- Oxide Berry -

The patch of soil her father had setup on the back side of the lab was filled with a variety of berries being used for his research. The plant Alexa had led her team to look at was a twisting spiky silver bush surrounded by scraps of rusty metal embedded in the soil. Three large red berries were on the plant ready to be picked. The trainer had a jar of orange jam speckled with red held in her hand. "This is one of the better Steel type items we have, Oxide Berry jam," she said tapping the jar.

Rhydon rustled with interest at the topic, his form still a topiary with a tar core. Bellossom looked at the berry bush itself with interest. Charizard gave a look to the jar and the berries but seemed unusually uninterested. Heracross shared a look with Kingler and the two began to discuss the possible outcomes with their preferred types. "These berries have been found growing in some rusted out ruins. They take about a week to grow, and eating one of the berries themselves makes a pokemon immune to poisons for four or five days. That is a nice enough effect, so people tried to make them into jam. That works for some berries to make a new food that has a slightly less powerful version of the berry's effect."

Alexa held her finger at a point just barely below where the substance filled the small jar. "A jar this size is made from around six berries, and you get almost twice that many uses out of it. However, instead of just making the pokemon that eats it immune to poisons, it transforms them into the Steel type. Usually adding or changing their secondary type, and lasting the only two or three days." Rhydon looked thoughtfully at the thick tar of his chest and then back up to nod at his trainer. Heracross nodded as well with an interested expression. "Dad is growing them, and we can't really recreate this setup while we are on the road because of the metal needed. Still, it makes a lot for a small container, so I thought it would be something we could have on hand if it works out for anyone," Alexa said while opening the jar.

Rhydon moved forward first and gave a bubbly chuckle at the sight of his trainer looking at jam with a bit of confusion. "I forgot to get something to put this on," she said before putting the lid back on. Looking up at the plant volunteer she inspected his current shape. "Are you sure you want to layer the changes this deep?" she asked with a hint of concern as she began to walk to the nearest door inside the lab. Rhydon nodded at the question and pulled a thin strand of tar from his chest with a wooden claw. "You want to see what it does when you are the Poison type? That does sound like a good thing to test."

The group gathered in the main room while Alexa searched out a knife to spread the substance with and eventually resorted to the already opened bags of dried food for a way of getting the material into their bodies. "Ok, is Rhydon still first or has that changed while I was busy?" she asked her team, getting a bit of a laugh from them as Rhydon stepped forward and looked between his normal bag and Bellossom's. "We haven't figured out how this affects the food situation yet have we?" the trainer asked dryly as she let the Poison type try both to see which tasted better for the moment. He settled on his old mix as tasting better, despite not possessing either of his natural types, and they moved forward with the test.

Rhydon quickly ate the small piece of dry food after Alexa carefully measured out a portion of the jar onto it. Looking happily surprised at the taste he nodded to the others. The first thing to change was the nature of his leaves, which changed to something close to the spiky appearance they had seen on the bush for these berries. The color of his foliage shifted from green to a lighter almost yellow. His many branches changed by growing out pieces of metal in various places, most notably the twisting horn becoming studded with sharp fragments. The thick tar that made up the rest of his form shimmered and lightened in color to a shiny metallic grey. The semi-liquid texture of this part of his body changed into a flowing watery consistency, causing it to move like pure mercury.

Seeing the flowing liquid that now made up much of his body caused the pokemon to laugh louder and smile widely at the group. "I take it you expected something like this?" Alexa asked him while getting out the Pokedex. "Still, it makes sense. Mercury is poisonous and that makes sense as a way for your Poison parts to become metal." The small computer beeped to indicate it finished the initial scan. "Grass/Steel, huh. I wonder why the order changed this time." The team moved in a bit closer to inspect the changes while she continued to go over the data. "The liquid part is actually a bit more poisonous than the tar was," Alexa said with surprise, causing everyone to step back a bit while Rhydon got an interested expression.

While he was thinking the metallic plant pokemon began to test out his mobility, this time with boneless movements that were the result of his recent practice with the Acid Armor move. Heracross chittered a few questions to the newly transformed pokemon as he shifted his body around, getting rustling answers and prompting some inspection of the embedded pieces of metal. Bellossom looked over his form in detail, before motioning questioningly between his back and the jar of jam. "No, I don't think he's going to grow more. Although looking at him I think you might be able to plant one on a Steel type that ate a Loam Berry," Alexa replied thoughtfully to her pokemon's question.

