Ash's Gym Challenge was over, but they weren't done with Coumarine yet because Serena still had her Showcase debut to do.

"Hmm," she said, that evening, frowning to herself. "So there's the bit where you show off how your Pokémon looks, and your fashion sense, and things like that. Then there's the bit where you show off how you and your Pokémon can look pretty together."

She looked at Ash's Leavanny, who had her arm blades ready and a spool of String Shot next to her. "Thank you for offering to help!"

"No problem," Leavanny replied, with a flourish. "I'm glad for the challenge! It's different to what I usually do, after all."

"Right," Serena smiled. "But still."

She turned her attention back to Fennekin, thinking. "So… obviously we're going to want to properly wash and groom you, but there's not much point doing that dozens of times while we work out your outfit, so let's focus on that."

"It'd be nice for me, but I take your point," Fennekin concurred. "Hmm… well, what are you thinking of?"

"We could go with the magic theme?" Serena replied. "It's obvious, I know, but there's lots of ways to use it."

"I assume that it's going to be Fennekin this time?" Pancham asked. "It does make sense, but I just want to be sure."

"Yes, that's right," Serena agreed. "Don't worry, Pancham, I'll make sure you get a try when we're both ready for it."

"Thanks," Pancham said. "I'll be over here with Lokoko watching and trying not to ooh and ah too loudly."

"Well," Serena resumed. "What about if we go through my ideas, and see which one looks good?"

"Sure!" Fennekin agreed.

Several minutes later, Fennekin was looking at herself in a mirror.

"What do you think?" Serena asked. "It's definitely a magic themed outfit."

"You're right about that," Fennekin conceded. "I definitely look like a bearded old wizard. And the hat's quite impressively done, because it's taller than I am and it's not flopping down over my eyes despite being made of String Shot."

"I've got form with this kind of thing," Leavanny said. "Really, it's not that strange when you think about how cocoon Bug-types usually make their cocoons out of String Shot, and the move they're most known for is Harden."

"True," Fennekin nodded. "But while it earns points for the hat, and the robes are quite good too, I'm not so sure about the beard that's longer than Ponyta is tall."

"It is part of the image of the wise old wizard," Serena said. "Are you sure?"

"I feel like I could trip over it a bit," Fennekin answered. "Actually, a lot. Also, I am a girl, you know."

"I guess you're right," Serena conceded. "Still, we'll keep the hat and robes around for later?"

"Oh, I like that one!" Ponyta declared, looking at Fennekin's next outfit. "But I think you're missing a little scar on the forehead."

"Scar on the forehead?" Fennekin repeated, ears flicking, and adjusted her grip on a light-up prop. "What do you mean, a scar on the forehead?"

"But…" Ponyta began. "Aren't you being… you know? With the magic wand and the long scarf?"

"Any sufficiently advanced sonic screwdriver is functionally indistinguishable from a magic wand!" Fennekin declared. "Allonsyhomora!"

Ponyta stared for a few seconds.

"I think you're combining two Galarian things that probably shouldn't be combined," she said. "Except for that one episode."

"All right, you've piqued my curiosity," Lokoko told Serena. "Explain this one to me."

"Well, I heard that people have the wrong idea about this kind of thing," Serena replied. "So I though it'd be interesting to play into that stereotype!"

"Hmm," Fennekin mused, looking at herself in the mirror. "Does it all have to be black and white?"

"If we have the time, I'd prefer to get your fur dyed a bit," Serena answered. "To play into the whole black thing."

"Hmm," Fennekin mused again. "I don't really think I can pull off goth, to be frank."

She sneezed, and set the face-net-curtain on fire.

"Vandal," Leavanny sniffed, good-naturedly.

"I wonder why it is that the Pokémon Showcase is only for girls?" Ash asked, as they filed into their places in the crowd. "It's not like Contests are only for girls."

"I never really thought about that before now," Clemont replied. "I guess I just decided that there were some kinds of things for boys and some for girls, but I can't think of what the thing for boys is."

"Maybe it is things to do with being a ninja," Zygarde said. "For example, maybe ninja compete in different areas depending on gender, with female ninjas focusing on stealth."

"I don't think we saw a woman being a ninja so far," Clemont frowned.

"Precisely," Zygarde agreed, hopping up onto their seat. "They are clearly good at it."

Bonnie giggled, sitting between Zygarde and Clemont. Lokoko went on Clemont's other side, and Ash filled in the far side.

"And these are the Glow Casters," Clemont told them, passing them out. "We get one per seat, so that means Zygarde and Lokoko get one as well… the idea is, you can set them to a colour, and then each of the performers in a voting round will have a colour."

"So the colours are used by the judges to work out who has won?" Lokoko asked, taking her Glow Caster in her tails.

"Not quite," Clemont told her, as Zygarde inspected their Glow Caster and tried to work out the best way to make it change colour with their available limbs. "Each of the competitors has a key, and that key absorbs balls of light from the glow casters with the winner of the round being the one whose key has ended up absorbing the most light."

