Heading out of Pastoria to the west, hopefully so that Ash could have his delayed Gym Battle at Hearthome, the friends stopped off at what had originally looked like a hotel but turned out to be a giant mansion owned by someone called Mr. Backlot.
"Welcome, welcome!" he said. "Ah, Mr. Ketchum, you certainly need no introduction! Come in! And who are your friends?"
Dawn introduced herself, and Whitney did the same, and then to Mr. Backlot's surprise Happiny, Rapidash, Shinx and Pikachu introduced themselves as well.
"Goodness me," he smiled. "I certainly didn't expect that! Though, you know, I have something of a reputation as an aficionado of rare Pokémon myself. It's quite a delight to interact so closely with such marvellous Pokémon, don't you think?"
Ash thought about that.
"I guess I don't really get what you mean about rare Pokémon," he admitted. "But then again, making friends with just about any Pokémon is great! Even though there are some Pokémon who are just not nice people, that's not any different from how humans are, and they really are the exceptions… and a lot of Pokémon which have bad reputations aren't bad at all, just misunderstood."
Mr. Backlot chuckled, then stopped as he realized something. "Oh, I see," he said. "It occurs to me that someone who's got so many Legendary Pokémon might just see them as normal."
"They're not?" Ash asked. "I meet them all the time!"
The mansion's owner shook his head, with a smile. "Still, you'll find that I have some unusual Pokémon in the Backlot back lot, as well – though they're not truly mine, they just live here. Come on, I'll take you down to show you… there's Pokémon you'll have never seen before!"
Mr. Backlot's assistant quietly rolled her eyes, then began hoping that her boss's non-specific statement was going to turn out to be correct for at least one of the visitors.
The Backlot back lot was actually the gardens, but it was as oversized relative to a normal house as the Backlot mansion itself – and, true to Mr. Backlot's boast, almost as soon as they went through the door there were Pokémon coming out of the trees to say hello.
"This is great," Whitney said, crouching down to pat an Eevee. "I've never seen Eevee in the wild before! I know there must be some, but… aww, you're so fluffy!"
The Eevee tilted his head, flicking his ears. "Fluffy!"
Whitney blinked a few times, then sat down with a silly grin on her face.
That wasn't the only notable Pokémon, either, and as Mr. Backlot's staff put out food there were all kinds of Pokémon who showed up – an Igglybuff, a Cleffa, two little Budew, and more mature Pokémon like a Swablu and a Ponyta.
There was also very briefly an Absol, until it yelped and ran away.
"Isn't that a Porygon?" Ash asked, pointing.
"Don't Porygon only exist in computers?" Pikachu asked, then saw the Porygon. "Huh. So it is. I wonder how that works."
"Maybe it's like Mirage Mew?" Ash suggested.
"Could be."
Then there was a bit of a scuffle, as a Swinub went to have the bowl of food prepared for it only to find that there wasn't any food left in the bowl.
"What happened to this?" he asked. "I was hungry!"
"Don't look at me," Swablu protested, shaking her head. "You know I don't like the same food as you."
"Poor thing," Dawn sighed. "Is there any more food to put out for Swinub?"
There was, and Dawn put some out herself – though, this time, when Swinub went to have some he only got one mouthful before the rest went missing.
Dawn twisted a lock of hair, thinking. "Hmm…"
She turned to one of the assistants. "Can I use your kitchen?"
Dawn spent the next twenty minutes or so making a big batch of Poffins, in several flavours, then put a handful of them into Swinub's bowl.
"There you go," she said.
"Thank you!" Swinub said, then looked down and they were gone.
"Yiiiiipe!"
A Nickit fell out of one of the nearby bushes, making gargling sounds. "Help, my mouth is imploding!"
"I thought so!" Dawn declared. "That's why I used a special trick my mom taught me with those Poffins! They're Colbur-Iapapa-Aspear-Sitrus mix, but I put a thin layer of Grepa on the outside so they looked Sweet instead of Sour!"
"You mean you've been taking my dinner?" Swinub asked, walking over to Nickit as she tried to overcome the sour-bomb she'd accidentally eaten. "What kind of thinking is that?"
"That's what Nickit do!" the Fox Pokémon protested, whining. "It's our thing!"
She panted a few times, then rolled onto her front. "Flebbeh. Besides, I don't have a bowl, do I?"
"My word!" Mr. Backlot said. "Isn't that a Galarian Pokémon? I mean, I knew it was there, of course!"
"I didn't," Mr. Backlot's assistant admitted.
"See?" Dawn asked. "That's why there wasn't a bowl for you, it's because they didn't know you were here… and it's a bit rude to steal, because it means you get more but it also means the person you're stealing from gets less. It's not fair on them, even if it is something you're used to doing."
She frowned. "I guess if it's something you feel like you have to do, then you could have a friend with the same tastes as you who gets double the food, and you could steal from that bowl and it'd all work out nicely."
