- Flying Gym -
Falkner was thankfully still human when Alexa decided she was ready to face the Gym the next day. Some more practice with the forms they planned on using, and a bit of backup planning in case they needed to switch, was the best she could manage without finding a dedicated Flying type trainer to help. William had one Flying type in his current lineup, but he had caught the pokemon in Kanto and wasn't sure her own Charizard wouldn't be a better option there.
"Hello again, Assistant Larch," the Gym Leader greeted her. "Trainer William," he added a moment later. "Have the two of you decided if you are personally participating?"
"I am not," William firmly declared. "In fact I am quite clearly registered as not doing that."
"I need more training time for myself before I can really be ready for a Gym match," Alexa replied herself, currently in human form with no plans to change. She had given in to her team's request to try and stay human for a full day. "I'm going to start out with trainer battles at most before I make my decision there." She adjusted the Nightmare Fragment with a bit of unease, wearing it for the first time since she took it off to keep it from getting any Toxin Contagion on it back when she first became a Mephagic. Johto had a Psychic/Flying typed bird pokemon that the Leader might be using, and she knew that Psychic pokemon sometimes tried to read the minds of opponent trainers for an edge.
"Well there goes the idea of asking you to help me find a Flying type form of my own by offering a trainer verses trainer fight," Falkner admitted with a shrug. Alexa tried to keep a straight face. "Don't worry, that was a joke. I've contacted your father for that and it is going to take a bit longer for me to get a proper Flying type."
"Not really reassuring," William said dryly, and Alexa nervously nodded in agreement. "Is it really something to joke about?"
"I've had Psychic trainers and even an Aura Guardian come through the Gym before," Falkner answered with a slightly smug look. "The first kind tend to overestimate how good their powers are after practicing with their teams, but the second one had a practical reason to face Gym battles themselves. There are a few rare jobs where the trainer cannot count on the idea that they won't get attacked themselves."
"Somehow being compared to an Aura Guardian is more intimidating than being called a Legendary," Alexa had to admit. They were half mythical, and the film to show off the idea had been commissioned as part of a major revival of the order. Not quite Pokemon Rangers, and not quite Champions, they focused on wild lands where there wasn't much human interaction or civilization. It was the pokemon focused job where you were most likely to be attacked as a trainer by far.
"Ah, sorry, I didn't mean like that. I just wanted a better example than the far more common martial artists who always struggle against a Flying type trainer," Falkner admitted. "Those trainers typically end up unconscious while their team looks at mine confused. The Guardian at least was able to handle one of my pokemon herself."
"Well I doubt either of us could have beaten her then," William said a bit bluntly. "I can handle the average wild pokemon long enough to get my team out, but not a full fledged battle." Alexa couldn't stop herself from flinching at the reminder of how her first fight against a pokemon had gone. Charizard might not have been fully needed, but she was still grateful for his quick arrival. "Not to mention the added training time for that."
Alexa wasn't sure that training time was going to be as much of an issue for her team. They were trying to work on form shift techniques, and more information on different options would help with that. Just her new discovery about her Fly HM move had helped Rhydon with his now mostly unusable Rock type moves. Along with how explanations of each others moves had helped when they were working with her father it didn't seem like a waste of time for her team.
"I'm still adapting to my team's other new skills," she said instead of all that, but it was mostly the same idea. "We all are kind of working on that one problem together." Like her secret weapons in case her Grass types had more problems with a type disadvantage than they had first expected.
Ginny had heard a rumor that the girl up for the next match had something to do with the frog, lobster, and bee pokemon that had all acted like trainers over the past few days. Naturally that meant she had to get a good seat at the viewing area of the Gym when she found out the match would be on her day off. The extra stands for an audience was something of a later addition, a few years old at most when the spectacle of a match against Falkner picked up interest from the Kanto made anime, but the stands had a great view and even better protective barriers than the old seating by the edge of the arena.
This challenger was named 'Alexa Larch', from Kanto on a second League. Ginny wasn't a trainer herself so she only knew that meant it wouldn't be a simple battle despite being early in the current League. The announced rules of three on three, no switching, items allowed, and most notably opponent sends out first so it was definitely a harder one. 'No switching' also meant it was the kind of battle where one trainer could take out the other with just one pokemon, but if Alexa had a pokemon that strong it would still be interesting enough match to see all on its own.
"Go Rhydon!" trainer Larch said, and Ginny smiled at the idea of seeing a strong Ground/Rock pokemon take on the local Flying types. Only, instead of a rocky humanoid rhino pokemon, a large plant-cloud-bird pokemon emerged from the pokeball and flapped into the air.
Ginny was glad she wasn't alone in the confused murmur that nearly drowned out Falkner sending out his Xatu.