"...not that I'm asking why that's overcomplicated," Pikachu said. "But… why do it like that?"

"Because it's easier than counting, I think," Clemont answered. "It's certainly the way I'd do things, you don't want anyone to have to count if you can get away with it!"

"The idea that huge amounts of modern technology is because very smart engineers don't want to have to bother counting is… actually kind of working for me," Pikachu said.

Then the lights went down as the Showcase started.

"Wow, a lot of people have really made their Pokémon look amazing," Bonnie murmured. "But when is it going to be Serena's turn?"

"You have said that four times now," Zygarde supplied, helpfully.

"Because I keep wondering," Bonnie told them. "Wait, look, I think that's her!"

The Theme section for this Showcase was a Styling Round, a walk where trainer and Pokémon showed off what the program called their sartorial and design choices and what Clemont had clarified meant how they looked and what they were wearing.

Each set of three performers went into their own little boxes full of accessories, then got to work, and when Serena and Fennekin came out again Fennekin was set up in a quite passable sailor fuku with a big bow on her chest, a hat, and little bows on all four paws with a slowly burning feather stuck into each of them.

Also, she was hovering two feet above the ground.

"Oooh," Bonnie said. "I knew they were practicing that, but I never thought it'd show up in a Showcase!"

"How is she actually doing that?" asked Palermo, up in her private box, as Serena carefully did her walk while slowly twirling in circles and Fennekin orbited her. "Fennekin aren't Psychic-type until they evolve, are they?"

None of her Pokémon replied, because she didn't have any with her, but after a long moment she frowned. "This is reminding me of something, but I'm not quite sure what…"

For the second part of the Showcase Serena had two Pokémon available, and all the finalists competed in turn. Shauna from the summer camp was in the finals as well, combining her Bulbasaur and a Flabébé to create a glowing vine-heart around her, while another competitor used a matched pair of male and female Meowstic and did a telekinetically-boosted dance with them.

When it came for Serena's turn, meanwhile, she stepped forwards alone at first – until Fennekin came running up, jumping and yipping.

"Oh, hello!" she said. "What is it?"

Fennekin yipped again, then Ponyta trotted up carrying a stick marked on one end with a glittery red heart.

She offered it to Serena, and Fennekin scrambled up Serena's dress in a flicker of movement before getting Serena's attention.

"Fen!" she said, firmly, and Serena took the stick.

"Ponyta," Ponyta said. "Ta-ta, pony!"

"Magic?" Serena repeated, clutching the stick. "Really?"

She examined it. "I don't see how it could-"

A spurt of flame suddenly came out of the end of the stick, making Serena gasp and step backwards.

"Feen," Fennekin said, ears flicking slightly. "Fenfen!"

"All right," Serena said, raising the stick again, and twirled it in the air.

This time there was a glittering swirl as Ponyta used Psychic, controlling a small handful of glitter to cascade off the end of the wand and form a pattern in mid-air. It shone in the light, and Fennekin yipped excitedly.

"Kinkin!" she said.

"Wow!" Serena agreed. "You're right!"

She turned to look at Fennekin. "I never knew-"

"Feen!" Fennekin warned her, and Serena looked back just as the swirl of glitter lit up orange and exploded in a cloud of Mystical Fire. She staggered backwards, and Ponyta cantered behind her to steady her.

"Oops," the trainer said. "Maybe I should concentrate more?"

"Pony," Ponyta said, and Serena tried again.

This time it was Fennekin's turn to provide the effects, then Ponyta's, switching back and forth between the two of them smoothly as Serena waved the stick-wand and her Pokémon turned it into a ribbon dance done with real fire. Swapping back and forth let both Pokémon move around, as well, calling out encouragement between them, and after about thirty seconds Serena finished with a flourish.

"There!" she said, then noticed the tip of the wand was on fire and blew on it hastily to extinguish it. That was the work of her partners as well, and each time she'd apparently blown it out they waited for a long moment before making it light up in flames of a different colour.

After four failed attempts, she just shrugged and then bowed with the tip still glowing a sort of lilac.

"I think that was great!" Ash told Serena, afterwards. "I don't get why you came second."

"I think the audience had something to do with it?" Lokoko suggested. "But, well… who can tell?"

"I'm glad it worked," Ponyta sighed. "That was really hard work, concentrating that hard… I didn't want to make a mistake and set you on fire. It would be a good way to make apparently being on fire accurate, but I can see that it would be distinctly problematic for practical reasons."

"You both did great," Serena told her two tired Pokémon. "But I was thinking about it… I think I know what the problem was."

She shrugged. "I think it looked a bit too much like we couldn't quite control what was going on. You did so well at making it look like I was making mistakes that they believed you."

"Now that's what I call being unsympathetic about magic," Fennekin said. "Still, we know where we went wrong! I assume."

AN:

Fortunately hovering in the air makes it harder to trip over a ribbon on the ground, so Serena did better than canon...