- Mephagic -

They were on the road again, about a day out of Cherrygrove along Route 30, and Alexa had apparently decided that she wanted to get started on filling those breakable sphere things she had decided to buy. Charizard personally thought it was a strange idea, and that they could probably manage with just the move versions in any situation where they could legitimately use those things. He was going over their plans for the route with the rest of the team while she was a good ways away from their stuff as she filled the first set with Toxin Contagion to avoid contaminating anything. Alexa had let him use their Pokedex to review a local map they had downloaded from the Pokemon Center, and he was also checking over what she had recently been setting up in the scanner section.

There was a new folder Alexa had added since the last time he had looked at it, labeled simply "Forms" with a number of humanoid pokemon named and displayed. "Vespikiln", "Mephagic", and "Wendrago" were the first three. They seemed to strangely match Chitin Powder, Toxin Contagion, and a Frozen Flame respectively.

Charizard looked up at his trainer to question her about the topic just in time to see her spill some of the Poison type conversion material onto her hands from the fiddly design of those damn spheres. Then he felt his flame sputter as the touched skin began to shift in color and texture, and her clothes seemed to merge into her. Soon his trainer was covered in purple amphibian skin with green markings, and Alexa's shape began to change as well. Her face spreading outward into wide frog's head, with her hair melted down into a flowing curtain of Toxin Contagion. Her hands grew webbing and her fingers lengthened as they combined to just three and thumb, while her feet changed and expanded entirely to match her hands although with one fewer digit. Her legs bulked up, lengthened, and spread out further from her waist.

"Alexa!" Charizard called out in worry as she held herself still and finished becoming a large frog pokemon. He quickly started a scan on the Pokedex to try and figure out what happened while the rest of the team started moving to check on their trainer.

"Mephagic, Poison/Water type, a Legendary swamp pokemon said to change other pokemon into the Poison type and rumored to steal away humans as mates," the device started to explain, and Charizard quickly looked down to see that it was the second of those sorted pokemon. The picture had a different build and very different marking pattern, but was clearly the same pokemon his trainer had just become.

"What just happened?" Heracross asked sharply as the team reached Alexa, which caused her to flinch.

"Our trainer just spilled toxic materials on herself!" Bellossom complained. "What were you thinking being so careless with that stuff?" the Grass/Electric type demanded and pointed between Alexa and the dropped spheres. Charizard was fairly sure the movement was not needed for once.

"Sorry for worrying you guys," Alexa said with a slightly changed voice. "Ugh, that feels stranger than I thought it would."

"You knew this could happen," Kingler noted, and the magma crab's statement was not a question. "You told William that this could happen, and you knew when you started filling those things."

"This was on purpose?" Charizard had to ask at that information, and started to walk forward himself. "Alexa, please tell me you didn't just buy those stupid things to make this look like an accident."

"What? No, I just. I just wasn't being as careful with them because I knew it would happen eventually," his trainer replied with some shock, while the rest of their team froze at the clear response to his question.

At least until Bellossom processed that statement. "You! What!" the former Poison typed plant pokemon raged. "In that case everything else can wait! Because apparently you need to get the Poison type safety lecture right now!"

Alexa flexed her toes as she carefully listened to Bellossom's lecture, which admittedly she had sort of wanted to hear for herself. It was strange to be able to curl her toes like she could her fingers, and the texture of her skin was damp and slimy in a way that somehow wasn't uncomfortable. Even the way the world looked was different, although part of that was how the fluid her hair had turned into seemed to want to flow in front of her left eye. It wasn't like human hair, it simply flowed around her hands when she tried to brush it aside, and she could sort of see through it even though it was so thick. Alexa's skin had a number of green markings on it, which from what she could see were in the shape of a number of different kinds of type symbols all connected together. They weren't even all from the same set of such markings.

