"Alola, Ash!" Kukui called, the next day. "See that Morning Sun!"

He held out a Pokédex. "After I contacted Professor Samuel Oak about what you're doing, he suggested that I should record your lessons! So this guy's going to be doing it."

He stopped, and looked at it. "Well, I say this guy, but I haven't actually installed the guy yet."

"A Rotom, right?" Ash checked. "Did you ask what device he's from?"

"No, actually," Kukui admitted. "I've not studied Rotom very extensively… this is one of Samuel Oak's Rotom-Dexes, though, so he should have a great place to stay once he's loaded in."

He waved. "Come on, I've got the actual Rotom in my office, I wanted you to be there when it happened."

"Sure!" Ash agreed. "I'll do my best to give emotional support, or, whatever kind of support it's supposed to be!"

The Rotom in question was buzzing around impatiently, and lit up both literally and figuratively when he saw Ash and Kukui come in.

"At last!" he said. "I've got a chance to do what I'm meant to do – provide information!"

"To Ash or to everyone else?" Pikachu checked.

"To everyone, right?" Rotom replied. "That's the point of being a Pokédex! And then I'm going to record some lessons or something."

Pikachu shrugged. "You'll learn."

Rotom looked mystified, then dove into the Pokédex and booted it up.

"Wow!" he said. "There is lots of data already in here! Evaluating… Pikachu, the Mouse Pokémon. An Electric type. It raises its tail to sense its surroundings."

Rotom buzzed happily. "This is fascinating! I can look at things and all this information appears!"

"Question," Pikachu said. "How complete is your data?"

"Well, I think it is complete, or almost complete," Rotom replied. "All the Pokémon I can think of are in here! I can help advise on what moves Pokémon can learn, as well."

Pikachu used Fly, by using Surf.

Rotom stared.

"Correction," he said. "I have a lot of data to fill in. It is not complete at all."

As Ash headed out to school, talking with Pikachu and Zygarde about his plans for another lesson, a mysterious shape watched him from the underbrush.

"Pikachu," Mimikyu said, their voice full of malice. "I'll get you soon."

They moved silently forwards, keeping pace with Ash and Pikachu, then ducked under a log.

And bumped into something.

"What," Mimikyu asked, glowering at the blue shape in front of them. "Get out of the way."

"Why?" Wynaut asked.

"Because I told you," Mimikyu hissed. "I'm not here to argue."

"Why not?" Wynaut said, head tilting.

Mimikyu hissed, then smacked Wynaut with a Shadow Claw.

Wynaut wobbled backwards, then bounced forwards again.

"Tag!" she announced. "My brother's it!"

"What?" Mimikyu asked, then suddenly they were yanked off through the forest into a nearby clearing.

"It worked!" a human said, as Mimikyu hit another Wynaut and bounced off. "At last!"

"Finally, our luck has turned!" agreed the other human.

"What are you on about?" Mimikyu said.

"Did someone ask something?" a Meowth said. "We're here to find out!"

The woman struck a pose. "Noble answers are what we're all about!"

The blue-haired man pulled a rose from pocket. "The beauty so radiant, the flowers and moon hide in shame. A single flower of evil in this fleeting world."

"The nobly heroic mon of our times!" Meowth declared himself. "The master of darkness fighting against a tragic world!"

"It's all for one and one for all," the red-head took over. "A glittering dark star that always shines bright! Dig it, while Meowth… takes… flight?"

Man, woman and Pokémon all looked at one another, confused.

"Did we get da scripts mixed up?" Meowth asked.

"We didn't have much time to prepare for the move," James lamented. "Maybe there was a misprint."

"Just what's that supposed to mean?" Jessie asked. "I'm the one who handled the printing!"

"I'm leaving," Mimikyu said.

"Oh, no you ain't!" Meowth said. "We ain't givin' up on a chance to finally steal Pikachu!"

Mimikyu stopped, mostly from surprise.

"What?" they asked. "You think… what?"

"Well, yeah!" Meowth agreed. "Of course you're Pikachu!"

"We know Pikachu when we see one, so it's no good trying to make us think you're not Pikachu!" James agreed.

"That's right!" Jessie said. "And this time we've got a perfect way to deal with any move you could possibly have!"

Mimikyu tilted their head.

"What?" they asked. "I… am actually having trouble processing this."

"Yeah, obviously it ain't all that easy to process us actually stealin' a Pokémon," Meowth concurred. "Especially you, Pikachu."

"Is he making fun of us?" Jessie asked.

Mimikyu's Shadow Claw reached out. "Don't call me that!"

Wobbuffet came out of his Pokéball, blocking the attack with a boi-oio-oiiiing, and Meowth yelped.

"Okay, okay, no male pronouns for da Pikachu!" he said, waving his paws conciliatorily. "Wow, you tink you know a 'mon after interacting with, uh, 'em for so long…"

"Still not a Pikachu," Mimikyu seethed.

"Hey, Pikachu keeps sayin' they're not a Pikachu, what's up with dat?" Meowth asked.

"Well, isn't it obvious?" James said. "They're faking it! That's exactly what we should expect any of Ash's Pokémon to do, so his Pikachu shouldn't be any different!"

"Now that's almost devious!" Jessie said, in tones of dawning realization.

"Wow, you're dense," Mimikyu decided. "I've already used moves Pikachu don't learn."

"Yeah, that doesn't actually mean anything," Tympole said. "You're going to need better evidence than that."

"Better evidence?" Mimikyu repeated. "But that kid – that Pikachu is still there! Doesn't that count for anything?"

"I can think of four ways to fake that with Pokémon Ash has without even needing to think about it," Seviper declared. "I bet I could come up with more if I had a minute."

"I can't use Electric moves!"

"That's not a thing that's any kind'a proof either!" Meowth retorted. "Dat's just self control!"

