worry about in terms of Misty staying with himself (and that was a weird thing to have to worry about).

As they finished thanking Carter for recommending this lift once again, Ash turned around to look back at the blimp as the man drove off in his jeep, only to see the same blue-haired figure in the worn jacket that had attracted his interest in the passenger area of the blimp standing at the fence at the other side of the landing strip. For a moment Ash thought about going over to get a better look at the man, but as soon as the other man turned his head to face in Ash's direction, the time-traveller's blood ran cold.

It might have been well over two years since he last saw that man, but now that he could see the man's face directly, even at this distance there was no mistaking it; Ash just couldn't believe he hadn't realised the man's identity earlier.

After all, if it was hard to forget Pokemon who came from outer space, it was virtually impossible to forget the man who had tried to remake the world because he had some warped ideas about the value of human life.

"Cyrus…" he growled coldly, clenching his fists as he looked after the blue-haired man, the former (or was it future?) head of Team Galactic climbing neatly over the fence before walking away from the landing field.

Ash had no idea how the man could be here, but judging by the way the former leader of Galactic had looked back at him in that moment when their eyes met, he was sure of one thing.

Just like he recognised Cyrus, Cyrus recognised him.

Which meant that he wasn't just dealing with the version of Cyrus from this time; he had just seen the Cyrus who had nearly capture Dialga and Palkia…

"No…" Ash said, staring at the fence in cold rage.

"Ash?" he vaguely registered Misty and Serena say from behind him.

"NO!" Ash yelled, ignoring them as he broke into a run, heading towards the area of the fence that Cyrus had just climbed over. He pushed himself to a level he normally reserved for when he absolutely had to make it to his next Pokemon match, either because of a time limit or a determination to prove himself, but that effort proved futile when he reached the fence and found himself looking into a dark forest just a short distance from the field, the setting sun making it far too dark to see anything within it.

Even if I knew where he'd gone, I'd never be able to find him when I don't know for sure where he's going…

"Crap," Ash said, slamming his hands on the fence in frustration. "He got away."

"Who?" Misty's voice said, leaving Ash to turn around and look guiltily at his friends as he realised how his recent behaviour must have come across to them all.

"Ash," Brock looked at him in a particularly warning manner, "I thought we agreed that-"

"This isn't like that, Brock," Ash said, not in the mood to hear another lecture from Brock or Clemont about the risk of trying to change the future on purpose. "If I'm right, we could have a serious problem on our hands…"

The notion of any one of the villains he'd faced in the future managing to travel in time was a bad one, but when the villain was the man who'd tried to capture legendary Pokemon with the goal of basically unmaking the universe…

I have to be sure.

If he was going to do anything about this, he had to be absolutely sure he was right…

Chapter Text

"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…

Chapter Text

As he ran over the hill, Ash grinned in relief at the sight of Ecruteak City below him. It hadn't been the most interesting city he'd ever visited- even the encounter with Suicine had been too brief to make it stand out compared to some of the other places he'd spent time at while in Johto- but if his latest theory was correct, this was where he needed to be to get proof.

"Ash…" Misty said, looking at him in exasperation as she and the rest of his friends panted behind him. "How can… what are…?"

"Is there anywhere else someone could have gone if they took that blimp and needed to get somewhere specific?" Ash looked urgently at Brock and Clemont.

"Huh?"

"What are-?"

"If I'm right about this, I need to be sure; you're the ones who started worrying about future consequences if I let too much slip too soon, remember?" Ash looked pointedly at his friends. "Look, it's a simple question; if someone took the blimp with us, could they have gone somewhere else after we landed, or is Ecruteak the closest major location they could go to if they wanted to travel somewhere else?"

"Well…" Brock began, only for Clemont to pull out a small screen from his backpack and urgently study it.

"No," the young man said at last as he looked up at Ash. "If someone was on that blimp with us, no matter what path they took, if they were on foot then Ecruteak is the nearest place they could go to afterwards; they could catch a few major bus routes from here-"

"Bus routes?" Ash interjected. "As in there's a bus station here?"

"You didn't-?" Serena began.

"I like walking everywhere; why would I bother keeping track of where to go to catch a bus?" Ash pointed out, before turning back to Clemont. "Where is it?"

"Just… that way," Clemont said, glancing between the screen and the nearest street name. With that confirmation, Ash turned to run down the street, leaving the others to hurry after him once again.

"Why is… he so… eager?" Misty glanced over at Serena as the two girls ended up running alongside each other, the younger Ash just in front of them and Bonnie behind them.

"I don't… know," Serena said, looking apologetically at Misty as she shrugged awkwardly. "I mean, Ash is always focused, but this… he doesn't…"

Recognising that none of them had any clear idea what had sparked Ash's concerns about this situation, the two girls focused on running until the group finally reached the bus station. Ash came to a halt at the station's main entrance, waiting for the rest to arrive as he looked around at his friends.

"OK," he said, smiling uncertainly at his friends. "You wait here; I'm going to just… check if I'm right."

"Can't you-?" the young Ash asked.

"No," Ash said resolutely. "If I'm wrong, you knowing about this could screw things up later; if I'm right…"

"Yes?" Misty asked.

"Just pray that I'm not," Ash looked grimly back at the bus station. He was just about to walk in when a bus came out, the group only just managing to dive out of the way before it hit them. Looking up, Ash swore as he caught a glimpse of a blue-haired head in what looked like a tattered jacket, but quickly put that aside to run for the bus station ticket office.

"Can I-?" the woman on the other side began.

"Can you tell me where that bus that just left is going?" Ash asked, getting to the most urgent matter first.

"Ilex Forest," the woman replied, looking at Ash curiously. "Why do you ask?"

"Was there a passenger on that bus with blue hair wearing a black-and-white coat that looks like it's seen better days?"

"Yes, actually; he was one of the last to get a ticket." The woman looked curiously at Ash. "Why do you want to know that?"

"He's… my uncle," Ash replied, briefly feeling sick at the notion of even pretending that he was related to Cyrus. "He's not… I mean, he's not dangerous, but he's a bit… off; he's prone to just wandering off and doing things…"

"I see," the woman said, clearly understanding what Ash was trying to imply. "Well, obviously we can't exactly call the bus back, but if you want to go after him, the next bus to Ilex Forest isn't until tomorrow…"

"Thanks; I'll… think about that," Ash said. "I mean, it might be easier if we go after him ourselves… you're sure he's going to Ilex Forest?"

"He bought a one-way ticket and the bus doesn't stop anywhere else."

"Right…" Ash nodded tentatively, as he walked out of the office and back to his friends.

He might not have caught up with the former Team Galactic leader, but if he knew where the man was going, he might have a chance to work out what Cyrus was going to do now that they were both in the past…

"What was-?" past-Ash asked him as he returned to the rest of the group.

"We need to get to the Pokemon centre," Ash responded as he walked briskly past his friends.

"Excuse me?" Misty looked indignantly at Ash even as she and the others hurried after him. "You can't just-!"

"You're going to need to see proof before you'll believe what I'm about to tell you," Ash said simply.

"And what's that?" Serena asked.

"Potentially the end of the universe," Ash responded.

The stunned silence that settled on the group as they followed him to the Pokemon centre at least assured Ash that his friends were willing to hear him out, but he was suddenly torn between hoping his next act would justify their faith in him and praying that he was wrong.

"There," Ash said, indicating the screen of the Centre's computer to his friends and his younger self. It had taken a few minutes of searching, considering Ash's lack of knowledge of Cyrus's activities at this time, but he had finally found a relevant article, which included a photograph of a tall blue-haired man in a business suit standing in front of a museum that he'd just opened.

"'Noted philanthropist Cyrus Schemmel, seen dedicating the opening of the newest wing of the Pastoria City Museum'," Brock read, before looking at Ash curiously. "Why's that important?"

"Wait a minute… I heard that name…" Clemont looked uncertainly at the screen for a moment. "Cyrus… wasn't he the leader of some criminal gang in Sinnoh?"

"Team Galactic," Ash nodded at Clemont. "I encountered them when I was travelling through Sinnoh."

"So… are Team Galactic anything like Team Rocket?" Ash's younger self asked.

"Only in the sense that they were both thieves," Ash replied, tone grim as he reflected on that oh-so-close-call in Sinnoh so many years ago. "I don't know how he got to that point, but Cyrus's public identity is all just a cover for a twisted psychopath who convinced himself that the world didn't deserve to exist because human emotion made it a chaotic mess."

"What?" Ash's friends and his younger self looked incredulously at him.

"Hold on, Ash; you can't just-" Brock began.

"Brock," Ash held up a hand to stop his old friend. "Before you say anything about future consequences, I promise you that if I wasn't sure I saw Cyrus here, I wouldn't have told you a thing and I'd have let history play out like it did before, but Cyrus is too distinctive for me to have mistaken anyone else for him, and there's literally no way this could have been him from this time."

"You're sure?" Brock asked uncertainly as he looked at the photo on the screen. "I mean, if this article's right, he looks like he'd be rich enough to get here quickly enough-"

"And he attended this opening just a couple of hours ago," Clemont cut in, reading the article further down the page before he looked back at Brock. "Granted, this wasn't uploaded that recently, but it was still uploaded today, so there's literally no way a man can get from Sinnoh to hear in that time frame, especially if we accept Ash's word that he saw Cyrus on the blimp when we disembarked."

"Which means this can only be the Cyrus I knew in my time, which means this is extremely dangerous."

"But… how can he be here?" Misty asked, looking uncertainly at Ash. "I mean, this is just… you had to run into a Celebi at just the right moment to come here; what are the odds that the same thing would happen to Cyrus?"

"I… well, I don't know for sure, but I have an idea," Ash explained, his tone awkward but solemn as he looked around at his friends. "When I last faced Cyrus, he was trying to use Dialga and Palkia, legendary Pokemon from Sinnoh who could control time and space respectively, to… well, he somehow had them work together to create a new dimension that he could use to replace our world."

"Replace it?" Bonnie asked, hugging her brother's leg as she looked anxiously at Ash. "How could he-?"

"Like I said, I don't know for sure, but I… well, I can guess how it all comes together," Ash continued. "Like I said, Cyrus was trying to control Dialga and Palkia by controlling this other trio of legendary Pokemon from key lakes in Sinnoh, using some meteorites he'd stolen earlier to somehow control them directly…"

"You don't know how he did it?" Clemont asked.

"It's been a couple of years and I was more focused on stopping the bastard destroying the universe than keeping track of how he was going to do it, OK!" Ash looked indignantly at his friend before he shook his head and sighed. "Sorry; it's… well, it was a pretty close call, as you can guess."

"Right…" Brock nodded at his friend, clearly lost for how to respond to a revelation like this. "So… how do you think he got here?"

"Basically, when I last saw him, Cyrus was diving into a portal leading to the new dimension Dialga and Palkia had created for him just before Brock, Dawn and I were able to free the other trio from his control," Ash explained.

"We freed them?" Brock asked.

"Long story," Ash waved his hand before he continued his story. "The point is that everyone else who saw what happened were certain that Cyrus would have been killed when Dialga and Palkia stopped doing anything to maintain the new dimension they were making for him, but maybe he… fell out of reality somehow and managed to drag himself back into it when that Celebi dragged us through time?"

"Uh…" Misty looked uncertainly at Ash for a moment before she smiled awkwardly at him. "OK, I don't know if I'm more surprised at how bizarre that situation is, or how that description actually makes a weird kind of sense?"

"Is that a-?" Ash's past self began.

"Not important right now," Ash said, before he turned to address his friends. "What is important is that we know what we're dealing with right now; if Cyrus knew enough about legendary Pokemon to work out how he could control Dialga and Palkia, I think we can safely assume he has some idea of Celebi's existence, so if I'm right and the Cyrus here is the one that I fought in Sonnoh, he's probably going to do the same thing that we were going to do."

"Find a Celebi to get home?" Serena asked.

"Or maybe even try to get one to take him back to the point before everything he was planning went wrong," Ash said grimly.

"He'd do that?" the younger Ash asked.

"When someone's willing to destroy the universe, I think we can safely assume he doesn't care about things like the stability of the timeline so long as he gets what he's after," Ash observed grimly. "The woman at the bus station said that the bus he was on goes straight to Ilex Forest; there's a shrine to Celebi there, right?"

"Yeah…" Brock nodded in grim understanding. "You think Cyrus is going there to try and get Celebi to send him back so he can try his plan all over again?"

"At least," Ash nodded grimly.

"You think he'd try to call himself in this time to get help?" Bonnie asked.

The growing horror on the faces of the rest of the group made it clear that the very suggestion terrified them all, even if the horror was more obvious on the older Ash and Clemont as they had a better understanding of the likely consequences of that action.

"Right," Ash said resolutely, turning his hat around as he turned to face his younger self while indicating the Centre's video phone. "It's time to rally the troops."

"Rally the troops?" the younger Ash repeated.

"Our first step is to get our best available hitters back on your team, and I have a couple of ideas for who you should send to Professor Oak," Ash explained to his younger self with a slight smile. "And after that, we just have to pray to Arceus that my memory and my logs are as good as I hope they are…"

Chapter Text

"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.

Chapter Text

"You seriously met the Champion of an entire Region?" Misty looked at Ash with an incredulous grin as they sat in the passenger area of the jet that had been waiting for them when they reached the Ecruteak City airport. It was a relatively small ship, with a cabin up front and a few seats in a central passenger area and a rear section with a kitchen and toilets for longer flights, but it was one of various such jets kept around the various regions for use by the assorted Pokemon champions and Elite Four in the event of an emergency, and Cynthia had been able to arrange for it to be given to the group for their immediate use. "I mean, Bruno and Prima were impressive, but a Champion is on a whole new level…"

"I met a few, really, but Cynthia was just the one I bonded with best," Ash shrugged. "She helped us investigate some of Team Galactic's plans and even let me stay at her holiday home when I was taking part in a tournament in Unova along with Dawn, Iris and Cilan-"

"Ash, I get that Cyrus already changed things, but you can't just-"

"Look, Brock, I understand you being worried about me changing history, but I'm not giving you any specifics and most of the people I ended up travelling with just… well, it's like with you guys; we basically just met, realised we got on and could help each other, and ended up sticking around," Ash cut Brock off.

"Ash is right," Clemont observed. "It's not like Ash- the younger Ash- is going to remember everything and everyone we mention here unless he makes notes or something like that-"

"Should I be insulted?" Ash's past self asked the young inventor, even as his slight grin made it clear he understood that no insult was intended.

"I'm just being practical," Clemont clarified. "We're from over five years in the future and Ash is going to meet a lot of people; he can't remember every little thing we talk about, particularly when we're not giving you any more than general details and we've made it clear you shouldn't keep track of the details anyway."

"Good point," the younger Ash nodded, looking more curiously at Clemont. "So… you think that everything he did- I mean, everything I did- everything my future self did… will basically happen to me if I just… keep on going after this?"

"So long as we drop you off in the right area to increase the odds of it all playing out like it did the first time around, anyway," Clemont nodded. "I mean, we obviously can't be certain of anything when dealing with time travel, considering the lack of precedent for anything we're dealing with right now, but if we can drop you off at the right place once we've dealt with Cyrus, if you just try and live your life without worrying about whether you'll end up in the right place at the right time for… well, for everything to happen to you like it did to him, you should be fine."

