"Dad?" Mew asked, during Dawn's Contest. "Is it okay if I ask you a difficult question?"

Pikachu sniggered.

"Well, that avoids it just being that you're asking if you can ask a question," he said.

"Go ahead," Ash invited, managing to catch himself before saying Mew. Mew was disguised as a Smeargle at the moment, their usual way of camouflaging their identity in public, and while they were speaking quietly to avoid disturbing the crowds it'd be silly to give the game away.

"So… I was thinking about this Ursula person," Mew explained, twisting their tail a bit. "And about how you talked to them and their Gabite, and whether that actually sorted anything out. I'd want it to have sorted things out, but… maybe I'm not saying any of this right?"

They twitched their ears, and Ash made an encouraging gesture.

"Go on?" he asked.

"Okay," Mew said. "I was thinking about, what do you do if you can't persuade someone by talking to them?"

"That is a tricky question," Ash admitted, frowning. "I guess… sometimes it's obvious because the person is doing something wrong. I mean, wrong enough that they're hurting someone, like with Lawrence III or with that Zero guy. They needed to be stopped because they were doing things that were hurting people. So with those it's easy. And… there's also people who are wrong but they're not doing anything with it, and they probably won't in future either."

He shook his head. "But in between those, it's… difficult."

"X-Scissor!" Dawn called, out on stage, and Sneasel began her routine.

Ash was still thinking about Mew's question, but he watched as well, and Mew sat up in Cynthia's lap to stare.

Sneasel was doing a kind of dance as her Appeal, which was based on quick switches between X-Scissor, Quick Attack and Shadow Claw, and she just didn't stop spinning. She was dancing upside down on the moves extending from her claws, then flipping through the air and moving halfway across the stage, and then snap-rolling straight into another spin.

"Does she know Rapid Spin, or do you think this is just spinning rapidly?" Riolu asked.

"I don't think that qualifies as Rapid Spin," Mew replied, seriously. "I have data on the move, and while the physical motions are a lot like this there are also other components which are not met."

"Thanks for the answer," Riolu told them, then Sneasel sprang into a forwards somersault before using X-Scissor with a flourish. The attack left a glowing X-shape in the air, hanging there before it faded, and the crowd applauded politely.

"Looks like a good score," Cynthia said. "Ash, I'm guessing you and Smeargle are talking about how you tell whether to stop someone?"

"Yeah," Ash confirmed, as Mew nodded at her.

"Well," Cynthia began. "Personally, the way I think about it is that… you're right, about those two examples you mentioned. And you're right, in between them it's more of a judgement call… but the way that I make those judgement calls, myself, is based on context."

"...that sounds like you're just saying you decide," Mew protested.

"No, I think I get it," Latias contributed. "It's that… it is too complicated to have a rule."

"That's it, right?" Ash said. "There's not just one rule you can use between those two. Like… if you ask someone to stop, and they don't give you a firm answer but they do stop, that's better than if they don't… and if they do agree to stop, but then they don't stop, that's worse. And even then, it depends if they're forgetting or if they don't care… there's so much about it that affects what happens."

"That's some of it," Cynthia agreed. "But there's also a different factor involved – which is to give someone the opportunity to change. If you press them too hard, they don't have a chance to do better in the first place… but the more opportunity they get, first, the more that something actually going wrong is the result not of ignorance on their part but of negligence."

"I'm glad you've thought about it," Ash admitted. "It's really hard to get into words how to do this kind of thing."

He frowned. "And I guess… it's the kind of thing my dad has to think about, too. Only, he's way more powerful, so it's much more important that he doesn't make mistakes…"

They were onto the Battle Rounds when Latias made a curious noise.

"I've been thinking about something you said," she explained. "When you were talking about the kind of thing your dad has to think about, you said… that it was really important that he didn't make mistakes. Right?"

"Yeah, I did," Ash agreed. "Because, he's really powerful, so if he does something wrong it could have a huge impact."

"I get that," Latias said, nodding, not that anyone but Ash could see her – but he was who she was nodding for, anyway. "I was wondering if that's maybe… if that's why he hasn't been around much. If that's something he worries about, too… like, if he was worried he'd make a mistake bringing you up? Or, more generally."

That gave Ash a lot to think about, and he was frowning as he watched Dawn's first Battle Round.

Chimchar was bouncing around and twirling, actually quite a lot like Sneasel had been, and once he realized that Ash could see how they'd both been trained not just by the same trainer but at the same time. It wasn't exactly identical, because Chimchar was using Fire Spin and Flame Wheel instead of Shadow Claw and X-Scissor, but there were definitely similarities – and the combination of dodging and counterattacking proved difficult for the Hippopotas he was facing to deal with, since the Ground-type couldn't pin Chimchar down for long enough to attack.

