- Off the Path -

"I still cannot believe that you went to the trainer school to have them teach the Starter classes too," William said to her as they finally got back on the road without an oversized group.

"I didn't think they would be that excited," Alexa complained back with a heated buzz of her wings, honestly she had thought that they would laugh it off as a joke.

"Well the Florabedtor from Sprout Tower didn't make it sound like a common thing to happen whenever in the future he was from," Bellossom tried to reassure them both.

"And they didn't ask for any way to turn the kids into pokemon either," Charizard added. "I think it was mostly just something to make themselves feel better about the recent 'turned into pokemon' thing."

"So, are we doing anything special for the Fairy type Gym?" Kingler questioned as the full teams of both trainers moved openly for the first time in a while. "I don't remember any Fairy typed stuff we had yet, but we could go all Poison," the crab pokemon suggested.

They weren't far from the city yet, but the teams had not actually had that much time alone while they were with other trainers for the translator issues. William's team was more focused on Wooper's battle readiness, with a side project of seeing if Flaaffy was getting close to his second evolution. Alexa's team by contrast had been going over the changes they tried but didn't typically use.

"But Poison and Steel types are our most common changes," Herman complained. "Why not try making them something else instead? Maybe a layer we deliberately break to change them to something weak to the layer under it?"

"I'm up for that idea," Rhydon agreed. "It might be interesting to confuse them with that if they are used to how I normally look."

Then they turned a short bend, and found two Mew looking at them. One notably older, the other still made out of clay. They both looked uneasy, but Alexa could think of many very good reasons for that. Like her entire team glaring at the Mew made of clay.

"Okay, it hasn't been a month yet," Alexa said. "But last time we met you said you were worried about a Fairy type?"

"Uggh," the clay Mew groaned loudly. "She made it permanent until 'I understand the problem'. I already understand, why hasn't it gone away?"

Alexa's team looked at each other, and Alexa could tell that they were probably thinking the same thing. That the Mew could possibly never understand the problem at all. Alexa looked back at the older Mew, who seemed resigned.

"Daughter," the older Mew cautioned. "Do you have something to say?"

"I'm sorry that I didn't say what went wrong to the humans," the younger Mew 'apologized' to them.

"Yeah, she's just going to be clay forever," Charizard grumbled.

"Maybe she wants to be something else instead?" Bellossom asked sweetly, and the older Legendary cat clearly understood the implication. "How about tree sap? Would that be better?"

"Or maybe more solid, like immobile stone?" Kingler added as an option. "Maybe a while as a decoration would be better."

"Maybe, we can allow my daughter to stay with her current punishment?" the older Mew asked with considerable concern. "They're all so strong," the Legendary then mumbled a touch too loudly.

"So, was there a point to this meeting other than that 'apology'?" Rhydon questioned, which seemed to surprise both Mew. "Did you just mistake me for a bush?"

"Scary pokemon," the clay Mew declared now. "I'm really sorry, scary pokemon, I didn't mean to do whatever it was."

"Going to be clay forever," Charizard sighed this time.

"Mew," Alexa decided to address the younger of the two. "You aren't the worst Legendary I have heard of doing this kind of thing recently." This statement didn't seem to reassure either Mew, which was fine. "But that's only because it was easier for me to fix the problem you caused. You hurt a lot more people, and you hurt them worse, but you at least did something that could be fixed."

"Someone got a duration wrong?" the older Mew asked, pale as could be. "Because my daughter has a good chance of proving you wrong, eventually."

"Miss Mew," Herman then cut in quickly. "I am already uneasy with how the Lugia could get a duration wrong, and the implications of what Suicune has told us so far." Namely that some Legendary pokemon might mistake one hundred years for a short time. "I do not want to think about what you mean by 'eventually' there, or how I might still be around when that happens. I just found out I was a Legendary this year, and I'm not even a decade old yet. I don't want to consider centuries from now yet."

That sobered the entire conversation, although the older Mew blinked with confusion. "Oh, you just became Legendaries, and you aren't..." the cat pokemon trailed off and looked into the distance for a bit. "Oh. Um, are any of you over 30?"

"No," William bluntly explained.