"Like always," Misty muttered.

"What?" Bonnie looked curiously in her direction.

"Nothing," Misty replied in a clearer tone of voice, before she shook her head and looked at Ash with a greater sense of curiosity. "So, what you mentioned about forming a bond with some of Sinnoh's legendary Pokemon… do you think that could have anything to do with what happened to you on Shamouti?"

"Shamouti?" Ash repeated, looking uncertainly at Misty for a moment as he considered the question, recalling those dark few hours as he watched the Legendary Birds at war. "Maybe… I mean, I never thought much about my encounters with the Legendaries in that kind of context, but-"

"Shamouti?" Ash's Kalos friends repeated inquiringly.

"…Isn't that an island out in the Orange Archipelago?" Clemont asked, after exchanging glances with Bonnie and Serena to confirm they wanted him to ask the next question. "What happened there?"

"Just an incident where Ash here was identified as the 'Chosen One' who had to save the world when some screwy Pokemon Collector tried to 'collect' Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres and Lugia."

"What?" Serena, Clemont and Bonnie turned from Misty to stare incredulously at Ash.

"Y-you saved four legendary Pokemon?" Serena stuttered in shock.

"And you saved the world?" Clemont added.

"Well… y'know, things got strange, there was this prophecy that seemed to be about me… everyone was telling me I was the one to do it…" Ash's younger self shrugged helplessly.

"You're in a prophecy?" Bonnie looked at Ash with an eager grin. "Is that why Diancie and Hoopla liked you so much?"

"Who?" Brock, Misty and Ash's younger self looked curiously at the older Ash.

"…Couple of other Legendary Pokemon I ran into during my time in Kalos," Ash shrugged awkwardly, before he looked over at his past self and Misty in particular. "Look, I'm not sure if what happened on Shamouti means anything more than just that one big thing or if it's the real reason I always end up getting involved in all this other stuff that's happened to me since then, but… well, if it means saving Pokemon, does it matter why I do it?"

"…Probably not," Ash's younger self conceded. "We help people; isn't that the main thing?"

"…Yeah, you're good at that," Misty said, looking at him with a particularly cool stare for a moment before she stood up and walked out of the passenger area.

"Huh?" the younger Ash began to stand up, only for Ash to hold out a hand to keep his past self in his seat.

"I'll take care of this," he said, looking solemnly after Misty. "I… I have a feeling this is something to do with me."

"Huh?" the younger Ash said, looking uncertainly at his future self even as Ash got up from his seat and headed for the rear of the plane, taking care to wave Pikachu aside when the yellow mouse moved to follow him; somehow Ash knew that this was something he had to talk to Misty about with just the two of them. Walking through the door separating the passenger section from the small 'kitchen' and toilets, his gaze quickly settled on Misty as she stood near the plane's toilets with her arms folded and shoulders tense.

"Ash?" she looked at him in surprise. "What are-?"

"What's your problem?" Ash cut Misty off, closing the door to this section so none of the others would interrupt them until he'd finished this talk.

"My problem?" Misty repeated, looking up and staring at Ash with an incredulity that would have seemed genuine to anybody who hadn't known Misty as long as Ash had. "Why do you think I have a problem?"

"Because you've been… off ever since we got off that blimp!" Ash protested, closing the door behind them. "Acting all surprised that I know a champion, storming off when I was just answering your questions about May and Dawn… you know, I understand that this is an unusual situation, but I thought we were close enough friends-"

"Then how come Brock is the one who kept travelling with you in the future and not me?"

"What?" Ash looked at Misty in surprise.

"Yeah, Serena and Bonnie were kind enough to mention Dawn, and then you told me about how you and her met up with someone called May while you were travelling through Sinnoh with Brock, and we all know that… seriously, Team Rocket are a part of your future and I'm not?"

"Hey, it's not like I want those three to keep following me around-!"

"And I get that, but it doesn't change the fact that you made it clear I'm not there any more!" Misty cut him off with an angry stare. "I mean, you talk about how I gave you some ideas about training Water-types, but admit it; that was all just talk, wasn't it?"

"What?" Ash protested, mind racing back over everything she might have heard about the future to test her claim. "Are you seriously- in case you didn't notice, even Brock didn't know that much about Shamouti until you brought it up!"

"Because you have this weird thing about keeping the big events secret to keep Pokemon safe-!"

"Hey, you've done that too-!"

"But you don't have to do that for me!" Misty countered indignantly.

"Look, if I did something wrong, I'm sorry, but I don't know what you think-"

"Of course not, you never really think about anything, do you?" Misty looked at him in disgust. "You skim through over half your battles on luck rather than any kind of tactics, you have to get kicked in the head to get a point we're making and it still falls out of your brain a month later, you dive in to try and help total strangers and you take ages to do anything about getting me a new bike-"

"Hey, I get around to that-!"

"The bike's not important; it's just that…" Misty began, before waving her hands in exasperation. "Arceus, it's been however many years and you're still not mature enough to just say it; you moved on and forgot about me as soon as I left!"

"What?" Ash yelled, unable to believe that Misty could think something like that.

"Well, you've mentioned everyone else who's shown up in your life in the future except me; what am I supposed to think?"

"It wasn't like that; you only left-"

"What was it; did I finally realise you weren't going to improve-?"

"Your sisters made you leave!"

Once the words were out of his mouth, Ash knew he'd crossed a line in terms of the future knowledge he was meant to be sharing with his friends, but he couldn't let Misty go away thinking that he'd moved on from her as easily as she believed he had.

"I've had to say goodbye to everyone I've ever travelled with at some point or other- Arceus, you know what I'm like, you were there when I thought it was the right thing to say goodbye to Pikachu before he decided to come back to me- but what makes you different from everyone else is that you didn't want to leave me!" he said, only realising he'd moved up to her when he registered that his hands were on her shoulders. "Your sisters were going off on some stupid round-the-world cruise and the Cerulean Gym would have been shut down if you didn't go back to take over, you couldn't continue travelling with me when you would have lost your family's gym, and then those three didn't care enough to try and actually put some effort into working at the gym even when they got back because they decided that you were doing such a good job they didn't need to do anything themselves, and you had to put what was good for the Gym over what you wanted…"

"Oh," Misty said, her voice lowering as hostility shifted to a more solemn manner as she looked anxiously at Ash. "So… you didn't want me to stop travelling with you?"

"If I'd been able to do anything to keep you with me, nothing would have stopped me," Ash affirmed, before he threw his head back in exasperation. "God, I could have gone to the gym with you-"

"I wouldn't have wanted that," Misty cut him off, reaching up to tenderly cradle Ash's face, eyes briefly widening in surprise at her own action before she looked at him with a softer smile. "I mean… it's like you said; you have to live up to your own dream… even if I couldn't continue mine."

"You still manage to get out when you can," Ash observed with a brief smile as he placed a hand on Misty's face in return. "I mean, we met up again when there was this Togepi festival in Hoenn, you joined me and the others on my first few days back in Kanto when I was taking this Battle Frontier challenge, we all participated in this tournament arranged by a friend of Professor Oak's, and I try and visit you when I'm back in Pallet before I move onto a new region…"

"But it's not the same?"

"It's not," Ash affirmed. "I mean, May and Dawn were good company who taught me a lot about myself as a trainer while I helped them, Iris was like a strange sister in her own unique way, and Serena's a great friend who's really been supportive… but… well, she's not… none of them are you…"

"Which is a bad thing?" Misty asked, part of her not sure where any of this was coming from even as another part of her wouldn't let herself stop.

"None of them have ever really… challenged me the way you did," Ash clarified with a slight smile. "I had to be a partial mentor figure for May and Dawn as much as I was just travelling with them when I went to Hoenn and Sinnoh, Iris had her own fixed ideas about who and what I was as a trainer and no matter how much time I spent with her in Unova I was never sure if she just couldn't say she thought I was good or saw me as a lucky idiot, and Serena… she's been good company since I got to Kalos, and she's stepped up when she has to, but she just doesn't have your… your edge…"

Even later, neither Ash or Misty were sure who started what happened next. One minute they were staring at each other, each with a hand pressed against the other's face, and suddenly their arms were wrapped around each other, kissing as though their continued lives depended on them taking air from each other rather than the world around them…

"We… we shouldn't," Ash said, pulling back to look apologetically at his oldest friend.

"What?" Misty stared at him, her eyes wide in indignant pain. "You just-!"

"It's just… I mean, even if we stop Cyrus, I'm going to have to go back after this is all over," Ash explained, looking awkwardly at Misty even as a part of him wanted to keep kissing her. "And… OK, the idea of preserving the original history pretty much went out the window when I realised Cyrus was here, but I can't just… I mean, you're younger than me right now, and I… I mean he…"

"He won't get it?" Misty asked, tone softening as she looked thoughtfully at Ash while indicating the door leading back to the passenger area.

"Or at least he'll be stupidly jealous and be absolutely crap at getting it across," Ash shrugged. "I mean, there's a reason I didn't like Rudy and Danny even if I didn't really get why I didn't like them at the time."

"Right," Misty said, chuckling slightly at him despite her solemn expression. "So… when this is over…"

"Be patient with him," Ash smiled in understanding. "But you have to know… he might be crap at realising it, but… well, Pikachu might be first, but you'll always be my closest human friend."

He knew that he shouldn't do even as he instinctively leaned towards Misty, but if he'd already had one, surely just one more to 'seal the deal' couldn't hurt-

The door suddenly opened and the two looked back to realise that Serena was standing there, looking at Ash and Misty as they stood far too close to each other for a friendly relationship.

"Oh," Serena said, a tremble in her voice that made it clear she understood what had just happened.

"Ah," Misty said uncertainly.

"OK," Ash said, moving to stand in front of Serena as he looked apologetically at her. "I'm… Serena, I'm sorry, but-"

"How?" Serena looked tearfully at him.

"How?" Ash and Misty repeated.

"How could you?" Serena said, still looking at Ash as though she was about to break down in tears. "I mean I… I started my journey to see you… we've been through so much… I thought you-"

"I don't," Ash looked regretfully at Serena, reaching over to place his hands on her shoulders while maintaining a respectful distance from her. "I'm sorry if I ever gave you the impression that I… that we had anything more, but even if it's been-"

He paused and moved past Serena, but only to close the door behind her as Bonnie and his past self turned to look curiously at the three of them. Turning back to the two girls, Ash took care to keep his hand on the door handle behind him; if he couldn't lock this door, he could at least make sure the three of them had no interruption during what was bound to be a difficult talk.

"As I was saying," he looked at Serena apologetically, "you've been a great friend, and I've appreciated your support and your company since we started travelling together, but… I'm sorry if it's harsh, but you almost have too much faith in me."

"You don't like that?" Misty looked at Ash in surprise.

"And that's a bad thing?" Serena asked tearfully.

"It is when I'd be constantly feeling like I had to measure up to your view of me," Ash clarified, looking regretfully at Serena. "I appreciate your faith in me, but Misty… she believes in me, but she also challenges me when what I am might not be enough. She's always pushed me to be better than I was, she's had her own unique style of encouraging me even when she's criticising me, and… again, this isn't meant as a criticism of you, but I feel that I can help her achieve her dream more than I can help you achieve yours because it's just… easier for me to adapt to that."

"You're picking her/me because it's easier?" Serena and Misty said simultaneously.

"I just meant that I get Misty's goal and feel we can help each other more easily than I can help you with yours, and I am not making any kind of… choice because it's easier!" Ash countered. "I'm making a choice because I… when I look into the future and imagine what I want to happen… even after travelling through four regions without her, it's always felt wrong that I'm not seeing everything with Misty, when I never even really remembered Serena until we met up again in the Santalune Gym."

"Oh," Misty said, looking between Ash and Serena with a conflicting expression on her face as she took in the gleaming tears in the corner of the other girl's eyes.

"I am sorry, Serena," Ash continued, walking up to stand in front of the girl whose heart he'd just broken. "I never wanted to hurt you, and I'm sure you'll find someone who can feel that way about you… but it can't be me."

"Because you already gave her everything?" Serena asked, sniffing as she rubbed at her eyes.

"Before I even knew I'd done it," Ash affirmed.

"…You know something, Ash?" Serena looked at him with a tearful smile. "There are times when it really sucks that you're such a good person."

With that she gave him an impulsive hug and then walked off into the plane's bathroom, giving Ash and Misty an awkward wave before she closed the door behind her, even as her gleaming eyes made it clear that she was about to start crying.

"Huh," Ash said, nodding slightly to himself in realisation. "So that's why I liked Tierno more than Rudy."

"Who?" Misty asked.

"Tierno's a trainer I've run into a few times in Kalos," Ash answered. "I just realised that they both liked teaching their Pokemon dance moves as an addition of their battle style, but I… I mean, Tierno never really got to me in the same way that Rudy did, and it's…"

"Me?" Misty asked with a tentative smile, as though uncertain how she should feel about this revelation. "Why would- oh."

"Worked it out, huh?" Ash grinned at her, even if the grin didn't reach his eyes like it would have done under normal circumstances. "Tierno's not exactly great at showing it, but he does like Serena… and I was never that bothered about it from him, but when Rudy showed the same kind of interest in you…"

"Really?" Misty looked at him sceptically. "I didn't really get the impression you'd even noticed that he was-"

"Just because I had no idea how to show that I was jealous doesn't mean I didn't feel it," Ash clarified, smiling briefly at Misty once again before he turned back to look solemnly at the bathroom where Serena's faint sobs could be heard once again. "I never meant to hurt Serena, and I'll always think of her as a good friend, but I just… I don't…"

"You can't make yourself feel something, Ash," Misty leaned over to give his hand an affectionate squeeze. "If she's the kind of friend you think she is… she'll come around."

Ash noted that Misty didn't say that Serena would 'get over it', but it was probably for the best; even with his limited emotional experience, based on what he'd seen of Serena's reaction to his news he doubted that she'd 'get over' what he'd just inadvertently done to her any time soon.

I just hope she gets past it enough to fight with us when we get to Ilex Forest; if Cyrus is after Celebi, we'll need all hands on deck…

Walking back into the passenger area just behind Misty, Ash resumed his seat, trying to ignore the knowing smile Brock was giving him in favour of discussing strategies with his past self for what they might use if Cyrus attacked them.

Why do I get the feeling that I'm going to get grilled by Brock about what just happened if we survive this?

Even with that anxious thought in his mind, when Ash looked over at where Misty sat and watched his past self with a thoughtful smile on her lips and an affectionate glow in her eyes, he couldn't bring himself to regret a moment of what he'd just done.

He still wanted to stop Cyrus and get home, but if travelling through time had been what it took to get a chance to kiss Misty Waterflower, he'd take that trip however many times it would be needed in order to share that moment with her at least once.

Chapter Text

The closer they got to their destination, the more Ash found himself fretting over what had happened with Misty.

