- Goldenrod Shopping -
Alexa wasn't sure what kind of pokemon the manager of the hotel they are staying at was, but it was still strange to have found a pokemon in that sort of position. Even if Miss Glamur had not actually dropped her illusion, and asked William to not mention the manager's pokemon form. The bird or birdlike manager had been quite happy to go over their lists of places and give another, more pokemon oriented, viewpoint on why they were on each list. Miss Glamur had personally ended up on it because she was careful about what pokemon were allowed to learn even that much about her nature.
Which made some sense, Alexa had to admit as her pokemon collected the Oran berries so she could turn back into a regular Lobasalt. She had admittedly been taken to the police station just for being out and about the day before, even if that was a clear mistake, and that was after she was confronted for being a notable talking pokemon.
"So, are you going to stick with Lobasalt after we get these off and you turn back into a normal one, or are you going for something smaller today?" Kingler asked. "Because it looks like Charizard has decided to be a poisonous fish in public today." Alexa's Starter was currently purple and off white, fairly pointy, and only somewhat Charizard shaped all things considered with a full change to the Water/Poison type.
"I decided to not need a drink every hour to stay Water typed, and pointy Poison sounded better than fluid Steel today," her Starter huffed as he held a basket for the berries.
"I guess we will match with Poison then, I want to use Mephagic," Alexa answered the original question as she felt her body react to the berry bushes withering. It was quite clear now that the effects of Loam berries lasted until any grown plants were harvested, as for the second time since they started this experiment she immediately melted into lava and rock instead of dirt and rock. They had at least grown more Loam berries as well during the trip to keep a stock up for any future uses.
"Well, that is one way to deal with crowds," William sighed. "We still need to make some calls first, and probably check for any messages at the Pokemon Center."
Alexa flinched at that. "I probably should at least try and call my parents, even if they aren't likely to be home yet," she admitted. "A real test with human volunteers is something that would take two or three weeks from how it went when I was younger."
"You just don't want to face Maizie yet," Bellossom joked. In actuality Alexa was more concerned with her parents' reaction, but expected both calls to work out similarly.
"Alright, fine, I'll talk to the pokeball crafter first," Alexa replied and then created some Contagion Cure to go back to human for a moment.
Charizard smiled at the way the sight of three pokemon, two quite clearly Poison typed, produced a nice bubble of space around them as they traveled the now quite awake and aware city. It would definitely help with Alexa's unease with larger cities.
"Alexa and Charles Larch?" the Nurse Joy at the Center asked as soon as she spotted the two of them entering the door. "We have some messages for you." Charizard didn't bother to correct the name just yet as they moved closer to get them. "First off, your parents have given a notice that it will be longer than they expected before they can get home. Another week it seems." The Joy passed a printout to Alexa. "The second is from the Pokemon League about setting up Badge skill level testing for Charles. Apparently you've only been doing support training?"
"Charizard, please," he requested, and his new translator repeated that mechanically. "My family didn't even tell me about that name until I got the paperwork."
The Joy paused at the sound of the translator, and then nodded nervously. "Of course. Here is the paperwork, and I will remind you that if you have any problems with the forms we have support services available," she replied in a way that told him, to his relief, that this was just the standard speech about that sort of thing. It was bad enough that he was getting that kind of test without it being a special case.
"I will look them over as soon as I can. We have a big day of shopping ahead of us to make up for a bit of a supply shortage," he replied and looked over at Alexa to hopefully get them into their bag. With any luck they could continue to just share one between them, and this was just a minor thing.
"Well then I hope you find everything you are looking for," the Nurse Joy joked with a bit of a laugh, although Charizard was honestly worried that he would have to do that on his own if Alexa got a bit overwhelmed. It had happened in Celadon despite his joy at showing off the city. They had unfortunately spent longer in the city because it took so long to get everything they needed to done. The only good news so far was that their Poison type plan was actually keeping the crowd away.
They made their way over to the phones. The four open rows of phones and six private rooms took up a lot more space than for the average Center, but even with that they sill ended up waiting for a room due to how many people were here. The conversation might be able to be kept more private if they all, Maizie included, spoke in pokemon, but given they had already found one other hidden pokemon that was a bit less safe now. Not to mention it might get a bit loud without the partially soundproofed rooms.
