"An Eevee!" Mew said, making Eevee jump. "Oh, those are always fun to work with!"

Eevee's fur slowly relaxed as he managed to avoid bolting, then sighed. "That was… I didn't know you were there!"

"Yeah, that's normal for me," Mew replied. "I'll try to be better with you though if you don't like that kind of thing. Hey, maybe this will help?"

Mew used Transform, and turned into a shiny Eevee.

"There," they said. "Better?"

Eevee considered, then looked unsure.

"I don't really know the answer to that?" he admitted.

"Oh, yeah, in case you didn't realize, this is Mew," Ash introduced. "She's the first Pokémon I met and had a proper conversation with – that's actually why I understand them now. They taught me how to speak Mew. But since most Pokémon can understand human language, and most humans can't understand Pokémon language, I usually don't talk like that."

"That's certainly reasonable," Tyrunt said, nodding. "I know that I understand it."

"Anyway, with an Eevee there's several ways they can go," Mew resumed. "And one of them is to stay an Eevee and just do regular fluffy Eevee things, or sometimes gigantamax fluffy Eevee things, while another is to take a bit from all the things they could evolve into. Then there's when you choose one specific thing to evolve into, and the final one is, um, I forgot I think?"

The fauxvee's ears flicked. "Anyway, what do you think?"

"I don't know," Eevee admitted. "I don't really know where to start or why you're talking about this like it's a decision I have to make."

"It's not," Serena said. "But Mew can be kind of enthusiastic at times, and is a specialist in Pokémon moves and forms… that's just how he is."

"Didn't you say Mew was she?" Eevee asked, pointing first at Ash then Serena. "And now you said he?"

"I'm sort of either, or neither, depending on how I feel right that minute," Mew explained, reverting to their base form with a squeaky pop.

"That's even a thing?" Eevee said.

"Yep!" Mew agreed. "Really, since Arceus and myself were the first Things, and Arceus' gender is incomprehensible while mine is inconstant, you can sorta say that a stable gender is a later invention! It's nice to visit but I wouldn't want to be stuck there."

Mew rubbed their paws together. "So! Tell me a little about yourself, and we can see where we can start!"

Eevee seemed to be quite overwhelmed, so Serena took over. "Eevee likes dancing, if that helps," she said. "And I don't think he's decided on what to evolve into, or if he's going to evolve?"

That got a confirmatory nod.

"Hmm," Mew said, floating gently upside-down. "In that case, I think my official recommendation is that you start by speaking to Ash's Croconaw. He's also big on dancing, and a bit of a Psychic-typed dance move would be a good way to pick up a Psychic move and get a flavour of what it would be like being an Espeon! Then repeat for all the other options. Though I guess we could test if you have the Gigantamax Factor first in case you're not actually able to evolve?"

"I think dancing sounds nice," Eevee said eventually. "What's a Croconaw like?"

"All right, so, watch carefully," Croconaw said, a few minutes later. "Actually, take two of these first and then watch carefully."

He separated out a trio of fluffy sticks from the set he was carrying, and gave them to Eevee, then held the remaining four in his forepaws – two each.

"This is an unusual dance," Eevee noted. "I've only really seen that one Serena and the others were doing before, in dances that need things."

"That's actually kind of related," Croconaw replied. "Now, three, two, one, let's go!"

He began twirling the fluffy sticks around, slowly at first, then sped up and added twirling movements by his arms and then his whole body.

"There's no specific movement you need to do," he added. "It's more about the whole flow of it. In fact, it might thematically help for it to not be quite the same two different times! It's all about twirling, and staying in motion, and things leaping up into the air."

Putting action to words, he threw the sticks in the air in twos, juggled them, then caught them and did a forwards twirl.

Then the sticks caught fire.

"Whoa!" Eevee gasped, taking a step back, but his eyes were glued to the performance as Croconaw spun the flaming wands around in a complex pattern. Then all four sticks went up at once, and Croconaw posed – catching two in his paws, one in his tail, and the final one in his mouth.

"That's amazing," Eevee said.

"That's a Fire dance," Croconaw said. "There's a move specifically called Fiery Dance, but I thought you'd want to stick with something that kept the flames away from your fur a bit. Want to focus on that one, or move on to the Electric dance?"

Eevee considered.

"I think I'd like to see them all?" he asked. "That was really cool."

"How do you feel, Eevee?" Serena asked, a few days later, as they entered the outskirts of Anistar. "Just generally, I mean."

"Generally, I feel okay," Eevee replied. "Well, not bad, anyway. It's a funny sort of thing to try and think about, because I don't really… know? I'm all sort of tangled up inside and I can't work out which bits are which."

Serena gave him a pat. "Poor thing…"

"It's not in a bad way," Eevee said, a bit defensively. "Or, it's not all bad? I'm not sure. But I don't feel scared or anything, or not mostly…"

He sighed. "I'll try again. I feel excited and not sure. And that's also true about the idea of taking part in the Showcase."

"You don't have to, you know," Braixen pointed out.

"Right, and I don't know if I want to or not," Eevee said. "It'd be good for me, but I'd feel bad if we didn't do well."

"You've been doing great so far," Serena told him. "But it's totally up to you."

"But there is one other thing I'd point out," Braixen added. "Eevee, nobody here is going to think worse of you no matter what you choose – and, if you do want to go ahead and take part, nobody here is going to think worse of you if we end up not winning. There's going to be other chances… I'm not sure how many Showcases there are every year, but it's got to be a lot."

She tapped a wand against her muzzle. "Actually, maybe we've already done another one by going back in time?"

