- Celebi -

Three weeks passed backwards in the Ilex Forest before time started to properly move forward again. Two weeks later Alexa thought that was a sign that if they didn't confront Celebi now they were going to run out all of their long term supplies before Goldenrod.

"We are finding too many apple trees and berry bushes," William commented apparently ready to start discussing the issue. Those extra trees were the main reason the two of them had not needed to consider more unpleasant options for forage. "How long do you think this will last?"

"As long as it takes us to get out of the forest from here," Alexa declared with a ribbit. "Because I'm about done here." She had put off getting long term supplies with the assumption that at worst it would be an extra week in the forest, and she was now officially going to run out of the long keeping rations that they had to supplement the foraged food with to keep training. Route 34 was still long enough to make it so her team would miss out on a few days of work now, right before getting to a big city where it would be hard to train and its Normal typed Gym.

"Um," William said in response, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of a confrontation with a Legendary.

"I've picked the form that she has a type advantage over instead of the two that have advantages over her," Alexa declared. "That's as far as I'm going at this point."

"Alright, don't get too worried," a voice cut in. "I wasn't going to leave you here forever. I just wanted to see for myself what the new Legendary was like before I spoke with them." A small onion bulb shaped humanoid pokemon emerged from the forest just ahead of them. "A few weeks is needed to truly see how someone new to Legendary power is handling it. I kind of hoped to see some practical experimentation, but I understand from experience that going up against Whitney for the first time is not something to do lightly."

"Personal experience?" Alexa had to ask. "Because hearing that from a Legendary after my last Gym match isn't reassuring."

"It really isn't reassuring to the trainer who isn't a Legendary and doesn't have one on his team," William agreed with a yip.

"Give me a second, I don't understand Alexa's comment yet," Celebi said, and then vanished for just an instant in a flash. "I'm back and I am so sorry about hitting you with this right after that mess," the time traveler groaned. "Do you need any help with that one?"

"I think sending that League Official back in time was more than enough," Alexa replied uneasy with the idea of Celebi trying to help with that.

"I did what?" Celebi worryingly had to question. "No, wait here, let me check with myself." Alexa heard the Legendary grumble something under her breath as she vanished this time.

"Now I'm worried that the chain of cause and effect here started with us asking for her to do that for us," Alexa commented after a moment passed without the return of the Legendary.

"Okay, let's go somewhere that everyone can get out at once," Celebi said as the Legendary reappeared before William could reply. "Because that was honestly a mess to get done right, and I want to discuss this with all of your teams instead of just the two of you. I have a small glade I got ready just ahead of here."

Charizard took a drink of Clearwater Geode water, and sat down as he changed next to Rhydon. They were in a small open area of the forest with far too many berry bushes around, and a smaller number of flowering plants in the middle of the clearing. He could recognize some Oxide and Loam berry bushes, which was intimidating and yet thoughtful if done purposefully. Although it might just be coincidence, as those Loam berries were supposed to be from places like this in the first place.

"So, we ran out of long term food because of this," Charizard said aloud while the rest of the two teams found places to sit. "Or just about at least. These berries are nice and all, but Alexa and I aren't exactly the best off when it comes to funds to replace those."

"You didn't save them for later?" Celebi questioned thoughtfully.

"We have enough to make it to Goldenrod in theory right now," Alexa answered and used a webbed hand to push her flowing 'hair' away from her hidden eye. "But we would need to either stop training for a bit now so we could try and maintain when we're closer to the city, or keep at a level that just maintains skills and hope we got there before the high calorie food ran out."

"Okay, that I can't fix as easily as I thought," Celebi replied apologetically. "It's been a while since I last had a trainer, and I think they took care of all that." The Legendary looked at the collection of plants thoughtfully. "I can help with the money thing a bit more easily. I have a few gold nuggets somewhere around here you can have as reimbursement."

"So, nice as the casual talk like this is normal is, I kind of want to get the Legendary stuff taken care of," Chesnaught cut in. "Because I am genuinely afraid that this is a serious issue for us and I want to have some answers before the anxiety from this kills me."

"Your allies are too worried about this," Celebi told, well it honestly looked like she was speaking to all of Charizard's team instead of just his trainer, and then turned towards Chesnaught. "Legendary pokemon are still pokemon, and Legendary humans are still humans. They don't magically become something special when they become Legendary. Plenty of born Legendary pokemon will never be as important as you are as just a League Tournament level Starter."

