- Chlorophyll Jade -
Bellossom smugly sent a blast of flames at her opponent's Mareep, who currently had a partially metallic coat of wool that conducted the heat quite quickly into a strong hit. On top of that her trainer was still human this time, unlike the last three matches they had tried this including the Gym battle. It was actually rather nice to be able to hit a pokemon harder with just a bit of work, and it hopefully would make the other trainer surrender instead of sending out his own Fire type again. That would save Bellossom from having to give up herself, as it was mostly experience keeping her in the fight at this point.
Luck was with them, as their opponent didn't send the Magmar back out. "Well, I have to admit I would not have expected that kind of thing, even with the strange way the new Water Gym is working," he said to her trainer, while Bellossom held back a cringe as she realized that she could not rest just yet for appearance sake.
"I'm almost considering starting my own Gym specializing in it," Alexa joked, and Bellossom rolled her eyes at the idea. Her trainer did not seem serious about the idea other than when she used it as an excuse for why they were using such an odd technique.
The other trainer walked off towards their nearby camp for their pokemon to recover. Alexa didn't bother to wait much longer before taking on a Mephagic form once again. "Ugh, all that just to make a bit of profit. Do you think they buy the line about a Gym?" her trainer asked.
"I think they believe it, but why that idea?" Bellossom said as she simply flopped down on her belly to rest in the sun. Plant or lizard, either way it was nice to feel the heat of its light.
"Because trying to be a strange Gym Leader is a lot more normal than being a strange new Legendary pokemon," Alexa ribbited. "I've seen what kind of odd things they do around the world, and I'd rather use that line to avoid people trying to catch me. Which we need to be worried a lot more about if I am a major one somehow."
Bellossom gave her trainer a dark look at that worry. "You are you. What some strong pokemon decide to call you doesn't matter," she complained with a serious look. "You have some clothes, I think the rest of us have to worry more about that since we look unique and don't have the obvious 'I have a trainer' look."
"Legendary pokemon with trainers still have to worry about people trying to catch them," the Mephagic admitted. "I'm trying not to be mad at William for making me think about that, but he just asked Raikou without thinking about if Raikou already had a trainer or not. That's a trainer who can understand pokemon, what are the others like?"
"Does Raikou currently have a trainer?" Bellossom asked, curious if that had been something Alexa could have known without asking.
"He was in last year's League, although he didn't make it to the televised tournament," Alexa replied. "I recognized his fur pattern from the pictures."
"Then you probably should tell William how he messed up there," Bellossom suggested carefully. "And I think you should also let Charizard know you're worried about that too."
"Yeah, I guess so," the Mephagic agreed reluctantly. Then turned to her with a thoughtful look. "Hey, I was thinking about trying out the Chlorophyll Jade a bit. Would you be interested in seeing what it does to that form?"
"That one only changes you when you have it on, right?" Bellossom asked thoughtfully. It would be interesting to see what she became as a Grass type from this form.
"Yeah, although we will have to be careful not to break the band it is on. William says he thinks I should be able to repair it with a bit of magic, but the connection to transform is based on the metal links," Alexa answered.
"Alright then, I think I'd want to try," Bellossom agreed. "Just let me rest a bit so I can actually walk around with it."
"So, most trainers don't understand their pokemon, and they really are human?" Mareep asked as William tried to get the little pyromaniac to actually use Electric type attacks instead of the added fire powers Alexa had given William's new pokemon.
"That's cute, but I've been a trainer for a while now," William sighed at the fairly common reaction to being a pokemon-trainer. It was the first joke he had ever heard, from Chesnaught who was a lot more annoyed than smug when she said it. "If you know enough to ask that, then you know enough to know most are."
"I've only met two, both of you aren't," Mareep noted with a quick hop over to William, and a far too happy look at the burned patch of grass that was not in fact using Thunder Shock on the now quite charred apple the sheep was far too happily eating.
"Dedenne," he said letting the smaller Electric type out. "I need help with your replacement." Dedenne looked at Mareep, then at William, and then back to Mareep. "You missed Raikou and Alexa conspiring to get me an unusual one."
"... so, let me get this straight. You actually asked two Legendary pokemon to help get you out of just completing our Deal normally?" the rodent pokemon dully asked. "I'm surprised you aren't our new Electric type, and we just have some sort of lava... is that a lizard?"
"Sheep actually," Mareep gleefully corrected and tossed the apple core into the magma-fleece.
