"Writing all this up is going to be interesting," Cynthia said, flicking through her notebook and then closing it. "It's all going to have to be personal-conversation, but that's still valuable."

"Uh," Ash began. "What's personal conversation? I know that sounds like a really silly question but you're saying it like it's a specific thing?"

"It is," Cynthia confirmed. "Personal conversation is the term for information that you got by actually asking someone, rather than by looking it up in a book or similar. The fact that Mesprit is a primary source makes it all very useful, but I can't simply treat anything as true because you can't really treat anything at all as true – just likely."

"I think I get it," Latias contributed. "It's like how… if we'd asked you what you were before LaRousse, Ash, then you'd have been able to give an answer that was better than almost anyone else in the world, but that doesn't mean it'd be correct."

Lucario passed that on, and Cynthia nodded.

"Yes," she said. "That's a good example. And because I have to list it as personal conversation, there's also that extra bit of question about it… it's not that Mesprit is untrustworthy, but that I might be."

Dawn frowned as she worked that out.

"I… guess that works?" she said. "It's all about how hard it is to be sure of anything, or… something."

"Or something," Cynthia agreed.

She put the notebook away. "Now, then… I know one thing I'm going to be doing on this journey is training up a few new Pokémon, and obviously Dawn is going to be working on Contests. What about you, Ash – I'm expecting you'll want to do gym battles?"

Ash nodded a confirmation.

"Yeah," he added, in case someone hadn't been looking. "And I guess… when I went to Hoenn I picked up a lot more Pokémon, but when I went to Kanto for the second time I really didn't as much. I guess I'll see how it works out to see if I get more Pokémon or not, but I do want to use some of my existing ones as well."

He looked at Zorua. "Actually, what do you think of the idea of doing some battling?"

Zorua considered it.

"Maybe," he said, then walked around in a circle and lay down on Koraidon's crest with his paws in the air. "Practice first."

"Oh, yeah, we'd do that bit first," Ash agreed. "But apart from that, hmm…"

He frowned. "I guess it depends on who I meet, more than anything…"

As they rounded a bend in the path, they met someone coming the other way.

"...what," the boy said, doing a double-take. "You've got to be Ash Ketchum, right? And that's Cynthia. What are you doing in the woods outside Sandgem?"

"I think they're the woods outside Twinleaf, here," Dawn said quietly.

"I guess right now we're mostly thinking about if I'm going to get any Pokémon in Sinnoh," Ash answered. "What's your name?"

"Paul," the boy replied. "I'm on the lookout for new Pokémon to join my team as well… seriously, why are you just… in the woods?"

Ash looked down at his hooves.

"Is there a problem?" he said. "I know I'm not in long grass, but I think that's a, what's it… a stereotype. And I'm not really wild, either, I have a trainer."

Paul transferred his gaze to Cynthia.

"Is she your trainer?" he asked.

"No, I'm my trainer," Ash explained. "I'm… actually kind of surprised you didn't know that, since you recognized me."

Paul muttered something about how it was a reasonable guess if you didn't already know the answer for sure.

"How do you do it?" he added.

"Do what?" Ash asked. "You could mean, several things…"

"How did you get so good so fast?" Paul asked. "After you won the Ever Grand Conference I watched your earlier League challenges, and your Indigo Conference fifth round battle was terrible."

"Hey!" Ash protested. "I, uh… yeah, I didn't do very well, but that's partly because I couldn't use Pidgeotto and almost everyone else was exhausted from rescuing me!"

Then he paused, and sighed, and shook his head. "But… if I'd managed to get things worked out with Charizard before then, that wouldn't have mattered. So I guess it's that I got better at working things out with my team, as much as anything."

Paul looked contemplative.

"And how did you get such rare Pokémon?" he added. "I've never even heard of some of them, and-"

He paused.

"That's a Mew. Why – how is that a Mew?"

Mew waved, a bit nervously, then slowly sank behind Ash.