"Even a Chosen One's Starter?" Dedenne questioned harshly.

"Did you Chose him?" Celebi asked, again not quite as directly at Alexa as Charizard would have liked. He joined the entire team in shaking their heads at the question, just in case. "Then you are at most Friends with Legendary pokemon." Charizard really did not like how that sounded plural. "That is still a bit special, but Chosen means that there is a reason someone is doing something for a Legendary. You aren't one just by traveling with a Legendary, there has to be something important that Legendary needs you to do, or needs to do themselves that you need to help with."

"So, you can tell for sure then?" Alexa asked sadly. "I'm definitely a Legendary pokemon, it isn't just being a bit odd?" They all knew the answer, but this was a Legendary that wanted a month to see what Alexa was like. Charizard would have asked for his trainer if she had not first.

Celebi quietly considered that for a moment. "Let me tell you a story, to explain how Legendary pokemon can work," the forest Legendary started. "Long ago a Grass typed pokemon found herself exiled from the forest where she was born. This Grass type decided that she would just make her own forest instead of trying to find a new one, one that worked the way she wanted forests to work."

Charizard looked around the group to make sure they all could tell who exactly Celebi was most likely talking about. "Oh! This is Celebi's story!" Wooper cheerfully declared, which got a chuckle out of several of them.

"... I'm trying to be seriously mysterious around a small child," Celebi criticized herself with a sigh. "The young Grass type found a nice open spot without any other pokemon that would stop them, and started to try and plant trees. Now, what is the main problem with trying to grow a forest from newly planted trees?"

"You can't force their growth too fast or you will mess up their root structure too much for them to last very long," Chesnaught instantly replied. "It takes months at a minimum to grow a good tree to full size if you don't have a forest's root systems to start with."

Celebi nodded at that. "So the Grass type had a hard time at first, she started trying to grow them fast, but that didn't work, and by the time the first tree was finally the right size for her she realized that she only had one full sized tree after three years of work. One tree is not a forest, and they didn't want to have some trees that much older than the others."

"You can get a pretty big tree in three years if you work on it properly," Bellossom said a bit faintly. "You can't get a bunch to catch up to that one as easily."

"So the young Grass type decided that if she could speed up the time it took to grow a tree," Celebi said with a calm sort of amusement. "Then she would just make it so the plant started growing further back in time."

Charizard could clearly see what that meant, even if Wooper had already said the idea, and had to ask. "So you worked out how to manipulate time? It doesn't really seem like a thing you can just work out like that," he noted.

"Oh planting a seed and forcing it to grow backwards in time is a lot easier than traveling back yourself, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't want to work out how to use a Legendary power," Celebi laughed, but didn't sound amused now. "It also means that you can't really control how the tree grows as well. Since we are past pretending otherwise I'll just start using 'I' for the rest of the story." Celebi smiled a bit more happily. "I didn't like not being able to control them very well, so I worked out how to send myself back, and grew each one on my own, tree after tree, time after time, until I had grown an entire forest in just a few years."

The Legendary sighed and continued, "And then Ho-Oh arrived, and asked why a Celebi had decided to make a forest in his region. I naturally asked 'what Celebi?', and..." Celebi trailed off for a moment. "I can't remember what I was before, but the moment I realized I was now a Celebi is still crystal clear."

"So, you became a Legendary pokemon because you learned a special skill, like how Mareep evolved into a new kind of Flaaffy because he learned that move," Alexa questioned slowly, with a thoughtful croak.

"Alexa isn't the only one of us who learned to make these transformation moves," Charizard pointed out about that comparison. "She isn't even the first of us by a long shot." That would probably be him.

"Ah, I'm sorry, were you under the impression that she was the only one of you who were Legendary?" Celebi questioned, and Charizard could see he wasn't the only one to flinch at that statement. "I mean, none of your team looks like any pokemon I've seen before except your trainer, and she looks like a more minor Legendary. I'm not entirely sure what either of your Grass types actually are, even if one of them can look a lot like the Rhydon you keep calling him."

"I'm just using Crystal Syrup with a layer of Mercury Contagion to make it last longer than just a week," Rhydon answered, while Bellossom blinked at the statement. Charizard could at least agree that for the moment those two were the most obviously changed, at least assuming that Celebi had seen a Normal typed Heracross before. Even if Heracross currently was a giant bat you could fairly easily tell it was related to that shape, and he had needed to refresh that change in the forest a few times.