It wasn't that he was worried that Misty would use her new future knowledge to do something to jeopardise whatever she'd learned about his time so far, but there was still the concern that she'd do something unintentionally that might have some kind of long-term impact. As much as he lo-cared about Misty, he wasn't blind to the fact that she had a temper, and he'd given her a significant amount of information about the future…

And then there's Serena, he grimly reminded himself, glancing over at where his current travelling companion sat on the edge of the plane, putting as much distance between the two of them and Misty as she could while still being in the same area. Bonnie had expressed curiosity about what had happened, but Ash had kept his response brief and Serena had made it clear that she wasn't going to answer the little girl's questions, which left Bonnie to sit on the side with Dedenne and Squishy as she looked anxiously at the group.

Still, even if he recognised the risks and regretted what it had done to a girl he considered a close friend, on another level Ash couldn't make himself feel sorry for anything that he'd just done. Even when he'd been too young to really appreciate how he'd felt, Misty's presence in his life and her later absence had left their own particular impression on him that he'd never been able to forget, and having a chance to tell her just how he felt after so long…

God, his lips still tingled at the memory of their kiss…

When the pilot announced that they were over Ilex Forest, Ash was frankly relieved at the news. They were about to go up against a serious threat that could endanger the entire world if something went wrong, but at least at this point he was basically dealing with the familiar tension of a Pokemon battle rather than worrying about the consequences of him kissing Misty or whatever Brock would say to him about his… moment… with her…

Seriously, why is that such a big deal to me? Ash thought to himself as he checked his Poke Balls one last time before he stood up, glancing over at his friends as they repeated the process. I've faced several different Legendary Pokemon in the middle of major threats when at least whole cities were at stake, I'll probably be heading home once this is over if I can work something out with the Celebi that's down there, and I'm scared at the idea of talking to Brock?

Then again, he supposed that it was the lack of precedent that made it particularly terrifying. He could at least convince himself that any battles with a Legendary Pokemon were just conventional Pokemon battles on a larger scale than what he was used to, but having a conversation with Brock about emotional matters…

What made it harder was that he wasn't even sure what he was going to say about it if Brock tried to confront him about his actions. Putting aside his personal questions about whether Brock could even give good advice considering his history with girls, Brock had been one of the first to bring up the issue of their presence changing history, even if they all knew that any ideas they had on that topic were guesses at best no matter what Clemont theorised…

Frankly, with all of those concerns to deal with, it was almost preferable to focus on the idea that he was about to go up against a man who'd already tried to destroy the world at least once, when he had no idea what kind of back-up Cyrus would have managed to recruit since he arrived in this time. It might be dangerous, but there was something satisfying about facing a threat that he could just order his Pokemon to attack, rather than getting stressed about how his old 'mentor' might have a talk with him about romance.

Ash liked to think that it was the potentially high stakes and the extremely unconventional nature of the whole situation that prompted him to suggest his next course of action, but he was definitely starting to wonder if there was something else behind the mental leaps he'd been making recently…

"And… you're sure this is safe?" Clemont looked uncertainly at Ash as the group of trainers gathered near the door of the plane.

"We've done this before when we were rescuing Volcanion and Magearna-"

"Yes, but we were using a hovercraft then; you didn't expect us all to fly in like-"

"There's nowhere down in the forest for this plane to safely land and Cynthia's back-up won't get here soon enough to make a difference; we need to get down there as fast as possible, and this is the only way we can do that," Ash said firmly. "Snorlax and Onix can take it if we time it right, and Charizard and Noivern can carry some of us down; all the rest of the fliers have to do is make sure we reach the right place and slow us down until we reach the ground."

"And why can't I-?" Bonnie began.

"Because I am not putting you anywhere near someone as twisted and psychotic as Cyrus if I have a choice," Ash cut the little girl off, crouching down to address Bonnie directly. "I understand that you want to help, but you, Dedenne and Squishy can't contribute enough right now; it's easier for all of us if you stay with the plane where it's safe while we deal with him."

"But I-"

"He's right," Clemont nodded resolutely at his little sister. "We have someone we can leave you with who should be able to keep you safe; we have to be able to focus on taking out Cyrus right now."

"…All right," Bonnie said, nodding sulkily at her brother.

"Thanks," Ash smiled at her, privately grateful that he was able to correct his old 'mistake' of getting younger children involved in one of his bigger experiences. He had been able to rationalise letting Bonnie and Max stay with the group when dealing with past problems such as the Hoenn teams trying to capture Groudon and Kygore, Max bonding with Jirachi or that Deoxys, or even Bonnie's current bond with 'Squishy', but right now, when he knew they were facing someone as dangerous as Cyrus and they had the chance to get her to safety, he wasn't going to take Bonnie along when they had a choice.

"Are you sure that we have to get down this way?" Misty asked, uncertainly glancing out of the nearest window at the ground far below them. "I mean, this is putting a lot of faith in our fliers-"

"And I appreciate the risk you're all taking by going along with my plan, but believe me that we have to get down without tipping Cyrus off, and accept that our flyers can do this," Ash affirmed, taking a deep breath as he reached for the door, glancing back at the pilot one last time before he nodded in resolution. "Go!"

With those words, he opened the door and leapt from the plane, Pikachu clutching onto his shoulder as the ground began to grow below them. The plane was as low as the pilot could manage without the engine drawing unwanted attention, and he could see the open area where the Ilex Shrine was located, but right now Ash's priority was making sure his tentative plans to get everyone safely down worked out. Reaching for his belt, he released Noivern, Hawlucha and Talonflame, quickly settling on Noivern's back as he indicated that the other two should head back towards the plane.

Glancing back, he saw his younger self flying on Charizard (as well as noting the dragon's briefly bemused expression at seeing Ash being simultaneously in front of him and on his back) before he registered the rest of the group falling behind the two larger dragons. For a moment Ash panicked, but calmed down as he saw Charizard adjust his flight to catch Misty on his back so that she was sitting just behind his younger self. Assessing the rest of his friends, Ash was relieved to see that Talonflame had taken hold of Serena's shoulders and was rapidly flapping its wings to slow her descent, Crobat repeating the process with Brock further behind her, while Noctowl held onto Clemont's shoulders as something stuck out of the sides of Clemont's backpack that put Ash in mind of basic 'wings'.

"Did we have to do this?" Serena called over to Ash, her voice raised in apprehension as Talonflame's rapid wingbeats slowed her descent.

"It gets us down fast!" Ash responded, eyes shifting to the ground below them as he 'nudged' Noivern towards the open area of the forest below them that indicated the presence of the Ilex Shrine. "We need to get there!"

"There's nobody-!" Clemont began, before a burst of energy that all the trainers recognised as a Hyper Beam suddenly burst from the ground to almost strike the descending trainers, followed by another series of smaller beams from other sources.

"We're under attack!" Ash yelled, glancing back to assure himself that the plane was already pulling away to safety before he reached to his belt for his remaining Poke Balls. "Get back-up down there fast; Greninja, Goodra, go!"

As his two Pokemon leapt from their Poke Balls, they swiftly headed for the ground, Greninja flipping through the air towards a nearby high tree while Goodra adjusted its rate of descent so that it was aiming head first for the ground. A few energy bursts from behind affirmed extra Pokemon being released, and Ash was relieved to see Onix and Snorlax hit the ground while Heracross flew past Noivern towards the ground. He heard a series of roars and impacts as the released Pokemon fell under the trees, but that only increased his resolve as he squeezed Noivern's main body with his knees, urging the bat-dragon onwards towards the ground.

They passed the fragile barrier of the trees just moments after the other Pokemon, Ash leaping off Noivern to hit the ground with a roll as he looked up to see Greninja, Heracross and Goodra already duelling with the opposing Pokemon, which seemed to consist of groups of Weavile, Crobat, and Honchkrow. He briefly registered the rest of his group landing behind him, but kept his gaze focused on the humans gathered in the forest ahead of him, wearing the distinctive black and white outfits of Team Galactic, with two disturbingly familiar figures standing at the back of the group.

"Cyrus," he said, staring coldly at his old adversary, as the man who had nearly destroyed the universe stood alongside his past self.

"Ash Ketchum, I presume?" one Cyrus said, the rest of Team Galactic moving slightly to the side to let their doubled leader address Ash.

"That's me," Ash said, noting how the silent Cyrus was wearing a more weathered version of his distinctive long grey and black coat. "And you'd be the Cyrus I fought at the Spear Pillar in a couple of years?"

"Indeed."

"Right," Ash nodded resolutely. "There's probably no chance of this, but I take it we can't just talk about what you're doing here?"

"You seek to prevent my efforts to find a perfect world," Cyrus affirmed.

"That answers that."

"Hold on; a 'perfect world'?" Misty asked, staring incredulously at Cyrus. "Ash told us you were trying to destroy-"

"I sought to replace our current world with one free of the strife and suffering caused by the weaknesses of the human spirit," Cyrus cut Misty off. "We have spent so much time striving to overcome our limitations, and in the end our efforts constantly amount to nothing; it is a good thing to remove those flaws from our society."

"It was a disappointment to learn that my plans were averted by such an insignificant trio as three children, but I am nothing if not adaptable," the younger Cyrus added. "Once my future self contacted me, it was easy to put our resources together-"

"Hold on; your future self contacted you?" Brock interrupted him, looking at the two in surprise. "How did you do that?"

"Fortunately I had my cellphone on me when I fell outside of time," Cyrus clarified, actually smiling at the simplicity of that explanation. "It was a small thing, but once I established my location, contacting my younger self for extra support was the logical next step."

"And you just… accepted this?" the younger Ash looked at the younger Cyrus in surprise.

"You clearly accepted the presence of your own future self in this time; why should I not do the same?" the younger Cyrus observed.

"I thought you once said that emotions were basically just illusions, but you're sounding pretty emotional about all this to me," Ash said, looking coldly between the two Cyruses.

"This is not emotion; this is conviction," Cyrus said. "The conviction that all will be better once I have remade existence-"

"And you just got everyone here to go along with this?" Misty asked, indicating the rest of Team Galactic incredulously.

"It makes sense," one of the other Team Galactic members said with a sadistic grin.

"'Makes sense'?" Clemont repeated. "You're going to destroy the universe and you honestly think that makes sense?"

"Just because you seek to hold back my efforts does not mean that I have been thwarted completely."

"Hold back your efforts?" Ash looked at Cyrus with a slight smile. "I take it Cynthia managed to pass on my message?"

"Message?" Clemont looked at Ash in surprise.

"Oh, I told her to keep an eye on some of the artefacts Cyrus used to try and trap Dialga and Palkia in my original timeline," Ash shrugged at his friend before looking at Cyrus, allowing himself a satisfied smile. "Must have been a shock to realise that you couldn't just pick up those and summon the Creation Trio all over again?"

"I still managed to retrieve the Spirit Key," Cyrus said, indicating a grey box behind him that was just the right size to hold the Spirit Key in its original cube shape. "Once I have taken Celebi, it will require minimal effort to retrieve the other artefacts-"

"Hold on; you're seriously going to do this all again?" Ash cut Cyrus off with an indignant protest. "You just spent… OK, when you take time travel into account I have no idea how long you've probably been stuck out in…wherever you were left after that last fight, but that's still got to be long enough for you to realise you were an idiot!"

"Hardly," Cyrus responded with a grim tone. "I will remove strife from the world, and nothing you can do would deter me from that goal."

With those words, Cyrus waved his hands and a large group of glowing Pokemon suddenly appeared between Ash's friends and Team Galactic's forces. On top of the sudden 'reinforcements' of Honchkrow, Crobat, and Weavile that had been fighting earlier, this group also included a few Houndoom, Toxicroak, Electrode, Skuntank, and Forteress, and he even thought he saw a few Camerupt hidden further off among the trees.

"What the-?" Brock looked at the newly-appeared Pokemon in shock, even as Ash noticed the faint blue glow that surrounded the new creatures in contrast to the Pokemon the rest of Team Galactic had been using earlier.

"Oh no…" Misty whispered anxiously. "It's Molly Hale all over again…"

Ash could only nod at that observation, remembering how close that little girl had come to defeating Misty and Brock using her Unown-created 'fake' Pokemon even before he fought her and Entei directly. He wasn't sure if the blue glow distinguishing the 'fakes' from the originals made them more dangerous or was just a cosmetic touch Cyrus added for his own amusement, but the fact that a human was capable of something like that in the first place was definitely something to be worried about…

"How did you-?" Serena began even as her own trio of Pokemon gathered anxiously around her.

"Spending time outside the world as you perceive it can have its benefits," Cyrus grinned, his arms glowing as he indicated the glowing Pokemon around him. "I have an understanding of reality surpassing even most legendary Psychic Pokemon, which includes the ability to manipulate it in this manner."

"But you can't-!" the younger Ash protested.

"I can do many things that you would consider impossible," Cyrus looked coolly at Ash's younger self. "My creations have limited independent intelligence, but when all you require is soldiers, that should be enough for my current purposes."

"'Soldiers'," Ash spat disdainfully at his old enemy, recalling how that man he'd fought on Shamouti Island had treated the Legendary Birds like they were just objects to collect. "That's all anyone else is to you, aren't they? Soldiers who can just die for your cause so long as you get what you want…"

"What I want is all that matters, Ash Ketchum," Cyrus returned Ash's disdainful gaze with a cool stare of his own. "I have spent so long outside time, and all I have seen is strife and failure as so many fail to achieve their goals…"

"You're wrong!" Serena yelled. "It's not all like that!"

"And that doesn't give you the right to destroy it all just because you think the world has been a bit rough on you!" Clemont protested. "Sometimes it's not just about… winning or losing; there's so much more out there-"

"That is worthless," Cyrus affirmed, arms folded as he glared at his assembled opponents before his gaze focused on Ash as he stood close to his younger self. "And you have been a thorn in my side for far longer than you should have been…"

Ash barely had time to move before a Gyarados suddenly appeared right in front of him and his younger self, which reeled back as its mouth glowed in a manner that made it clear it was about to launch a Hyper Beam…

Chapter Text

Ash had only just grabbed his younger self by the shoulders in a desperate attempt to haul them both to safety when a large blue object essentially struck the ground between him and the attacking Gyarados. Briefly stunned at the sudden appearance of this new figure, Ash and his past self just watched as the Hyper Beam struck its new target, only to be reflected back towards its source, sending Gyarados back to the ground before it vanished.

"What the-?" Clemont looked at the new arrival in confusion, but its appearance became clear. "A giant Wobbufett?"

"Oh great," Ash said, suddenly recalling the last few times he'd faced something like this; Team Rocket's robots varied between being intimidating to just being annoying, but their mechanical copies of Meowth and their other Pokemon were invariably some of the rare cases where they did a genuinely good job rather than just building something big that would blow up the moment he hit it properly. "What are they doing here?"

"Prepare for trouble!" a familiar voice said from within the Wobbufett.

"And make it double!"

"To protect the world from devastation!"

"To unite with our enemies against oblivion!"

"To denounce the evils of this total nut!"

"To assist the twerps in kicking his butt!"

"Jessie!"

"James!"

"Team Rocket, providing back-up at the speed of light!"

"Surrender now or prepare to fight!"

"Meowth! That's right!"