"So, review what I've said with me," Bellossom finished off, and Alexa fumbled a bit as the two of them went over the details of toxin safety when you were something that could make them. The strange part about that was the sense of having energy make stuff. The reports her father had sent since Viridian had attempted to describe the sensation of becoming a pokemon, but they had not quite captured the reality of how a human's typed energy was more tightly contained than a pokemon's.

"I think our trainer is still a bit too distracted for this, Bellossom," Rhydon rustled uncomfortably. "I mean, did Alexa even have a type before this?"

"I didn't, or well not any real type. Humans usually have a mix of types because they don't normally express one," Alexa tried to answer the question, with a flinch as she realized that she wasn't technically human at the moment. "That is one of the things dad checked before we started on stuff between Leagues."

"Did he know this could happen to humans?" Charizard asked in a dark tone, and Alexa had to admit she had asked her father the same question just as seriously after getting that first set of documents on the topic.

"He thought that if you were unaffected by one then none would work on you," Alexa had to complain about the answer she had gotten and moved to set a hand on her face. "Only to find out just after we left that it wasn't the case. I've-" she had to cut off as she discovered that her face was now both flat enough and wide enough that she couldn't cover both of her eyes with just one. "I've been trying to prepare-" with her hand so close to her face Alexa could clearly see the webbing between her fingers and count how many she had.

"Do you need to turn back?" Charizard asked quickly and moved closer.

"No, no I can handle it," Alexa said just as much to herself as to the rest of them. "I have to, even if we are more careful accidents are going to happen. I need to be able to handle this." She looked up and saw that her team wasn't happy with that thought.

"You could have been changed by the Groudon Ashes?" Heracross asked her as the rodent pokemon looked away, and Alexa flinched at the reminder. "I could have gotten you stuck like that too?"

"It could have, but that's one that I know doesn't work on me," Alexa admitted. Charizard's flame was sputtering, Kingler was a pool of magma with armor mixed in resting on the ground, and her two plant pokemon were drooping. "I've also tried Stable Cloud so far."

"We're going to have to check everything, aren't we?" Kingler glumly asked. "Or we won't know what you can and can't touch. I don't want to hit a trainer with something and transform them like that."

"The move versions should usually be resisted," Alexa admitted with a sigh. "The documents I've read so far say that, well for an example, a Mephagic like I am right now can only use attacks to change pokemon. The reports on my current species specify they need Toxin Contagion that has set for a bit to change humans."

"Chitin Powder lasts three days for us, is it different for humans?" Kingler critically questioned. "Or things like the Magma Contagion I am trying to find a time limit for?"

"The kinds of pokemon that are transformed humans from stuff with time limits tend to live around lots of it. Vespikiln flake off Chitin Powder, my hair and slime is Toxin Contagion, and the ones that aren't known to be pokemon tend to not have good sources of the stuff," Alexa had to admit. "It still needs to build up, so we shouldn't have to worry as much as long as we clean up while we are transformed, and I shouldn't get myself stuck easily."

"Did you warn the people at the flower shop about this?" Rhydon questioned carefully.

"Crystal Syrup works on humans too," she had to confess awkwardly. They had spoken about that fairly quietly while he had been distracted with a detailed explanation of soil qualities. "I would have included a risk guide dad finally sent me, but they already knew about it and even warned me against wearing the Chlorophyll Jade myself."

Charizard's tailflame had settled, but he looked tired. "We're going to have to test everything we want to use normally on you," he stated firmly. "And we know you will need new trainer cards for every form that we find happens." He sighed. "Are you planning on fighting with us?"

"Gym Leaders can request that I participate, especially given I am probably going to end up on the team listing," Alexa admitted, but she was fairly sure Charizard already knew at least part of that.

"I didn't mean 'are you going to end up fighting', I meant 'do you want to fight alongside us?'" Charizard clarified uneasily, and the rest of the team looked at the two of them with a lot of concern. "Not to mention that I personally know the Kanto League at least will let you specifically request to not participate."

That was a considerably harder question that Alexa had not actually considered before. She ribbited quietly as she considered the idea, but had to pause for a moment at the sound that came out of her body. "I- I didn't really think I would get a choice," she had to admit to her Starter. "When you were- When you were given the option to be a trainer, did you think you would fight like that?"