"So, are you using the translator for this, or are we asking her to turn into a Vipercury?" William asked as they dialed the number.
"Up to her, if she's a Vipercury I'm turning it off, or if she complains about how it's so blunt I'm going to ask her to change," Charizard answered as the phone rang. That was a major downside to the thing, it definitely did not match tone at all whatsoever.
The phone picked up, and the image revealed a large metal snake working with Slowking on a pile of pokeballs. "Oh, Alexa! I wasn't expecting you to call... Celebi?" the Vipercury questioned, and Charizard switched off his new translator. "You know what, I'm just going to assume a 'yes' for that one. How did the trip go?" That took a while to explain, starting with a few attempts to get across how time had incorrectly passed for the first half of the trip.
"Oh wow, that sounds about right for a Celebi encounter," Maizie laughed, although Charizard did not yet find it funny. "I've heard about quite a few stories of stuff like that before. Believing them comes with living next to her forest."
"After that we had to do some emergency food methods," William continued. "Part of why I am a trainer is because I've never been that great at baking, but I still keep supplies on hand for that kind of situation."
"I'm fairly sure that bread isn't the kind of thing to try and make on the road?" Maizie more asked than stated.
"It isn't," Charizard said, and to his surprise William joined him in that statement. "We ended up going for soup after a few days of that," he added with a look at the trainer who actually did the baking. William just nodded.
"I'm not sure I could handle the kinds of meals you end up eating as a trainer," the Vipercury laughed. "Anyway, on my end, Bugsy did not take the fact that he tried to apologize to you through someone else while you were right there well. Although he seems a bit divided on if he was more upset about that mistake or the fact that you had another bug-like form he didn't know about."
"I see," Alexa darkly replied. "That is somehow worse than a trainee Officer Jenny making me have to go to the local station for being out and about."
"Doesn't help that the League apparently wants us out and about as pokemon-trainers," Charizard added before Maizie could respond. "So I'm half convinced she just misunderstood something her aunt asked her to do. It makes just as much sense as her being overconfident."
"I'll take that as a 'don't pick at the arrest'," Maizie complained. "Alright, so the League is asking you to be obviously a pokemon at times too then? Because Vernon didn't take me using this form well because he had to point that new project."
"Please tell me that Falkner is not still a Vespikiln," Alexa requested quickly.
"No, he turned back as far as I know, and I'm not being obvious about it. This is a private thing I'm doing and it is staying that way," Maizie replied. "Which the way I can 'illusion' myself makes a lot easier than other forms would allow."
"I think trying for a human illusion would be the opposite of helpful for me," Charizard stated with a nod at the serpent. "But that's mostly because I don't want to learn to speak like one. Which is why they gave me this thing." He held up the translator for Maizie to see. "I guess if I'm stuck with at least one Badge I might as well have it, and only that if the 'skill level testing' I just got told about isn't what I think it is."
"That's one of the nicer ones," Slowking said about the device. "I've seen one before, they work really well and are made so they don't pick up other pokemon and translate them instead. Not like the cheap, well cheaper, ones that sometimes repeat what nearby humans say if that gets picked up."
"Okay I was actually a bit worried about that problem," Charizard admitted with a nod.
A little buzzer then went off on the other end of the call. "Oh, that's the new shipment of depleted stones," Maizie declared with a flinch. "We're going to have to deal with that. See if you can call again sometime."
Alexa was happy to see that the crowds on the few blocks of shops and stores did in fact give her a bit of space. Although they were still fairly packed, and there was only so much space people could give them. The good news was that the entrance to the city was close to the Pokemon Center, and the Pokemon Center was right next to the Goldenrod shopping center.
"Okay, from what Nurse Joy said we are looking for 'Beveler and Awl'. It is apparently a leatherworkers guild of some kind," Alexa reminded everyone. That bit of information had clarified why they had two different kinds of voucher for the same location.
"I think I see it over there," Charizard noted, and his translator drew some attention as it repeated his statement. Alexa cringed a bit as that made the crowd pay more attention to them, which was worse than just being stuck around so many people at once.