"Team Rocket?" the two Ashes and their friends stared incredulously at the mecha-Wobbufett, while Team Galactic and the Cyruses studied the robot as though wondering what the designers had been on to create something like that.

"Who else?" the robot said, in a voice that sounded like Jessie's.

"But why-?" young-Ash began.

"We still have no idea how the future twerp got here, but we heard enough of what you're dealing with in this mess to get that letting this guy win is a really bad idea!" James's voice said, the mecha-Wobbufett still resolutely facing the assembled forces of Team Galactic.

"Yeah!" Meowth added. "If he destroys da world, dat pretty much puts a crimp in our plans-"

Another blast struck the mecha-Wobbufett, this time coming from several of the Houndoom and Camerupt, while the rest of Cyrus's sudden 'army' prepared to attack the rest of Ash's friends. Ash had no idea when and how Team Rocket might have overheard anything about his explanation for Cyrus's agenda, but when he was faced with a threat this big the priority was to put the villain down rather than 'worry' about his long-time frenemies' sources of information.

"Scatter and fight!" he yelled urgently to the rest of his friends, before he turned to look at his current Galactic's powerhouse. "OK, Greninja, let's power up!"

For a moment, he and Greninja fell into sync as they waved their hands in a combat stance, but then the now-familiar spurt of water surrounded Greninja and it transformed into its new state, subsequently leaping into battle with its focus on the Houndoom and Camerupt.

"What was-?" Misty and Ash's younger self began, before the young Ash grabbed Misty and pulled her to the ground as a pair of Crobat dived past them, flying in a manner that made it clear they would have hit the trainers' heads if Ash hadn't pulled them to safety.

"Pikachu!" Ash's younger self yelled, getting back to his feet and pointing at the Crobat that were turning around to mount a new attack. "Thunderbolt!"

With that command, Pikachu's younger self leapt from Ash's shoulder to unleash his favourite attack on the Crobat, sending both purple bats to the ground before they could get close enough to attack the younger trainers again.

"You two OK?" Ash asked as he hurried over to Misty and his past self, resisting the urge to focus more on Misty; the last thing he wanted was to give his past self any reason to think about what he might have 'done' with Misty before the younger him was ready to face it.

"Yeah, we… we're fine-" the younger Ash began.

"What was that?" Misty asked, indicating where the transformed Greninja was hurling Water Shurikens at a nearby gathering of Camerupt, which had also drawn the attention of Staryu and Poliwhirl as they blasted away with their own Water Gun attacks. "Your… that's Greninja, right?"

"Greninja?" past-Ash looked at the battle in surprise. "But… hold on, it didn't look like that before, and you're not acting like it evolved…"

"That's… complicated," Ash shrugged, even as Greninja vaulted over the camel-like Pokemon to throw another Water Shuriken at a nearby Houndoom. "We're not sure how it happens, but basically, Greninja and I have this whole… somehow, when we concentrate, I can sync up with him and share energy to give him a boost that turns him into that-"

He winced as a Toxicroak struck Greninja in the side with a Poison Jab, both Ash and the frog-warrior clutching at their sides for a moment before Greninja was back in the fight.

"Was that-?" Misty began anxiously.

"Yeah; a side-effect of this particular ability is that I feel what Greninja feels when it's a hard enough hit," Ash affirmed, rubbing at the fading ache in his side as a quick glance confirmed that Heracross and Hawlucha were working together to take on a group of Weavile. "I'm able to… well, let it run while I do something else these days- when it started out I had to completely focus on the fight just to trigger it so he could use one last attack to end the fight- but everything has its downside."

"Whoa…" Ash's younger self stared at Greninja's transformed state in awe as it flipped over another Poison Jab to launch Water Shuriken at the attacking Toxicroak, before he looked back at Ash. "Could… I do that?"

"That's… a good question," Ash reflected, looking thoughtfully at his younger self as Onix swept its tail to knock down a few of the Honchkrow and Skuntank attempting to charge the younger trainers. "It took me a while to get it working, but-"

The sight of a couple of Electrode rolling into action cut off Ash's speculation, as he hauled his younger self and Misty to their feet to run away before the large balls could reach their location.

"Charizard!" the younger Ash called up to his original powerhouse. "Get those Electrodes out of the way!"

Glancing up, Ash smiled as he saw the dragon-like Pokemon launch a burst of fire at the rolling Electric Pokemon, sending them rolling back towards Team Galactic before they could reach their opponents. He might have avoided bringing the dragon back to his Galactic while he was in Kalos because he preferred relying on the new Pokemon he caught in each region unless he absolutely had to use something more powerful, but it was always a pleasure to see an old friend again, even in this difficult situation…

"LOOK OUT!" Brock's voice cut off Ash's train of thought, Ash glancing up to see his longest-running travelling companion push Serena out of the path of another attacking Gyarados.

"Serena!" Clemont yelled, before he suddenly yelled out in pain as a Honchkrow hit him in the chest, only to be driven back by a Discharge from Luxray.

"Stay focused!" Ash yelled, looking anxiously at his friends as Cyrus's recreations began to focus their attacks on the rest of Ash's friends. "You have to-"

"HELP!" Serena yelled, as one of the Toxicroak literally threw Geodude into Sylveon, sending both Pokemon flying before they were grabbed by Bunnelby's ears.

"We can't just keep lashing out like this; we need to get somewhere secure so we can work out an actual plan!" Brock yelled over at Ash, as Onix was sent reeling back by another attack from a group of Toxicroak that came close to Brock.

"But where-?" Misty began, before her gaze focused on the still-standing form of Team Rocket's Mecha-Wobbufett, waiting near the middle of the battlefield with vague mutterings just audible over the radio, taking the occasional attack but otherwise staying on its 'feet'. "Over there!"

"Behind the Wobbufett!" Ash yelled, half in agreement with Misty's plan and half to draw the attention of the rest to it.

"You can't be-!" the younger Ash yelled even as he followed his future self.

"If it hasn't blown up yet, it's one of their sturdier creations; when Team Rocket makes something that can take a punch, it can really take it!" Ash affirmed, as he and his younger self quickly moved behind the blue mechanical construct, soon joined by the rest of their group.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Serena glanced over at Ash.

"Like I said, this thing hasn't blown up yet, so I think we've got a good shot," Ash said, smiling slightly as he reached over to pat the giant mech on the side before glancing anxiously over at the assembled Pokemon still trying to hold their own against Cyrus's forces. Of their available flyers, Charizard and Noivern were having the most trouble manoeuvring in the confined areas of the forest, and Onix was stuck in a particular clearing to avoid accidentally crushing anything else, but for the most part the other Pokemon were keeping on the move and managing to stay ahead of their opponents. Glancing over, Ash was pleased to see Hawlucha dive down to force the poisonous frogs away from the giant rock snake while Charizard assisted Cyndaquil and Braxien in forcing back a group of Fortress that were about to attack the Mecha-Wobbufett from the front.

"We can't stay here forever!" Clemont said desperately, as Sylveon was sent reeling by an attack from the Skuntank before Geodude punched the skunk-like Pokemon away. "We're holding our own, but the Pokemon can only take so much!"

"And what about us?" Jessie's voice called down, as the Crobat launched an Air Slash that sent the Mecha-Wobbufett staggering. "We can't take this forever any more than the Pokemon can!"

"I'm trying to think here, OK!" Ash yelled desperately up at his old 'enemies'. As he was looking up, he allowed himself a brief smile as he saw Noivern neatly evading a couple of attacking Honchkrow, but his satisfaction faded when he saw just how tired the bat-like Dragon-type was.

It's like Clemont said; we've trained great Pokemon, but there's only so long any of them can keep this up before at least one of us faints…

"How long can that thing keep taking this kind of punishment?" he looked up at the 'head' of the Mecha-Wobbufett.

"We're just about to-!" Jessie began, before a loud roar foreshadowed a new attack from Cyrus's Gyarados.

"Oh no…" Serena whispered, looking at the blue leviathan in horror, the rest of Cyrus's creations standing back from the Gyarados as a golden ball grew in its mouth, foreshadowing another Hyper Beam attack.

"Get down!" Ash yelled, the rest of his friends diving to the ground, suddenly certain that they were about to lose their last line of defence-

Before Gyarados could fire the Beam, there was a loud roar from the side of the forest before another large creature rammed into the side of the blue leviathan. For a moment Ash wondered if one of Cyrus's new Pokemon had just hit one of its Galacticmates by accident, but then he took in the creature's dark blue skin and bladed arms and he realised what it was.

And where there's a Garchomp during a Sinnoh-related crisis, there will be-

"Cynthia!" he grinned, looking over to see the dark-clad, blonde-haired Sinnoh champion standing at the side of the forest, the entire battlefield having fallen suddenly silent as though from the sheer scale of this unexpected twist.

"Hello, Ash Ketchum," Cynthia said, nodding at the two Ashes with a slight smile. "A pleasure to meet you in person."

"W-what are you doing here?" the younger Ash asked, looking at the Sinnoh champion in surprise as the recently-fighting Pokemon used the sudden lull in the fighting to rejoin their trainers. "I thought you were-"

"Keeping an eye on him," Cynthia said, indicating the more well-dressed version of Cyrus with a slight smile, the younger Cyrus glaring at the Sinnoh champion as his future self stood beside him while the rest of Team Galactic gathered around their leader/s. "Once I realised that Cyrus Schemmel was absent from his Sinnoh offices, I decided that I should follow your warnings, and once I had traced his flight path to Johto, I came to investigate in person with the aid of a few friends."

"Friends?" Clemont asked.

The question was answered when a familiar-looking Onix suddenly crashed through the trees, the Onix being large even by the standards of its considerably-sized species, a well-muscled shirtless man riding on its head who was familiar to both Ashes, as well as Misty and Brock.

"Bruno?" the four called out in surprise.

"Greetings," the Fighting-type Elite Four Master called down before he leapt from the Onix's head and landed on the ground, releasing a Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, Hitmontop, Poliwrath and Machamp before he had even finished falling. "Once Cynthia explained the full reasons for your desire to talk with her, I felt obliged to assist your efforts."

"And he's not the only one," another voice said.

"Prima!" Misty grinned eagerly as the redhead emerged from the forest, her Jynx, Cloister, Slowbro and Starmie gathered around her.

"Hello, Ash," Prima said, nodding briefly at him before she opened the last two balls on her belt and released Dewgong and Lapras to join the rest of her Galactic. "It's good to see how far you've come."

"No!" Cyrus yelled, his past self virtually mimicking his actions as the two blue-haired men looked incredulously at the newly-arrived Elite Four members. "This is impossible!"

The sound of powerful wings beating drew attention briefly away from Cyrus and to the sky above, just as a large Dragonite flew through the trees before landing beside Cynthia.

"I would think your own circumstances would have prompted you to dismiss anything as impossible," another voice added, as a figure clad in a black outfit and a long cloak leapt from Dragonite's back to land on the ground alongside it.

"Lance?" Ash grinned at the sight of the Dragon-type trainer who'd helped him stop Groundon and Kygore's rampage in Hoenn.

"Ash Ketchum, I presume?" Lance smiled at Ash as he removed five Poke Balls from his belt. "A pleasure to meet you, but right now we have other matters to discuss."

"Indeed," a red-haired man emerged from the forest. "And I apologise for falling behind; the cost of being the one everyone trusts to lock up the transport-"

"Flint?" Ash looked at the latest arrival in surprise.

"You know me?" the other man looked back at Ash in momentary confusion before he nodded in understanding. "Ah… we met in the future, I take it?"

"Well, I met you in Sunnyshore for my final gym battle in Sinnoh… but I never mentioned that to Cynthia; what are you doing here?"

"I was meeting with Cynthia when she found out that Cyrus had left the region and offered my assistance in tracking him," Flint explained with a smile. "So you fought Volkner in your time? You must be-"

"Enough!" Cyrus yelled, waving his arms as he summoned a new wave of glowing Pokemon, his eyes glowing a disturbing red that matched the Pokemon he had summoned as Team Galactic's expanding army gathered around the Mecha-Wobbufett. "You would dare to oppose me?"

"We would," Cynthia said, staring coldly at Cyrus as the other new arrivals joined her in standing alongside Ash and his friends, the group now in front of the Mecha-Wobbufett as their Pokemon joined them. "Your plans are an abomination, Cyrus Schemmel; they cannot be permitted to come to fruition."

"You came all this way on the word of a child-"

"A child who has shown that, even at his worst, he understands the value and strength of maintaining a bond with his Pokemon and never loses hope that tomorrow will be better than today," Prima said, her tone cool as she studied the assembled forces of Team Galactic. "We have never denied that life is hard, but that does not justify your decision to give up on the world and claim that you are doing it for all others."

"Precisely," Lance affirmed. "You honestly think that you have the right to decide that all life should end? Unless you wish to face further… unpleasantness, stand down."

"Never," Cyrus said resolutely, with a cool blank stare on his face. "After what I have seen… how far I have come already… there can be no justification but to finish what I have started; if you cannot see the true nature of the world, that is your own fault."

With that command, the forces of Team Galactic launched another attack, only for Mecha-Wobbufett to rapidly move in front of the opposing trainers to take the worst of the blast.

"Take this!" James yelled, as Mecha-Wobbufett unleashed another burst of energy that sent its opponents staggering back once again (Ash chose to hope that Team Galactic's Pokemon survived that Counter/Mirror Coat/whatever attack because the force was dispersed across all of them rather than these Pokemon being that powerful).

"Release the rest and hit them hard!" Cynthia yelled, her Garchomp charging towards the forces of Team Galactic as she released her other five Pokemon. The Glaceon and Gastrodon were recognisable from Ash's encounters with her in the future, but he was surprised to see a Milotic, Lucario and Spiritomb as the other three members of Cynthia's Galactic.

Of course, when faced with the sheer scale of Pokemon Cyrus seemed to be summoning at this point- Ash wasn't sure if he wanted them to be fakes like the Unowns' creations or if it would be less intimidating if they were real and just summoned here from somewhere else- Ash knew that he should just be grateful they had such powerful allies when faced with stakes like this…

Arceus, I hope this is enough.

Chapter Text

Ash never knew who had given the cue to restart the battle, but even without a spoken cue, it seemed as though both the newly-arrived Champions and Team Galactic charged each other at the same time, Pokemon clashing all over the clearing while some of the humans actually started their own fights. Ash still vividly remembered how Bruno had managed to stay ahead of the attacks of that giant Onix back when they'd first met, but it was still impressive to see him actually launching a few blows against the Houndoom and Toxicroak that tried to go after him, even if most of the newly-arrived Elite Four members and Champions focused on evading potential attacks rather than doing any fighting themselves. For a moment Ash felt a sudden churning in his stomach as he looked at the mass of Pokemon around the battlefield, but forced that down as he quickly moved to avoid a charging Weavil that took a Flamethrower to the face from Cyndaquil; if he was hungry, he'd eat later.