"That's kind of why I wanted to be a Starter more," Charizard replied thoughtfully. "If the trainer loses in a pokemon battle themselves the whole team loses, so it is only really worth it in official matches if you go last. I wanted to fight like my siblings, not to stand on the sidelines until it was down to just me."

The Acid move was in theory an easy one for Mephagic to learn, and Alexa honestly needed to know what fighting was like before she could really answer Charizard's question. There was a slight itch in her throat as the caustic goo built up in it, and she quickly spat out the glob in her first attempt at a proper move. The glob came out of her mouth fairly slowly, was poorly formed, and basically just splattered onto the ground in front of her and made the grass smoke a bit.

Charizard looked between the toxic material Alexa had actually just made and her for a moment, and then sighed. "You know, you might actually be a bit lucky here. This is going to take someone else training you to work well, and I know enough about how to be a trainer to help," he complained with another sigh.

"So you don't think the rest of us can help with that?" Kingler questioned a bit hotly before Alexa could try and wave off the offer. "It isn't like Alexa is the only one of us that needs help with multiple types. If anything we now can get her a better idea of what we need to pull this off."

"Given she's a Poison type right now I think I'm the better option all things considered. Maybe you can handle her Water type, since you're the only one we have until we get to the Fire type tests," Bellossom argued a bit snidely.

Alexa shared a look with Charizard about that tone, and her Starter shrugged a bit sheepishly. It was a look he had given her a lot of times when the rest of them argued with each other before. "I'm not sure the rest of you want me to be able to actually understand what you say to each other," she criticized both of them, and then looked Charizard in the eye. "But it is a good point, I should get help from the rest of you."

"Water Gun is another simple one," Rhydon suggested. "Not to mention knowing something without toxins makes it easier to work out Contagion Cure. That kind of change is more comfortable if you can turn yourself back."

"That sounds like a plan," Alexa agreed. Probably a bit too quickly, but the main reason she had handled things this well so far was that she knew her team could get her back to human as soon as she asked. The rest of her team actually flinched at the quick statement. "I'd definitely like to learn that one."

"Then start with as clear of water as you can," Charizard instructed, and this time her pokemon went in more detail instead of just having her use her instinct. With less time than she expected Alexa was able to produce a mediocre Water Gun, and a slightly better Acid, but could not get close to Contagion Cure. Using the move version of Toxin Contagion was near instant, it made up her hair and skin slime and was a Mephagic's natural move.

"Well," a Fire/Poison typed Charizard cut her off after she possibly resorted to the easy option a bit too quickly out of frustration. "I think you've got the bare basics down. Definitely need to figure out Contagion Cure, but that will probably take experiencing it."

"Sorry," she croaked with embarrassment. Suddenly the difficulty her team had with new moves had new context. "I think I'm done for tonight." She could move, although she had to hop more than walk like this, and it wasn't really uncomfortable, but she wanted to be human again.

Kingler didn't even wait to confirm anything before splashing her with the reversal move, and Alexa felt the change back to humanity start immediately. Her last finger split to give her a pinky again, her feet fused back together into the flat human ones with a lot more smaller toes, her hair became solid and shorter again, and her clothes returned to being on her body rather than somehow a part of it. It was quick, and felt quicker than the first time even if it might not have been.

The big part of the change was how Alexa felt her energy collapse in on itself into what she could now tell was a tight shell and become a bit of a mess of types. It was disorienting to suddenly lose the ability to move the stuff she had just been using to make acid and water. A part of her almost tried to pick it back apart, but she was able to hold back that desire. It was strange to suddenly lose an almost sense so quickly.

"I think I have some idea what a type feels like now," she commented, and Charizard replied with an unintelligible rumble and a motion towards the side of his head. "Oh. Humans can't understand pokemon." Somehow that almost hurt to remember. It had felt good to easily speak with her team. "Is it terrible that I almost want to change again just so we can talk?" She knew she was too tired for this.

