- Flaaffy -
Alexa looked at the bare dry ground, days before a rainstorm would happen, and then back at the sheep pokemon that she was helping Charizard explain the Fire type to properly. "No, we are not going all out without a strong Water type," she tiredly informed Mareep.
"Which in this case means me," Charizard agreed. "Unless you want to try, Alexa?" he suggested with a laugh.
"Not today, I want to see what the Geode does to me as a human before I use it with any other forms," she replied with a buzz that was approximately a sigh. "Although unless there is a good layer on that one I probably won't use it much. An hour seems a bit short to me now."
"Could I try Kingler instead?" Mareep offered hopefully.
"We need someone to put out fires, not wreck you," Alexa had to shoot that idea down. "She gets serious quickly, or jokes around a bit too rough."
"And that was before she became a Dragon," Charizard uneasily added. "Not to mention she only knows the minimum basics of what a Fire type should be worried about. The stuff for if she changes for a single fight."
"I haven't decided yet if I want this all the time," Mareep pointed out.
"He just means he wants to get out of the blame for being a pyromaniac some days," Dedenne commented. "So this is just Fire typed today, no Electric stuff that needs me?"
"I want an Electric type, a natural one, around to try and work out what is going on with Mareep's crystal formations," Alexa corrected the Electric/Fairy pokemon. "They look like they hold charge, but I don't know what happens if they are removed from the lava they form out of. It shouldn't hurt given it is part of his fleece, but they may be hazardous."
"Which is a problem when he is taking hits from stronger opponents," Charizard firmly stated. "Alexa's Dark typed Lobasalt can barely walk safely right now, and working out how to safely use that one is going to be tricky."
"I think it might even count as a 'constantly lays Spikes' Ability for that variant," Alexa admitted uneasily. "Which means I might not be able to use it as a trainer. I don't think those abilities are restricted yet, but they probably should be. It is something to bring up when we get to Goldenrod."
"Alright, that makes sense. Even just Mareep wool should be somewhat hazardous if it is like Joltik web," Dedenne allowed. "So, let's see what they are."
It took a bit of work for Alexa and Charizard to manage to pry one out of the lava without it getting melted to the point it just crumbled. The result was an odd shaped yellow and black crystal that luckily did not change either of them into the Electric type. "So, are they useful, or do they just look neat?" Mareep questioned as they passed the result to Dedenne.
Dedenne tossed the crystal away with a bland look, and it popped in a small blast of electrical energy. "If you can manage to fire them off they're an attack," the rodent complained. "These are really charged and very unstable. Do not hand one to me again, and just to be safe don't handle them without a Ground type. Your group can probably pull off that second one."
"Loam Berries," Alexa and Charizard both agreed.
"Although there can be uses for attack materials," Alexa pointed out as well about the topic at hand. "But a new move with them is something you can consider working on with William."
"Not now? I mean, aren't we going over my types?" Mareep questioned. "That seems like a side effect."
"Oh no, we aren't going over your strengths with you," Charizard corrected the pokemon with a smile. "We are going over the weaknesses and complications with being a Fire type."
Mareep looked between them all nervously. "But, but not like what you were doing with Alexa to train for the Gym, right?" the sheep questioned nervously. "Right?" Alexa smiled at Mareep, mandibles spread wide.
"Please tell me I'm done with super effective materials for the day," a very tired Mareep asked William. The Zoroark trainer looked at his new Electric/Fire type critically. "Please." Mareep's lava was a bit solidified and sparking.
"Alexa mentioned that you might be able to learn a new move?" William asked. "Something to do with those crystals?" They had only touched on the topic over lunch as something to look into, before going back into the clearly tiring 'how to deal with stuff that hurts you now' skills. "Do you at least have an idea how to start with that?"
"I figured we could ask Shanker?" Mareep questioned with a yawn. Which made William frown at the pokemon.
"Tomorrow, you look about to fall asleep," he informed Mareep and went to get out the custom pokeball they had ended up with. Testing, including with the sheep as a pure Electric type again, revealed a natural Fire association strong enough that Maizie was willing to provide a dual typed ball for the pokemon. Mareep had followed Charizard's example and asked for a simple one. The two colored ball was yellow on the top half and red on the bottom, but had no markings besides the colors.
"Sounds like a plan," Mareep agreed and was quickly returned.
"How good it will be will depend on how quickly he can make the crystals," Dedenne commented as the small pokemon scurried up William's shoulder. "The Ground type is a bigger concern for him now too that he needs a lot more work on, and I don't think you want to assume Normal type pokemon can't pull that kind of move off."
"Unless we're here longer than we have supplies for I don't plan on using him in the next one," he admitted, and hoped the partly Fairy type didn't need to point out the issue with that 'unless'. "Normal types are more likely than most pokemon to know moves of another type, and there is nothing that really is against their type."
