Chapter 1: In Which People Ask Stupid Questions

((I'm reposting this without the author's notes, except where necessary, because they were stupid and pointless and mostly just said things like "OMG I HAVE NEW SOCKS ON YAY."

By the way, I am assuming that the entire TV series up to the end which hasn't happened yet takes place over three years. The beginning of this story takes place six years after the estimated end of the series, and the rest takes place about five and a half years earlier than the first part.

And by the way, all further stuff in (())s is author's note type stuff. Not that you'll be seeing much of that anymore.

Got it?

Good, now explain it to me.))

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"…And that's the procedure," said Professor Douglas-Fir (successor to Professor Oak), straightening her white lab coat and brushing some invisible dust off of it. "Any questions?"

"Will we be able to get back from the past?" Misty asked, looking slightly worried.

"Of course," said Professor Douglas-Fir shortly. "I wouldn't send you back if I had not first ensured that it was possible for you to get back… er, forward… that is to say, possible for you to return to your proper time."

"Oh, that's good." Misty looked relieved.

"How will we get back?" Ash asked, showing, oddly enough, that he'd actually been paying attention to what was going on. This was the first and probably the last time in his life that he had done so.

"You'll get into your Time Traveling Device (tm) and set it for the present day according to the instructions in the manual that I will provide."

"I've got a question!" Brock interjected. "Will you go out with me next Friday?"

"No," said Professor Douglas-Fir. "You're six years younger than me. And even if you weren't I wouldn't date you. Any other questions?" she asked, glaring at Brock.

"If we go back in time and change the past so that Team Rocket didn't take over the world, then you won't have built the time machine-"

"That's Time Traveling Device (tm)," interrupted Professor Douglas-Fir.

"All right, you won't have built your Time Traveling Device (tm), and you won't have sent us back because you won't need to, but then we wouldn't have gone back and if we didn't go back we won't have defeated Team Rocket, so-"

"Tracey, will you please stop? You're going to give me a headache," Professor Douglas-Fir said. "And your use of verb tenses is simply atrocious. Anyway, I really don't know what will happen with paradoxes like that, but time travel is important to the plot. No time travel no story, so you're just going to have to suspend your disbelief for the time being, all right?"

"What?" Ash, Misty, Brock, and Tracey stared at Professor Douglas-Fir blankly.

"Never mind. Don't ask. Any other questions?" The professor was clearly getting fed up.

"Will we run into our past selves? What will happen if we do?" Misty asked.

"You shouldn't meet them at all, but if you do, nothing will happen. You'll just be two ordinary separate people. Of course, if anything should happen to the younger one of you, it will have consequences for the older one; but once again, your younger selves shouldn't be near where I'm sending you."

"Okay."

"Any other questions, or can we get going now?" Professor Douglas-Fir asked impatiently.

"Yeah… when's lunch?" said Ash.

"I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer," replied Professor Douglas-Fir. Ash gave her a blank look.

"Anyway," Professor Douglas-Fir said annoyedly which is a word, because I said so, "right over here is your Time Traveling Device (tm). I've preprogrammed it to the time you want to go back to. The manual's in this compartment here. When you're ready to go, press the large red button."

"Which large red button?" Ash looked puzzled.

"The one that says, 'Press to Go,'" replied Professor Douglas-Fir, who was by now quite fed up with the lot of them. "Go on then, go."

"Can I have your phone number first, so that I can give you a call when we get back?" Brock asked.

"No," replied Professor Douglas-Fir, who looked like she was ready to seriously injure the next person who talked.

"Then how about your e-mail address?" Brock continued, oblivious to his impending doom. "Or your pager number? Have you got a pager number? Because I realize that not everyone-"

"Oh, come on, Brock," Misty said, grabbing his ear and dragging him into the Time Traveling Device (tm), thus saving him from Professor Douglas-Fir's wrath. "Honestly, I've known you for, what, nine years, and you haven't changed at all," she said. "Did you stop aging mentally at fifteen or something?"

"Oh yeah," Brock said, rapidly trying to think of an insult, which he wasn't that good at. "Well… well… you haven't changed your outfit at all in nine years! And your hair is really weird. How do you get it to stick out to one side like that, anyway?"

Misty completely failed to be insulted. "Is that the best you can do?"

Tracy sighed. "Come on, guys, stop bickering. Let's go."

So they closed the doors of the Time Traveling Device (tm), and pressed the large red button.