- Ghostly Collection -
Alexa watched Charizard set down the container on the small table in their Pokemon Center room. It was a lot of options, and she had quite a bit to think about with if she wanted to try any herself.
"So, we now have a big box of stuff that makes pokemon in various Ghost types?" Kingler questioned.
"A Spectral Memento causes the pokemon that uses one to get the Ghost type," Alexa started to explain as she forced herself up into a sitting position. "But it also makes them into a living version of the thing that changed them shaped like themselves. I've seen a clock Spectral Memento before that makes all kinds of interesting clocks out of pokemon. It is an addition of the Ghost type, and doesn't seem to give any other types based on the item itself, but you still end up basically made out of whatever the item is."
"What reverses it?" Herman asked carefully. "That sounds better than the Wisp's Breath ended up so far."
"A bit of a ritual to cast off the spiritual energies, followed by a substance that makes the altered body revert to normal," Alexa specified. "The first part gets rid of the Ghost type, but it will come back after a couple of days without the second, and the affected is stuck as living whatever the Spectral Memento was until that second one is done. The second part doesn't work on Ghost typed pokemon so the first needs to be done first."
"Would Contagion Cure work instead?" Bellossom asked curiously.
"We should try it, but I think our own change breaking ability should let us do it for ourselves," she specified. "At a minimum it should let us skip the first part, which is the harder of the two as it is either magical or spiritual. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is there."
"The difference is probably important enough that it is good we have possible alternatives to it," Charizard said with a frown at the box. "Is that a fork? What would that even do to someone?"
"A form that looks like it should be Steel typed but isn't," Alexa admitted. "I've seen a picture of a Charizard that used a fork Memento once. They became a Charizard shaped piece of living metal, with fork tines for teeth, claws, and wings. No Steel type, still Fire/Flying but only with an extra Ghost type."
"Tailflame?" her Starter added.
"Yes, but a bit purple." Alexa wished she could check the Pokedex to see if the picture was on it, but her bag was a bit tough to go through as a Florabedtor. "That one was sort of 'statue of a Charizard made out of forks' shaped, while the clock ones were closer to normal but more mechanical."
"So maybe still a life draining flame," Charizard sighed. "Wait, I don't have to have a tail-flame," he then said excitedly with emphasis on 'flame'. "Ghostly water shouldn't eat people around it."
"Spectslurry don't at least," Alexa admitted thoughtfully. "Worth a try. I'm personally going to stick with this for a while. Florabedtor should make some interesting ones, and Spectral Mementos have actually been confirmed to not work on humans." Her entire team gave her a dubious look at that. "More specifically it takes loose energy to trigger one, and I mean loose enough that a standard pokeball would work on anyone who can use one. If there are any 'humans' it can work on they probably have some degree of physical changes just from that."
"Are we sure that Zoroark aren't just humans?" Kingler asked after a moment.
"Not a question we're going to look into," Alexa declared before they could consider that. "So, let's see what we have here other than the fork."
The first thing out of the box got a dubious look from Alexa. It was a little two headed combination salt and pepper shaker made of ceramic, made to look like a pair of Grovyle standing back to back.
"So, would that turn us into Grovyle, or just make us two headed?" Charizard asked with a deep frown.
"I think it needs two people to use," Alexa admitted from a half remembered note about complications from some specific cases. "It wouldn't change us to Grovyle, but we would end up partly stuck together for the duration. From the looks of it able to split apart, but both part of the same pokemon until we reversed it."
"Okay, I'm actually up for that one," Rhydon admitted with a rustle of leaves. "At least if anyone else wants to try being one pokemon with me?"
"You know, I think I'm up for it," Alexa admitted as everyone else thought about it. "But we probably should hold off for a bit on that one."
The next two items were both considerably more mundane. A small radio, one for music from a local station rather than the emergency kind Alexa was more familiar with, and a large cookie sheet that seemed well used.
"I call first try with the radio," Bellossom said with a laugh. "Music is a natural fit for dancing."