Falkner had sent out a light green bird pokemon with large mostly white wings and quite a few complicated markings. Alexa smirked at the dark look the Psychic/Flying pokemon gave her for her current Dark type. "Try and get in quick Wing Attacks," she suggested to Rhydon, who took off into the large height of the Flying Gym's main room.
Xatu easily dodged the quick strike attempts from mid air, and then Rhydon was knocked off course by what was clearly a Psychic attack. Before Alexa could give an alternative a powerful blade of wind struck Rhydon, tearing away some leaves but not doing as much to the cloud below.
"Try and deal some damage with Grass attacks," Alexa suggested, now more worried. Xatu was clearly closer to Charizard in mid air combat ability than her other pokemon, and she had seen that Charizard could handle the rest of her team's Flying type forms fairly well. If Rhydon could reliably use a move that was strong against their foe it would be a better chance, but at the moment his Grass type moves were the best practiced he had access to.
Rhydon's rapid barrage of leaves was clearly strong enough that Xatu did not want to get hit by it directly, but between the natural Flying type's control of the air and Psychic power that just meant that it was a test of which of the two pokemon could take hits better. Alexa gave a few more instructions to try and keep Rhydon in the fight as the leafy pokemon pelted the other bird with attacks, but it was clear from how many more wind and psy attacks hit Rhydon that they had not worked on this particular kind of form anywhere near enough for a Gym battle.
Rhydon managed one last strong Vine Whip hit that knocked Xatu wildly off course before another Psychic attack forced Alexa to return him.
Ginny wasn't sure what the strange Grass/Flying type really was, but it had handled Falkner's Xatu better than most Grass types sent against the Gym. The Psychic/Flying type moved much more slowly after the hits, and while the 'Rhydon' had been recalled Ginny doubted that Alexa didn't have a type advantage available.
"Bellossom!" the challenger declared, and started the murmurs up again as this one even looked fairly normal. Maybe a bit bigger flowers and some odd markings but Ginny didn't understand- "Thunder!" A bolt of lightning knocked Xatu out of the air, and the Bellossom began to shuffle and dance in a way that kicked up more than enough sparks to show an Electric type.
"Oh," Ginny said a bit faintly as the entire audience fell silent. Falkner clearly was uneasy with this development too, as the Gym Leader sent out his powerful Pidgeot in response instead of one of his weaker pokemon for low Badge challenges.
"Another Thunder, keep generating power," Alexa called out with a wince as the Pidgeot lashed out with another cutting burst of wind. "Better than before she was Electric typed," she mumbled and tried to think if the damage output of this opponent was still too much. An added Electric type didn't give a full resistance to Flying typed moves, but it did remove the extra damage that Bellossom would have faced before as a pure Grass typed pokemon.
Bellossom barely rolled out of the way, sent off another lightning strike, and then looked at Alexa and quickly made a few red and orange petals in a puff before returning focus to their opponents. The message was fairly clear to Alexa, and they had been working on the idea.
"Close to me," Alexa told her pokemon, and grabbed both a battle potion and a vial of Magma Contagion. The first to hide that she wanted to use the second.
"Come for a heal, Pidgeot" Falkner said to use the break as well. Gym Leaders had an actual budget, and dedicated medical facilities all the time, so the risk of their own energy recovery items was much higher for a challenger who had to worry about costs and longer term side effects.
She probably couldn't afford the time for both items, especially as the stopper for the fragile vial proved too hard to open without crushing the container. The good news was that Bellossom began to change shape too as the cool sensation of becoming a Fire type overtook Alexa.
It made sense to Ginny that the challenger would want to heal, but the fact that Alexa didn't seem upset with Falkner matching the idea was unusual. Only as soon as the Bellossom reached their trainer the trainer basically dropped the potion to use something else instead, and then things went weird.
Ginny wasn't sure what to focus on as both the Bellossom and their trainer suddenly changed shape. The former became a red colored lizard with little volcanoes instead of flowers on their head, but Alexa Larch first melted down into lava, and then grew out into a massive lobster pokemon as the outer layer hardened into shiny black rock that immediately began to fragment and crack to show the glow of still molten rock underneath. The many edges of the now transformed trainer's rocks were clearly quite sharp, Alexa's ball belt and bag were still linked to an expandable set of belts, and the lobster monster was now wearing a large garment draped over her upper body instead of the tattered black cloak that had been there before.
"Did that just happen?" Ginny asked aloud, and got vaguely positive responses as Alexa called out an order to use another Electric attack on the now confused and concerned Pidgeot. Falkner didn't look as surprised, but still did not seem to fully be prepared for this.
It was a massive change from the plant pokemon to a now reptilian form, although not as massive as the trainer's change. Which told Ginny that it might just have been possible that Alexa's first pokemon might have actually been a Rhydon originally.
