- Bug Gym -
Alexa looked at William's former Scyther, now a Shanker, and wondered how Bugsy was going to react when it came to William's turn against the Leader. The former Bug type had already possessed a somewhat reptile like appearance, but this evolution seemed to focus on that aspect of the species a lot more.
The evolution left chitin-like deep black shell-scales across the pokemon's body, but they were now moving quite a bit more in ways that revealed they were no longer the structure of Shanker's body, in addition to the pokemon being more solidly built in general now. Shanker's arms were longer and thicker, and instead of single blades ended in thin clawed hands with three short sharp black blade-claws. Similarly the forehead ridges of the pokemon were now sharp blades instead of just contours in the pokemon's head, and the pokemon now had longer blade like pure white wings.
Shanker was actively showing off how the pointy extensions at the top of her thighs could be used as detachable daggers and thrown at targets quickly. "And that is our signature attack. It is a good Dark typed ranged attack that works with our physical prowess."
"I see," Alexa grumbled as she dodged another of the fast moving clusters of makeshift knives with a quick aerial movement. Her Vespikiln form was as ready as she could get it for the Gym battle later in the day, and this last minute exchange with the flying Shanker was mostly to let the newly evolved pokemon show off. "Are you really up for using it already?"
"She's been practicing that kind of thing," William called up to them in reply. "Which is why I think you two should come down now. Alexa needs to rest for her match."
"Fine, William," Shanker laughed. "I want to be in our match too after all." Alexa followed the former Bug type to the ground. "Although I want to be a surprise."
"I hope I'm ready," Alexa admitted to the other trainer and Charizard as she took her bag back from her Starter.
"From what I've seen you should be able to handle a third Badge pokemon, not even a first time one, an actual repeat Badge third," William reassured her as Charizard returned himself. "You hit hard, and it should be fine as long as you get out of the way of any effective moves."
Alexa tried to smile at him, which this time was intended to be a bit mean. "Oh yes, I've had so much luck with that so far," she grumbled and folded her mandibles closed again. "It has been fun to get to know the three other trainers who are going a bit too hard with their efforts at the Pokemon Center counter." It had not, as two were older jerks who assumed William was her trainer despite evidence otherwise, and the third was a younger girl that clearly didn't want to be a trainer and thought being rough on pokemon would get someone out of it.
"You don't need to do this," William pointed out again as they set off. "There are plenty of other Gyms, and I can already tell that you like Lobasalt for fighting better than Vespikiln." Alexa couldn't stop herself from a flinch at that. Maizie had wanted to see what Alexa could do with the form, and it had been far easier to fight like that than the more fragile Vespikiln. Mephagic was in between the two, not easy to fight as but not as easy to travel as either.
"I don't have to, but I want to try. Bugsy is an experienced Leader, it should be alright," Alexa said despite having not seen the local Gym Leader since the challenge was issued. "I want to face a trainer at least once, and I want to have this Badge."
"If this goes badly I'm not going easy on him," William warned her, and for once he sounded like a stereotypical Dark type. "I might not go easy on him even if your match goes fine."
"Thank you," Alexa honestly said, which seemed to surprise the other pokemon-trainer. "I know it is a bad idea, William. I'm not doing this because it is a good idea, I'm doing it because I am mad at him for how he acted." She wanted to make him see her as a trainer instead of just a pokemon. "Besides, you know what is a problem for that kind of thing more than I do. I'm too new to this to know when another trainer goes too far."
"Which is why I'm probably not going to go easy on him," the Zoroark grumbled as they reached the Gym. "Do you want to wait a bit more?"
"I still have a pile of paperwork to get done," she informed him.
The forms for fighting herself were not made for pokemon. They also were not made for a case where the Gym Leader was the one to request fighting yourself, which meant that Alexa had filled in quite a few little statements about how it wasn't her idea in locations about why she 'wanted' to do it. Honestly, that development was the first thing to really make her worry about agreeing to this, as it meant that officially you were supposed to only fight yourself if you wanted to.