"Is it bad that I want to see what the cookie sheet does for Florabedtor?" Alexa asked of the one that stood out to her. "It feels like a joke." Both the sheet and her form were rather flat.
"I'm just glad someone else wants it," Herman admitted. "What about that?"
'That' turned out to be a small pocket mirror made out of modern plastic that was shaped like a flattened pokeball. In fact it turned out her currently Fighting/Steel typed pokemon had thought it was a pokeball of some kind at first. Inside was a little raised up Persian on the side opposite the mirror that was made to be admiring their appearance. It looked really cheap, and once they realized what it actually was Herman wasn't interested.
A small clockwork Pikachu was the second to last item, and both Herman and Kingler expressed some interest in that one. The final item in the box was the rest of what turned out to be the contents of a silverware drawer, all of which seemed to be connected as 'one' Spectral Memento.
"I'm calling the collection of silverware," Charizard said with a smile. "That has to be a fun one. Do you think it ends up as a pile?"
"I wonder what makes it happen to a bunch of stuff instead of just one?" Alexa questioned. Whoever made these particular items would have been able to tell them, but Alexa was fairly sure if those people were known she would have been told who more specifically.
William stared at his traveling companion's latest project. "So, the plan is to go after the Ghost type Gym as Ghost types?" he questioned.
"I'm willing to bet this guy is going to have Trick-Or-Treat on hand for us anyway," Charizard pointed out. "It is the type with a more widely known option and Ghosts have a weakness to Ghosts."
"Ah, right, that one," Chesnaught complained, and William glared at his Starter, who was still made of clay. "I guess doing to yourselves first is a good solution to that."
"At a minimum we want to work on what being hit by Ghost type attacks as a Ghost type does," Alexa added, still a large flower covered reptile pokemon without any arms. "Also to work out the limits of our reversal method. This is as close to permanent that I'm willing to try right now."
"Once again this is something I have encountered before- I recognize that salt and pepper set. I ended up stuck to Raikou because of that thing," Suicune said, with a sharp cut off as the item was set down. "Why do you have it, and why is it with stuff you want to try?"
"Because we want to try it?" Rhydon slowly said, and William sighed at how obvious that had been. "It sounds interesting."
"Also I want to try one we know merges before we do anything else with the liquid forms on that front," Alexa specified. "I want to be able to tell the difference, if there is one."
"It is a funny thing to work together with someone on that sort of thing," William half remembered from childhood illusion games. "I've done something with this illusion sharing method... which now that I think about it might be magic. Anyway it is weird and difficult when you aren't prepared for it." He then considered the current situation. "It might be a good idea for me to help with that sort of thing," he very reluctantly advised.
"Unless Suicune has the stuff ready to reverse these normally, we aren't using them on anyone else," Alexa said firmly, which meant these things didn't change back easily. "The first tests are going to be other ones, and we will see what Contagion Cure does on this, but we aren't playing around with this one on anyone who can't reverse themselves like we can."
"And even then we need to see how much we can actually reverse it ourselves," Charizard pointed out strongly. "So just in case I think we should ask if you know we can use the typical method?"
"Morty has to deal with one of these every couple of months," Suicune explained. "Not always this exact kind, but solutions for all of those are a thing he needs to keep on hand." The Legendary Beast padded over to look at the other things. "I hope you are not using that one today," she added with a glare at the salt and pepper shakers.
"Clockwork toy first," Herman declared, once again a giant bat pokemon. William had seen the recently named pokemon in a few shapes lately, but this one had become the most common. "I'm going to try that one, and then Kingler wants to use it later."
"We don't want to use the same one again too quickly. Apparently that can damage them," Kingler specified. "I agreed to the second try with that one, so I'm going to be waiting a while."
William looked over at Alexa to get some clarification. "The item's energy is used to change pokemon," she answered his wordless question. "If you draw it too many times without letting it rebuild you can wind up merged with the item instead of just changed by it, and need to use an even more complicated method to reverse it and split the item back out. They are supposed to handle a few times in a row, but we want to see how it works before we use them like that."