"Scary," the clay Mew repeated and slumped into a lumpy puddle. "Not doing changes again if it brings the scary pokemon."

"That sounds like a better apology," Charizard laughed. "But we probably should move on if you don't need us for anything else?"

"I, I wanted to speak about a couple of other things, but now I know you aren't actually old enough to understand the topics the way I hoped," the older Mew reluctantly admitted. "You're usually traveling with Suicune right? Maybe I'll talk with her about this more first."

"She's off getting an update from her family," Alexa specified, glad to have a way out of unsupervised Legendary conversation.

It wasn't until days later at the turn to Iridescent Cross that Suicune made it back to their group. Which was enough time to get a half built plan. Fairy to Steel type with a Mercury Contagion layer break, followed up by a Magma Contagion layer under it to take advantage of the type shift immediately. The Steel type would throw off many Fairy types heavily, with the few exceptions able to be handled by a Fire type anyway.

Kingler's attempt at those two layers was nearly identical to her just using Mercury Contagion over her Frozen Flame, which worked very well to give her a way to get around the Dragon type immunity in theory at least.

Rhydon by contrast ended up not changing from the combination, and as a result was planning on just using his basic Ground/Grass topiary form after the break.

Herman's Flying/Fighting form was another case of using more typical layers, but that also came with a new specific setup. Herman had used Mercury Contagion, had layered over his Stable Cloud form, but not both together yet, so they were interested in how much the outcome was different from the clockwork Spectral Memento. It was interesting, but a liquid metal bat that could still fly was fairly normal by their new standard. Herman liked it though, so they would probably see it more often.

Alexa was in the middle of working out how Charizard wanted to handle the idea when the tired looking Legendary Beast arrived. "I have finally heard from Great Grandfather what happened to the Lugia that caused the Olivine problem," Suicune declared, and then caught sight of Herman. "I'm sorry I missed you leaving, am I interrupting?"

"We just got to my part of the latest Gym plan," Charizard specified while Alexa considered just telling Suicune they didn't want to know. "Using the new moves to start trying to change in the matches."

"We might as well hear what happened before we keep going," Alexa admitted with a sigh. "It might help to have that off our minds."

"I have been a bit worried since we heard about how Moomoo Farm has needed the Florabedtor guy to outright guard the tanks," Bellossom agreed, with a mention of an update they had gotten from a traveling trainer. "I'd like to hear that we don't need to worry about this Lugia causing more issues from her boy trouble."

"Wait, 'great grandfather'?" William then pointed out. "As in the really old Moltres?"

"It interrupted the issue that has uncle Ash and Champion Ash taking over positions right now," Suicune confirmed. "Great Grandfather was livid, especially when it turned out it was al about that Kadabra that ditched her, and not an intentional attack on uncle Ash. He has bound her in human form and banished her from this world until the combined duration of her cursed stones is completed, or until she convinces that Kadabra to come back to argue for her being turned back."

"The Kadabra that fled to another universe to get away from her," Alexa noted dubiously with a shake of her head. "The original duration, or what they currently have? Because from what I've heard the four victims all made it a permanent change."

"Alexa, I will have trouble traveling with you if you keep making me have to ask my family questions like this," Suicune complained. "He made it sound like it caps off at one thousand years, for all ten stones, but now we might need to double check." Then the Legendary Beast looked them over. "What exactly is your current plan?"

"Change the Fairy Gym's pokemon to pure Steel type with our Soak like type breaking move, then use forms strong against Steel types," Charizard specified. Suicune stared at them. "To be fair, we didn't say we weren't more of an issue for people than this Lugia, we just don't do it permanently without permission, or without permission at all outside of a fight."

"That would be more reassuring to me if you weren't suggesting turning Fairy types that aren't Steel typed into Steel types," the Legendary Beast said with a bit of amusement. "I suggest checking on that before you try it against this particular Gym Leader."

"Oh, right there is a strong Fairy type around here isn't there," Alexa realized. "Although I think we can still pull something like this off, so it is good to try at least."

"Not to mention we are mostly planning on this for the Gym because it is easy to do," Kingler noted. "This plan works on anyone who isn't already Steel typed, and sort of works for any who are."

"It isn't that much worse than we expect from them," William pointed out jokingly. "At least they need to set this up right now."

