"Item 2, good sized bag of treated Groudon Ashes. The ash itself is fairly common now after all the eruptions he caused," Alexa began looking over the well tied bag that covered the palm of her hand. This time her fire type was entirely uninterested, standing off in a corner of the lab still looking over the Geode from the previous day. The rest of her team was far more interested now having seen the Charizard's drastic transformation.
"Contact with sufficient quantities will improve the elemental attacks of Ground, Rock, and Fire type pokemon," she continued into the recorder as she looked over the potential volunteers among her pokemon, "Other kinds of pokemon when exposed to that much of the ash will take on one of those three types." Her Rhydon actually looked a bit disappointed that it was only a stat boost item for him. Kingler had been paying attention while she had been setting up, but seemed to lose interest at the mention of the Legendary of the Continents, and started to scuttle over to Charizard after hearing the types involved. However her Bellossom only looked more interested and Heracross, her final pokemon, was obviously thinking hard about the options.
Moving the microphone away she addressed the remaining two pokemon directly, "Ok guys, this is a bit more serious than the one for Water type was. These ashes are supposed to last around a month, and dad said I shouldn't be trying to use other stuff on someone who is already effected by one of these things. I don't have a way to get you back to normal early if you don't like the new type." Bellossom suddenly frowned, and with a thoughtful look shook her head. "I also can't gaurante what type you get when it happens," she said now focused on her Bug type, "Dad said he had some other pokemon who already agreed if I needed them, so don't feel bad about saying 'no'."
The large beetle still looked thoughtful. After a moment of contemplation he turned to Rhydon and asked the Ground/Rock type a question. This led to a short conversation of rumbles and clicks that Alexa looked at bemused. Listening in Charizard gave some unprompted growls, presumably some details about the Fire type but possibly some insight into the kind of transformation as well.
"Well Heracross, does their advice help with the decision?" she asked after the conversation died down a bit. The bug looked her in the eyes for a moment, and then nodded resolutely. "So you want to try?" He responded with another nod and stepping forward to be directly in front of her. Bringing the microphone back she opened the bag and began to speak for the recording, "Volunteer for test is a Heracross."
Heracross reached into the bag and pulled out a good amount of the dusty material, the ash was mostly black with flakes of dark red scattered within. Moments after taking the claw-full the ash began to sink into his chitin causing the seams to glow with a deep red. Alexa began to worry as the glow spread down his arm in cracking lines along his shell, but Heracross didn't seem to be in pain as he watched his body seem to almost split. His arm spines were marked with glowing spirals and burst out small flames as it finished moving along the limb and reached his abdomen. Once there his entire body seemed to expand for a moment as the glowing lines appeared all across it in one burst of smokey flame. The remaining spines on his body gained the same fiery swirls, with a particularly intricate series of markings covering his horn and producing a notable heat. Finally, the rest of his shell darkened into a nearly black shade of blue.
"Are you feeling okay?" Alexa asked as she finished a halting description of the change, not even taking the time to move her arm so the question didn't get caught for the recording. In response Heracross attempted to make the motion of a fist pump, but the stumbling move showed a loss of physical prowess in addition to releasing an unintended burst of flame.
His trainer, shocked by the sudden flames, stumbled backwards sending the bag of ashes tumbling to the ground. Acting quickly Rhydon pulled Bellossom away from the heavy dust. At the same time Charizard moved to grab the falling Bug/Fire type before he stumbled onto anything flammable. Kingler spat water in a light mist to help the ashes settle away from her location, careful to avoid Rhydon as he moved their Grass type teammate into the newly created safe area.
"Heracross?" the trainer asked with some worry from the center of the pile of dust. The transformed pokemon let out a dismal click of acknowledgement as he moved slowly to regain his footing. Charizard let out a grumbling growl and began to poke at the new Fire type's various markings and spines. Seeing that the two of them seemed to be working on the task of dealing with new abilities Alexa began to scoop up the spilled ash. Rhydon joined in quickly, starting from the area closest to the others and working his way towards his trainer. For the next few minutes the four of them continued to clean up the fallout of the test.