"Wait, that's been discovered? When did that get discovered, I've been trying to work out who I need to thank for working that out for a long time now," Celebi quickly asked. "Some doses of that from the future where it is more common has saved my life a couple of times."

"Um, a few months ago now, when I was trying to find a way to stay in that form longer without wasting a powerful medicine," Rhydon answered a bit uneasily, and Charizard cringed as well. It sat uneasily that their team had done something that was really that important while basically messing around with stuff. "Alexa's dad worked out that sap still worked when there was another layer from that."

"I'm just going to give you some extra nuggets and try not to think about how much I inconvenienced you," Celebi declared. Alexa and Rhydon both let out sighs of relief. "Right, what about the lizard you are calling a 'Bellossom'? I mean, she's a Grass/Electric typed lizard, and I don't know how you go from a normal Bellossom to lizard with just a change from no second type to Electric of all types."

"Well, first I used some of that Capacitance you've got over there," Bellossom started to explain and pointed to a patch of moss that might actually be Capacitance. "Then I used Magma Contagion to switch my Grass for Fire and turn into a lizard, and then this bit of Chlorophyll Jade to make me Grass typed again."

Celebi blinked once, then again, and Charizard had to laugh at the disbelief on clear display on the Legendary's face. "Please tell me I'm not the first to question why this group needed to be told they are Legendary?" Celebi questioned William.

"Well, I've heard it about Alexa at least," William said slowly. "But generally about the same sort of topic."

"Wait, does that mean I'm a Legendary too? Because I can't feel any of the strange stuff the rest of them are talking about," Flaaffy questioned quickly. "I'm just one of their..."

"You can say 'victims'," Charizard joked. "We kind of did inflict that form on you."

"Being a 'victim' of a Legendary or six is not the same," Celebi started but Dedenne grumbled the word 'eight' and earned a glare before she continued, "as being a Legendary yourself. Do you know how to give other pokemon the Electric type?"

"No?" Flaaffy half questioned.

"Do you want to work out how to do that?" Celebi inquired further.

"Not really," Flaaffy added with confusion that made Charizard laugh. "I don't even really know if I will use the whole 'make more lava stuff' move they made me learn."

"Then I think you're safe," Celebi laughed. "Although I can't speak for any relatives of the shapeshifting trainer."

"You either need to specify there or make that plural," Charizard grumbled, not entirely happy with himself for actually pointing out the detail. "I don't think you are including the illusionist with that, but I count as both a shapeshifter and a trainer too. Got the damn first Badge and everything."

"Ah. I'm going to spend a bit more time in your visit to Azalea to work out what I missed in my brief looks after we're done here," Celebi carefully responds. "Also, a trainer? Really? Can you even speak human, because you seem like a battle pokemon and they don't usually have the time to learn that terrible waste of time."

"I learned to speak human language," William muttered quietly, but Charizard was fairly sure the other pokemon-trainer was aware that the battle pokemon part was the important one.

"I can read and write. That is a lot easier than working out how to get my voice into something humans can understand," he replied with a huff of flames, deliberately in order to show he was a bit insulted by the implication he needed to speak to humans to count. "Although now that I'm being spoiled with trainers that can understand me I can see why it can be helpful."

"The last human we met that you actually wanted to speak with turned into a pokemon because of your team," Chesnaught pointed out dully. "The League Official that wanted to meet you brought a translator along. It might not be that big of a problem for you at least."

"Ah, sorry. I didn't mean to be rude about it," Celebi apologized. "Well, I think I have my answers. Is there anything you would like help with? I've got a bunch of stuff to give you now, but if there is something specific then just ask."

"The only think I can think of is if you can help us with the time some of our stuff lasts," Heracross said, and Charizard could see Alexa flinch at the reminder of the former Bug type's first transformation. "I think you were there when we suggested that as a thing, because of a giggle from nowhere."

"I might be able to teach a bit of how to accelerate processes," Celebi carefully said with a bit of an upset expression. "You all probably know more than me about what specific things keep the changes going, so it will probably take work on your part to have it help with your specific abilities." Charizard then blinked as he just barely heard her add, "I hope whatever I saw will still be funny when I get to it," in a mumble.