"That's… a long story," Ash admitted.

"I think it begins around the creation of the universe, yeah," Pikachu said.

"You battled the Battle Frontier in Kanto, right?" Paul asked, a few minutes later, as they were heading in what was probably a northeast direction. "What's Brandon like?"

"He's pretty nice, I guess?" Ash replied. "Really into archaeology… that's different from history, I think."

"It's a kind of history," Cynthia contributed, looking down at her Eevee before pointing into the distance. Eevee darted ahead, a blur of cream and brown, and Cynthia kept going. "Archaeology is all about material things, and it's a subset of history. You can use archaeological research materials like physical artefacts to do history research, but you can't really use archaeological methods on, say, a book."

She frowned. "Unless you're basing that on where it was found, I suppose."

"I don't mean that," Paul said. "I mean to battle him."

Ash's frown cleared. "Oh, right, I see… well, his Pokémon are really strong and he's really inventive at using them. Charizard, Sceptile and I all had to work really hard to do what we did…"

"Maybe that's why," Paul said, mostly to himself, then looked up at the sound of some Starly overhead.

He sent out an Elekid. "There. Thunder."

Elekid used Thunder, blasting out a bolt of lightning at the Starly, and Ash winced.

"Hey, uh, wasn't that kind of… rude?" he asked. "At least check if the Pokémon wants a battle, first."

Paul shrugged, then caught three of the Starly with three Pokéballs in quick succession.

He got out his Pokédex, checked them, then selected two of the Pokéballs and threw them again.

The Starly came out, but this time with a blue flash instead of the normal white one.

"Was that a Contest seal?" Dawn asked.

"No, it wasn't," Ash replied. "That was – did you just release those Pokémon?"

"This has been a weird day," one of the Starly said, taking off a little unsteadily.

"Yeah, tell me about it," the other agreed. "Wait, is that a Mew?"

Zorua patted Koraidon's crest, next to where he was sitting, and the other Starly landed next to him.

"Hello," the Ghost-type said.

"Uh, hi," Starly replied. "Look, is that a Mew? And I'm not actually sure what you are."

"Zorua," Zorua explained.

"Of course I released them," Paul replied, at about the same time. "Only the second one had Aerial Ace, so it's clearly the stronger Pokémon."

"...uh," Ash began. "You… know Pokémon can improve, right?"

He waved a hoof. "I mean, uh… not just by evolving, that is."

"I'd have thought you would understand," Paul replied. "You've got a Mew. You've got a Latias. You understand that strong Pokémon win battles."

"But Pokémon get stronger with good treatment," Ash said. "I – actually Latias is a great example!"

"...yeah, I can't really argue with that," Latias sighed.

"How so?" Lucario asked.

"I only knew Safeguard when I met Ash," she admitted.

"But she's worked so hard to get stronger, and it's worked," Ash went on. "Charizard, I know he evolved so that's part of it, but he got kicked out by his first trainer as a Charmander for being too weak, but he really was strong, it's just that his trainer didn't bother being kind to him. He took Charmander for granted, and… I guess I did too, at first."

"You learn that a lot in Contests," Dawn spoke up. "Or, you see it a lot, anyway. Mom's Umbreon took years to get good enough to take part in Battle Rounds, but because he started out weak and had a lot of growing to do he got really good at learning how to be precise – and when he got power, he still had that skill."

"In my experience," Cynthia began. "Starting with a stronger Pokémon saves time. That's about all it really does, especially between different members of the same Pokémon species. It doesn't even guarantee the strongest Pokémon at the end of the process, because everything else about how a Pokémon is trained can make a bigger difference than that."

Ash nodded. "Yeah," he agreed. "Yeah, I think that makes sense."

Paul looked pensive.

"...I'm not going to change which of those Starly I'm training," he said, eventually. "But I'll think about what you said."

AN:

Paul's gotta… Paul, I suppose.

At least he can be less Paul about it.