Welcome to Typechange Johto, the followup I am hopefully ready to write now. This is a sequel to my first fic, Pokemon Typechange, which is a strange enough setup that you probably should read that fic first before starting this one. Expect a lot of transformation methods and a small team of pokemon that can manage as much of the type chart as most teams get with at least twice their number.
It continues from the ending of that fic pretty directly, but my second fic, Digital Storage Solutions, has nailed down the time period of my pokemon setting a bit more clearly so I will spend a moment to explain the when of this fic now. My second fic has an early moment that sets it at least a few months after Pokemon Typechange finished, and much clearer plot critical information that set both stories around 7-9 years after the fall of Team Rocket and the events of the first pokemon games. In turn that means this story will begin before the start of DSS, and in a Johto many years after the games set there.
The main focus here is telling a journey story about Alexa's second attempt at a League, how Johto has changed in the years since the Gold/Silver events, and how other trainers react to the unique types and changes to types employed by Alexa's team.
- Viridian City Shopping -
The Viridian City Pokemart was helpfully stocked, but Alexa Larch had a rather large frown on her face from what the price tag that all of the specialist gear she wanted added towards. Water type scale care items were definitely different than Fire type equivalents, and her Charizard was in some ways the least changed out of her team. Even Bellossom needed new items for the Electric type her least obviously changed pokemon now possessed all of the time.
All of which was going to cut her entire reserve of funds to travel with in half at a minimum, possibly worse if it turned out she was missing things already. Admittedly she had not placed high in the Kanto League last year, but she also had avoided this problem before by sticking with a smaller overall team. However, a team of brand new shapeshifters honestly counted as much larger now that she was specifically buying things for the various forms.
One notable thing she had added was a generic type body care kit made for trainers that had at least a dozen pokemon across the full type chart, the kind of thing you got when you didn't know what types you were going to have. Alexa had actually purchased one of them before at the start of her first journey, and then ended up selling most of it's contents around the time she got Heracross. Her team did not need much of the extra supplies at the time, and she had worked out which specific items would be cheaper to deal with them long term, but now she had a group that all had new forms that were wildly different. If they did settle on a new set of forms Alexa knew she might be able to avoid replacing the kit, but if she was going to use all of the contents more often this time then it would be easier to handle this way.
Alexa paid for everything and got it all sorted into her bag, and then found the campsite they had selected and let her Starter out, as she normally did every time she stopped at a shop on a Journey. Charizard appeared in a flash, and the winged reptile with a fire at the end of his tail huffed at the sight of their now considerably more filled pack. It bulged slightly from the few supplies that couldn't be stored as energy. "I don't think I missed anything this time," she said to the currently Fire/Flying typed pokemon.
He flapped his wings once for emphasis and started to help her get everything out to check over. It was a little ritual they had started from the day she got him as a Charmander, when he had been really intent on making sure that all of her stuff was there before they set out. She paid a bit more attention this time, and noticed something a bit odd about how he always checked things.
"Are you reading everything?" she asked with confusion, and her Starter froze in place. "Wait, did you learn to read before we met?" Alexa added as she realized it wasn't really a change in how he looked at things. "I didn't think they taught Starters to do that."
Charizard did not look happy about her question, and suddenly Alexa felt bad about pointing it out. He glanced at a label on the Water type focused scale care kit she had picked up, then with a sigh ran his claw along a line of the text, and then handed over the package and pointed at the note he had read.
"Ah," she said at the warning about the times you were supposed to use the kit with amusement. "But I thought you were going to take over being the pokemon I Surfed around on?" she questioned him, and Charizard blinked in a bit of shock. "That means we use a form that keeps you Water type all day long for the longer routes instead of just changing back and forth all the time." She quickly found herself bound in a tight, but not too tight, hug from her much happier Starter.
They then made much quicker work of the rest of their gear, now with an added speed from Charizard openly giving feedback to her based on the text on the items. The bad news was that her tent was a bit worse for wear after the rough storm they had dealt with on the Seafoam Islands the previous year during their trip to Cinnabar. For the short trip over their break it had looked fine, but they had not really checked it much since that last leg to try and get an eighth Badge.
"We are going to need to replace this before the League is over," Alexa admitted a bit later as she took in the sight of the new patches that had just used up the small kit full of fabric patches to repair.
Charizard replied with a motion towards her pile of new care items and a short huff. He pointed at an insect pokemon kit that had turned out to be specialized for wasp pokemon.
"I'm sure that one will be useful," she tried to argue, despite it being one of the more embarrassing things her Starter had noticed. "We should be able to afford one after a few wins, maybe with some help from good forage days."
The good news was that they were now set for travel, and the majority of her extra items met her Starter's approval as good ideas to deal with their new shape changing abilities. So they packed everything back up and started to set up for dinner. The tent looked much worse now, and she was glad the high quality camp stove was still in great shape given it had been half as expensive as the tent and she outright could not afford to replace both at the moment. Char-cooked food was fine most of the time, but when on a League Run she could only really have him work on that when they weren't battling or using him to help fight as they traveled.