Alexa had realized immediately that she was not the same kind of Lobasalt she had been before. She had forgotten that, while there wasn't a very notable change from the Nightmare Fragment, she was still changed to have a Dark type by the item. The worry about water she had felt as a Vespikiln was back for one big difference, but more obvious was that her outer shell was a much more fragile but more hazardous layer of obsidian instead of stronger rock.
She, however, did not have time to investigate that new reality, because there was a battle going on. "What in the world just happened?" Pidgeot screeched in confusion and was hit by another lightning bolt due to the distraction.
"My team's specialty," Bellossom smugly declared with a huff of flames that hopefully would help keep Pidgeot too distracted to focus on them. The current lizard pokemon sounded pretty tired to Alexa, and was probably one or two good hits from done. "Maybe you want to try too? I'm sure you would look nice in Steel."
"If you can pull it off it would be nice," Alexa agreed feeling much better about their chances with another type advantage. "Mercury Contagion!"
"Dodge it, Pidgeot!" Falkner rather hastily ordered in reply, but their avian opponent was still a bit confused and wasn't fast enough to avoid a splatter of silver material. Pidgeot's feathers were quickly coated with a thin film of liquid metal, which stuck tightly but without knowledge of what was happening likely could not be leveraged by the pokemon before the battle was over with.
"Try a Flamethrower!" Alexa declared, and Bellossom sent out a jet of flame that only barely met the strength Alexa had hoped for, but definitely wasn't what Pidgeot had expected to encounter.
"Hot! How is it so hot?" Pidgeot cried out and crashed to the ground with a small splatter of liquid metal. Then took to the air again before another blast of flame could hit the bird. "I'll get you."
"Pidgeot, come back," Falkner said and returned his pokemon. "Alright, I guess I should have expected that one. Well, down to my last. Go, Noctowl!" A very familiar large owl pokemon emerged to replace Pidgeot. Complete with eyebrow/horn feathers, darker brown triangular markings on their chest, and a clearly even stronger combat ability than the one Alexa had faced on her own.
Alexa didn't really think for the next few moments, just long enough to distract Bellossom and let her pokemon get hit. "One more Thunder and then come back," she finally managed to say, and Bellossom still looked worried but quickly struck the bird pokemon with a bolt of lightning.
"Sorry, got distracted," Bellossom said as she scurried close, and then cringed as a Psychic strike hit her. "Think I'm done."
"Return," Alexa agreed and went down another pokemon for the battle. "One on one," she added to the Gym leader and tried to get her head back into the fight. The Noctowl was stronger than the one she faced as a Vespikiln, but she wasn't going to fight the pokemon herself, even if she was currently a mass of brittle blade-like rocks. Alexa's team had one last trick though. "Go, Heracross."
Researcher Ginny of the Alph Language Lab froze as the final of the challenger's pokemon appeared. Alexa Larch, who Ginny felt the need to point out to herself was still a giant lobster monster, had just called this new pokemon a Heracross. The large rodent pokemon that looked almost exactly like the image on the stone her team had spent the last month working on. A stone with a few fragments of Unown script along with a partially known language, most notably a Unown script title of 'Heracross' for that image.
She watched as the rodent pokemon took at look at Alexa, then Falkner's Noctowl, and then began to send out lightning bolt after bolt despite their trainer's half stated instructions until the yellow jagged ends of his many spikes and horns turned into the same simple white horn of the rest of the structures. That made them fit the image on the stone even better.
Suddenly Ginny's day off to watch this unbelievable match was possibly a key to her work. All she needed to do now was work up the courage to speak with a large lobster pokemon-trainer with an apparently not-Bug typed, possibly transformed, Heracross.
"Congratulations, you've earned my Badge and given me a lot to think about," Falkner said to her after Heracross ran out the entire charge she had let him have with the Capacitance just in case they needed a second Electric type.
"I think I need a moment to work out how safe my current 'pile of sharp rocks' body works first," Alexa admitted as she let out Charizard to have him help make sure her new clothes didn't just get shredded.
"Alexa, what happened?" her Starter asked, interrupting Falkner's reply as he quickly grabbed her bag and went for the Pokedex. "Why are you a different kind of stone- You're dropping shards you know."
"Yes, why do you think I haven't tried to step out of the arena or turn back yet?" she confirmed. "I think it is a layer over the Nightmare Fragment, and I really hope it comes off just as easily as a normal layer."
"Alright stay still and I'll try and clear them out," Charizard sighed and started on that carefully.
"So the new shape wasn't part of the plan?" Falkner asked as the audience started to shuffle out. Some of them would be back for William's fight next, which Alexa wanted to see this time, but a lot would not. "Because the two pokemon who would be weak to my birds both came out with the Electric type, and you were definitely ready to get rid of the Grass type on the second Grass type you sent out."