"Alright guys," she started after getting the last of the now slightly damp ash back into the pouch, "I think we are going to take a bit of a break from trying anything else until Heracross is back up to par." The various pokemon made noises of agreement, their mood diminished by the chaos.
The Fire type Bug surged forward into a clumsy Fire Punch that was easily blocked by the webbed claw of the partly Water type reptile. The two altered pokemon took a deliberate step back from each other. The large Fire/Water pokemon stood on its webbed claws and flexed its large back fins in preparation for the next attempt. Across from it the dark, nearly black, shelled bug altered its stance, the red cracks covering its body leaking out heat notably.
The bug then opened his mouth wide and sent out a stuttering wave of flames that splashed over the ground more than it approached his foe. The partial water type gave a dull look at the failed flamethrower, and put out the small flames that resulted with a burst of steaming water. The stumbling response to the close blasts of water left the beetle sprawling and putting out an even hotter burst of heat.
Alexa looked on the training session with a bit of worry as he picked himself up again. Heracross was not doing well with the previous day's change in his secondary type, although watching his movements the trainer did think that the Fire type was the least disruptive of the three options to her former Fighting type. Rock would have made his movements even stiffer which was one of his main problems with the result, and the Ground type also was not known for the mobility his previous Fighting type gave him. Her whole team was present outside the lab, and all of them were upset that despite the warnings and considerations their friend still ended up in an undesirable form.
The beetle's movement had slowly been getting less jerky, but the heat it was producing had still made her natural Fire type push the other transformed pokemon to get more control. Alexa personally thought that stopping the random bursts of flame had been great progress, but reluctantly admitted she still couldn't get close enough to comfort her pokemon just yet. "Heracross?" she asked timidly looking at the how the sun was setting, "Do you want to keep going, or should we wait for tomorrow?" The bug turned to her, and after a moment made a motion to his pokeball on her belt.
Returning her pokemon with a sigh she turned to his sparing partner for the time being. Unlike Heracross's situation her Charizard had not only adapted to his alternate type, but enjoyed it enough to give an impassioned growling speech to her father about how he should get to keep the item that caused it. The increased resistance to Fire type moves given by having Water type had proven useful against the uncontrolled bursts of flame that had occurred throughout the day's training. "What do you think, will he be okay?" she asked the Charizard as he padded up on his webbed claws.
The reptile echoed her sigh and took a look over the grassy field. Her Bellossom moved across the ground in front of them re-growing the chared patches. With a dissatisfied grumble the pokemon nodded. "He will but it will take a while?" A stronger nod answered and the pokemon gave a sad huff towards the pond nearby.
Looking over the other transformed pokemon Alexa took in his aquatic form. "It isn't your fault you know," she told him, "Just because you like your change doesn't mean that you pushed him to try himself. Ending up with a form he doesn't like isn't because of you. It was his decision to go along with it and none of us had any idea what it would actually be like for him to stop being a Fighting type." The Charizard looked her in the eye for a moment listening to his teammates give mild sounds confirming her words. He nodded and then he made an exaggerated pointing of his arm that seemed to say that it also applied to her.
"Yeah, I know," she responded with a mirthless chuckle, "but in that case it is still my responsibility. It's the trainer's job to make sure their pokemon are able to fight safely. The pokemon themselves and everyone else around them." This declaration got an angry huff from the pokemon, complete with some steam, as he pointed to the still blackened patches of grass. "Okay, okay," she said with a touch of actual humor, "You made it your responsibility too."
A deep rumble from behind her showed that Rhydon felt he should be included somehow, followed soon after by a clicking sound from Kingler. Bellossom grew a small patch of flowers in the next burn-mark, and fixed Alexa with a dark look. "Fine," she said with an exasperated laugh, "We all have some responsibility with helping him."
