- Rime Dust -
Alexa looked over the collected group of her team and a few others about an hour later. Lily had let out a Murkrow, but most of William's team was instead training nearby, with the exception of Flaaffy who had expressed a cautious interest. Also they needed a Fire type on hand for testing this and Charizard wanted to try the Rime Dust out.
"Okay, I've used Rime Dust before myself," the Witch noted as Alexa looked back down to continue going over the documentation that came with the container. That had been the main delay so far. "It is a bit of a strange experience, and I'm not entirely sure that anyone under the effect counts as a pokemon as far as most people understand it." The container had a warning that there was a small risk of whoever was applying the material getting some onto them while they opened and closed it. "Have you heard of Landscape Mosses?"
"Yes, those are really annoying. I ended up in a corner for a full day when I was younger before dad found me," Alexa confessed with matching annoyance. The substances effectively petrified pokemon and some humans while making them look like overgrown statues. You could control plants around you like that somewhat, but it was still being locked in place.
"Wait, aren't those mosses that freeze you in place?" Rhydon asked worriedly. "I have a grandfather that was put on a pedestal with that stuff for a few years until we found someone who could help with an illness. It was really tricky to get him back to normal by that point."
"Which is why I have not even thought about working with it myself," Alexa replied with a buzz. She had read the warning on the container before, so her Vespikiln form's Fire type wasn't going to be guaranteed to be available.
"I'm going to need a better translation spell. That other one seems to have worn off," Lily muttered. "Right, so Rime Dust isn't as bad as those, but it does come with this desire to stay as still as possible."
"You have never been under the effect of Landscape Moss," Alexa sighed, because calling the moss' effect a 'desire to stay still' was outright wrong.
"And I think we do need a translation because I do know exactly what she means," Rhydon agreed clearly talking about his commonly topiary based form.
"Regirock Candy was kind of like that too," Bellossom agreed. "Being still as a statue felt kind of good, even if that form was far too stiff overall."
"Bellossom, mind charging my own translator here?" Charizard questioned as it fully hit Alexa that the majority of the pokemon who had actually developed a new Contagion suddenly could not be understood at the moment by the human Witch.
"Do I want to know what happened to this thing?" the other reptile pokemon questioned and sent sparks into the crystal.
"For the record, I call first to try this," Kingler noted while Charizard explained that the gemstone still needed electrical power. "I want Ice as something I've tried too, but I think we want to hold off on the other Flame."
"That is a Frozen Flame. I never expected to see one of those," Lily noticed idly about Kingler's form as the Witch got out a book. Presumably a spell book, but Alexa wasn't sure. "Now what is going to work next to this many Legendary shapechanging pokemon?"
"It is going to be one of those days, isn't it?" Lily's Murkrow commented dully. Then was cut off by a large burst of purple flames that suddenly overtook the Witch herself.
"I still don't understand why this spell results in Typhlosion," Lily, who was now large, fuzzy, and notably with some flame vents going all the way around her neck unlike a more typical Typhlosion, noted as the smoke cleared. "Haven't had time to look into it too closely. It is the easiest transformation to use for a variable amount of time for fast and accurate translations, I just need to use a simple counter-spell for this one."
"Isn't that the part Ghost typed Typhlosion variant?" Alexa asked carefully, as the Ghost type change was still an uneasy one.
"The what?" Lily and Murkrow both asked sharply. "Wait, this is- Oh, that actually explains a lot of things," they continued together, although not quite synchronized even as they changed to a mumbled discussion about spell details that Alexa didn't know if she should be listening to just yet.
"Let's just repeat everything when they're ready since they apparently needed better translation," Kingler suggested. "Huh, her flames aren't eating us."
"Can we not talk about that?" Charizard requested with a shudder. "I still hate that part of that test."
"Yeah, that was scary," Alexa said more about Charizard's reaction to doing it than the effect itself. "Hopefully we don't need to use anything like that again."
"Alright, so, what was the full conversation?" Lily asked. They repeated that others on Alexa's team were fairly used to forms that wanted to stay still and such. "Alright then, go ahead and do what you do. Sounds like you are already more prepared than I am."
"Right, so this container is made to apply Rime Dust safely," Alexa started. "The most widely used of the substances we've attempted so far. Used in catering to allow for humans and pokemon to act as ice sculptures."
"How 'safe' is that thing?" Charizard asked. "Because if the person applying it ends up changed maybe you should be holding the Pokedex for this one."
"It is safe enough that I want to try this one too," Alexa replied. "So, I am going to try and use this on Kingler without getting any on myself." Kingler moved closer, and Alexa took a moment to play with the opening a bit while the container was tipped so it wouldn't spill out to see how it worked. It appeared to have two small valves at the ends of a short cylinder on the front that could only open if the other was closed in order to let out only one dose, with no way to get the thing so you could see the main chamber directly. She luckily had the four hands that doing that cumbersome task seemed to require instead of just the two most creatures had, which was another reason for her to do it herself right now.