Once sure he was out of any immediate danger, Ash glanced up and allowed himself a brief smile when he confirmed that he couldn't see the plane that had brought them here above them. Bonnie would probably be safe that high up, but he hated to picture the girl watching whatever she could see of this fight from above without knowing if Clemont was safe or not-

A new sense of nausea suddenly struck Ash, but even as he bent over he felt something fly over his back, looking up to see a Honchkrow get punched in the beak by Geodude. Nodding in brief thanks at one of Brock's oldest Pokemon, Ash took another look around the battlefield, smiling in approval when he saw that his own allies had split up. The newly-arrived Champions had apparently swiftly scattered around the forest once the battle had started, with many of their Pokemon taking on multiple opponents at once with relative ease even if the scale of numbers against them was still a problem. From what Ash could see, the Pokemon belonging to him and his friends were using more 'hit-and-run' tactics (as much as Onix could use such a strategy, anyway) to wear their enemies down, either hitting them with full power assaults or striking multiple opponents with more general attacks.

It's bigger than anything I've done before, Ash mused to himself as he saw the two Pikachus facing a Camerupt, one dodging to the side to avoid a Flamethrower while the other struck their opponent with an Iron Tail, but we're still holding the line; if I can just find Cyrus…

"Ash!" Brock called over to his friend, the time-traveller looking up to see his old friend running anxiously towards him, ducking around a Flamethrower from another Camerupt. "How did you manage… I mean, I know you said you were talking to the Sinnoh Champion, but-?"

"Let's just say I get to know a few people in the future who gave me a few good ideas about how to get help," Ash smiled at his original travelling mentor, the squirming in his stomach forgotten in the face of the unique opportunity to truly surprise Brock. "Come on, I couldn't remain a stupid kid forever, right?"

"I never thought that-" Brock began, before he ducked under another attack from a Honchkrow. "Seriously, how is this guy-?"

"If I knew that, we'd have already dealt with Cyrus; trust me, he couldn't do this back when I last saw him!" Ash said, indicating where another pair of Weavile were charging into the battle before Snorlax took them both out with a Body Slam (and why did his queasiness feel better whenever one of Cyrus's Pokemon got knocked out?). "And where is-?"

His plan to search for either version of Cyrus was abruptly cut off when he saw a sparking Electrode rolling towards Misty, who was momentarily distracted by recalling Psyduck (the duck's Psychic attacks might be useful, but this battle was too chaotic for them to rely on Psyduck getting to that state and using its powers safely on only their enemies). Without even thinking about it, Ash ran towards Misty to push her to safety, only to be beaten to the punch when his younger self crashed into the Water-type trainer from the other side. Ash came to such a sharp halt to avoid hitting Misty and himself that he almost ran into the Electrode, but Heracross dived down to toss it into the air before Ash embarrassed himself even further by vomiting. The two Ashes and Misty looked up to see Hawlucha kick the Electrode into a Honchkrow and Crobat flying towards the three trainers, triggering the Electrode's Self-Destruct and sending the two enemy Flying Pokemon crashing to the ground.

"Nice," Ash's younger self nodded in approval.

"That's our Pokemon for you," Ash grinned at his past self (either he was better at hiding things than he thought or his other self wasn't feeling that strange discomfort in his guts as Ash was). "They always work well together even if they just started; you'll be amazed when you see how quickly Pignite and Charizard started working as a team in Unova."

"Pignite?" Misty asked, before her eyes narrowed. "And should you really be-?"

"I think we already ended any idea that we can get through this mess without changing my history at all the moment I saw Cyrus," Ash pointed out to his original travelling companion, before he indicated the battle waging around them, proud of himself for ignoring the growing twisting in his stomach to focus on projecting a sense of confidence. "Let's get this over with; keep everyone busy while I find Cyrus!"

"Cyrus?" Misty and his younger self asked.

"You're focusing on him?" the younger Ash asked, incredulously indicating their surroundings as Staryu's Water Gun took a Houndoom out of the fight.

"He's the reason for all this," Ash responded. "You can all deal with Team Galactic's other members, but the older Cyrus is only here because of me-"

"You can't know that, and even if it's true it's not like you brought him here on purpose-!" Misty began to protest.

"But I didn't stop him properly the first time," Ash clarified, looking firmly at her as he fought down the urge to be ill. "I'm not going to make that mistake again; this ends now."

"…We'll do what we can out here," Misty nodded, giving Ash a brief smile as she took in the intensity of his gaze. "Good luck."

"Yeah," Ash's younger self said, looking between him and Misty with a more solemn stare that Ash wasn't sure how to interpret.

Actually… now that Ash thought about it, even if emotions weren't exactly his strong point… the way he was looking at himself whenever he was close to Misty…

Could his younger self really be jealous of him?

Deciding not to analyse this issue in greater depth, Ash dived back into action, weaving through the fighting Pokemon as he tried to keep an eye out for Cyrus and ignore the occasional spike of that strange discomfort. At one point, the sound of a loud hiss prompted Ash to look over in time to see a Toxicroak that looked like it had been making for him being wrapped up by an Arbok while a Weezing delivered a few surprisingly strong Tackles to a group of Fortress. Ash was briefly surprised at the sight, but swiftly reminded himself that Team Rocket still had their original Pokemon at this time (come to that, what had happened to Arbok and Weezing after he started travelling through Hoenn?) and used the brief break to take a new assessment of the wider battle. Team Rocket's Mecha-Wobbufett could provide a useful brief refuge for the trainers opposing Team Galactic's members, and the thing still looked like it could take a further beating if it had to, but Ash wasn't going to rely on that thing holding up for the whole battle when they had this many enemies to deal with-

Ash's thoughts were interrupted when something struck him in the side of the face, sending him to the ground. As he clutched at his cheek, he rolled over to see one of the Team Galactic members standing over him, glaring at Ash in exasperation.

"You can't seriously be doing this!" his attacker said, looking at Ash as though he was questioning Ash's mental state. "You honestly think that you're helping anyone by opposing us?"

"We're trying to stop your boss ending the world; how are you even OK with that?" Ash protested indignantly as he scrambled back to his feet, Pikachu yelling out in agreement of Ash's words as he ran up to join his trainer. "Do you people even understand that you'll be destroyed with everyone else?"

"Where is the point in staying in this life?" the Team Galactic member protested. "This world has nothing to offer us-!"

"And what gives you the right to decide that applies to everyone?" Ash cut him off, glaring at the man before he sighed and punched the man in the face, the sending back to the ground before the other man could do more than open his mouth in response.

I know I don't do that very often, but some people just really need to be hit…

"Ash!" Serena looked over at him in shock as Pancham sent an Electrode rolling into a pair of Weavile just before it exploded. "Did you have to-?"

"Hey, if someone wants to end the world I don't think we're exactly qualified to talk him out of it!" Ash countered as Pikachu scampered back onto his shoulder. "Just keep taking these guys down!"

"On it!" Misty and Ash's past self yelled simultaneously from further down the field, as Heracross and Poliwhirl each knocked out a Skuntank and a Weavile with double punches.

"We've got this!" Brock yelled, Geodude diving through a pack of Houndoom close by his trainer as Serena directed Braxien to fire a Flamethrower at a few Forteress in another area.

"Impressive."

"Wha- Prima?" Ash spun around defensively, only slightly dropping his guard when he realised it was the Ice Master of the Elite Four. "What did you-?"

"Your swift command of the situation and the way your friends defer to you."

"I don't make them do any-!"

"I recognise that," Prima smiled reassuringly at him, as though acknowledging what had prompted his immediate reaction. "Regardless of your hot-headedness in our last meeting, you have come a long way since then; it takes a great deal of personal strength to earn that kind of respect without demanding it."

"Well, it's been even longer for me than it was for you…" Ash shrugged, before he glanced behind her and his eyes widened. "Get down!"

He grabbed Prima's arm and pulled her down just as a Weavile's claws tore through the air, the dark Pokemon nearly taking a chunk out of Prima's neck even as Ash kicked out at the black creature the moment it passed over them.

"Good timing," Prima noted, as the two got back to their feet.

"Thanks," Ash nodded. "I mean, I obviously wouldn't do that in a real battle-"

"Circumstances like this require exceptional responses," Prima nodded in understanding, before she glanced over at the still-unfolding struggle. "And we need to take them down fast."

As Prima returned to the battle, Ash tried not to wince when he saw a group of Camerupt get caught in a Blizzard from Prima's Cloister and Jynx; he might agree that they had to finish this fight fast, but freezing was a personal nightmare of his ever since that close call on that mountain…

Taking advantage of this brief moment of peace, Ash looked around the battlefield and wasn't sure if he should feel comforted by the fact that the conflict seemed to be about even. On the one hand, Team Galactic had a lot of Pokemon available to them, but on the other hand, the Team were a bunch of crooks up against two regional Champions and three members of three different Elite Fours. He appreciated that Jessie and James didn't represent the best of Team Rocket, and he'd had trouble facing Giovanni in Unova, but if Misty and Brock could hold off some of Team Rocket's elite during that mess with Mewtwo and the various clones, the Sinnoh equivalent couldn't be that much better than Team Rocket…

A sudden churning in his gut forced him to bend over just as something passed above his head. Glancing up, Ash realised that he'd just missed being struck by a Gyarados that could have literally bitten his head off, but before he had time to do more than duck and roll out of its path, there was a sudden burst of ice that sent the massive sea serpent off to one side.

"Thanks," Ash said as he stood up, glancing over to see Cynthia standing at one side with her Glaceon beside her. "Good aim."

"You seemed like you needed the help," the Sinnoh champion smiled before she studied him in a more thoughtful manner. "We met in the future?"

"You gave me some useful advice, we worked together to fight Team Galactic's plans when they did this the first time around, I stayed in your holiday home out in Undella Town for a few days… it was an interesting time," Ash shrugged. "I mean, I'm not sure if any of that's going to happen now…"

"Believe that it will and we can worry about that once this is over," Cynthia nodded at him. "New lives begin every day, Ash; the fact that this new life precedes the life you're familiar with just makes it more unconventional."

"Thanks… I think," Ash nodded tentatively. "I mean, you have to be clear, I'm not going to expect any special treatment for my past self once this is-"

"Ash!" a voice called out urgently.

"Clemont?" Ash glanced in the direction of the voice to see his jumpsuit-clad friend hurrying towards him, waving something around in his hands that looked like a radio dish. "Hold on; is that the… Super-Sensitive Tracker thing?"

"I adapted it from the remains, but it's not the same thing," Clemont explained, looking urgently at Ash. "What matters right now is that I realised that Team Galactic's main advantage right now is their numbers, so I put together the Pokemon Energy Scanner in case I could work out where the excess Pokemon were coming from…"

"And?" Ash asked.

"Like I thought, they're showing the same energy traces I detected when I analysed the two Ashes with this," Clemont continued, taking out a series of blue ovals that Ash recognised as fragments of the Binacle Finder Clemont had developed a couple of months ago.

"You scanned the two Ashes for particular energy traces?" Cynthia looked curiously at Clemont. "What made you think of that?"

"I was just curious about if there was some kind of energy involved in travelling through time that would be on the Ash from the future that wasn't on the Ash who already exists in this time-"

"Look, I think Cyrus already made it pretty clear he's the one creating these things, but I don't think he's dragging them back from the future-!"

"Maybe we already suspected that, but it's still important to confirm that Cyrus is the source of all of these new Pokemon," Clemont cut Ash off. "I can't be sure if he's creating them or taking them from somewhere else, of course, but now that I've confirmed where these other Pokemon came from, I think that if we can take the older Cyrus out of the picture, we might be able to get rid of Team Galactic's numerical advantage and overpower the rest of them!"

"May be a long shot, but I can work with that," Ash nodded, glancing around the battlefield for a moment before he saw Cyrus, the older version easily distinguished from the present one by his more tattered clothing, running from the battlefield. "There!"

"Cyrus?" Cynthia glanced in the direction Ash had indicated. "Why would he-?"

"I'll find out," Ash cut the champion off, as he looked around at his allies, hoping that Cynthia wouldn't object to him giving orders. "You make sure everyone else does their best to keep the rest of Team Galactic busy; I might be able to take Cyrus if he's committing most of his attention to keeping you all busy here."

"You're sure you can do this?" Cynthia looked inquiringly at him.

"I'm sure I want to try," Ash responded firmly.

"Go."

Accepting Cynthia's nod, Ash dived back into the battlefield and ran in the direction that he'd just seen Cyrus depart, pausing at the edge to turn back towards the raging conflict.

"Pikachu, Greninja, Charizard!" he yelled, waiting for a moment until the three Pokemon he'd called for had responded. "You're all with me; we have to get Cyrus!"

Based on what he'd seen of Cyrus's power so far, he wasn't entirely sure if any of his Pokemon would be powerful enough if Cyrus chose to really let rip with whatever he could do, but he had faith that those three would be able to do at least some damage no matter what Cyrus tried to use against him. The younger version of Pikachu had already rejoined Ash's younger self, but as far as Ash was concerned that just ensured that the battlefield would still have one of his heavier hitters even if he had to take the older Pikachu with him.

With the dragon flying overhead, Pikachu on his shoulder and Greninja running alongside him, Ash charged after his enemy. On one level he appreciated that going after someone capable of what Cyrus had shown so far on his own might be dangerous, but when he'd survived such moments as his confrontation with that Unown-enhanced Entei, it wasn't that much crazier.

Besides, if Ash was right, Cyrus was only here because of him, which made it Ash's responsibility to make sure that the older version of Team Galactic's leader had no chance to complete his plans…

When the thick forests finally gave way to an open clearing, Ash quickly came to a halt as he found himself facing Cyrus, who was standing alongside a stone alter that Ash vaguely recognised from Sammy's stories. It consisted of a few small steps leading up to a structure that put Ash in mind of a miniature tower, but even covered in moss in a manner that suggested nobody had used it for a while, Ash definitely didn't like the implications of Cyrus being here.

"You really think you can stop me, boy?" Cyrus looked mockingly at him.

"Do you think I'm going to let you get away with this?" Ash asked, as Charizard landed behind him while Greninja took up a defensive pose in front of him, Pikachu perched on his head and ready to fight.

"You hardly have a choice," Cyrus retorted, the time-displaced criminal mastermind looking at Ash with a disturbingly cool manner, as though Ash was just something he had to scrap off his school. "All I require is to summon Celebi-"

"And let me guess, you'll go back to some point when you can summon Dialga and Palkia and try to destroy the universe all over again?" Ash cut him off. "You're so predictable, you know that?"

"And you aren't?" Cyrus asked with the closest thing to emotion Ash had heard this man express since he revealed his true agenda to the young trainer. "You chased me here, alone and virtually unarmed save for a few-"

"Pikachu, Charizard and Greninja aren't weapons, they're my friends-!"

"And you came here with only a few of your 'friends' to face me?" Cyrus smirked mockingly at Ash. "You truly have no idea what I'm capable of…"

Spreading his arms, Cyrus grinned as he spread his hands, and two large figures appeared behind him. They were slightly shorter and paler than the real versions that Ash had encountered on his original trip through Sinnoh, but the blue-and-silver shielded form of Dialga and the armoured white-and-purple Palkia were unmistakable no matter how they were changed.

"These are not as powerful as the originals, naturally, or I would not be bothering with attempting to harness the power of Celebi from this shrine, but they should suffice for the current purpose," Cyrus smirked as he glared at Ash. "If you think that you can stop me… well, first you have to get past them."