"Remind me why you want to travel with a Legendary that does this to sheep?" Dedenne lamented. "Is it revenge for the bad Deals? Because that seems a bit self destructive for those."
"I don't want to be somewhere else in the region when she makes the news," William half seriously replied. Alexa was nice enough to travel with, if a bit strange, and it was a good reminder of what it had been like to be openly a Zoroark to his traveling companions back home. "Plus I think she needs help, and I'd rather give it than not. She just became a Legendary, and I met her beforehand."
"Oh," Mareep said a bit more faintly. "Okay, a Chosen One's team. I can handle that." The sheep now sounded quite shaken.
"You got Chosen!" Dedenne shouted after that slight delay where the rodent had stiffened entirely. "You couldn't have waited until I was gone at least? Now I'm stuck with 'Chosen One's pokemon'! Do you know how that impacts Deals?"
"William, why are your pokemon calling you a Chosen One?" Alexa suddenly asked, apparently as she approached from her latest battle to earn money. "Do I need to worry that you've found another Legendary while I've been away?"
"You are the Legendary!" Dedenne rather rudely declared. "A new Legendary that Chose my trainer!"
Alexa's Mephagic form paled a bit, and she glanced between the three of them nervously. "Oh. I kind of hoped that didn't count," she admitted with a ribbit. "Is that a Fairy type sense telling you that, or is there still hope we're overreacting?"
"You met a Raikou and turned a sheep into that," Dedenne explained and pointed at Mareep, whose fleece had mostly hardened into crystals with just a bit of magma between them. William was fairly sure he would have to work with the Electric/Fire type on that fear reaction.
"I'm getting the feeling that pokemon have different ideas about using things to cause things than humans do," Alexa complained. "I was just about to let you guys know that I was going to be working on the Treated Chlorophyll Jade I got back in Cherrygrove, and ask if you wanted to watch. It might be a good example of what I'm actually doing, instead of what every mystical pokemon seems to think I'm doing."
Mareep's fleece seemed to liquefy again a bit at that, and Dedenne loosened up a touch. "Deal," Dedenne said without the hint of power William was used to feeling when his Electric/Fairy typed pokemon used that word.
Alexa handed the Pokedex to Charizard, mostly because the clasp for the golden band around the Treated Chlorophyll Jade was both tricky enough to manage and also soft enough that he was worried about damaging it if he put it on the others, and then looked over at William's gathered team to check how they were doing. The seven pokemon including their trainer were curious, but calmer than they had been the last time Alexa tried to have them watch this sort of thing.
"Who is interested in this version of the Grass type?" Alexa asked her team, still Mephagic shaped because a bit of toxin on the item should not affect the operation but it would let her easily talk to her team.
"I already said yes," Bellossom started with a smug glance over at Chesnaught. Charizard rolled his eyes at the other currently reptile pokemon's clear social attack on the other naturally Grass typed pokemon.
"I'll try it. I don't think I've been Grass typed yet, and it is an easier option that our first one," Charizard agreed as well, currently in his natural form.
"We probably should look for another Ground type option so the rest of you can try the Loam Berry," Rhydon suggested, also once more in his natural form. "Oh, and I'll at least try this one."
"I'll pass, not my kind of thing," Kingler said as Golurk rumbled a question to William that Alexa could not hear.
"Yeah, I'll sit this one out too," Heracross followed up. "I want to keep the Mundane Clay up as long as possible, so I'm sticking with Fighting/Steel." He nodded at Rhydon to demonstrate what he meant.
"I'm missing something, why is the smaller Fire typed lizard strange to try this?" Mareep questioned, and Alexa realized that the sheep had not seen Bellossom earlier.
"She's normally a Grass/Electric type," William explained to his new pokemon with confusion. "Apparently she wants to be a more complicated one?"
Alexa decided to go on with the plan instead of clarifying, mostly because she wasn't sure how exactly it would turn out, and that was part of the goal. "Alright, this time we're trying Treated Chlorophyll Jade out. It is a fairly rare type of a valuable stone that has been treated in order to bring out the ability to convert pokemon into Grass types," she explained to her team. "The golden chain part isn't from that first treatment part, but it is needed to finish the magical part of the change. From the documentation we have it adds a connection between the treated stone and the pokemon wearing it, so it has to be properly made and fully intact in order to complete the connection."
"It is supposed to be a change to primary type, right?" Charizard double checked. "I know that doesn't always turn out with layered changes, or some types, but I am expecting Grass/Flying out of this."