Rhydon turned to look at his trainer with a happy smile and then pointed from the jar to the bags of food sitting around her pack. "Yeah, we're going to try and keep this stuff on hand. It will be a bit easier than some of the other stuff, because dad can grow more for us, but we will still need to think about when we use it considering how much we need to use." She then became slightly nervous looking between how much the pokemon was liking the change so far and the suddenly much smaller looking jar. "I think I'll need to ask dad how much we can get."

Heracross spat out the bit of food that had been from his mix, looking at the bag dubiously he moved to help clean up before they continued. "I don't think you ever really liked that stuff," Alexa noted as she put the Bug type focused bag of food aside and got the others ready for the pokemon to try. After a short while they settled on what had been Alexa's mix, which the Fighting type seemed to like more than she had. "Maybe we should have gotten a bit more variety when we were at the store," the trainer said while spreading the Oxide Jam on the piece of food. "Something to think about next time we need to restock."

Heracross ate the food happily, although he did not quite enjoy the taste of the jam as much as Rhydon. His horn and spikes all quickly changed to be made of strong sharp metal. This seemed to be the only noticeable change to the pokemon from the substance, but he immediately went through some movements afterwards with consideration. Alexa could tell there were some differences in how he attempted some of these moves, but did not know exactly why he changed how he did them.

After the new Steel type had gone through a number of Fighting type moves in a short practice session the trainer let out a laugh, mirrored by Charizard who was looking over a page of notes on the desk. "We basically just made you into a strangely shaped Lucario didn't we?" she asked the blue furred Fighting/Steel type pokemon. He proceeded to close his eyes for a moment and moved his head around. After a minute of so of this attempt at Aura Sight he opened his eyes and shook his head in the negative. "I was mostly joking."

Charizard moved to look over the two pokemon that had gained the Steel type. Rhydon was discussing the mercury like portion of his body with Kingler, the two rather obviously going over possible methods of adapting the team's transformative moves with relation to the new change. With a chuckle at this sights he walked forward to his own bag of food and took a piece out, holding it to his trainer. "Alright, looks like this one might end up popular," she said as she repeated the action of preparing the dried food. "We'll probably need to ration this stuff," she mumbled to herself as she handed it back looking at how they had already used a quarter of the jar.

The Fire type chewed thoughtfully, also not seeming to find the taste as good as Rhydon. The first change was the orange color of his scales becoming a shiny red as they hardened into metal, with only tiny gaps between the small scales making the whole of his skin look like it was a single solid piece while still allowing for the Fire type to move relatively freely. His claws took on the same metallic sheen and his horns likewise changed into metal while also sharpening and curving backwards, resulting in them becoming like a pair of blades curving backwards from his skull. The area around the tip of his tail once more had the end flatten with a hollow in the center that the flame was sent out from, causing the heat of it to become concentrated like that of a blowtorch. Finally his wings became rigid blue metal sheets with a sharp lower edge, but did not disappear even as it became clear that he was now heavier in this form and thus unlikely to fly. Instead the two inner membranes separated from each other into movable segments that seemed much less capable of bending. These folded over each other as he closed the limbs at the end of the change the plates rigidly laying on each other across his back like a quartet of broad flat spines.

Looking at the retained limbs curiously Charizard spread them back out again to give a couple of testing flaps of the now rigid wings. This did not lift the new Steel type off the ground, but he did rumble thoughtfully at the result. "Huh, you look kinda like a Scizor. How's it feel?" Alexa asked carefully moving closer to inspect the newly sharpened parts of his body. Charizard gave an amused huff and then pointed out the window to indicate he needed to test it first, before considering for a moment and asking the two remaining non-Steel types a question. Kingler shook her claw in a negative fashion and Bellossom gave a chuckle while also shaking her head. "Okay, I guess that's all the changes for this one. How about we head out and see how well they work?"

Rhydon nodded happily before using Acid Armor once again to flow as a mass of leaves and liquid metal around the others to the door. The others simply chuckled at the sight and followed the excited plant outside.

Charizard rocketed across the field as two small plumes of flame blasted out from the base of each of his altered wings. The resulting short hop was clumsy and the metallic reptile only managed a clean landing due to his long experience with flight. Heracross quickly moved to great him after landing, having seen a similarity between this attempted flight and his own Bug type form's capabilities. Charizard grumbled a bit at the unsteady flight, but happily joined in the conversation with the Fighting/Steel type.

Alexa watched the flight thoughtfully with her Pokedex recording the events. "I'm starting to wonder if we should be talking to Gym leaders and other Professors about all of these little details. See how other pokemon of these types compare to the alternate forms we're collecting. It's at least something to think about when we get back on the road at least," she told the group looking over to Rhydon and Kingler's project. The Grass/Steel type was working with the crab to fill several small jars with liquid metal that they were attempting to alter in the same way as Toxin Contagion.

