"What's so special about Ecruteak Dance Theater?"
"Huh?"
"You have such venom in your voice every time you say its name. Like you hate it, but also you can't stop thinking about it. It's cute. I keep hearing about it like it's some kind of distinguished theater, but it sounds like you and so many people hate it. And there's something about eevee?"
Maggie swallows down her beating heart–cute?–and explains, "Ecruteak Dance Theater is the oldest theater in Johto. It has a history going back to before Lugia's tower burned. Ecruteak is right next to Ho-oh's and Lugia's towers, so the theater puts on airs. They've been telling the same story over and over with eevee but they don't change a thing. The only reason that they're popular is because everyone knows of them, not because they try anything new."
"That does sound boring."
"As for the eevee, their play every year has three eevee 'die' in the fire and be reborn as jolteon, vaporeon, and flareon symbolizing Raikou, Suicune, and Entei. They need new eevee each year, so they keep breeding them, and they sell the eeveelutions. Ecruteak Dance Theater's eeveelutions are supposed to be the most powerful jolteon, the water-walking vaporeon, the fluffiest flareon, and the eevee pups are supposed to grow into graceful espeon and shiniest umbreon, and so on."
"Is it like contests? You have to get special pokemon that are beautiful. You want unusually beauitful pokemon that are strong too, ones that have rare abilities or moves."
"I suppose?" Maggie says. She hadn't thought about it like that before. "They're kind of status symbols on their own. Even people that don't battle will take them out on walks and have people compliment them like they're magic eevee or something, but it's always only after they mention Ecruteak."
Lucy leans her chin on her hand. "I guess it's good that Johto's also breeding eevee and not only Kalos and Kanto now. Breeding pokemon is more responsible than catching them, you know? It doesn't hurt wild populations and it's good for people because we get all kinds of rare pokemon. And they make for more interesting battles, because people can buy any pokemon they want instead of just the ones they can find." Her eyes sparkle. "It'd be better if there was some law saying people couldn't endanger populations by catching them in the wild... Like, if you want to breed on any kind of scale, you have to establish your own population of pokemon, so there's no risk of the wild ones getting endangered from catching just for breeding stock. It'd be good if there was some law requiring it, but that would never pass here."
"You sure know a lot about eevee," Maggie says. She hadn't really thought about it beyond what she thought was cute herself. Just like what she thought about being a trainer. Lucy really knows so much more than her.
Somehow, Lucy looks bored. "Yeah... well, it was a big thing in Kanto. And I don't want to see adorable pokémon getting hurt." She pauses before adding, "I was planning on going to the theater when we go for the Ecruteak Gym, but–"
"What? No! You were–Ecruteak? We have to go!"
"What?"
"When you get there we have to go to Ecruteak! We have to see them! Like, back when I said it's a better performance, it's true. It's a good show, but if you haven't seen it–you have to see how a good performance actually is. It's not–trust me, even if they're hacks, going and seeing them is way better than not. They have good production. Seeing a play is completely different than being a part of a play. Even if you've heard the story a thousand times, it's nothing compared to watching it happen."