Alexa followed the instructions to press the tube against Kingler, cycled the upper valve to fill it with Rime Dust, and then she carefully cycled the lower one to let the dust contact Kingler. The already altered crab pokemon quickly flashed into a solid semi-clear blueish ice crystal version of herself, although with a number of purple flames embedded inside. "Um, moving feels wrong now, and I don't really like that," the ice sculpture of her pokemon commented with only minimal movement.
"That bad?" Alexa asked to confirm. Suddenly with an uneasy feeling that she would not like to try this one as much as she expected.
"I'm halfway looking forward to being melted to get out of this form," Kingler specified. "Flaaffy, can you help there?"
"I immediately regret agreeing to help," the magma sheep pokemon complained, but moved closer and heated up notably. Then had to get even hotter as that barely made Kingler begin to liquefy. "Okay, is another benefit of this that the ice doesn't melt easily?"
"Yes actually. That actually made it a bit harder to find people who use other methods," Lily answered while Kingler began to melt down into a puddle that remained bubbled up on the ground, with wisps of flame suspended in the water somehow. "Although there is a new method from Hoenn that is competing with it now. They found a process that lets regular carved ice last a bit better than this can."
"This is the worst reversal yet," Kingler commented, now half melted on the side close to Flaaffy. Alexa was only able to watch as calmly as she was because of prior experience with Acid Armor moves and a clear knowledge of how this change was intended to work. Right after that comment the last of the crab pokemon broke down into liquid water in a rapid destabilization. There was a somewhat worrying moment where nothing seemed to happen, and then Kingler seemed to just snap back into the typical purple armored crab form given by the Frozen Flame. "Ow, ow, ow. That stings and you can't do anything while you're water."
"Did you try to stay water?" Murkrow laughed. "That makes it hurt more."
"Here is the Revive," Bellossom said and passed over one of the small crystals they had purchased for this job. "Also I want a better option for going back before I try this one."
"Agreed," Rhydon and Heracross both said.
"I'm still up for it. How about you, Alexa?" Charizard questioned a bit carefully.
"Yeah, worst case one of you melts me quickly," she hedged, even though she now was not entirely sure. If Kingler had disliked it that much then this might be a bad idea. She took in Charizard's still half Water type form that was occupied with the Pokedex. "Probably Flaaffy."
"Definitely regret this," Flaaffy sighed and flicked some lava off his body in order to cool down a bit. "Can you give me a minute? I want to avoid attacks since there is this whole 'breaks defensive energy' thing, and heating up like that is more tiring."
"I think I can handle being like that for long enough to let you recover," Alexa said to him. It probably wasn't anywhere near as bad as when she was stuck covered in moss. "I might need some help here. Just with holding it up I can get the rest."
Bellossom moved forward to help with that, the small reptile pokemon holding the container steady while Alexa worked the mechanisms next to one of her arms. There was the hot feeling that Alexa more typically associated with turning back from the Fire type, although it wasn't as bad as she expected from this change. Her body was quickly replaced by clear ice, without anything inside unlike Kingler, that moved surprisingly easily. Unlike her Lobasalt form there didn't seem to be melting and reforming at the joints.
However, there was a strong aversion to actually trying to move. Despite the movements Alexa attempted being smooth, it felt like a stiffer movement than when she was totally soaked as a magma-lobster and had to actually work to break her joints. It was absolutely terrible, in the exact same way as the Landscape Moss despite movement still being a possibility. She looked at Flaaffy with a tiny movement, and tried to frown as it became clear that the heat up had taken more out of the Electric/Fire type than she thought. Alexa did not want to wait, but Charizard was also busy, and Bellossom would take too long in Alexa's opinion to get the Jade off.
Alexa wanted a faster option, really badly actually. The energy was there, and with enough time it would wear off, she just needed to get rid of it faster. Melting was one way, but she didn't know Acid Armor that well. So the best option was to try the time limit.
The specific energy this time seemed to have converted her own energies entirely into Ice typed from what she had learned and could personally tell, and compressed it down at least as much as when she was human. So she needed to find the energy that was sustaining that conversion. That actually wasn't as hard as she expected, it was fairly easy to sense the 'coating' of other energy over her own. This seemed thick, and she could feel that it was over the top of some energy that felt added as well which was probably her Vespikiln change.
Alexa had admittedly sensed such things before, Charizard had pointed it out as a key part of how he had worked out Magma Contagion and her father had shown off the mechanical way to check for it too, but this time she really wanted to mess with it instead. Charizard had attempted to recreate the energy, she wanted to get rid of it. Celebi's suggestions had at least given some idea how to just interact with some energies and not all of them. Accelerating it was what the time traveler had offered, but Alexa really just needed it gone somehow.