Ash's eyes narrowed in cold resolution.

"Bring it," he said simply.

The odds might not be great, but he and Charizard had held their own against Entei during that mess with the Unown, so he was certain they could do the same now…

Chapter Text

As Charizard and Greninja leapt into action, Ash was proud to see that each one had chosen the best target. Real or essentially illusionary, Charizard would have had significant trouble going up against Palkia, but he might just have a chance against a part-Steel type even if it was a Legendary Dragon, and Greninja could at least keep Palkia at bay even if it didn't have a clear type advantage. He thought about ordering Pikachu to join Greninja, but when Cyrus thrust a hand out towards him and nearly sent Ash crashing into a nearby tree before Ash dived to the side, Ash decided that he was grateful the electric mouse was staying close to him.

"You were foolish to come here, Ash Ketchum," Cyrus said, staring coolly at Ash as the displaced trainer got back to his feet to glare at the Team Galactic leader. "Do you imagine these illusions are all I learned how to do while outside reality?"

"The thought came to mind," Ash responded, wincing at the strange twist in his guts as a Flamethrower from Charizard sent the fake Dialga flying close by them. Cyrus tried to use the opportunity to attack Ash himself, but Ash recalled a move he'd seen a Fighting-type pull off and grabbed Cyrus's wrist as the man tried to punch him, spinning around to throw the Team Galactic leader off to one side before he turned his attention back to the battles around them.

As he watched, Dialga fired something at Charizard that put Ash in mind of Dragonbreath, but the orange dragon-like Pokemon was able to counter the attack with his own Dragonbreath. The initial attack just sent Dialga back a couple of steps, but Charizard continued by lashing out with a Steel Wing that Cyrus's illusion only just managed to counter with a Metal Claw.

As the two dragons lashed out at each other with further Steel-based attacks, Ash risked a glance over at Palkia, and was pleased to see that Pikachu was doing its best to help Greninja. He still needed a degree of focus to maintain the frog-like Pokemon's transformed state, but so far he felt comfortable keeping that up without needing to totally focus on what Greninja was doing; maybe it was something to do with him needing to keep his focus everywhere else-

Ash suddenly found himself sent flying when something struck him in the back of the head, hurling him into the nearest tree. As he scrambled back to his feet, Ash cursed himself for getting distracted; he had enough to deal with in this mess without getting lost in his own thoughts. Turning his attention back to the fight, Ash smiled in relief as he saw Charizard and Greninja continuing to hold their own. The illusionary Legendaries were able to take a fair amount of punishment, but Greninja in particular was good at evading attacks, and Pikachu was darting in to divert a few of Dialgia's attacks with his Thunderbolts to limit how much damage Charizard had to take.

The forest around them was going to take a hit before this fight was over, and it was easy to see that Cyrus's creations were working to avoid doing any damage to the shrine, but Pikachu, Charizard and Greninja might still have a chance…

"Your Pokemon are strong, but do you truly think they can defeat two Legendaries?" Cyrus glared at Ash. "You are arrogant, but even you aren't that arrogant…"

"Charizard took on a real Articuno and fought a fake Entei, and Greninja can hold its own against a Mega Sceptile; I think they can do a bit of damage here," Ash retorted, shooting a cold glare at Cyrus even as he decided not to respond to the accusation of arrogance. He knew that he could get cocky at times, but this man wasn't in a position to call anyone else 'arrogant' given the scale of his own plans.

"What are you even trying to do here, Cyrus?" he said, fingers crossed that the man would decide to talk now that it was just the two of them as the five Pokemon battled in the clearing around them. "Summon Celebi to try and use it to do that whole 'destroy the universe' bit all over again? You already failed to pull that off once-"

"I would explain my objective, but frankly you would never understand the scope of Celebi's true potential," Cyrus stated, glaring coldly back at his enemy. "I have seen the true scope of reality, and I will have order, Ash Ketchum-"

"And what gives you the right to decide something like that?" Ash retorted, privately wishing he'd actually tried to learn how to fight by himself at some point. He had picked up a few things from watching Fighting Pokemon in particular, but he knew that there was a big difference between watching others fight and putting any of those moves into practice. "You're just some nut who had a bad life-"

"I have seen more of life and the world than you can ever conceive, both before and after I was displaced from existence, and can confirm all that I have told you," Cyrus countered, arms folded as though Ash wasn't worth fighting directly as the five Pokemon seemed to dance around them, each move seemingly choreographed to never strike near the two humans regardless of how intense Charizard's flames were or how the powerful the faux-Legendaries' attacks were. "All over this world, people struggle and fail to achieve their dreams every day, with those who are successful holding their position at the top of the pile and so many lesser striving for goals they shall never achieve. All life is little more than meaningless specks in a vast void that will never be known or understood; is it not humane to free them all from such pathetic despair?"

"Life isn't like that."

"It is exactly like that-"

"Only if you decide it is!"

"You honestly believe that?" Cyrus observed with a tone that Ash would expect to hear from someone criticising a child who'd made a stupid mistake in their homework. "When you have spent years seeking to gain a title that you must have recognised you can never achieve-"

"I only fail if I give up, and I'll never give up!" Ash protested indignantly. "Maybe I don't win the Leagues completely, but I've always done better than anyone expected me to when I entered them as a relative rookie; there's nothing wrong with making the top sixteen the first time you compete professionally!"

"And your personal life?" Cyrus said, almost smirking as he spoke, his low voice somehow constantly audible even as the dragons battled Ash's three partners. "When you lose contact with 'friends' and are perpetually tormented by those who would cause you harm for fundamentally petty motivations? When you continually form new 'friendships' seeking some 'perfect' team that you cannot even acknowledge you will never find? When you consistently come so far in official contests only to fall short of your impossible goal? Your longest standing relationship has been with your enemies and you have repeatedly failed to cross the final hurdles facing you; what makes you feel this life is worth protecting?"

"You're seriously…?" Ash began, before he shook his head and glared at Cyrus in exasperation. "Look, I don't know what happened to make you like this, and I'm sorry if you feel like you had a crap life, but that doesn't give you the right to decide that everyone else has to die because you think the world never gives people what they want! Just because I don't talk to people every day doesn't mean that they stop being important to me, and if you can't understand that you clearly never had a true friend yourself! I never thought I'd say this to anyone, but why don't you just do everyone a favour and kill yourself if you're so miserable and leave the rest of us alone!"

Under normal circumstances, Ash would have hated how bitter and angry he sounded in that moment, but after seeing so much of the world that Cyrus wanted to destroy, he just couldn't bring himself to care. If Cyrus thought that he honestly had the right to destroy everything even after spending however long he'd been outside of the universe trapped and alone, Ash wasn't sure anything he could say would make the man realise how screwed up and twisted he really was-

As though in response to Ash's yells, two Dragonbreath attacks struck the area near him, only just missing their target when Pikachu launched simultaneous Thunderbolts that knocked the dragons' jaws slightly off-target. Cyrus just stood by nonchalantly as Greninja launched a Water Pulse at Palkia, even as the following Thunder attack from Pikachu sent the dragon to the ground. Glancing over at Cyrus, Ash allowed himself a slight grin to see the surprise on the face of the Team Galactic leader, before he turned his focus back to his Pokemon.

"OK; Pikachu, shoot a Thunderbolt at Palkia, while Charizard and Greninja use Flamethrower and Water Shuriken on Dialga at once!" he yelled, punching the air in victory as the attacks struck the semi-transparent Legendary Dragons. Even the original Dialga would have been affected by that attack, and this illusionary one would have had no real chance to cope with the assault, while Pikachu's own Thunderbolt was the most devastating burst of energy he'd ever seen his friend produce. As Ash watched, Dialga and Palkia staggered for a moment before they fell to the ground, their already-transparent forms vanishing as Ash's three Pokemon gathered around him. Pikachu perched on Ash's shoulder as Greninja stood alongside Ash, the two adopting a similar combat stance, while Charizard posed behind Ash with its wings spread as it glared angrily at Cyrus.

"I must confess, you surprise me, Ketchum," Cyrus observed, looking at Ash with the closest thing to a smirk Ash had seen Cyrus display since he learned the man's true agenda. "I anticipated your stubborn defiance if we met again, but I didn't think you'd throw off my influence this quickly."

"Your influence?" Ash repeated, trying not to think about the sudden gnawing sense of apprehension in his stomach.

"Did you honestly never wonder why your performance in battle so consistently suffered after our confrontation in Mount Coronet?"

"Huh?" Ash looked at Cyrus in confusion, briefly noting similar inquiring sounds from his three Pokemon, even as his mind found itself recalling every battle he'd been in after his last meeting with Cyrus for some sign of what his enemy might be talking about. "What the Hell are you-?"

"The poor performance of your Toretta even when fighting from a position of strength, your dismal choice of Pokemon for the confrontation with a man whom you knew possessed at least one Legendary on his team, relying on a single Pokemon for your fifth Gym battle in Unova, your poor showing against a Bug-type gym when you had a clear type advantage, attempting a completely new battle strategy against a powerful opponent just because you felt like it even when it swiftly proved foolish… Is any of this ringing a bell?"

"Oh Arceus…" Ash said, eyes widening in horror as he processed Cyrus's words.

He'd like to believe that the Team Galactic leader was lying, but there was no way Cyrus could have just learned all of that information since he returned to reality when most of it happened in the future, and it wasn't like Cyrus hadn't already demonstrated some unusual powers…

"I could have done the same to your associates, of course, but I never had a good head for Contests, manipulating Cynthia's abilities would have made it too obvious that something was happening, those Team Rocket idiots made enough mistakes on their own, and the doctor and the secret agent don't often engage in battles even now; you were the best candidate to help me test myself."

"Test yourself?" Ash repeated, feeling emotionally numb at these new revelations.

Those last few years… every time I did something really stupid…

He liked to think that he always took responsibility for his own mistakes even if he appreciated that he didn't always respond very well to being confronted with the fact that he'd screwed up, but Cyrus's words were starting to make a twisted kind of sense…

"My ability to manipulate reality, of course," Cyrus said, utterly nonchalant about his latest revelation as though he was just discussing an interesting specimen he'd found somewhere. "Once I understood how I could reach out and influence the world behind me, it was almost childishly simple to exert my influence on your mental state. Shifting your competency levels as you travelled was minor compared to my former goals, but it was a good way to test myself until I could better understand my limits."

"Test yourself," Ash repeated, staring bitterly at Cyrus.

"I was even experimenting with retarding your emotional development, but to be frank you were doing that yourself for the most part," Cyrus shrugged dismissively. "It's almost a pity that your little run-in with Celebi dragged me back here before I could take it further; I was contemplating seeing if I could exert enough influence so that you would choose to go back to school as though you had to start all over from scratch…"

"So you're telling me," Ash growled, rage boiling inside him in a manner he couldn't recall ever feeling before, "that you've spent the last few years… while you were trapped outside existence… just… playing with my mind… to test yourself?"

"Everyone needs a hobby," Cyrus affirmed. "You deserved some punishment for thwarting my attempt to remake this world-"

Ash only realised he was roaring in rage as he charged at the older man, and only halted his enraged yell when he was abruptly thrown back to the ground, an outstretched hand the only clear indication that Cyrus had done anything to him. He glanced anxiously around himself, but his Pokemon were all in the same state, with Greninja reverted to its natural state and Pikachu trapped against Charizard's chest on the wall behind them.

"But," Cyrus continued, glaring coldly at Ash even as his hands held the Pokemon down, "your continued inability to admit failure means that I will now take personal satisfaction in ensuring your brutal, final demise before I complete my current efforts."

"I'm the one who can't admit failure?" Ash protested, privately grateful that he could at least lift his head to glare at Cyrus. "I just refused to give up; everyone does it, except for you!"

"I gave up?" Cyrus's glare shifted to a smirk. "When I have completed this plan even after your interference-"

"When you decided to just stick with that sick plan even after seeing everything else!" Ash retaliated, Pikachu, Charizard and Greninja letting out indignant noises of agreement with their trainer's protests. "I keep travelling to see more of the world, and all you did was get stuck outside reality and refuse to give up trying to unmake existence; I think we both know who failed the last time we were in the same place!"

"Extraneous circumstances-"

"We weren't exactly in a normal situation, Cyrus; you can't just act like me winning was a fluke!" Ash yelled back, trying to get back to his feet only to be forced back down once again, along with a roar of protest from Charizard. "This isn't-!"

"Shut up!" Cyrus yelled, slamming Ash firmly into the ground with a cold glare at the trainer, as the illusionary Dialga and Palkia reappeared behind Cyrus. "You have been a persistent thorn in my plans since the moment you became aware of Team Galactic's operations, far beyond what any conventional trainer of your meagre abilities should have been capable of. I pride myself on taking rational action that will ensure the creation of a purer world to the exclusion of personal desires, but be assured that I will take considerable pleasure in witnessing your demise before I complete-"

"You son of a bitch!" Ash yelled-

-A blue-and-black face with big ears and a long snout, staring at him with solemn red eyes-

'The aura is with you, Ash Ketchem…'-

The vision had only just faded when Ash realised that his arms were suddenly free again, as though Cyrus had just lost the power that he was using to hold Ash down. Without even thinking about it, Ash thrust both arms towards Cyrus and saw a burst of blue energy emerge from his hands to strike the Team Galactic leader, sending the older man flying backwards and causing Dialga and Palkia to do something that Ash could only think of as 'glitch'.

The strange event passed as soon as it had happened, but that pause was enough of an opportunity for Charizard and Pikachu to leap into action, striking the relevant opponents with a Flamethrower and a Thunderbolt respectively. Those attacks were followed by two large simultaneous Water Shurikens from Greninja that knocked both of the faux-Legendaries off their feet even as the frog-ninja leapt back to stand protectively in front of Ash. As the two dragons flew backwards, Cyrus raised his hand as though about to move them back into position, only for Ash to raise his own hand and release a strange blue wave of light before he had even consciously realised that he was doing it. Even as Ash watched, the strange blue energy struck Dialga and Palkia and the two illusions collapsed back in on themselves, the same energy wave sending Cyrus staggering back as it passed over him.

"What-?" Cyrus yelled, glaring indignantly at Ash as he regained his balance.

"Aura…" Ash whispered as he stared at his hand.

Chapter Text

With Cyrus stunned into silent confusion, Ash was left to stare at his outstretched hands, his mind suddenly flashing back to those strange few days he'd spent with Lucario trying to rescue Pikachu from the Tree of Beginning, the power of that place awakening his own previously unknown talent to sense the life-energy of people and Pokemon around him.

He'd never really had the time or inclination to explore his apparent awareness of Aura the way he probably should have, even after that incident with the lost Riolu and meeting Riley on Iron Island, but he knew that it was still there…

Sensing life…

From what he remembered of his time in Rota and his trip to the Tree of Life, the ability to sense aura had been described to him as the ability to sense life, so maybe that awareness was why he'd been feeling so strange during the battle earlier? Maybe some part of him was reacting to the presence of all those fake Pokemon Cyrus had created, with his aura abilities making him recognise that they weren't 'real' on a deeper level than what other people were normally aware of…

"Aura?" Cyrus repeated, glaring at Ash as he adjusted his stained coat, as though Ash had somehow insulted him by throwing this new curveball into the situation. "What was… that?"