"This one is fairly consistent. Honestly enough is used that we don't really need to test ourselves, and the whole 'if it breaks you need to fix it' means it might not be the best for battles," Alexa admitted mostly to her team. "But we might have some ways around that problem if anyone likes this change."
"I know nobody has tried what I'm going to," Bellossom noted a bit impatiently. "I mean, we haven't even gotten some Magma Contagion back to your dad yet."
"I was able to send him a jar, but he might not have gotten it yet. He wanted to test things before we tried to transfer it with a computer," Alexa allowed. "I take it you want to go first?" Charizard and Rhydon both chuckled good naturedly as Bellossom nodded. "Alright, let's go ahead with it then."
The small band was mystical enough to resize itself, which Alexa barely noticed given how many things with that sort of enchantment her father had brought home to investigate. She kind of wished it was easier to implement in clothes, but toxins and heat both were big enough limits to her wardrobe that resizing wasn't enough for it to solve the overall issue. That was honestly what made the clasp so tricky, it would change shape on you as you tried to latch it together. So after the three attempts it took to get it latched to Bellossom's arm Alexa's thoughts had changed to how annoying the enchantment was in practice.
Bellossom's skin immediately changed from brownish red scales to bright green ones with the same few yellow stripes along her skin-skirt. The little volcanic horns on her head turned back into flowers, but those were joined by an entire strip of yellow and orange blooms along Bellossom's back all the way down to the end of her still present tail. "Oh. Oh wow this is strange," Bellossom said as it finished the fairly small change. "I, wow." The Grass/Electric lizard lashed her tail a bit. "I think I like it actually."
"Huh, we will have to keep that in mind then," Alexa noted as happily as she could manage. "Although it is a bit tricky to use in fights, and I'm not sure we'd want to try another Magma Contagion layer."
"Could we make an easier clasp for this thing?" Bellossom asked a bit quickly, and then seemed surprised about asking it. "Huh. Then I would be another of us using a time limited thing."
"Three of five then," Rhydon agreed. "Am I going to get a turn with this?" he then asked a bit jokingly.
"We can probably get another one of these if we need to," Charizard noted. "You did mention that Alexa got talking about how they aren't going to be used as much to make Crystal Syrup." He then looked at Alexa's current third reptile pokemon. "So, is the rest of this waiting for that, or are we just testing things for today?"
"Give me a bit longer before we take this thing off at least," Bellossom half demanded. Alexa agreed with that and let her normally natural Grass type try out the basic set of combat moves they had worked out for a Grass/Electric typed pokemon. Bellossom moved fairly easily around, and seemed to have adapted the use of the claws her new reptile form still had. Otherwise it didn't seem to have any limitations on what they had done before. "I want to keep that thing on for a bit when everyone is done with it," Bellossom requested as Alexa finally got a chance to take it back off. The lizard's flowers shrank back into Bellossom's back as her scales shifted from green to red again.
"Alright, but if the band ends up broken it will be a while for us to fix it," Alexa warned as she took a bit to get the clasp open again. The jewelry resized again as it came off into the resting size it had started as, which was just as tricky to handle. "Who wants to be next, Rhydon or Charizard?" she questioned her other pokemon.
"I honestly don't have high hopes, so I'll get it over with," Rhydon admitted with only a bit of disappointment. "That didn't look like much of a physical change."
"Sounds fine to me, we still need to work out who holds this while I try it," Charizard said to remind them he was using the Pokedex for Alexa. "Maybe switch with Rhydon when he's done?"
Alexa chanced a look over at William's team from the side of her eye, not wanting to ask if they weren't happy with the current results. Chesnaught looked only confused, William had an uncertain look that told Alexa that not asking him for help was the right call, Mareep looked somewhat interested, and the others were just watching with fairly calm expressions. "Are you up for that when you're done?" she asked Rhydon as she moved over to put the Chlorophyll Jade onto him.
"Sure," Rhydon agreed a bit nervously as Alexa started to put it onto him and paused to let it resize before she got too far. That helped a bit with the clasp, and it only took one try this time to get it onto Rhydon. His colors changed first into a dark green stone replacing the grey color of most of his body, and a lighter green set of scales along his belly. A large number of fairly small leaves then grew in a short ring along the lower edge of his upper stone plates. "I think that was it," he noted with a bit more disappointment than before.
"Wait, that was the same change?" Chesnaught questioned. "He barely looks different and she burst out in flowers!"