Which in her haste actually seemed a lot easier than she had been thinking, just a push there, a scrape here, and a burst of cold that seemed to extend a good couple of feet around her as she changed back into chitin and flesh as suddenly as she had become ice.
"Guys, I think I just worked out how to change the duration of changes! At least for ending them early," Alexa happily buzzed.
"Really?" Bellossom questioned dryly. "Okay, can you explain it?" The rest of her team agreed.
"Yes, I think so. First you need to figure out what energies you are after," Alexa started as she explained in detail.
"How is it going?" William asked the Fire/Ghost pokemon that apparently was an alternate form for the Witch. Training was going well, and he had not heard anything but bursts of icy air from this area for a while now.
"They worked out something Legendary, and I'm carefully not listening just in case," Flaaffy answered for her.
"It is an interesting discussion, that is definitely using techniques that most pokemon would not be able to pull off," Lily said with about the same amount of unhappiness. "I think I'm going to have to wait for something that is less distracting to them to really learn how this was supposed to work out."
William only halfway heard that, because Alexa was currently a Mephagic, and Heracross was actually Bug typed for once, despite both of them being days away from those forms. "What exactly did they pull off?" he slowly asked.
"So far just reversal of any method with a time limit," Charizard, who was also back to the typical appearance of his species, answered. "But we think that can be extended to some of the options that work in other ways."
"Although we think it will risk breaking stuff that causes changes," Bellossom pointed out. "Probably not Kingler's Flame, but my Jade's band could snap or worse. We are less sure we can do anything to make stuff last longer."
"At least anything without extra steps," Alexa countered. "Making a substance that increases the duration seems possible, although I still want a Contagion for Ice first."
"And we're saying that this sculpture stuff doesn't work for it," Heracross sighed. "The way it works doesn't give the type properly."
"Well, it gives the type, but it seems to be making your energy more constricted at the same time, like with most humans," Charizard agreed with the overall point made by the beetle. "They are too tied together with this stuff, we can't use the way it gives the Ice type without constricting energy."
William lost track of the conversation there, somewhat deliberately, as the discussion over the topic resumed. The issue was that Alexa's team had gone into details on energy manipulation that were almost familiar, but seemed to be talking about something other than the energy you split off for moves.
"So, that's been happening," Flaaffy commented. "At least I only had to turn one of them back, but I'm half expecting them to turn me into a pure Fire type by accident, or maybe even add the Ice type to me too."
"Well, your team seems to be doing fine traveling with an entire team of young Legendary pokemon," the Murkrow commented. "If they have been in this level of experimentation the whole time you've done well to only have one of yours transformed so far."
"Alexa prefers things that are easier to reverse," William pointed out. "More of my team has been hit by the kind of changes normal pokemon use as moves. Which brings up a question, is this something you do to yourself or can you do it for other people too?" he questioned to interrupt.
"We're holding off on testing that until we have it down better," Alexa answered. "But it should be simple enough with a few tools I know my dad has used before that would help us see the energies of others. Although I guess those are mostly custom made at this point."
"Also we need to look into more unchanged pokemon first, I'm a little concerned we might run into complications there," Charizard said with a smile at Flaaffy that the sheep pokemon probably could not see.
"Like I said, I am worried about them getting rid of my Electric type instead," Flaaffy repeated. "They went into that as a possible issue a few topics back."
"As a complication, not as something we'd actually do," Alexa quickly corrected. "Charizard we shouldn't joke about that."
"The joke is we can possibly do that at all," Kingler said with a bit of a laugh. "We were more worried about ourselves there, Flaaffy. It takes a good bit of effort to do, and by the time we could do it properly to someone else we would know how to avoid that issue. It also should be temporary unless we actively try to make it last."
"Yeah, to be serious about it we are just working this out. Doing anything to someone else will be long after we've gotten past that risk," Charizard more seriously admitted. "I'll admit we might find someone who wants to get that done to them, but only because we've found out we possibly could and our luck is strange right now."
"Please tell me you don't want to get rid of the Electric type," William requested with a sigh just in case.
"No! No, don't even joke about that!" Flaaffy shouted. "I am not losing either of my types."
"So, looks like we're done with Rime Dust," Alexa sighed. "Unless one of us wants to play with being an ice sculpture sometime?"
"Pass," Kingler, Bellossom, and Heracross declared.
"Maybe, probably not though," Charizard contributed.
"I'm willing to keep trying on pulling something useful out of it, just not right now," Rhydon allowed, which made William nervous. "But I want to move on to the new Contagion personally." Oh, right, they still had another one. "But it is a bit late for more."
[Author's Note]
Credit for Landscape Moss goes to saltyvigilante on Sufficient Velocity. It worked very nicely here, and hopefully I find similar good places for more reader submitted ideas.