"Something I don't do very often, and that you never knew I was capable of," Ash responded, smiling as he flexed his shoulders and shifted into a combat stance he'd seen in a film, Greninja mimicking it beside him as Pikachu stood in front of him and Charizard positioned himself behind his trainer. "The aura is with me, Cyrus… so let's try this again, shall we?"

Ash had been able to tolerate even Paul at his worst and still hope the other trainer could be better, but after everything he'd set out to do, Cyrus deserved nothing but Ash's contempt even before his latest revelation. Ash wasn't sure how these abilities had suddenly been triggered like this, but if it would give him an edge in this fight, he was going to hit Cyrus with everything he had.

"Enough!" Cyrus yelled, spreading his arms wide and summoning a new army of glowing Pokemon. A quick glance was enough for Ash to confirm that the new 'army' consisted mainly of the Pokemon Cyrus had already created for the rest of Team Galactic, including a range of Honchkrow, Crobat, Weavile, Houndoom, Toxicroak, Electrode, Skuntank, Forteress, and Camerupt, along with a few of their pre-evolutions (he guessed that his enemy hadn't included illusionary Gyarados due to its sheer size not being an asset in this situation). Ash only had a moment to take in the scale of the new wave before they were all charging towards him, leaving Ash to lash out with another burst of Aura as Pikachu, Charizard and Greninja leapt into action. Ash noted that Charizard let out a surprisingly loud roar before the battle began, but put that aside in favour of focusing on the current conflict as his three Pokemon charged into the veritable army before them.

How do I-?

"Clear the field, Ash Ketchum; precise combat can wait."

As the 'vision' of Lucario faded, Ash didn't know where that had come from, but his own experience of working with Lucario at the Tree of Beginning was enough to convince him to accept its words and focus on the battle at hand. He made a brief attempt to raise his hands and summon an Aura Sphere, but that only resulted in a few bursts of blue light, so Ash decided that it wasn't worth trying to pull that off right now, and an attempt to recall what Maylene, Cameron or Korinna had ordered Lucario to use in a fight didn't turn up any memory of something he could use-

A loud roar of rage from off to the side prompted Ash to spin around in time to see a pair of Houndoom charging towards him, each one with larger horns and a thick 'collar' that made Ash think of bone. Lost for better ideas, Ash raised his hands and launched the same random 'wave' of Aura energy that he'd used earlier. As the attacking Pokemon vanished before they could reach him, Ash allowed himself a brief smile of relief before he turned his attention to the other attacking illusions, but a quick assessment of the fight made it clear that his new ability wouldn't be that much use. Even if he could be sure doing this wouldn't wear him down later on, he didn't know how many illusions he could 'erase' on his own with those larger bursts, and he didn't want to accidentally put Pikachu, Charizard or Greninja in danger if they suddenly found themselves off-guard when their latest opponent vanished.

His three Pokemon were holding their own, but there was obviously only so much that three Pokemon could do against the numbers Cyrus was unleashing against them, even if Pikachu, Charizard and Greninja were three of his strongest. The Pokemon didn't seem as powerful as the real Team Galactic's forces had been during his confrontations with them back in Sinnoh, but their sheer numbers were enough to keep Ash's Pokemon off-balance. Pikachu had to be careful about launching attacks against their enemies in case he hit Charizard or Greninja by accident, and Greninja had to take similar care to avoid striking Charizard, and even his original powerhouse could only do so much against these numbers. He had faith that they would do their best, but that wouldn't last for long if he couldn't turn the tide back in his favour.

Stuck for anything else he could do, Ash leapt into the fight alongside Pikachu, Charizard and Greninja, trying to avoid the worst of the opposing force's attacks while delivering a few punches or kicks to anything nearby. He soon found that he could essentially 'erase' what he hit if he concentrated on the punch or kick while he was hitting the enemy Pokemon, but it always left him feeling tired for a moment or two after the punch, so he had to focus on hitting where he could do the most damage and then keep moving.

"You pick up some new tricks and think you can stop me?" Cyrus yelled, now standing on top of a Camerupt to give himself a better view of the battle. "You are a foolish child-!"

"And you're a nutcase who decided he had the right to destroy the universe!" Ash countered, knocking a Weavile down with a kick to its head. "If you have any questions about why someone would be against that, you're even crazier than I thought you were!"

"My new world is necessary-!"

"Then why do you have to do all this to get there?" Ash retorted. "Do you even have a plan for what you'd do once you had that new world? I mean, I can appreciate that you probably had a hard life-"

"I have seen the harshness of reality and made a rational choice-!"

"You're talking about killing everyone else; that's not rational!" Ash retorted, narrowly avoiding a diving Honchkrow. "You just want to-"

Ash's words were cut short when a Toxicroak grabbed him by the throat and pinned him to the ground, leaving him gasping for air as Cyrus jumped off the Camerupt and walked over to stand above him.

"You see the world through your blinkered view and assume that your faith is sufficient to get you and those you know through life, but I have seen more of the world than you and your childish associates could ever understand." Cyrus glared down at Ash as Toxicroak adjusted its position to hold down Ash's arms with its other arm and one foot. "There is nothing in this life beyond what meaning other seek to impose on it, foolish boy; I will see this world purged to reflect the true lack of meaning in this bleak existence-"

Cyrus's rant was suddenly interrupted as a loud screech filled the air, the semi-visible sound waves striking with such force that both Toxicroak and Cyrus were sent flying away from Ash.

"What-?" Ash looked back, before confusion was replaced by a broad grin. "Noivern!"

The large bat-like Pokemon let out a loud screech as it flew over the battlefield, its eyes glowing red as it swept the enemy Pokemon with Boomburst. Hawlucha, Talonflame and Heracross were just behind the large purple bat-dragon, each diving in to attack one of Cyrus's Toxicroak with their wings before moving on to other targets, while Cyndaquil led Goodra into the fray. As Snorlax leapt onto the field with a surprising display of speed before crash-landing on top of a group of Electrode, Ash guessed that the younger Pikachu had stayed with Noctowl, Bayleef and his friends to help in the ongoing battle against the rest of Team Galactic, but he had to focus on the battle at hand rather than worry about that.

"Pikachu?" Pikachu called out as it dived back into the thick of the battle, but Ash didn't have time to ask what that was about as Cyrus charged towards him. Raising his arms, Ash grabbed Cyrus's outstretched fist and hauled the older man over his shoulder, following it up by kicking him in the side. When Cyrus struck a nearby tree, Ash almost winced at the sight, but reminded himself that he was facing a villain and turned back around to eliminate a group of Electrode before they could trigger Self-Destruct as they charged towards Charizard and Greninja. As his original two powerhouses rejoined the thick of the battle, they continued to reaffirm Ash's faith in them as Greninja's Water Shuriken took down a small herd of Camerupt even as Charizard burnt a group of illusionary Toxicroak into non-existence.

Demonstrating its usual surprising agility when riled, Snorlax stomped firmly into the battlefield, swinging its fists to knock down charging Camerupt with its Ice Punches. Hawlucha unleashed a series of Flying Presses against the Honchkrow in the air while Talonflame joined Charizard in keeping the Forteress at bay with a mix of Flame Charge and Flamethrower. Cyndaquil soon found itself fighting off a group of Weavile while Goodra focused its efforts on the Skuntank. Heracross and Greninja soon established themselves as an effective team against the Houndoom, while Pikachu vaulted into the air to launch the occasional Thunderbolt at the assembled Crobat.

"Pika-!" Ash began, before Cyrus was suddenly right in front of him, the man's eyes wide with a cold rage that was the most emotion Ash had ever seen on his face even when the older man was pretending to be an innocent party. Ash lashed out with an Aura-charged punch, but whether he didn't have time to focus or Cyrus was just able to focus his own powers better, the blow didn't do much damage, leaving Cyrus to grab his arm and hurl him towards the nearby shrine, the stone structure still undamaged despite the battle waging around it.

"You dare to defy me!" Cyrus roared in outrage, hands reaching for Ash's throat. "I will achieve my destiny-!"

"Your destiny?" Ash spat back into Cyrus's face, reaching up to try and keep Cyrus's hands from reaching his throat as he moved briskly away from the shrine, desperately avoiding a Flamethrower from Cyndaquil that struck a pair of Fortress and a Weavile. "The Lake Pokemon came to me, Dawn and Brock; don't you think if any of the Legendaries approved of your idea they'd have appeared to anyone in your organisation?"

"This world does not know what it needs; I give us the world we all deserve-!"

"And what gives you the right to decide that?" Ash retorted as Talonflame used Flame Charge to knock down a pair of Skuntank. "Life is about facing challenges and overcoming them; I might start fresh with each new region, but that's not the same thing as… wiping the slate clean like that!"

"I have seen the truth of the world-!"

"Through your own blinkered eyes; you just want the world to be as bad as you say it is so you've got a reason to destroy it!" Ash protested, as Hawlucha and Heracross took up position back-to-back and began to attack their surrounding opponents. "You're just a petty idiot who can't accept-"

"I am the only one who sees the world as it is!" Cyrus yelled, as a hard shove sent Ash staggering back towards the shrine behind him. As soon as Ash's fingers made contact with the stone, he suddenly felt another boost of energy, as though everything he'd been tapping so far was just a light trickle and something had unlocked the necessary tap even further.

"Go past your limits, Ash Ketchum," he heard Lucario's voice echoing in his head once again, almost sounding as though it was coming from the shrine behind him. "You have already achieved the impossible with one; for this moment, in this place, all must be possible."

Ash could never explain how he knew that what he was about to do would be possible, but as soon as Lucario spoke, he knew what he had to do. As Cyrus charged towards him again, Ash positioned himself against the shrine and kicked upwards to force the insane leader of Team Galactic back, before he leaned back to tighten his grip on the stone structure behind him.

If he'd misunderstood Lucario's message, he was going to look very stupid when this didn't work, but if he was right, this was going to have some very dramatic results…

"Charizard! Heracross!" he called over at two of his team's traditional powerhouses, each of whom had yet to reach their greatest potential but would prove themselves time and again in the future. "Get over here; it's time to go Mega!"

Even if neither of his Pokemon knew what he meant, Ash was touched to see no hesitation from the dragon or the beetle as they flew away from their current opponents to take up a position closer to their trainer. Cyrus scrambled to his feet with a roar of defiance, but he was too late to stop Ash from taking up a position right against the shrine, leaning against the small stone structure before he thrust his hands towards his two powerhouses. Charizard roared in triumph as Heracross let out a loud screech, which was followed by the two Pokemon transforming into the Mega evolved forms he'd seen in Kalos, Charizard becoming a large black dragon with blue flames while Heracross's arms bulked up and his horn shifted to a large single point fixed on the back of his head.

"NO!" Cyrus yelled in outrage, looking at the newly-transformed Pokemon in outrage as he tried to get back to his feet, even as his pained expression made it clear he was still in pain from Ash's last blow.

"Mega Evolution; you've got to love it," Ash smiled in satisfaction, carefully leaning against the shrine to hide his sudden exhaustion as Charizard and Heracross joined Greninja and Pikachu, the three enhanced forms and the starter clearly ready for his next command. "Charizard, Flamethrower! Heracross, Mega Horn! Greninja, Water Shuriken! Pikachu, Thunderbolt!"

Just as Ash had hoped, Mega Evolution augmented Charizard and Heracross's abilities to the same extent as Greninja became stronger after he transformed, while Pikachu remained his team's traditional powerhouse. The three elemental attacks tore through Cyrus's forces, the illusionary Pokemon vanishing or being thrown aside, while Heracross cut a wave of power through the army before the large blue bug grabbed Cyrus by the throat and pinned him against a suitably sized tree.

Ash didn't even have to issue the order before his other Pokemon leapt into action, tackling any of Cyrus's Pokemon that remained conscious after that last assault. Reflecting his usual blend of raw power and rapid movement, his team had soon essentially destroyed every last illusionary Pokemon Cyrus had attempted to unleash against him, until his enemy's only remaining Pokemon were Dialga and Palkia. As Ash turned his attention to his team's last two opponents, Greninja launched two massive Water Shuriken that sent both of the fake Legendary Pokemon up into the air before Charizard and Pikachu blasted them each with Dragonbreath and Thunderbolt, disintegrating Cyrus's last line of defence before Ash's three transformed Pokemon reverted to their natural states.

"NO!" Cyrus screamed in rage, only to find himself gasping for air as Heracross tightened his grip on the man's throat, the normally friendly Bug-type glaring at Cyrus in contempt even after returning to his regular state.

"It's over, Cyrus," Ash said, giving Heracross a brief nod while fighting to stay on his feet; if he gave away just how tired he was after that unconventional form of Mega Evolution, Cyrus might take advantage of the opportunity to try and attack him directly. Understanding his trainer's meaning, Heracross released his grip on Cyrus's neck and then he delivered a quick punch to the man's face, leaving the man lying on the ground with a broken nose.

As Cyrus fell to the ground, Ash smiled in satisfaction before he sank down to his knees, struck by a sudden sense of fatigue and exhaustion as though he'd just run out of energy himself. Hawlucha and Heracross hurried over to catch him before he fell to the ground completely, but he still needed to place his hands on their shoulders for a few moments before he felt like he'd regained enough strength to try and stand up again.

"Thanks…" he said, smiling tentatively at his friends as his two part-Fighting types gave him extra support to get back to his feet.

"Well…" he looked around the battle-tarnished clearing before his gaze settled on his expanded team, all ten of his Pokemon looking at him with expectant optimism. "That was… I mean, it was…"

Giving up on his efforts to find something to say, Ash finally chose to run forward and give Charizard a hug as Pikachu and Cyndaquil leapt up to join the embrace, followed by Snorlax stepping up behind Charizard while Goodra came up from behind. As Ash let out a victorious laugh, Greninja and Heracross moved in from the sides while Hawlucha, Talonflame and Noivern flew down to envelop the group in their arms.

We did it, Ash thought to himself, a broad smile on his face as he looked between his various Pokemon. We stopped Cyrus…

"Congratulations, Ash Ketchum," Lucario's voice echoed in his head. "You have prevailed, and harnessed your powers of Aura as well as any could expect."

…Lucario? Ash thought tentatively in response. How are-?

"Time is a mysterious thing, Ash Ketchum," Lucario responded. "I will explain more later…"

Ash wasn't sure how Lucario intended to clear up that particular question, but faced with the joy of his latest victory, it was easy enough not to worry about that in favour of celebrating the fact that he'd won his most difficult battle to date.

"…Come on," he said, looking around at his team with a relieved smile as he stepped back and jerked a thumb at Cyrus. "Let's get this git back to the rest of the group."

Chapter Text

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…

Chapter Text

Blinking his eyes open, Ash sat up, shaking his head before he took in his surroundings. As he'd expected, he was back in the wetlands that had been Goodra's home, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie gathered around him with Pikachu and Dedenne in the middle of the group and Goodra lying at the side. He looked up to see Celebi floating in the air above the pool of water where they'd originally found it, but the legendary Pokemon just smiled and waved at him before it flew up into the sky and vanished all over again.