"Wait, it doesn't normally merge with you?" Suicune asked unhappily. "I know we found the thing after some other pokemon had been hit by it earlier, but I didn't know they didn't need it taken out of them. Morty yelled at us for being careless with it."
"Okay, we're double checking the energy readings on that one," Alexa declared in response. "But it is still the little clockwork Pikachu for Herman first."
William was honestly a bit interested in the option of the Ghost type now that he was fully aware of how it was the actual effect of Trick-Or-Treat. There was a solid chance that Morty would see where he was from and assume he had been aware of it long before meeting Alexa, and as a result be quite a bit more prepared for it than he was in practice.
"So, how soon will you know if we can use it too?" Chesnaught questioned, clearly on the same page. "Because we are sort of from a region where we can run into a move like yours for the Ghost type, and our team has to deal with being experienced enough that he might assume we're prepared for it this time."
"You aren't?" Alexa asked carefully. "Because we have worked together some with these things, and it isn't that different from some of the tricks my team has."
"Okay, you have been giving us quite a bit of 'suddenly weak to opponent' practice," William had to allow. Then he had to consider that more. "Huh. I think my team might be the best in the world at dealing with your stuff."
"Can I try being made of cast metal and gears now?" Herman asked and picked up the little toy. "Will I need be wound up?" the bat then asked cautiously.
"Ghosts don't usually work like that," William answered, happy to have a topic he had some experience with. "If they are something like that they don't need power, it is part of the spooky stuff they do. Golurk doesn't need the kind of fuels that were used in similar constructs."
"Technically speaking they are those fuel sources," Suicune said slowly. "I recall being taught that as a rather complicated situation. Before you change, what reversal method are you going to try first?"
"We will see how I react," Herman sighed. "If it is particularly bad I might reverse immediately, otherwise I guess we could try Contagion Cure if you are that interested in an attempt." The bat pokemon then started to change. First Herman's body turned into a dull grey metal, and then it split apart along a number of new seams to reveal a number of gears and mechanisms that didn't quite seem to work together correctly for movement. "Huh, not too bad so far," the now mechanical pokemon said and passed the toy to Kingler.
"Looks like it will be a nice one for me too," the crab agreed at the sight. "How long do we wait before reversing this?"
"Let me at least try it first," Herman argued and then started to move through the air in a way that required a lack of gravity.
William looked at his Starter while Alexa's team went over the differences for the bat. "So, thoughts on training for the Gym?"
"See if they work out their own move version," Chesnaught answered with an annoyed huff. "Otherwise just more of the same. Shanker should be on the team for it, but otherwise up to you. I'd rather not given the Fighting immunity, but if you don't think the others are up for it I will."
"Shanker is effective against Ghosts now," William realized aloud while Alexa waved at them to get their attention. "I need to remember that I'm not the team's only Dark type again."
"So, we're trying Contagion Cure first," Alexa said to get him back on track, and still looked a bit silly but also intimidating while she tried to stand up as a massive alligator pokemon. "It might work, but the metaphysical scanner is giving readings that I think mean it should not work normally. Which means if it does work it might be something only my team can do with it."
"At a minimum it should cover one of the two steps without them," Suicune added thoughtfully. "But I think they can overcome the change fully with their use of that substance. Although, I'm still rather surprised they can teach others to make it in the first place now that I'm really looking at it."
The liquid made Herman change back, although not quite as fast as it normally worked. There was a distinct pause after it touched the mechanical bat where it just sat on him before his body actually started to piece itself back into a flesh and blood form again. "Huh, I think it might actually work for someone else," Herman said aloud afterwards. "It might just take two hits instead of one."
"Yeah, it was definitely a case of a longer time lingering," William pointed out. He was sure he had not seen the stuff stay on a pokemon before instead of just being used up instantly.
"Stripped the Ghost type first, then needed to reverse the change," Alexa specified with whatever senses she had that could tell her that. "The recording doesn't quite show the details, but there definitely was a second Ghost typed energy removal there."