"Fighting," Dedenne pointed out with a glance over to where Chesnaught was going over safe battle exercises with Wooper. With younger pokemon it was important to make sure the pokemon knew for sure the ways to keep themselves and their opponents safe instead of just assuming they could work that out on their own.
"My Normal/Ghost aunt that you can't stand," William countered. "Fighting doesn't resist Normal type moves, and as we just got done saying nothing stops Normal types from learning other typed moves."
Dedenne took a deliberate moment to consider that. "It is such an annoying type," the rodent commented unhappily. "If you can work out that new move then use Mareep instead of me against this Normal Leader."
Three days 'later' Alexa, back to Lobasalt now that they had gone over enough of the basics for the Fire type, watched as Mareep managed to actually fling one of the crystals at a target for the first time. The small gem had taken a good amount of time to prepare, and then even longer for the sheep to actually fire just one of a resulting cluster of gems, but it at least hit close enough to catch the small wooden target with the edge of the resulting electrical blast.
"Ugh, that's tricky," Mareep complained with a glance at his trainer, while Alexa inspected the way the pokemon's fleece melted down again.
"We definitely need to work on speed with that one," William agreed, and Alexa considered how the gems formed and melted naturally in little clusters.
"I think you are going to need to do more than one at a time," she said aloud to both of them. "They form in groups, so maybe try to fire an entire group instead of just one."
"I won't be able to make it hit what I want then," Mareep complained.
"Honestly Mareep, your aim was already better than I expected for an entirely new move," William corrected his pokemon. "I think we can afford to need to work on recovering that later to build up the speed now."
"Fine," Mareep huffed, and a bit of flame emerged with the puff of angry air. This time the Magma Mareep somewhat more quickly formed a cluster, and then far more rapidly flung the entire thing. About four to six crystals broke apart as the clump flew forward, and still landed close enough for at least three of the blasts of electricity to hit the target, this time with enough strength to set the wood on fire.
"Mareep, you were less accurate with your lava against Bugsy," William complained this time, and Alexa laughed at how insulted Mareep looked at being called out. "I want to see how fast you can do that now. Let's work on the formation time next."
That quickly turned out to be another case of going for more instead of less. Mareep had been trying to cut down on how many was natural to form at once, and once he stopped it resulted in an attack that sent between one and three little clusters of gemstones, depending on how exactly the collections formed.
"That looks great," William said after Alexa had moved back to working with her own team about an hour into that development. "I think we have a real-" The other trainer was cut off by a bright white glow that enveloped his pokemon.
The sheep lifted up into a bipedal stance, and grew in size slightly. The glow vanished to reveal an orange furred sheep monster with black bands on his horns, a still yellow gemstone at the end of his tail, and a coat of magma that now covered both of his forelimbs. The lava was hardened into formations of the explosive yellow and black crystals in the shape of a spiked helmet on the pokemon's head, and into a trio of claws that the new Flaaffy was clearly able to move at the ends of his new arms.
"You evolved," Alexa said faintly at the sight, and she could hear the rest of her team follow her gaze with similar shock. He wasn't supposed to evolve into something that kept the type change.
"Can you get rid of the type now?" the new Flaaffy questioned very uneasily. "Because I kind of want to see what I'm actually going to look like now instead of the fun form."
"The last pokemon to actually evolve while changed that we saw was not a temporary change anymore after evolving," Charizard said just as faintly. "It was in fact the Ninetails we mentioned to Maizie."
"80% match for Flaaffy. Electric/Fire type pokemon. Abilities are Static and Flame Body," William's Pokedex said while the other trainer, now without his illusion, stared at his pokemon.
"I can still try to turn him back," Kingler declared and with a quick nod from William along with a frantic one from Flaaffy she splashed the newly evolved pokemon with Contagion Cure. It simply cooled the lava it did hit briefly, and made the Electric/Fire pokemon yelp. "Okay, that was the same as Mercurial Ninetails."
"I'm so sorry, William, Flaaffy," Alexa started to apologize for causing this.
"I'm fairly sure you didn't hide that this was a possible end result," William cut her off. "It should have had more warning though. I don't think this was a typical evolution. The timing is too perfect."
"That was definitely a move evolution," Chesnaught agreed simply. "You learned the move, and then you evolved. I bet if you managed to somehow teach that to a normal Mareep you would still get a Flaaffy covered in lava and crystals." The Grass/Fighting type turned to face Alexa directly. "It is because of that form that he could learn it, but it isn't your fault it got triggered."