"This will be the last meal we can manage like this until at least New Bark Town," Alexa informed Charizard as she moved to get the others out while he worked on the fresh ingredients she had picked up for tonight. Stuff that would not keep, and was more expensive than the dried food they used most of the time, but good food was a good way to start a Journey.
The first one of the rest of Alexa team to be let out was Bellossom, who visually was the least changed normally. The flower pokemon's two head flowers were larger and a darker orange with jagged black lines, her body's color matched the yellow leaves of her skirt, and those leaves had the same black jagged lines as her petals. The Grass/Electric type also possessed the most permanent of all of Alexa's team's transformations, as the Capacitance had been in effect for more than long enough that the method of reversing the change, emptying the pokemon's electrical reserves, was nearly impossible with how much her generation capacity had grown. Bellossom chirped a greeting at the both of them and moved to help Charizard with the food.
Kingler came out next, the other pokemon on Alexa's team to effectively permanently change her typing. The pincer pokemon was coated with dark purple armor instead of her species' typical red chitin, with the former white portions of her body now a stony grey. This armor also added a large number of large harsh spines pointing backwards, with the largest in the center containing a large ice crystal filled with purple flames and the armor also sharpening and increasing the size of her larger claw. Her body was also in general more bulky, with larger and clearly stronger limbs as the result of her change to a dual Water/Dragon type. Kingler clacked her claws in greeting, and then sat down next to the tent to critically inspect the new patches.
Alexa moved onto Heracross next, and the entirely visually different pokemon emerged quickly to join Bellossom. Instead of a beetle pokemon he was a large rodent pokemon with short blue fur, bulky limbs, and spots of molten silvery metal on his arms, legs, the center of his head, and both sides of his fairly long bare rodent tail. The currently Fighting/Steel type pokemon had decided to use the combination of Mundane Clay followed by Mercury Contagion as his base form, and arguably his mammal nature was going to also be a lifelong change to his base shape. Alexa could admit she still was a bit uneasy with how far he had changed, but she was becoming more comfortable with the concept as she saw how happy her team was with their variety of changes both permanent and temporary.
Which was good, because her final pokemon was using a mixture of multiple methods to keep his preferred main body shape. Her Rhydon emerged with an outward appearance that matched the Ground/Rock typed drill pokemon he had started as, but in an instant that visual disguise vanished as the topiary pokemon he had become stopped using the Mercury Contagion to mimic his former form. He was under the effect of the rare healing item Crystal Syrup, which on its own 'only' completely altered him into a bush shaped like his former self that carried around its own dirt, which apparently their experiments would make much less rare. That dirt was then changed into liquid metal by the Mercury Contagion, which was a transformative substance they had sort of developed themselves that resulted in liquid metal forms that had mimicry abilities.
Rhydon looked at the sky and sighed, which was a fair reaction to how he had not been able to fully keep up with Charizard yet on their flight to Viridian with a now worn off Flying type. It was something they could work on, and Rhydon had at least managed to make the entire trip.
A ping from her new Pokedex interrupted her thoughts as her team continued to make dinner. Her father had been sending a variety of documents on things that she might be able to find or had with her that changed types. So far it had mostly been notes on semi-common materials that could be made into something that could change types, which were typically precious stones or actual gems that needed specific treatments. A paper on Chlorophyll Jade had come with a suggestion it could be used as a possible stopgap for Rhydon to stay Grass typed if they ran out of Crystal Syrup.
Alexa frowned at the list that came up for the update. Her father had marked a few as priority to read, the first of which was on the Vespikiln. The ancient Bug/Fire type pokemon that made the dried clay hives that were found filled with Chitin Powder. She was fairly certain he had already corrected her about how they actually were not a fossil pokemon, but she didn't know why a report on the Vespikiln would be the most important thing for her to read. Right under it was another priority report on something called a 'Mephagic', and a few more past those two.
She opened the top file and started to read. It had a header that said it was restricted access, with a digital note that she was specifically authorized to read it, which was not reassuring. The summary was avoiding the core issue, which was even less reassuring, as it said that it was a report on far too many details of how the supposedly extinct Vespikiln worked learned during the first expeditions to the ancient hives. Alexa's first assumption was that they had found some alive, and she was getting information on rare Legendary pokemon.
Then Alexa read the first section of the report, and felt herself pale. She rapidly looked up to her team, and froze. Charizard had changed shape when she looked away. His belly was a light blue color now with teal stripes on his back, his wings replaced with a pair of large mobile fins along his back, his clawed hands and feet both had longer digits with webbing between them, and his tail turned into a broad fin coated with green flames that were now being used to heat multiple dishes at once in a way his Fire/Flying form would not be easily able to handle with its more concentrated flame. He had obviously used his Clearwater Geode on his own to become a Fire/Water typed pokemon, which he had proven to prefer.
Alexa looked from him to the smiling faces of the rest of her team, none of them unchanged from the things they had worked on for her father. She looked back to the open article on her Pokedex, and started to read as carefully and openmindedly as she could.