"You are literally the first person who's suggested anything like that," Nickit said. "Stealing from friends? I could get behind that."
Somehow, Dawn walked away from the Backlot back lot with two new Pokémon, giving her a team of six.
"I'm still expecting an apology," Swinub told Nickit.
"Well, you could let bygones be bygones," Nickit said, flicking her tail. "Forgive and forget. Or you could take up eating food I don't like."
"Or you could apologize," Dawn pointed out. "It's polite, remember?"
"Oh, that thing," Nickit agreed. "You're right… I'm sorry for fulfilling my instincts to-"
"Ahem," Dawn interrupted. "A simple 'I'm sorry' has a lot more meaning."
Nickit's ears went flat.
"I'm sorry," she told Swinub.
"Apology accepted," Swinub decided, after a moment's consideration.
Ash had been thinking.
"So you feel like you have to steal things, right?" he asked Nickit. "Does it matter what those things are?"
"Well… it might not, actually," Nickit conceded. "I just get twitchy if I haven't done it recently."
"Marshadow, do you think you can help?" Ash said.
Nickit jumped three feet in the air when Marshadow came out of Ash's shadow.
"How did you do that?" she demanded.
"Simply enough," Marshadow replied. "Follow me please."
He picked Nickit up, and dove into Dawn's shadow.
After a moment, his head poked back out. "We'll be back in a couple of hours, or once she's got the hang of it, whichever is first."
"So… a gym battle is when Ash uses his Pokémon to work out whether he's stronger than the Gym Leader?" Swinub asked.
"That's right," Dawn agreed.
"And he was looking forward to it," Swinub added. "I assume."
"Right again," Dawn said, chuckling slightly. "Apparently she hasn't even been here in the last… ages, anyway. So Ash is a bit annoyed."
"I think I'm a bit annoyed and I've only just found out about it," Swinub said. "Still, does it mean more training time?"
There was a whirr of wings, and Dawn looked up as Whitney's Chatot came flying in.
"Look what I found!" he said, dropping a flyer in front of his trainer.
Whitney picked it up, and did a double-take.
"Guys, the Hearthome Collection is in a couple of days!" she said. "It's like an Appeal, but it's all about accessories, and you have to match the theme of your Pokémon! We should all enter!"
"It does sound interesting," Dawn admitted. "What do you think, Buneary?"
"I'm not sure," Buneary said.
Piplup shook his head as well, but then Marshadow lifted Nickit out of Dawn's shadow.
"She was interested," the Ghost-type said.
"If it means I get a break from that training session," Nickit agreed, ruefully, rubbing her head with her tail. "It's giving me a headache trying to understand how Spectral Thief works. How can you steal someone's Type?"
Finding a good outfit for Nickit proved to be surprisingly difficult.
A red fedora didn't quite work, a red jacket and tie proved to be too clumsy to properly move in, while a top-hat worked a little better but coming up with a matching outfit for Dawn proved to be quite a puzzler.
A cap with a feather in it – feather provided by Pidgey as a Pidgeotto – was almost there, but eventually Nickit suggested focusing on jewellery.
"It looks good," she said. "And I think there's a subtle little way to suggest that it's been… appropriated… without actually coming out and saying it."
"That could work," Dawn said. "So in my case, I could use that feathered cap and base my outfit on that?"
"Perhaps," Nickit said, contemplatively, then spotted Whitney.
She was wearing a hat with Miltank-horns on it, and a top with a Pokéball symbol, while Miltank had a cape around her neck and a domino mask on her face.
Miltank was also floating in mid-air.
"Is that a theme?" Nickit asked. "I don't get it."
"I think Whitney's being a sidekick," Dawn guessed.
At the actual Collection itself, they were up against stiff competition.
One trainer had a rocker Toxicroak accompanying him as he shredded on an electric guitar, another dressed up as her Bellossom for a Grass-themed set, and the trainer who went straight before Dawn had a Magikarp which wore blue gemstones on their fins which matched the necklace the trainer had around his neck.
Ash's own outfit was a bit of a puzzle, as far as Dawn was concerned, because Pikachu was dressed up as a Rattata and Ash wore a yellow and black striped jacket.
To Dawn's surprise and delight, though, she and Nickit ended up winning the whole competition with Dawn in a green outfit with a cap and an archer's bow and Nickit carrying a double-strung necklace of jewels with more jewels dangling out of her tail on invisible thread – just pipping out a woman called Cocoa and her Mismagius, in second place, with Whitney and SuperMiltank coming in third for originality.
That meant Dawn and her whole team taking part in a photo shoot, as well. It was all quite exciting, and at the end of the two-day stint Dawn felt exhausted but happy.
She'd even been able to work out what she wanted Swinub to work on, as well.
"Do you think Aten has calmed down yet?" Croagunk asked.
Absol tilted her head, slightly.
"I don't think so," she said. "You'd better stay in here… fortunately, he doesn't want to come in here in case he ends up serving lattes."
AN:
Oops two Pokémon