"Still doesn't mean we didn't surprise you all with this without enough warning," Charizard rumbled unhappily. "We were limiting some stuff from Rhydon because of this risk, and we just didn't think of it here."
"I kind of asked for this," Flaaffy admitted with a grumble and flexed his new crystal claws. "I did like the Fire type enough that the only time I've actually turned back was for the pokeball tests." His sigh this time had considerably more flames, a proper Fire type's instead of someone who only knows the moves. "I was going to just keep putting it off until I needed to evolve." A somewhat angry arm movement sent a short blast of the crystals onto open ground.
"You're saying all that stuff like pokemon don't evolve by accident sometimes," Shanker cut in with a bit of a glare at Flaaffy. "My dad's trainer didn't know what a Dark Stone would do, and thought it would be fine for my dad to carry one for them." The black scaled reptile flexed her claws, and Alexa took note of how Shanker was fairly close to where some of that last burst had landed. "Also pay attention to where you throw those things. I may not be weak to Fire anymore, but Electric is still strong against me."
"Oh. Sorry, Shanker," Flaaffy dully apologized. "Can I go back into my ball for a bit? I want to think about this without seeing it."
William nodded at both of his pokemon, returned Flaaffy, and turned to Alexa. "This wasn't your fault," he said to her firmly. "I was actually prepared for this, I just didn't expect it so suddenly. I thought I'd have time to go over the possibility a bit more with Mareep before he needed to. A few more days at least."
The next day, if it could be called that in this forest, William was sure he had not found the right words to tell any of Alexa's team that it wasn't their fault. To a degree that worried him, because they were a kind of frantic over the issue that was more familiar from stories he had heard of Legendary pokemon than a traveling companion that made a mistake. The kind of frantic that was typical of those with great power who suddenly found it going against them.
"Well, Chosen One, how do you plan to fix this?" Dedenne grumbled, which did not help explain from a metaphysical standpoint like William needed the pokemon to explain.
"Before they work out how to make Flaaffy back into just an Electric type," Chesnaught said with an uneasy look towards a Mephagic Alexa and her team going over that team's Pokedex and a bunch of items. "Because this looks like it might end with them creating a way for that to happen."
"Which is why I want a Fairy type's opinion on this topic before I accidentally mess it up worse somehow," William growled at both of them. "Because I need to know if this is actually as bad as it looks to me, which is like what Celebi will do if her time travel plan goes wrong."
"Worse, Celebi knows how to properly use her time powers," Dedenne instantly and fearfully said. "Ugh, that was the context I needed. Hey! Stop going Legendary on us, we're fine without the help!"
"Don't just say it!" William yelped at the soon-to-be-not-his pokemon.
"We aren't working on Flaaffy, we're going over the data on causes!" Heracross shouted back. "Alexa's dad made sure we had files on all kinds of evolutions just in case."
"If we find a second Flaaffy I want to see what happens if they get hit with Magma Contagion without knowing that move," Alexa specified, but did not seem to be fully agreeing with Heracross. "I think it might actually result in a different appearance. Also from what my dad's testing has shown he should have turned back to normal if he evolved with either of the other Contagions, so it should have returned him to just Electric here too if things went normally."
That was slightly better, but she was clearly still focused on the event. "Alright, I suppose we can see if another trainer is willing to help with finding out what exactly happened," William allowed. "I still think it was a move evolution, but I don't think teaching another Mareep the move, with or without the transformation, is something we should do while we're on a League."
"Alright! I've come to a decision," Flaaffy suddenly declared as the pokemon emerged from his unique pokeball. William looked at the crystal covered sheep dubiously at that. "I. Um. Okay." They all gave the sheep a moment to collect his thoughts. "Okay, it still doesn't feel that bad, and I have no idea how I'm going to deal with a typical Flaaffy hand if I do turn back. So I'm going to just be fine with this. It is fine."
"You were going to complain, but being outside of your pokeball invalidated your complaints instantly," Dedenne accused the Electric/Fire type.
"Yeah, but I was going to make a big thing of this before. Hide some Magma Contagion somewhere and show off my new Flaaffy or Ampharos form, and then surprise everyone back home by turning into a part Fire type," Flaaffy explained.
"Okay, I no longer feel as bad about getting him stuck like that," Alexa commented as William tried to work out how he would have dealt with that mess of an idea.
"I kinda feel bad about it again, that sounds like it would have been neat," Charizard added with a bit of disappointment.
[Data Block: Thunder Shard]
Thunder Shard, Electric Type Move. 40 Power, 15 PP, 90% Accuracy, Special, Hits Adjacent Foes.
Bombards the target with gemstones that explode into electrical blasts. Hits 1-3 times.
Signature Move of Magma Mareep line, Mareep that know the move evolve into Magma Flaaffy on level up.