Beveler and Awl had a very generic brown sign, although it was in its own a larger building instead of being combined with other shops. Inside was a much smaller reception area, with four different doorways leading off into the structure that were all located behind sectioned off areas of the room. Three employees were present at the desks, with little signs indicating which specific leatherworkers they represented.
"Are you Alexa Larch's group?" the oldest of the three questioned. He was a man so old his face resembled leather already.
"Wait, you're waiting for a Larch too?" the young woman at the other end of the store interrupted. "The League asked me to make something for a Charles Larch."
"I prefer Charizard," he Starter complained, although the translator did not get his tired tone across at all.
The old man looked at all three of them critically, and Alexa hoped that the part they didn't want widely known wouldn't come up. "Mary, I have a special appointment for the two Larch trainers," he said to the younger employee. "Given that would you mind working with me today, and I will help you with your project for Charizard?"
The third employee, a younger man, swore at that, and Mary paled notably. "That sounds like a great idea, Roland," the young woman replied with a fairly good attempt to sound like she wasn't upset by the information. "I'll call Sam to take over the counter for me then."
They were lead into the doorway behind Roland, which seemed to be another reception area, only with more measuring equipment. "Alright, so how many of you are Legendary pokemon who need something a bit more custom?" he asked them.
"Myself and Charizard," Alexa answered. "William is only a friend of ours."
"Who hopefully needs just a regular pair of ball handling gloves," the Zoroark agreed quickly.
"Hmm, natural illusionist?" Roland questioned, while Mary moved over to look at Charizard better. William nodded to confirm. "That works out to need about the same to make sure you know where on the illusion it is safe for you to be hit. The basis needed for a shapeshifter with Legendary power and an illusionist who cloaks their true form with their energy is about the same."
"I had not considered that," William admitted. "Actually, that might be the reason my species wasn't already using these all the time."
"Zoroark have been here for those before," Roland pointed out. "But it is a request I wish was more common. Other illusionist pokemon tend to be less aware of that limitation because a human shape is not as natural of a skill."
"Um, shapeshifters?" Mary asked. "I've never made anything for a shapeshifter before. The most enchanted thing I've made was that color changing band for a Kecleon."
"It is easier than it sounds," the older leatherworker said, and then turned back to Alexa. "We have a number of example patterns here to help work out what needs to be done. Can you all demonstrate some of the common shapes you will be using?"
It turned out that magical gloves both took longer than just a day to properly make, and also were a more protected process than pokeball crafting had been. So Charizard's group found themselves pushed out the door relatively soon after getting the details of what they would want out of a base form for the items with instructions to come back on a few dates over the next two weeks to fine tune the result.
"So, where to next?" he asked his trainer as they reemerged onto the street, once again in the forms they had started off the shopping trip using.
"Johna Caterer Supply," Alexa declared easily, and Charizard joined William in giving her a confused look. "I have found an Ice type transformation substance that is commonly used. It isn't any good for a battle, and probably not the best to layer to try and fix that, but we should be able to use it to help make our own."
"Alright, I'll ask. What does an Ice type change have to do with caterers?" Charizard asked tiredly as they made their way towards the second nondescript building of the day.
"It turns you into a living ice sculpture for a month, unless you get entirely melted. If that happens you turn back immediately, but it breaks your defensive energy so it is really bad for fights," Alexa explained as they found the correct entrance. "So two reasons we don't want it for the long term, but it reverses well enough to be used publicly."
"Wait, some of those ice sculptures are just transformed pokemon posing?" William asked as they entered the structure.
"I take it you are here to buy some Rime Dust?" the employee at the counter asked in response to that question. "Because that is the question we always get when- Okay, none of you are human, so I might not need to warn you that it does in fact have a chance to work on humans too. You will still need to be careful with it because it can affect clothes too, although that does mean people can dress up for the result too."
"I actually have to worry about clothes now, so I need to ask how that impacts electronics like my translator?" Charizard questioned, and waited for the device to repeat his words for a reply.
"You probably want that off if you use some," was the quick answer from the employee, who seemed used to the question. "Don't worry, the containers are made to contain the dust while it is applied."
"See, this is a nice one, not something we had to work at home since it is well known already," Alexa explained, and then went up to the counter to actually buy some. The resulting container was quite strange looking, definitely not for combat, and very luckily able to be stored.