"It can vary from pokemon to pokemon," Alexa answered as Charizard started to show Rhydon how to use the Pokedex. "I'm actually reacting the most out of the six of us overall, so my forms aren't the best judge for how changes work for the average pokemon. Some things barely do anything, others completely change the pokemon, and it seems to be more related to how much change the pokemon needs to go through to use the new type or lose the old one. The move versions often don't change much at all."
"I'm done, this one is just some extra bits," Rhydon noted to her, Pokedex uneasily held in his claws. Alexa nodded and took it off of him with minimal time to open the clasp. The leaves on his body shrank back in and his colors returned.
"Alright, my turn then," Charizard laughed, and they shuffled around so Rhydon was in a proper position to monitor the change. "I'm interested to see what the Grass type is like without being stuck with it for an entire week."
Alexa chuckled at that as she latched the jewelry onto him, now fully familiar with the clasp. Unlike Rhydon, Charizard did not change color and remained his typical orange and blue. His wings on the other hand did grow a set of feather-like leaves across their surface, and a pair of fans of drooping leaves grew from his horns. Shorter leaves grew into a sort of beard along his jaw that met with those on his horns, and finally his tailflame condensed into a large brilliant red flame shaped flower.
Charizard blinked at the change a couple of times, and shifted in place to move about his limbs. "I hate it," he said with considerable unhappy surprise. "I've never before encountered this sensation, but I hate this. Get that thing off me."
Bellossom burst out laughing. "Well then I guess you shouldn't use Crystal Syrup," the currently Fire/Electric type pokemon laughed.
"I can break it off," Charizard threatened, for once sounding like a typical Charizard. Alexa quickly moved to unlatch the clasp at that statement. The leaves quickly retreated, and his tailflame consumed the flower with a rapid puff of smoke. "Ugh, that was worse than the Ghost type. Never doing that one again either." He looked at her as she inspected the jewelry. "Are you sure you still want to try being an Aloevona?"
"The Pokedex doesn't even file that one with pokemon," Alexa half complained. "If I become one it would be an easy option in public." William looked a bit confused at the conversation, and Alexa decided to get it out of the way now. "Treated Chlorophyll Jade is man made, and so are the bands it needs to work. It is the most understood transformation for humans I've come close to, even the Frozen Flames are a bit more of an unknown. The Pokedex entry even calls it an 'alternate human form', which it hasn't for any of the others I've seen so far."
"Ah, humans made it so they definitely know what it can do to them," Kingler said with a nod. "So they call it 'human' because they always knew it was."
"By that logic my species probably counts as 'human'," William complained. "Alright, that makes sense." Alexa turned to look at the illusioned fox pokemon a bit uncertainly. "Some people back home have argued that we do count like that."
"Now I'm worried that there might be a Dark typed option that makes Zoroark," Alexa ribbited quietly, although she expected William's ears to catch it. "Right, I'm going to change back to human to try this now." Contagion Cure wiped away her froggy form and left her a human again, although she had to adjust her clothes due to the change not quite putting them in a comfortable layout. "Now, it shouldn't be too hard to get this on."
Three tries later the clasp closed around Alexa's arm, and she felt her body change once again. Her skin shifted to a thick fleshy green plant material with a few speckles of near white, and her limbs bulked up a bit and took on a sort of flat topped, curved bottomed layout with two ridges of spikes along either side where those two bits met. Her face pushed forward into a much thinner reptilian muzzle than the frog face she had just possessed, with the same spikes along the sides of her upper and lower jaws. She felt a new tail begin to grow from the base of her spine as her stance widened, and a glance back revealed that the new long thick structure split in two just past the base with the same flat on top bulged on bottom layout. Her hands and feet both changed to have five long clawed finger like digits that was a bit odd due to the length. Finally a few shiny green jade stones grew out in places along her shoulders and the back of her head.
Then Alexa felt the Psychic type part of the change kick in with a sense of the general feelings of everyone around her, along with a couple of stronger thoughts she could half understand. William's team, with the thankful exception of their blank space of a trainer, were all vaguely concerned or uneasy. Her own team was mostly calm and collected, with the exception of Bellossom who was impatient and somewhat clearly thinking 'when can I get that back'.
"I think I might just not like the Psychic type," Alexa had to comment about that new sense. "Too much information I don't really want."
"I'm surprised honestly. With everything else I've heard I would think you take to all types equally," Dedenne commented loudly with harsh thoughts.
"I'm not sure I'd like Fairy either," Alexa replied with a bit of annoyance. "They mess with how you think a bit more. Psychic because you can literally hear different things, Fairy because of the fey nature stuff."