"Well, the fact that it could happen in some cases is why I needed to update my trainer card. Cards, I have to remember I have multiple now," Alexa admitted and very carefully did not move as she spoke to keep from making Charizard's work harder. "Is the differences this time going to cause a problem with those?"
"I'll ask, but you might want to work out how many of these unusual forms you will have," Falkner replied with a sigh. "How many do you expect to find?"
"Too many for that to be a good option," Charizard commented, and Alexa repeated the statement in order to both translate and agree. "Should be safe now, Alexa. Going all the way back now or just to normal Lobasalt?"
"I think I'll see if the Nightmare Fragment comes back out of me, and then maybe test what a Dark type does to Mephagic," Alexa suggested thoughtfully. "With any luck that one won't be as dangerous to move around as this one is." A claw full of Contagion Cure was able to get her back to human form easily enough with minimal extra shards of obsidian. The Nightmare Fragment luckily did ended up on her shoulders again, and taking it off for a quick check showed that it was undamaged. Charizard passed her a vial of Toxin Contagion with a smug look as she put it back on. "I'm planning on watching William's match, can the paperwork wait until that is over?" she asked Falkner before using the substance.
She could sort of feel the Nightmare Fragment throw off the change this time as it merged into her. Her Mephagic form wasn't as altered, but instead of a purple color her body was now a bright blue, and her markings and toxin an equally bright orange. "Alexa, I think that might be too toxic," Charizard commented with a glance at the Pokedex, and Alexa agreed to the point where she just made more Contagion Cure to go back to being human.
"Maybe if you want to be a pokemon while you watch you should stick with the ones you definitely have cards for," Falkner commented.
Alexa sat down next to a nervous looking woman and mentally reviewed the brief overview of William's current team he and Chesnaught had given her the day before. They had not had time to properly introduce the team, and at least one member of it was at a ranch at the moment, but it did at least give some idea who she would see here.
William's team ended up with nearly the same rules, but with one big difference. Alexa was actually a little upset that Falkner went with forced switch instead of no switching. The difference was that with forced switch as long as one trainer still had other pokemon they had to switch whenever their opponent changed pokemon. It was a more complex rule, but it also meant that with larger teams you couldn't focus on the best parings as well. In a full six on six match it could get outright annoying to handle, at least from what she had seen of a non-League professional tournament in Hoenn that had used the rule for the entire event.
The first pair of combatants were William's Golurk verses Falkner's Honchkrow. Golurk was a massive teal colored human made golem Ground/Ghost type pokemon, and Alexa's status as a Mephagic meant that she heard them complain immediately about their opponent in a way that had William flinch. Honchkrow was a large dark blue bird with white fluff on their chest, red feathers on their tail and underside of their wings, and a hat like formation of feathers on their head. Honchkrow turned out to be part Dark typed, which explained why it was such a bad match that William just had Golurk try a single slam into the pokemon before returning the pokemon and forcing a switch.
The next pair was William's technical fossil pokemon, Carracosta. According to Chesnaught the blue sea turtle with a dark grey armored shell was actually the natural born child of a revived fossil and a Blastoise. He was up against another bird Alexa didn't immediately recognize called Staraptor. A brown and white bird with a harsh red spike of feathers at the top of their head, and a very dangerous look. This wasn't as bad of a match up, but Staraptor turned out to know Fighting type moves that forced Carracosta to move a bit faster than the turtle pokemon was vocally happy with to hit the bird with enough rocks to take them down. Carracosta clearly was a bit worse for wear after the fact, but was still battle capable as he was returned for the next pair of pokemon.
William's final pokemon was a small orange mouse pokemon that was vaguely like a thin tailed Pikachu with little antenna on his cheek pouches called a Dedenne. Who loudly complained that he was "too old for this crap" and simply blasted Falkner's blue and red Swellow hard enough with lightning to instantly take down the third bird pokemon.
Then there was a bit of amusement as Golurk and Honchkrow came out for just a moment before Golurk was replaced by Carracosta who was able to finish out the match. Alexa would have to ask William afterwards what he had been thinking there, but it was possibly just genuine confusion.
"Excuse me, Ms Larch," the woman Alexa had sat down next to inquired as the audience started to leave. "I'm Researcher Ginny with the language team at the Ruins of Alph site. I was wondering if you could come over to the Ruins tomorrow to possibly help with our work?"
Alexa ribbited at the question. "Well, I did want to visit, but how could I help?" she questioned thoughtfully. The ruins were well known to have the rare and mysterious Unown, and Alexa wanted to see what such a place was really like.
"One of the pokemon you used in your match looks like an image we are working with," Ginny explained a bit nervously. "You might have information that could help us out."
"Alright," Alexa agreed. The Ruins of Alph weren't that far from the City, it was technically possible to get there and back in a single day, but a good part of that would be travel. Hopefully whatever she was needed for would be quick.