The arena was very basic, just a dirt floor in a large interior space with some sparse and fairly empty seating along the sides. Alexa could spot William sitting along the side with a frown. Bugsy was across from her, and while the Leader was clearly excited for the match he also gave her a look that held respect only for her own combat ability. The Gym Leader was tensed as if he needed to dodge her attacks instead of respond to those directed at his pokemon.
"Alright, this is a standard four on four match. Switching out and items are both allowed," Bugsy said loudly for the small audience. "A pretty standard match." Alexa cringed at that joking statement, although she didn't know what that actually did to her mandibles.
Bugsy started off with a Scyther, and Alexa decided to start with Charizard to test how strong these Gym pokemon were. Her Starter was the strongest of her team, and adapted to new forms the fastest. "Yeah, that's about the right strength," he clicked at her.
"Start with Soak and then batter him down with Bug typed attacks," Alexa ordered, uncaring if she was understandable to her human opponent or not.
"Soak?" the Scyther asked with confusion as Charizard began to form a wave.
"Go for Wing Attacks!" Bugsy ordered his pokemon, looking less sure now that Charizard was on the field.
"Hold on a moment, what is Soak?" the Scyther asked loudly even as he used his wings to try and strike. Unfortunately for the pokemon he was swamped by the glowing wave of water before he could connect. The Scyther emerged from the wave with a blue smoother shell and his wings shifted a bit into more fin like shapes. "Gah, wait!" The temporary pure Water type didn't quite crash from the change in flight effectiveness.
"Switch to Normal moves," Bugsy quickly, but somewhat worriedly, ordered.
Charizard quickly followed up with a number of the rapid strikes typical of the Bug type before the Soaked pokemon could fully adapt. Alexa and Charizard were both unsure which move it was exactly, but he could pull it off and it had the right typing.
Scyther managed to recover enough to hit Charizard a few times, but they were low powered and unsteady blows. Alexa's Starter on the other hand didn't know more than the one Bug typed move, but did know enough about fighting to make up for that.
"Come back, Scyther. Alright, Yanma, you're next," Bugsy said an exchange later when it was clear that his pokemon wasn't up for more. He let out a large orange dragonfly pokemon with a bright green face that didn't look any stronger than the last Bug type.
"Heracross," Alexa declared as she switched out her own pokemon. Heracross was currently a massive Flying/Fighting bat pokemon. That seemed to confuse Bugsy just as much as Charizard, but Alexa did want to prove that she met his challenge. "Go for some Gusts, try and knock them around."
"Disrupt those with your own, Yanma," Bugsy ordered, and cringed as the first exchange of air power clearly favored the larger wings of Heracross.
Alexa's currently bat shaped pokemon had wings too large to be easily matched by a smaller and weaker pokemon like this opponent, and she relaxed a bit as that indicated that Bugsy was using an actual third Badge team. That meant that her still a bit uncertain team would be fine here, and that she didn't need to worry as much herself. "Mix in some Wing Attacks, but keep safe," she instructed.
"What am I even fighting?" Yanma questioned a bit uncertainly. "Why am I against some second League trainer from another region?" Bugsy's second Bug/Flying type clearly thought Heracross was not a local pokemon at all.
Despite being more uneasy with the fight than Scyther had seemed, Yanma lasted much longer against Heracross than that other Bug/Flying type had against Charizard. That was partially because Alexa had focused more on her own combat ability than more work with Heracross in his current form, so he couldn't hit quite as hard or reliably as Charizard, but the result was still decidedly a victory for her pokemon.
"Alright, that's enough, Yanma," Bugsy declared. "I think I'm going to want the full story for how a Heracross got that form." The Gym Leader didn't sound as if he was even considering just asking Alexa. "Shuckle, you're next."