"It looks like you can only clear most of the Ghost type at once," Herman agreed. "I think it went down to where Charizard's Water type usually is."
"That might be a bit tricky to reverse ourselves," Charizard said slowly. "I think it might have been for the best to use this method first. Bellossom?"
"I'll try that one. Hopefully moving around is better this time," the flower pokemon said. Bellossom was in her natural state for the first time in a while, and she seemed to notice that he was curious about that. "I think this form will handle being a radio better than the lizard one."
She was proven right not long after, when they were setup for another change. William had enough time between to get Flaaffy and Wooper started on some training exercises with the rest of his team. Chesnaught in particular seemed to be strangely serious about trying the Gym as a Ground/Fighting type clay pokemon if she ended up needed. It would probably be a surprise for Morty, but William wasn't entirely looking forward to that option.
"Right, second test is Bellossom, third will be Charizard, then Kingler, me with the cookie sheet after that, and last for the day is the two headed attempt," Alexa declared with a bit of a shuffle to turn slightly.
The result of this one was slightly more notable. Bellossom's skirt hardened into a solid plastic piece along with her body turning slightly blocky in shape. Her face changed into a number of control buttons and knobs, arranged more like a face than a working radio. Her head flowers changed into a pair of large speakers, and then the color of her plastic body faded a bit as if she was a really old radio.
"Huh, that's strange," Bellossom cracked from those speakers. "Ugh, it is always stiff or something," she then complained in a slightly broken series of voices as she tried to move awkwardly.
"That was in human," William had to point out, because this group needed to know when they stumbled onto speech issues. "It sounded like someone trying to talk by using random words from a ba- old radio." He got a glare for that one that was deserved. "But it was still something humans could understand."
"Why does the thing I wanted to get have to be one of the hard to move ones?" Bellossom lamented. "I do want to be able to do that, but my leaves don't even move like this."
"You don't have to use this one," Kingler pointed out a bit bluntly.
"It is a way to talk to humans that we have on hand," Bellossom argued with a sigh. "I don't want to borrow Charizard's again next time." William had not realized there was a last time. "This is probably easier than going through the stuff he did for one."
"Just to be clear, while you are speaking human right now, it is not the kind of speech humans appreciate being around," Suicune thankfully found a way to say. "It is rather sinister and unsettling. I think it is probably not the best for casual use."
"So its not even musical?" Bellossom grumbled, then made a few haunting sounds that were vaguely musical. "Ready for me to go back yet?"
"Scans are ready," Alexa said with a bit of a cringe. "Although this is a bit faster than I hoped for this one." There was a glance at the clockwork toy by most of the group.
"You and me both," Bellossom replied, and then with a burst of unpleasant energy was back to normal. "Huh, that just works."
William shared a look with Suicune about how easily Bellossom was able to change back on her own. The fact that this change took more of the Contagion Cure, which was already an impressive thing, but didn't take anything more for one of them to just return to normal on their own made it clear that Alexa's team had special power over type changes. The Zoroark felt this was the kind of thing he might have missed the importance of before the meeting with the Legendary birds.
"Very impressive," Suicune said in a tone that made Alexa's team look uneasy. "That is quite the Legendary skill you've developed there."
"I might still use the radio if it is that fast to reverse," Bellossom admitted unhappily. "It isn't great, and apparently sounds terrible, but it does work," she added with a glare at Suicune.
"Well, my turn now," Charizard declared, and grabbed the entire pile of utensils. "And yes, before you ask, this is one item, we even double checked. Now, to get rid of the chance for Ghost Fire."
William then had to watch a series of changes before the next test in a reminder that there were a lot of layers of change going on with this group all the time. Charizard first went from wings to fins with the Geode, then a Soak to go pure Water typed, and only then did the pokemon use the Ghost type item.