Bellossom chirped a bit tiredly at that and pointed towards the tent, and the rest of her team clearly agreed. "Alright, I know, we need to be done for the day," Alexa admitted.

"You do know that you don't have to transform to understand us," Rhydon had to tell his trainer the next morning, as he emerged from his pokeball to find she was once again a pokemon herself. "Just like how Charizard doesn't need to write stuff."

"Not exactly the best argument, Rhydon, I've been writing quite a bit since that came out," Charizard grumbled with a bit of a harsh look at Kingler. "Although we probably need to get back on the road. This isn't a short route, so we will have plenty of time to try out the key ones. Mercury Contagion, Magma Contagion, and Chitin Powder are the three that are easy for you to get on yourself by accident," the Fire/Flying type then said to Alexa directly.

"I know, but I kind of wanted to go over things first, and maybe finish up those spheres," Alexa replied, and it had not stopped being strange to have her just understand, even if she was currently a massive poisonus frog pokemon. "To be honest, if I had really wanted to outright avoid this I would have had one of you use Toxin Contagion and then fill them for me."

"Charizard, can she just stay like that while we travel? Because I still need to finish that lecture," Bellossom asked darkly. "Especially if she thinks that was a good justification. What would have happened if it didn't work on you?"

"Minor poisoning at worst," Alexa and Charizard both said together, although Alexa had a tone Rhydon remembered from Bellossom back when she was a Gloom, while Charizard sounded more like Bellossom did now. "Easy to fix but not the best result."

"So what happens if the other three don't work?" Kingler added as a question before Bellossom could go off.

"The Mercury Contagion is just going to flow off," Rhydon tried to help his trainer out. They had done a bit of checking for travel safety right when they arrived in Viridian City to see which of the Contagions were actually safer, just in case the Steel type variant was also notably toxic. "The metal is a bit dangerous if a human accidentally drinks it or something, but it is safe enough on skin."

"Chitin Powder should also be safe enough if it doesn't work on her, but if it does that is a three day wait," Charizard agreed. "Which means we probably need that Magma Contagion test first so she has some Fire type practice before she's stuck with that for days. Unless only one of those works." Before they could continue to discuss the winged reptile changed topic. "However, we are also tight on money, and until Alexa has those new trainer cards she will need to be human for challenges. This road doesn't have good prospects for foraging things we can sell, so we need a human to handle the travel."

Rhydon wasn't really sure what 'tight' meant in this case. Finding rare minerals and plants was always something Alexa liked to see, but how that translated into supplies was something he didn't know. There had been a time or two in Kanto he had seen where they were looking for plants that could work as food too, or when they ran out of some other supplies and didn't get new ones until after a good Gym match.

"We aren't that bad off," Alexa countered strongly. "We have plenty of supplies to make it to Violet City and can sell off some of those if we need to when we get there."

Then there was a rustle from the nearby camp site. Kingler reacted quickly and splashed Alexa with Contagion Cure, and while that shocked their trainer it did mean she was human again before another trainer emerged from the brush between the locations. "Hello? I thought I heard some pokemon arguing and I wanted to make sure you're okay," the guy questioned as he froze at the sight of them.

"Sorry about that, I needed to work on something new with my team," Alexa answered, and now Rhydon was able to realize she had slipped out of human speech during their earlier conversation. "I didn't realize we were that loud."

"I heard a frog or toad pokemon," the other trainer noted curiously and more than a little confused.

"That's my latest option," Alexa said in a way that Rhydon thought was a bit too honest. "Just started working with that one."

[Author's Note]
Here we go. The reason that an AU called Frostbite did not continue is that I found the idea works much better with more time for Alexa to get used to transformation.
In this case she's had since Viridian to consider the idea, and the example of her team's transformations to get used to it being a good thing. Combined with a form she can more easily and painlessly reverse and you get an Alexa who is less wary of the topic.
With any luck this plot element works out for the story in the long run.