"Okay, you apparently think we're going to work out a way to do this without setup?" Alexa questioned with a joking tone of her own. "I've checked again that we will only get to carry one vial per pokemon at most into the arena, and only if we are sure it won't hit our opponents."

"Alexa, I am confident you can work out how to change your own types as well as changing other pokemon," William then pointed out more seriously. "I know we always see Charizard use Soak like it was made to be used on yourself already, and I bet at least one of you is already working on one."

"That would be me for the record," Rhydon admitted to some chuckles. "I have a few similar forms, and I think if I do it right I might be able to shift what my core is made of at will, but it might also get me stuck in my Grass form."

"Is that a 'but' or the actual goal?" Kingler questioned smugly. "I think we of all pokemon don't have to worry about ending up with a stuck one, right Bellossom?"

"I have not tried the type break on my Electric type yet, have I?" the plant pokemon realized. "Ugh, I don't know if I want to try that though."

"Let's go back to that 'stuck' part," Herman noted. "You have an idea how to make the change stick? I think I'd like to fix myself to only going back to my Normal/Fighting form if we could."

"Well, not a great one yet. It is... actually you do change from that one about the same way I do so maybe it is good for you too," Rhydon admitted.

Alexa wasn't entirely comfortable with the topic of changes that didn't end on their own, but admittedly she had more experience with changes now compared to when she started. Bellossom and Kingler also were great examples of how her team might want to keep changes they tried. She was fairly sure that Charizard was more like herself, enjoying changes but not wanting to just stick with one or another, but most of the rest of her team seemed to have found alternate types to stick with as a new baseline.

"What are you doing that makes you think it would get you stuck?" Alexa questioned, and decided this might be a better topic for the moment just in case Suicune was right about the Gym Leader taking their plan badly.

"The way it is working out seems like it would make a sort of layer, and that might stick around as long as I use it to change the types," Rhydon explained, and then went into more detail.

"I don't think I changed the topic to a better one," William admitted to Suicune a short time later as the type changers started more complex practical tests.

"Trust me, this is safer than that plan as their main goal for the next Gym," the Legendary Beast reassured him. "The Leader might have found it funny, but I'd rather not make that a surprise here."

"I'm from a place with plenty of Fairy types," William pointed out. "Trust me, I know how tricky this idea was. I just don't think a Fairy type Gym Leader would be that surprised if they actually heard about Alexa." Fairy typed pokemon were tricky, but if you could get them to agree with a favorable deal to both parties they would generally be willing to overlook minor mistakes. "Although I was expecting a really specific set of rules for our matches. We are up to the sixth Badge, and Alexa is using an undersized team."

"Undersized is important here?" Suicune questioned while Alexa started to rather notably criticize Rhydon's latest explanation. "I will admit I've never been on such a team."

"Once you get this far you start seeing Gym matches that have the full six, and Gyms don't like using more than the challenger," William explained briefly. "So you end up with tougher challenges instead of more opponents more often, or even both for the final Badges. Maybe both more often if you aren't on your first League, it is really rare to see then. I think Alexa is actually the first I've seen that had made it to a League before and hasn't picked up at least a sixth member after trying without."

"Does her team's status as all Legendary affect that?" Suicune suggested. "I admittedly don't know if that has happened before."

William considered that detail. "They aren't that battle strong, not until they do work out how to really use their changes against opponents," he said, which wasn't a 'no' but was important. "With a bit more dedicated combat training they will hit League level, but I'm not surprised they only barely made it last time. They've gone for tricky more that strength this League, and I'd say that is working better for them. I still don't think they have a chance at outright winning yet." He shrugged. "Placing high enough to make the televised part sure, but not to face the Elite Four. It is hard making it there, and I'm not sure what this year is going to be like with the other long time trainers we've just turned into pokemon."

"And father did not even make it this far as a trainer," she agreed, and then there was a burst of Poison typed energy that made the both of them flinch.

"We might want to hold off on this one for a while," Alexa loudly admitted from the middle of a bunch of more toxic looking pokemon. "I don't think we have enough of a handle on the basics there, and we do have a Gym coming up. So let's get back to layers that make our opponents weak to what we have under them."