The result of that was Charizard breaking apart into another collection of silverware, with a lot of bent and twisted pieces to fit in some of the more complex parts of the now Water/Ghost typed pokemon's body. The collection was suspended in a mass of water that also filled out the shape, and was a slightly unpleasant purple color. His gloves and translator band both vanished, but the dark blue gem simply moved to the core of his body while William could see that some markings had appeared on all of the collection that made up the now part Ghost pokemon. Then the collection of utensils moved quickly to get results from the Pokedex on if there were any energy stealing effects.
"It doesn't seem to be draining anyone, although I'm not sure we would have wanted to see the Fire/Flying or even Fire/Water variants," Alexa explained, but more careful than William expected out of that strange reaction. "I think it did work here."
"So no need to give us all a fright again," Bellossom declared.
"Give you a fright?" William asked, because he could vaguely remember them talking about Charizard and the Ghost type before, but he had been too distracted with what Trick-Or-Treat was to ask more then.
"Charizard extinguished his tailflame the last time he tried Ghost," Kingler specified darkly.
"It is just like holding your breath," Charizard said, but William was in a bit too much of a daze from that confirmation to fully understand. "Only you need to be really fast about it. I was back to normal fast enough."
"Charizard, I think you did not understand what I thought happened then," Alexa said faintly. "Because I could have lived without that clarification."
"I say we move on," Bellossom suggested quickly. "Let's see what Kingler ends up like."
"I think your trainer probably should have been told that it is 'like holding your breath' much sooner than this," William said unhappily. "I assume you actually do know the dangers of messing with Ghost type stuff better than I do, but something that might kill you if done wrong probably shouldn't have been done carelessly."
"He didn't even wait to explain anything before going for a healing berry," Alexa explained. "That was the reversal method we used for that one. It should have had the metaphysical impact to work with that to turn him back." She was clearly upset with William too for keeping the focus on the topic. "We're going to move on now." William was a bit sorry to make it a bit worse, but if there wasn't that clear of an answer it would have been important to know, so he didn't immediately apologize. He would later, but for the moment he would just let the topic change.
"To be fair it was a genuine concern," Charizard said to back him up, which surprised William. "I thought you did know that, otherwise I would have told you then, or at worst when we could actually speak directly. I didn't realize you thought it was something to do with that change. I know you got the full guide on Chars."
"'Brief periods of flameless tails should be followed by medical examination at the nearest Pokemon Center'," Alexa quoted at her Starter with a grumpy tone. "You didn't get on me when we didn't- Ugh, we checked over both of you afterwards because you were Ghost typed and we were worried about how that turned out," the Florabedtor cut herself off.
"Right, new rule, explain more with medical stuff to make sure nobody missed anything," Kingler declared and then started to turn into clockwork. "Also I'm tired of waiting and you can get more scans later." The end result for Kingler seemed to still be made out of the purple armored shell, only with internals that were clearly mechanical clockwork that seemed a bit too heavily lubricated with so much oil it was seeping out rapidly.
"Give me the cookie sheet," Alexa complained about that sudden change and pressed Her Pokedex into Charizard's claws. "Let's just get the easy ones done with." William could hear a crack of thunder, or perhaps Thunder, from where Flaaffy and Wooper were working.
"Um, I'm turning back first," Kingler grumbled. "This is much messier than I thought." They looked over at the leaking clockwork crab. "Wait, why isn't there a puddle under me?" The oil didn't even seem to be reaching the ground at all.
"Well, that is the Ghost type," Bellossom pointed out. "Kinda like how I sounded off, it is supposed to be creepy."
"Okay, go ahead then. It isn't as messy if I'm not actually leaving puddles," Kingler allowed.
"So how is it going?" Chesnaught questioned then. "Huh, okay that is an odd one even for you guys."
"Chesnaught, you're still made out of clay," William sighed. "You currently are at least as odd as a Ghost type being a possessed thing." His Starter froze at being called out and then groaned loudly. "Did Flaaffy work out Thunder?"
"Well, somebody somehow managed it," Chesnaught said slowly, and Suicune started to giggle.
"Shanker?" William asked to see if they could avoid more oddities. Goodra already knew the move in theory, if not for combat purposes.