"I think that would count as a frivolous use of time travel," Ponyta objected.

"Hoopa can help!" Hoopa suggested, before Gold grabbed their horn and pulled them back through the Hoopa-hole they were leaning out of.

"...should I ask what kind of help that Pokémon could give?" Eevee asked.

"I've heard about that one," Pancham said. "Pikachu gave me the summary after we visited Dahara, and the summary is 'Legendaries'."

"So the Legendaries are the help?" Eevee tried.

"The Legendaries are the solution to whatever Hoopa feels needs a solution," Pancham told him. "Or possibly when Hoopa is bored. I hope Gold can keep them distracted."

"Oh, dear…" Lokoko said, trying not to laugh. "This is going to be interesting."

"Why's that?" Bonnie asked. "Oh, is that the program for the Showcase?"

"Yes, and they only gave them out at the door," Lokoko replied, as they waited for the Showcase to begin. "It seems that the theme today is quizzes."

That made Ash frown. "Huh. Quizzes about Pokémon in general? Or something else?"

"Why would it be anything else?" Noibat asked, his ears humming gently as he cancelled out the noise of their conversation for the benefit of others in the crowd. "Are there things that aren't Pokémon that are worth asking questions about?"

"I," Pikachu began, then stopped. "Um. Actually. I'm having trouble thinking of something that they might ask questions about that isn't related to Pokémon somehow, given that I've personally met the Pokémon responsible for seas, land, the sun, climate, volcanoes, memory, time, space, rocks, existence, life, death, swords and… possibly motorbikes, though I'm not clear on that one."

He held up his paw. "And no that was not a complete list."

"I'm more worrying about the rules on whether a Pokémon can participate," Lokoko said.

"So, what are the rules on how a Pokémon can participate?" Serena asked, adjusting her graduation-style gown.

Next to her, Ponyta stood ready with a matching mortar-board over her horn, and adjusted her glasses.

"Well, now!" Pierre replied. "Your Pokémon will be racing to complete tasks, and the one who completes the task first earns their trainer the chance to answer a Pokémon trivia question!"

"That's what I'm wondering about," Serena explained. "Is there a way we can swap that around? Ponyta knows a lot of trivia."

"I, um," Pierre said, stumped. "Are you sure your Ponyta will be able to answer the questions in a way that we can check if the answer's correct? That's my first worry."

"That won't be a problem," Serena answered. "Ponyta's literate."

As a demonstration, Ponyta conjured a flame from her horn. It glowed with energy, changing from red to green to blue, and the Psychic-type shaped it into the word Ponyta written in cursive.

"Now I'm worried I won't be able to read it – oh, thank you," Pierre said, as Ponyta changed it to block capitals.

"In any school test you have to be able to write clearly," Serena advised. "I don't think we can do a medium-soft pencil though."

"I'm going to need to check with the organizers," Pierre admitted.

Eventually, to keep things moving, Serena participated as a Buneary because that was something Pierre remembered was actually an option for her.

She only had a few minutes to adjust her outfit, but Ponyta's help with Psycho Cut let her make something that fit well enough, and she was just about quick enough to keep up with the other Pokémon and let Ponyta rattle off three correct answers one after another and get them to the final round.

And get a quick sip of the potion that undid the Pokémon transformation, because Mew had some of that too.

Then, for the Freestyle competition, she added a nervy-but-determined Eevee and the three of them put on a themed combination of outfits – with Serena's dress combined with a purple and pink harness for Ponyta, borrowing from Tyrunt's own decorated harness but with the addition of a set of jingling bells in different tones, and Eevee wearing a set of shiny satin ribbons tied into his tail and woven into his ruff.

Picking the colours had been easy – there was one for each Eeveelution – and put together it made Eevee look sort of like he had a rainbow woven around him.

"Ready to give it a try?" Serena asked, stepping out for her performance. "It's easy!"

Ponyta started tapping her hoof, setting her bells jingling, then her horn lit up with the back-scatter of her Psychic as she selectively held and muted some of her bells. It was a bit like playing a trumpet, where you had to remember the combination for each note or set of notes, but they'd been working hard and so the bell sounds turned into music.

Serena did a quick twirl, and Eevee followed her. His eyes closed as he started to really get into the routine, dancing along with his trainer, and after a few seconds Ponyta changed music – and both Serena and Eevee changed dance.

There was a fizzleBANG as Eevee used Electroball, and Ponyta switched from tapping a hoof in place to trotting in a slow circle around the others. A yellow ribbon lifted out of her saddlebag to fly overhead, and she switched to a different tune as the other two changed how they were dancing – and not more than a few seconds later a Petal Dance swirled up around Eevee.

A green ribbon joined the yellow one, and Ponyta shifted tunes again.

"That was amazing," Shauna said, after the Showcase was over. "Now we've both got two keys, so only one to go each!"

She nodded at Eevee, who was carefully not hiding behind Serena's legs. "How long have you had your Eevee? I think they're new, but that was such a combination of moves and dancing – I didn't know an Eevee could do half of them."

She sniggered. "Even after seeing May and Brock's Eevees at different times, now I think about it…"

"Oh, well, Eevee joined us about five or six days ago?" Serena replied. "But he could already dance, we just had to get the moves working right, that was what he was working on, and I was working on the dancing."

She crouched down, giving Eevee a reassuring pat. "I think closing his eyes actually helped out a lot, it meant it was easier to pretend the audience wasn't there…"

AN:

Braixen may be a familiar, but Ponyta is more of a companion.