"...ergh," Mimikyu hissed. "And if I say I am Pikachu?"

"I knew it!" Meowth crowed.

"This is ridiculous."

Ash decided that it would be good to have a field trip for his next lesson.

"We're going to go and meet some wild Pokémon!" he said.

"Are you sure that's all right?" Lana asked. "And, are we going to have to get close to them? Only, someone in the class has a bit of Poképhobia."

"Lana," Lillie complained softly.

"Oh, okay," Ash said. "And no, you won't have to! It's up to you, in fact, and it's up to the Pokémon too, because part of what we're going to be learning about is how to interact with wild Pokémon – and that includes knowing when to not interact with them… but while we're heading out into the woods, I'll tell you all about my Larvitar and how I met him. He had something kind of similar…"

It took them about half an hour to get out into the wild parts of Melemele Island, with Zygarde leading the way, and Ash told everyone about the things he'd done to keep Larvitar happy while coaxing the Rock-type out of his shell.

"It sometimes works to shock someone out of things like that, but that's not really very kind," Ash added. "It's more important to make sure someone's comfortable with how they're stretching themselves, that way it's like exercise – you keep it up and stretch a bit more each time, and you end up able to do what you were aiming for!"

"That's a way of thinking about it I hadn't heard of before," Mallow said. "Did you learn that from someone?"

"Not really, it's just obvious?" Ash replied. "Though I guess I learned a lot about how to think about how other people and Pokémon feel from Mew, when I was growing up, so kind of with him?"

"I think we are in a good place," Zygarde reported.

"Thanks, Zygarde!" Ash told them. "Okay, so, what's the first rule about how to catch wild Pokémon?"

"You battle them, right?" Kiawe asked.

"Almost!" Ash replied. "That's a good step, sometimes, but it's not the most important bit. Anyone else?"

There was a short pause, then Sophocles' Togedemaru raised her arm.

"Can I answer?" she asked.

"Sure, if you want!" Ash agreed. "But none of the humans are going to understand you yet… unless Sophocles has a good bond with you, then he might get what you're trying to say."

"Then I think it's what you were talking about while we were coming here, isn't it?" she said, waving in Lillie's direction. "It was because of her, but it wasn't just because of her, was it?"

"Oh, I get it," Mallow's Bounsweet realized.

Sophocles looked down at Togedemaru, then shook his head.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I don't get it."

"I think I do," Lana said. "She was waving at Lillie. It's the same kind of thing, it's about making sure the Pokémon is comfortable. Right?"

"Yeah, exactly!" Ash agreed. "So battling a Pokémon is fine if they've challenged you to a battle, because a lot of Pokémon do that exactly because they want to be captured by trainers if the trainer's strong enough to beat them in the first place! But you don't need to do it, and it's not enough to have battled a Pokémon – even if you've beaten them, they might still not want to be your Pokémon and they might not accept it. It should always be an offer… and they should always be able to leave if it's not working out."

"I'd really hate to have either of my Pokémon leave," Kiawe said, looking troubled. "But… I guess if they really wanted to, I'd have to let them. Or it wouldn't be fair."

His Charizard came out of his Pokéball, and gave him a one-armed hug.

Then a Rowlet came swooping down on Mallow's Bounsweet, who yelped and ducked.

"Oh, this is interesting!" Rotom buzzed. "Bounsweet has the move Sweet Scent which makes them smell like a berry! Many flying Pokémon mistake them for berries. I am seeing this happen in person, which makes it evidence!"

"What should I do?" Mallow asked. "Does that count as trying to attack?"

"I guess maybe not," Ash said. "Hey, Rowlet!"

"What?" Rowlet asked, turning to look at him.

Since Rowlet was in the middle of diving down on Bounsweet again, this entailed turning his head away from the direction he was travelling, and he missed, bounced off the ground with a faint squeaky noise, rolled, and stopped against a tree.

"Ow," he said, faintly.

"Huh," Ash frowned. "I guess you're kind of young, right? Are you okay?"

"I'm hungry if that's what you mean," Rowlet replied, flapping a wing a few times before rolling back upright. "Also dizzy. Who moved that berry I was looking for?"

"That was actually Bounsweet," Ash explained. "Hey, Marshadow, I think we've got some berries?"

Marshadow's hand reached out of Ash's shadow, and Ash took the bag of Oran Berry slices. "Here, try some, and see what you think."

"Ooh," Rowlet hooted. "Where did these come from? That's a really funny looking berry pod."

"And that's how you get a Pokémon to join your team!" Ash said, some minutes later and after talking to Rowlet's family.

Which, oddly enough, were all Pikipek, Trumbeak and Toucannon, something that had left Rotom very confused.

Mallow stuck up her hand.

"How close does it have to be to that?" she asked.

"You kind of end up improvising, but the really important bit is where you ask if they want to join you and they say yes," Ash replied. "Marshadow is optional, just remember to bring extra food if you're going to try feeding wild Pokémon or otherwise you might run out."

He shrugged. "Apart from that, it's just really important to remember that every Pokémon is their own person with their own thoughts and preferences! So if you don't get on well with one Pokémon, you might get on well with another Pokémon of the same species."

"Correct," Zygarde agreed, nodding. "I have met two Giratina with very different attitudes."

"There is only one Giratina," Rotom protested. "Isn't there?"

"Well, there was, but then a Musharna made a fake second one to try and scare me," Pikachu declared. "It didn't work, but Ash made the fake one into a real one and now he's one of my teammates."

"Uh," Sophocles said. "I didn't understand that, but why is Togedemaru looking at Pikachu like she can't decide how scared to be?"

AN:

The first step to wisdom is to understand what it is you do not know.

Or something. Admittedly by that definition Ash is wise because he understands things he doesn't know about.