Conversely, Chimchar's fire attacks were lashing out across Hippopotas and forcing her to keep defending herself, and what was more that defence wasn't always successful. About the only fault was that Dawn called for a Mach Punch about halfway through, which Chimchar tried but didn't quite succeed at, and they just avoided the move for the rest of the battle.

"Maybe," he said, eventually, as the time ran out, and the judges pronounced Chimchar the winner. "I think that… yeah, that could be what's going on. It's not the only thing that could be going on, but it's a thing."

He looked at Pikachu. "What do you think of that?"

"I think we just don't know enough to be sure," Pikachu admitted. "But, like Roark said, it's best not to go for the worst interpretation. I guess you could say that if you think the worst you're only ever pleasantly surprised, but I'd rather not think someone's terrible ahead of time."

"I guess – yeah," Ash agreed. "You have to allow for the possibility of being disappointed, or you're going to go into everything thinking everyone is terrible. And – and, I guess, if I don't understand why my dad did something, I want to understand. Even if I don't agree."

Then he smiled. "It's like with any Pokémon, right? You try and make sure you understand how they're thinking?"

"Thank goodness, you've finally worked it out," Pikachu said, deadpan, and Latias did her best to hold in a giggle.

Dawn's final was against Ursula's Gabite, and the Dragon-type was fast. As fast as Chimchar, and as agile, and kept using moves like Dragon Rage and Stone Edge.

Chimchar was kept on his toes all the time, exchanging attacks and giving as good as he got, and it was almost a minute into the Battle Round when Riolu made a curious noise.

"I just realized," he said. "It's like what you were talking about…"

He waved a paw at the battle.

"It'd be easy for us to just assume that Gabite wasn't good at Contests, right?" he asked. "But she and Ursula are good at Contests."

Ash nodded, slowly.

"And we only met Ursula once, but I think… it seemed like she was thinking about it?" he said. "So if we'd had a different conversation with her, we'd have thought something different about her."

He glanced at Latias. "If Latias had met me when I still thought I was human, wouldn't she have got a different idea about me?"

"I think that depends if I'd had the chance to get to know you," Latias told him. "I don't know, but – I think the person you are is obvious, Ash."

Ash had to stop and think about that, as well.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Because maybe I am different because of knowing what I am. And from knowing you, Latias."

"I'd say it's not something we'd ever know, but one of your siblings is the god of time and two of your future kids can travel in it," Pikachu said. "So maybe we will eventually find out."

Chimchar backflipped out of the way of Gabite's latest attack, flames spiralling around him as he touched down with a three-point pose, and Ursula frowned.

"Stone Edge," she instructed. "Then Dragon Rage it!"

"Mach Punch the rocks back!" Dawn called quickly, and Chimchar visibly braced himself – then punched.

The first one didn't quite work, and he only managed to stop the attack, and Dawn raised her voice.

"Remember what we said – commit!"

Chimchar nodded slightly, and hit the second one with a snappy krak and knocked it back at Gabite.

"Dragon Claw!" Ursula instructed. "Stop the Stone Edges coming back!"

Gabite lashed her tail, blocking the next two Stone Edge attacks, and Dawn frowned for a moment.

"Close in!" she said. "Flame Wheel jump to get close – then cloak yourself in Fire Spin and use Mach Punch!"

The complicated series of instructions could have thrown Chimchar off, but his training shone through. He did a handspring forwards, whirling into a Flame Wheel along the arena that evaded a Dragon Rage attack from Gabite, then he was visible for only a moment as he planted his hand and spun into a Fire Spin.

"Stone Edge!" Ursula called.

Gabite used Stone Edge, lashing out to try and hit Chimchar directly, and the Fire-type replied with a blurring-fast sequence of Mach Punch attacks that shattered all the Stone Edges.

Then the bell rang for the end of the match, and the Fire Spin died down – revealing that Chimchar had evolved to Monferno.

"...huh," he said. "Wait, did I win?"

Gabite sniffed. "There should be a rule that it doesn't count if you ask a question like that."

"Monferno, congratulations!" Dawn said, waving him over, and gave him a hug.

Ash could hear the judges saying that it was a good thing that there were firm rules over not awarding points for things like that, before announcing that Dawn and Monferno were the winners.

Then he looked over at Ursula, who had an unreadable expression on her face.

AN:

This fic has ended up very introspective, but I suppose that's a good thing when the protagonist has literal divine powers and is also Ash Ketchum.