"Huh," he said, looking around as he got to his feet with a tentative smile. "That was… an experience."

"Pika?" Pikachu said, as his starter practically jumped back to his feet and looked around the wetlands before his gaze settled on Ash. "Pika kapi pipika chuka?"

"I… I don't know," Ash said, sighing solemnly as he looked around. "I guess… Celebi brought us back…"

And then it was like we were never away.

After everything he'd been through… after one of the most incredible experiences of his life… after he'd finally realised how he really felt… nothing had changed.

After May's Eevee had hatched, she'd told Ash about how she, Meowth and Squirtle had gone 'back in time' somehow and managed to stop a relationship falling apart due to a mistake, but at the time Ash hadn't really given it much thought. May herself had admitted that she wasn't sure if it had just been an idle dream or something like that, maybe based on a film she'd watched with her mother before starting her journey. Even after he'd gone back with Brock and Dawn during that close call with Arceus, Ash had never seriously thought about using time travel to change his own life, even if that was mainly because he'd just felt as though his life was fine the way it was, but after having a chance to see Misty again… feeling the warmth of her lips against hers… realising the depths of his feelings for her and knowing they were returned…

For a moment, as he fell back onto the ground, Ash felt as though he'd been punched in the gut. He'd never imagined he'd get sentimental over a girl, but Misty wasn't just 'a girl'; she was… he couldn't even think of the right term for how he felt about her; it was like every term he could think of that might define their relationship just didn't fully express how he felt about her. Misty had been his first travelling companion, his first unofficial coach, the first girl he'd truly cared for…

He'd spent so many years aware that Misty was in some way 'special' compared to his other female travelling companions, even if he couldn't define the term better even to himself, and now… when he had spent a few short hours able to think about the idea that he could have something with her…

I barely even had time to appreciate it before I had to give it all up…

"Ash?"

At first Ash thought he'd imagined it, but when he looked over and saw that Serena and Pikachu seemed just as startled at the sound- Clemont was too busy checking the still-waking-up Bonnie to react himself while Goodra was still disorientated- he realised that wasn't just another memory. Looking up, his eyes widened at the sight of the new figure walking through the wetlands towards their small group, her now-shoulder-length red hair hanging down around her face as she wore a loose yellow blouse over a red top and tight blue jean-shorts.

"M… Misty?" Ash practically whispered, staring in awe at the older version of the girl he'd seen just moments ago and had believed he wouldn't see again.

She… she's beautiful…

For the first time that he could remember, he could actually understand how a beautiful girl could get Brock so tongue-tied he acted like an idiot…

"Ash?" Misty smiled at him in a teasing manner as she walked over to crouch down beside him and hold out her hand. "I get that you want to spend more time with Goodra, but you've still got to get to the Lumiose Conference before the championship-"

"Hold on; you… you're here?" Serena looked at Misty in shock, tears gleaming in the corner of her eyes in a manner that reminded Ash of the way she'd reacted when she found him kissing the younger Misty on the plane.

"Well, why wouldn't I be?" Misty grinned as Ash took her hand and accepted the hand up. "I know I only caught up with you in Shalour-"

Instinct took over as Ash wrapped his arms around Misty and pulled her towards him, their heads immediately shifting into position for a deep, passionate kiss that went beyond everything they'd done on the plane-

And this wasn't the first one…

As though the kiss had been a catalyst, Ash suddenly staggered back, Goodra practically leaping to his feet to stop Ash falling down as his mind was left reeling from the sudden influx of memories. For the most part he was relieved to find that his past self had followed his advice and managed to capture all of his original Pokemon just like he had before, and Sinnoh had been just a bit quieter without Team Galactic to deal with, but his life with Misty…

He might have taken an embarrassingly long time to realise what his future self (God, it was weird to think about this event from both perspectives) had been talking about, but when he'd kissed her that first time in celebration of them saving Brock from that creepy Ninetails… when they'd met up with Lance again during the Lake of Rage when he'd captured the red Gyarados… when she'd helped him be a 'parent' to Larvitar based on her own experience with Togepi…

It was all small changes from his original Johto journey, but Ash treasured every moment of those shared kisses, their tentative dates inspired by Brock's surprisingly effective insights, until that dark day in Viridian after Misty had received the fateful phone call only she had been expecting…

"You have to go?" Ash looked sadly at Misty.

"It's not like I want to go, Ash, but if I don't at least take over the gym right now it's going to close, "Misty explained, even as she looked at him regretfully. "I've been talking with Lance about this, and he's going to look into finding a suitable trainer to take over for me, but I still need to be there to approve the substitute…"

"I get that, but it's just…" Ash sighed as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, we've only been dating for a couple of months, and now…"

"It's not the end, you know-"

"I get that, but I can't just… I know we can still talk, but I'll miss having you around…"

"And I'll miss you," Misty replied, reaching over to give him a warm hug. "But it's not the end, remember? As soon as Lance and I can draw up the paperwork to legitimize my substitute, I'll be right there…"

"You can stay?" Ash grinned eagerly at Misty, trying to temper his glee when thinking about how Misty had just had to say goodbye to Togepi.

"Well, I'll need to check back on Cerulean in a couple of months to make sure the substitute is still doing the job, but there's no reason I have to go all the way back to Kanto for that," Misty grinned at him, only the pain in her eyes hinting at her grief at the loss of her 'baby'. "That is, if you still-?"

The warm kiss Ash gave her in response was more than enough confirmation for Misty; not even May's enthusiastic "Aww!" at the reunion kiss or Max's mock-gagging was enough to kill the mood…

"So… your sisters are back, and now you have to leave?" May looked at Misty in confusion as they stood outside Mount Moon. "How does that make sense?"

"It's a whole legal thing," Misty shrugged. "Basically, Fergus was only there to ensure that someone was in control of the gym until someone from my family could take over, and even then he had to be approved by me to ensure he kept up my standards."

"So since your sisters are back, you don't need a 'placeholder'…"

"But they're pretty much useless at the moment, so I need to go back and give them a good crash course in actually doing their jobs if I want to continue travelling with Ash," Misty confirmed, before she looked apologetically at Ash. "Sorry about this, but… well, you know the 'Sensational Sisters'."

"I know that you took all of the 'Sensation' with you when you left Cerulean," Ash grinned at her, before looking at her with a more serious expression. "Seriously, we'll be fine; you take over the gym for a few months to train up your sisters, I'll drop in on you while I'm challenging the Battle Frontier, and we'll work out where to go next once I've beaten it."

"I think we can pull that off," Misty nodded at him, before she sighed in resignation. "Just a pity that you've got the more fun opportunity right now…"

"You made a trade?" Misty looked at Ash in surprise as they sat in the train station.

"I took a while to think about it, but it… well, it fit," Ash shrugged. "I mean, Aipom was always good when I used her in battles, but she seemed to be enjoying herself more in contests, and Dawn's Buizel was more of a fighter than a performer, so we switched."

"I… guess that makes sense…" Misty nodded tentatively. "Just so long as this isn't another St Anne…"

"Hey, then I was giving into peer pressure and Brock's bad advice," Ash observed. "I know what I'm doing now, and I trust that Dawn will take good care of Aipom; they'll be fine."

"That's… good," Misty smiled at him, before she assumed a more probing expression. "And Dawn is-"

"Like a little sister," Ash cut her off with a grin. "She's easier to get along with than May was at the beginning, but she's got her own style that just makes her… well, she's fun."

"Then I'm sure I'll like her," Misty nodded. "She and Brock are at the Pokemon Centre?"

As Darkrai fell to Draco Meteor, Ash smiled in satisfaction at his victory.

He appreciated that his other self hadn't given him a blow-by-blow breakdown of his efforts in every Pokemon League between the Orange Islands and Kalos, but considering that Cyrus was meant to have begun tampering with his mind at this point, he doubted that he would have picked the same team he'd picked this time around, or that he would have spent quite as much time working with Gible. He wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of wearing down Darkrai with Glalie and Gible rather than just relying on one-on-one battles, but considering Darkrai's reputation, he felt a change of approach was merited.

As Tobias switched out the unconscious Darkrai for Latios, Ash recalled Gible for Pikachu, hoping that his starter could pack enough of a punch to pull this off. He'd taken care to make sure Pikachu got over his early illness after his starter took a bad beating during Team Rocket's first attempt to steal him in Sinnoh, but Team Rocket seemed to have taken his future self's criticism as a provocation.

Latios might be powerful, but it was still a Flying-type; if Pikachu could hit it hard enough and fast enough…

Maybe he couldn't win against a man who had at least two Legendaries on his side, but he still had Sceptile, Snorlax and Charizard as an option; whatever Tobias had to throw at him, those six had to be enough to least take down a few more…

In the end, I placed second in the Sinnoh League, but so many congratulated me on stopping the unstoppable…

"You always make sure we meet up in the interesting places, don't you?" Misty grinned teasingly at Ash as they walked through the streets of Nimbasa City.

"This isn't about how I ended up meeting you in the local bug gym, right?"

"Well… I get that you didn't do that part on purpose, but do you have to make your first catch after I joined you another bug?"

"I'm just going with the list; I'm sorry that it's not always a Pokemon you'd approve of-"

"I get that," Misty waved a reassuring hand at Ash, before she smiled thoughtfully at him. "You know, I never told you this, but… of every bug out there, your ones always manage to not creep me out."

"Really?" Ash smiled. "I mean, I know you were OK with Butterfree and Heracross eventually, but I just-"

"They're not just bugs," Misty smiled back at him. "They're your bugs…"

She shot him a warning glance. "But you'd better help me find a good Water-type after this…"

Her Tympole was a simple catch, but then she managed to catch a Tirtouga during that mess with Ferris… training with her gave everyone else a boost, and Iris couldn't exactly call me a 'little kid' when I had a girlfriend…

When Cameron's Riolu fell, Ash felt a distinct sense of guilt when the younger trainer's anxious search of his pockets made it clear that he didn't have a sixth Pokemon on-hand.

He had grown beyond those days where he liked to brag about his victories, but he felt that even his Indigo League self would have felt guilty about winning a battle like this. He'd brought back Glalie and Sceptile for this round to give himself some extra firepower on the ground that opponents at this stage would be tougher than the last few, but he certainly hadn't expected that Cameron would have a Pokemon who had that kind of weakness to Ice as his first choice. After Glalie had taken out Hydregion, Pignite and Pikachu had done well facing their opponents, and once Riolu had taken down Pikachu, he'd just gone straight for Sceptile rather than risk Palpitoad…

"Are you all right?" Misty asked, walking up to stand beside him.

"Just… was I too hard on him?" Ash indicated Cameron as the younger boy spoke reassuringly to Riolu. "I mean, I know I always try to give my rivals a good shot, but he didn't even have a full team on him…"

"You didn't make him do anything, and you treated him as fairly as any opponent could have in the circumstances," Misty smiled reassuringly at her boyfriend. "You're not a bad person, Ash; it's not your fault that Cameron didn't pay attention to the rules…"

I only placed second in the end of the contest, but everyone in the team was doing so well… and Misty and I spent so much time together on that cruise around the Decolore islands, even with Iris and Cilan tagging along…

"Wow…" Misty said, staring out at the city spread out before her. "It's so beautiful…"

"Yeah, it is," Ash replied, even as his own gaze remained on Misty.

"Stop it!" Misty said, slapping him on the shoulder even as the teasing smile on her face made it clear that she didn't mind.

"What?" Ash replied. "I can't help it if I find this view more appealing."

"Just because you've seen it before-"

"Is no reason for you not to enjoy this as much as you can," Ash smiled warmly at his girlfriend, walking over to give her a brief hug before he stepped back. "I mean, I'm sorry I couldn't just wait here for you like we'd planned, but Serena …"

"I get it," Misty nodded at him understanding. "I have to deal with the Gym stuff, you have to keep up with that list…"

"Well, for what it's worth, it looks like I've just got to find an egg and then I can get back to normal."

"You mean on top of how you ended up keeping Larvitar and everyone else you didn't get from the list?"

"Hey, I'm just being more open; there's no reason not to make new friends while making sure I still find the same team!"

"Fair enough," Misty grinned. "Besides, I can't really complain about the time-travel advantage when it made you do this…"

She leaned over to kiss him-

"Ash?" Misty's voice broke into his thoughts, the young man shaking his head to see his girlfriend (girlfriend!) looking anxiously at him. "Are you OK?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Ash grinned at her, eyes damp with tears of joy. "I finally closed the loop, and it's all brilliant."

"Closed the-?" Misty began before her eyes widened in understanding. "Celebi? That was now?"

"Yep," Ash grinned back at her, reaching up to tap the side of his head. "It's still getting all straightened out up here, but… well, for example, I remember our date up Lumiose Tower and the time you caught Tympole in Unova."

"You remember?" Clemont looked at Ash in surprise. "But you told us- oh, hold on…"

"That's… weird," Bonnie shook her head as she looked at Misty. "It's like… one moment I didn't know you, and the next… you've been here since Shalour when you caught Mantyke…"

"And before that," Serena said, looking at Ash and Misty with an expression of what Ash could only consider solemn resignation. "You… you've been dating for years, haven't you?"

"It's… long-distance on occasion, but yeah," Misty nodded at Serena before she looked at Ash. "So… you remember everything, right?"

"If you mean I remember that I placed second in Sinnoh and almost won in Unova thanks to your support, then yes," Ash said, before he placed his hand on Misty's back and pulled her towards him. "But if you mean that I remember that you have made me happier in this new timeline since Johto than I ever imagined I could ever have been in the old timeline…"

Ash didn't bother to finish that question as his and Misty's lips met in another kiss that seemed to last forever, Ash not sure if he wanted to laugh or cry for joy in the face of this new turn of events. For a moment, as he kissed Misty, it felt as though the wave of new memories from the past was being accompanied by a glimpse of the future, as he prepared Charizard, Snorlax and Sceptile for the final battle… he and Misty were travelling a new set of tropical islands to complete new challenges… he was being invited to compete in the first contest in a completely new League competition… they were facing a massive purple creature that made him think of a Dragon…

He didn't know if this flash was truly what was coming for him in the future, but whatever would happen to him when he got to Lumiose Stadium, Ash knew one thing for certain; Misty would be there for him for as long as they both wanted to be there.

He barely even registered as the small green form of Celebi flew away from the marshlands and back into the same strange vortex that had pulled them away in the first place, a small smile of satisfaction on the legendary Pokemon's face before it vanished.

I never knew how I felt about her before, Ash thought as he pulled away from his first travelling companion, the two exchanging warm smiles, and now I never want to let her go.

"So… if you remember what happened to you the first time…?" Misty asked.

"I infinitely prefer this timeline," Ash confirmed. "And you're far and away the best part of that."

Even as a part of him hated to see the sorrow on Serena's face as she looked at him and Misty, Ash couldn't fully restrain the joy he felt at this incredible second chance he'd received. He didn't know if it was some kind of repayment for all the times he'd saved the Legendaries in the past, or if he'd just been in the right place at the right time, but now that he had her back, he was never going to let Misty go.

The journey continues, and this time it's going to be much better than I ever expected...