A red rock shell with large white holes all over its surface appeared, out of which emerged a yellow creature's tube-like head and limbs. Alexa quickly returned Heracross, who actually needed the rest unlike Charizard, and finished her required three other Bug type or former Bug type pokemon with Rhydon's new Grass/Bug form.
The wasp infested topiary chuckle-buzzed at the sight of the Bug/Rock type. "I don't even know what pokemon that was originally, let alone now," Bugsy commented disbelievingly. "It looks like a Grass type, Shuckle, so try Bug type moves."
"Rhydon," Alexa said, hopefully clearly in human understandable language. "Rock Throw!" Her pokemon rustle-buzzed with laughter as he raised and flung some good sized stones with a pair of vines.
"What?" Shuckle asked a bit slowly and did not in any way manage to dodge the strike by Rhydon's off-type move. "Bugsy, help!" Alexa actually felt a bit bad, as this pokemon didn't seem able to avoid fast enough.
"I think that's you out too Shuckle," Bugsy said just a moment later. "Looks like I'm down to my last."
Alexa nodded at that, and returned Rhydon. She took a deep breath and set her bag down behind her where it should be safe. With another deep breath she lifted off the ground and hovered over the pokemon area on her side, ready as she could be to fight. While her team had easily dealt with those pokemon, she was not certain she could as effectively manage the same. The plan was to do the best she could, and if it looked like she might lose she could switch for someone else.
"Go Armaldo," Bugsy declared as Alexa prepared to dodge. A large mostly blue bipedal Bug pokemon with clawed forelimbs and yellow and black markings appeared, probably a fossil from the thick limbs and tail she could spot. "Rock Throw."
Alexa had to rely on her wings to dodge despite a lack of a Flying type, as she was simply too slow on foot. So she watched carefully as the actually strong looking Armaldo waved their claws and raised a pair of worryingly large rocks. Alexa threw herself-
Alexa pushed herself up from the ground dazed. She could feel that her defensive energy was broken, and that took over her thoughts despite the pain from a rough landing that she couldn't remember. They had practiced the worst case plan the day before, and she preformed it mostly on autopilot now. One of her upper arms tapped Charizard's ball to get him out, while her lower arms worked to get the ball belt unhooked so he could get it out of here, and her final arm hovered over her own ball until the other two were done.
She saw Charizard emerge, felt her belt begin to slip free, and quickly returned herself. This time Alexa could feel herself fall, and she was caught by the secure net of her ball. With a shudder she relaxed and let herself stop thinking and just recover.
Charizard only had a moment to process the sight of his trainer injured to the point of full retreat before she was gone inside of her ball. Which meant that his trainer was in danger, and as a true Starter pokemon that was the most critical moment he could ever encounter.
He turned an eye towards the pokemon on the field and their trainer, the nearest threat, as he quickly moved to pick the belt of balls up. There was an Armaldo that had no business being in this fight, one nearly as strong as him, and that reminded Charizard of the worst case. If your trainer was truly in danger from another trainer's pokemon, then you had to consider going for the other trainer to drive home just what that other pokemon was attempting.
The Armaldo and Gym Leader both looked confused for a reason Charizard really did not care about at this point, and both recoiled at the sight of his inspection. It took most of the trip to Alexa's bag to realize the low dangerous buzzing sound was his own.
Charizard paused as he reached the bag, now sure that the battle was over, and really looked at the pokemon that apparently went up against his trainer. With a click of his jaws he glanced over to William, and paused to see the Zoroark without an illusion in public, rage clear on the fox pokemon's snarl and pinned back ears.
Charizard met William's eyes and nodded, then he got out his notepad and a pen and slung the bag over a shoulder. His currently three-part claws were awkward to hold the pen and paper, but it really didn't matter as long as it could be read. One of the later blank pages received the words "We will find another gym," and then was torn out and allowed to fall to the floor of the arena.
Then, before anyone could stop him, Charizard started off towards the pokemon center to make sure Alexa would be okay.