"I think I've worked out why Wooper's mom wanted a break," Chesnaught unfortunately clarified. "Flaaffy is being a bit smug about the team's new Water/Ground type learning it first for some reason."
"Let me know immediately if she works out Soak from the team we're traveling with," William complained. "We are with a Charizard that can use it, probably without the change to Water first, and she is apparently already going far out of type."
"I think when I used it as a Grass/Electric type is the example you're looking for," Bellossom noted. "Also, she is at least Water typed so, maybe a bit more worry for you there."
"You didn't know Wooper worked out Soak?" Chesnaught carefully questioned. "Because she actually knew that one before we got her. I've heard her call it 'boring'."
"Well, if any group needs a pokemon that calls a move like that 'boring' I guess it would be ours," William sighed again and looked back over at Alexa's group.
The Florabedtor gave him a slightly smug smile, and looked much happier so at least the minor distraction had improved the mood. "So, this one and then the two headed one," Alexa said to him to get him back up to speed.
"Maybe we should hold off on the two headed one," Rhydon suggested. "At least for today."
"It has been a bit different for each of them, and I think we should try and work on some of them for the Gym," Herman added. "I want to use the clockwork one for that at least."
"Fine, but I'm still trying this one," Alexa declared with a motion of her head towards the cookie sheet. Which was sitting on her back instead of in her claws, presumably because it would be awkward to change while holding it because of how she's have to stand. "Ready, Charizard?"
"The scanner is on," Charizard laughed, a haunting sound of clinking silverware. "Although I might be a bit wetter than is probably good for it."
"Should be waterproof enough," Alexa agreed with a laugh of her own. Then she started to change, which began with a bit of a clatter as the cookie sheet fell off her rapidly smoothing body. She stayed a green color, but it went from natural scales to a sort of colored metal. William was a bit unnerved by how she seemed to hollow out into an alligator shaped shell over top of empty air, with the exception of the core of her body which instead hollowed out the other way into something deep enough that it was more of a cake pan than a cookie sheet. A large empty area that then filled with what appeared to be cake, covered with countless icing flowers in many colors.
"Any bets on if the cake changes people too?" Chesnaught asked dully of the result.
"Probably a safe bet," Alexa admitted, and it quickly became clear that she was even less able to stand now. "Oh this is not nice at all. I think I get what you mean about this kind of change, Bellossom." The altered Florabedtor stiffly turned just a bit, but it was clearly a lot more limited due to the thin metal structure of this new form. "Yeah, not for me."
"Are we getting a sample of that cake first?" Charizard quickly questioned before Alexa could turn back.
"We have enough things to look over right now, but probably," Alexa sighed. "So training after that?"
"I'd like some time against some Ghost types," William pointed out. It would help both of them for the current Gym, and the big upside of working with Alexa was easy access to all sorts of types.
Alexa had gone back to just a typical Florabedtor, if such a thing could be said about a brand new pokemon form, for the training part of the day. She did have Spectslurry as a Ghost type she liked, but her current goal was to work out how hard a less human pokemon could handle being a trainer.
"Shanker doesn't mess around," Charizard noted as he walked back over to her, some of the Dark/Flying type's throwing blades floating in his body with the silverware. "I think she's going to have fun with this Gym."
"I think we will too," Alexa agreed with a glance at Kingler as the clockwork crab took a turn against William's team, this time against Wooper. Then the whole group flinched as a bolt of lightning struck Kingler suddenly. Alexa's pokemon wasn't close to out from the strike, but it was a notable hit from the young pokemon. "Okay, he's definitely been working with her more than I realized."
Suicune seemed to find that statement amusing. "Are we still meeting with my family again tomorrow?" the other Legendary asked with a laugh.
"Yeah," Alexa confirmed, "I want to start a side project while we have downtime between training sessions."
[Author's Note]
More of draconas on SV's Spectral Memento, including a direct reference to their post.
A part of me is unhappy that I don't think I will be able to fit all of the suggested items as mentions, let alone give each of them something like this, but hopefully nobody is too upset with the appearances being limited to the ones that I do find easy to fit.