"How's that coming?" she asked the two as they looked over the short row of glass containers. Rhydon tapped the first containing what looked like the same liquid that made his body, prompting Kingler to produce a small amount of the purely poisonous liquid. The next was much a shinier almost white color, which Kingler compared to the anti-toxin. The third was between the two in color, and was apparently their new variant on the actual Toxin Contagion. The final one was a blue metallic liquid that they compared to the cleaning move Kingler had developed. "You guys already think this will work? You haven't been testing this on each other have you?" the trainer asked concerned earning a full body shake from Kingler who pointed between the jars and the lab. "Yeah, dad should be able to find some pokemon willing to test it. Any other plans for the moment?" she asked helping the two of them seal the jars with their lids. Kingler motioned to Rhydon and mimed splashing someone. "Well, I guess trying to use it as a move has always been short term. Let me take these to dad and ask him real quick before you start," Alexa told them picking up the containers and making her way back to the lab. "I'll be right back."

Moments after this Charizard suddenly sends a blast of flame over the heads of the two, making them jump in surprise. Looking over to the Fire type they saw he was hovering slightly over the ground by directing two jets of flame to push him up that were being emitted from just under his wings. The mix of thrust and rising hot air was obviously struggling to keep him up, while the mild annoyance on his face at his trainer being distracted from the achievement made the others nervous. Landing heavily he motioned for Rhydon to come practice with him. Realizing he now had a dual weakness to the flames of the upset lizard the metallic topiary only nervously moved to work out fighting in their altered forms.

Rhydon had become far more confident and comfortable with allowing his body to lose its shape, which helped greatly against Charizard who at least focused on practicing slashing strikes with his razor sharp claws and wings. Heracross soon joined in on the efforts, although the Grass type combatant was disappointed to find the former beetle intended to make the fight a free for all. Seeing the three temporary Steel types going at it Bellossom moved from working unsuccessfully at using Rock type moves to watch alongside Kingler, who was nervously focused on Charizard's mood.

Just as Alexa returned with a thoughtful expression the former Flying type sent a burst of flame that panicked the Grass/Steel type dodging into the Water/Dragon, sending both to the ground in a pile of leaves and spikes as Bellossom jumped out of the way. The two looked over in surprise at their trainer laughing at the result, before she turned in amazement at the once again hovering Fire/Steel type pokemon. "Wow! Did working with the Rock type transformation help you with that?" she asked as the two pokemon untangled themselves. Charizard nodded happily as he landed heavily and turned to let her inspect the altered body parts.

"I have some maybe good news about us being able to more easily use the Steel type on the road," she told the group while looking over the barely visible vents at the base of Charizard's wings. The Fire type looked interested in this and moved along with his trainer to where the others had gathered. "He was really surprised with Rhydon and Kingler's project, and wants to have us test it out with a couple of volunteers tomorrow. Some of the pokemon he got together are willing to try stuff that we don't know the duration of, the kinds of things that might be permanent." Kingler looked worried at this statement. "A couple of them are going to be trying this," she held up the jar of altered metal, "to see how long it lasts. I also want to try the toxin cleaning move with it too, this is related to the contagion so it might work on it as well." Rhydon nodded at the idea. "We also are going to be teaching some of his pokemon that one before we leave anyway. We kinda are the only ones who know how to do it right now and being able to return from the Poison type easily would help him out a lot," Alexa admitted with some embarrassment.

Heracross moved closer to look at the shiny liquid before launching into a series of questions directed at Rhydon. Kingler meanwhile moved up to her trainer and pointed between the jar and her Frozen Flame. "Yeah, there is a risk that if it does work it is forever. Dad has a number of things that do that, and I've been avoiding any that can't be reversed at all. The Ashes were bad enough." The Water/Dragon nodded still a bit worried. "Still, it's a brand new substance, and if it works the same then we have a better idea how any other new materials you guys make that way will work." This seemed to partially reassure the crab pokemon, who motioned to Rhydon to have him come over to continue work.

"Well, with that out of the way what about you two? Are you liking this change?" the trainer asked the remaining two temporary Steel types. Heracross looked thoughtful for a moment before holding a hand level and waggling it to say he didn't have a strong feeling. Charizard looked over his altered wings, then looked at the small jar again. After a moment of thought he pointed to the wings and nodded, then pointed to the jar and gave an interested grumble. "Well, I guess if you want to compare the two we will need to wait until we know this one is safe." The Fire type nodded and then gave a questioning look towards his Fighting/Steel teammate to continue the earlier training. Alexa laughed at the eager nod Heracross replied with and proceeded to get the Pokedex out to scan the resumed combat.