While traveling near Stone Town,
Ash Ketchum and his friends noticed
Mikey's Eevee tied up to a tree. Initially
Brock thought that it might have been abandoned by its trainer but
Ash Ketchum wondered why someone would go through all the trouble of leaving food and water for it. They noticed the tag on it and decided to see if they could find its owner.
Arriving at a evolution garden party at Number 14, District 3 in Stone Town, they went looking for Eevee's owner Taichi (タイチ) who's name was on the tag as well in the Japanese original version. They found him and Eevee was ran up to him and was reunited.
Mikey explained to
Misty in private that the reason he hid Eevee was because he didn't want his brother's to make him evolve it. He didn't care about it being strong as Eevee is precious friend and likes it just the way it is. She told him he needed to explain the situation to his brothers and be clear about it. She also apologized to him as had Eevee actually been an abandoned Pokémon, she was going to evolve it into Vaporeon.
Mikey decided not to evolve this Eevee despite pressure from his three brothers.
In
Mikey's Eevee debut battle, it faced off again Team Rocket.
Mikey's brothers Pokémon had already been defeated but
Mikey was motivated and pulled off the victory quite nicely by defeating
Jessie's Arbok,
James's Weezing and the rest of Team Rocket with a powerful raging Tackle attack.