"Psychic is as bad as Fairy?" the small Electric/Fairy questioned thoughtfully. "Hmm, that is a bit of a larger issue." His mind seemed less confrontational.
"Maybe you just need some more time to get used to it," Charizard suggested seriously, but his thoughts were jokingly focused on Bellossom. The other Fire lizard glared at him for it with quite a bit of annoyance.
"No, this is definitely just annoying to put up with," Alexa firmly stated and quite deliberately undid the clasp to get the thing off herself. She was a human holding the jewelry moments later, and happily latched it back on an eager Bellossom. "I don't think I want to stand knowing even a bit of what everyone is thinking all the time." Charizard passed her a vial of Magma Contagion and she got much larger and rockier to properly participate in the conversation again.
"Didn't she start this as a different pokemon?" Mareep questioned as soon as she could understand again. "And, she was just another different pokemon. And now that Grass type is another pokemon too?"
"Are you another kind of pokemon?" Chesnaught asked the magma-sheep dryly.
"Well, yes, I think I am," Mareep said with what sounded like a bit of pride. Alexa flinched at that response, or at least tried to as her current body was a bit too sturdy to have anywhere to flinch without it being a larger movement. "Not sure what my new kind is called, but I'm definitely not just a Mareep now." The sheep then mumbled about wanting a different name.
"You probably count as a variant, but-" Alexa cut off and looked over at Charizard. "Can you bring up the regional variant page on the Pokedex to show him? It is fairly well known nowadays because of the better ways to travel to farther away Leagues."
"I know when I was a little kid we didn't see Kanto trainers very often," William agreed. "And we didn't see anywhere near as many unusual typed pokemon, or foreign ones. You are still a Mareep, and that change needs to be refreshed every once in a while." He looked over at her.
"This one lasts a week," Alexa specified. "I think the rest of us can teach you how to make more."
The two of them ended up packing up for an afternoon of travel after that with little time to discuss things with the rest of William's team. Alexa was a bit disappointed that she couldn't ask them all what they thought, but at the same time it did mean that she could focus on just talking about what she needed to with William.
"So, you spent the break between Leagues doing that every day," he said as she fell into the best pace a Lobasalt could manage for a long time. "I can see why you think it is so normal then if your dad had you on that."
"You don't need to travel with me if you don't want to," Alexa had to start with. "I know that I'm some kind of Legendary now, and that is a bit more than just a strange trainer."
"I doubt I really count as a Chosen One, Alexa," he replied seriously, and dropped his illusion. "I'm sticking around even if I do. You don't just get out of being Chosen after all." He tried to add a joking tone to the final sentence, but it came across more dismayed.
"You asked Raikou if you could catch him," Alexa moved onto her issue, unable to keep a bit of hurt out of her tone. "Is that the same thing?"
William looked a bit confused by her question. "A caught Legendary is different from being a Chosen one. You can be a Chosen One without ever catching the Legendary, and you can have lots of Legendary pokemon without being Chosen by any of them," he answered carefully, clearly trying to find out what she wanted. "Nobody who knows what it is actually like wants to be a big name Chosen One, but I doubt there are many trainers who won't at least try to catch a Legendary they find."
Alexa simply walked silently at the steady pace for a long moment with a bit of hope she didn't need to tell him the problem, but all that did was make him look more concerned. "William, what am I?" she finally asked.
"A Lobasalt," he slowly hedged. Then seemed to realize what she meant. "A new kind of Legendary pokemon," he added and looked away. "Oh."
"Raikou has a trainer already. He was in the last Johto League Tournament," she explained a bit dully. "You are a trainer who can understand pokemon, and you still asked him to join your team. Because anyone would try to have a Legendary." Alexa was fairly sure she didn't need to add 'like me'.
"I honestly had not thought about that," William admitted. "I'm sorry, I didn't even think about that."
"I'm trying to keep it from being what people think about me as, but that doesn't mean I don't know how I'm at risk," Alexa noted quietly, but still loud enough that the fox pokemon should hear it.
"Zoroark are rare as Legendary pokemon, at least when it comes to wild ones," William said after another long silence passed between them. "At least we are now. Places where we lived outside of human contact were rare enough, and when humans got better at keeping track of each other it got harder to just fake being one in a town." He paused again thoughtfully. "I guess, I guess I might be too used to knowing that I hide as a human so humans don't try to catch me, and I grew up too human to really think about what it would be like to be open about it."