This reminds me of in the games where if you use a pokeball during a trainer battle, the trainer blocks it and tells you off for trying to steal their Pokémon. And yeah, I can definitely see anti-capture clothing being a useful tool for trainers with looser typed energy. We see enough of trainers accidentally catching themselves in your stories, it's very believable to think some trainer has accidentally gotten themselves captured by another trainer who got too excited and threw a ball off in the wrong direction.
Typechange Johto
- Thread starter E.I.G.
- Start date
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- Tags
- pokemon sequel transformation
- Pronouns
- He/Him/Ey/Em
I was actually thinking that Charizard was having trouble with physical sensations associated with the leaves and petals, rather than anything more esoteric. He might've been less distressed if he had wound up covered in little scale-leaves like a juniper or red-cedar.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
I'm glad that I've well established that enough to give the impression.
This is also a great time to be reminded of such complications as a mini-arc on pokeballs is in development.
Another interesting option on why he might not like it.
Personally, if it was that case he might like something more like Alexa's Aloe Vera lizard transformation, where there are no leaves and such and only bodily plant matter.
Could it be considered as a matter of Water, his dominant unexpressed energy type, interacting poorly with the dominant expressed energy type switching to a conflicting/devouring format?
Fire and Water may conflict headon, but that is a neutralizing interaction, while grass consumes water, as fire consumes grass, from the mystical perspective of things, if comparing to the various alchemical or fengshui diagrams of the cycle of elements.
It's been clear that primary and secondary expressed energy types don't conflict with changes, beyond concious dislike and confusion of the specific sensations, but unexpressed energy types may be still actively used in the invisible aspects of a pokemon's existence, their personality and the the ways their own senses interact with their environment.
Which could be an interesting thesis topic regarding Alexa's own personality and close family's personalities with regards to their balance of unexpressed energy... which, being humans, means every energy type in the mix counts towards the complexities of their developing existence over time.
Perfectly balanced (or near balanced) ratios of all energy types, all unexpressed, could have been the initial seed value for Alexa and her family's personality development: without any internal disparity, the entire spiritual world may seem simultaenously rainbow colored everywhere, and entirely monochrome at the same time, as though subconciously experiencing the CMYK values of observed existence independently at all times.
Which could be an interesting thesis topic regarding Alexa's own personality and close family's personalities with regards to their balance of unexpressed energy... which, being humans, means every energy type in the mix counts towards the complexities of their developing existence over time.
Perfectly balanced (or near balanced) ratios of all energy types, all unexpressed, could have been the initial seed value for Alexa and her family's personality development: without any internal disparity, the entire spiritual world may seem simultaenously rainbow colored everywhere, and entirely monochrome at the same time, as though subconciously experiencing the CMYK values of observed existence independently at all times.
This is the realm of pure conjecture, and I feel dumb for saying this.
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E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
An interesting way of looking at the subject, and something worth considering.
I generally have pokemon as an odd mix of physical and metaphysical interactions with how they work, but the thing about that is they have different physical properties than our own world, and also might have different metaphysical connotations than is used for us.
So a non-expressed Water type might react badly to the addition of the Grass type, and due to not being express the typical methods of change won't impact it as much to cut down on negative reactions. In that case a possible solution is to make the Water type expressed, so the change can properly interact with it, and if that is the cause then Charizard going from Fire/Water to Grass/Water might be more comfortable, but if instead it is photosynthesis that is the issue then that would not have as much of an impact.
A fully balanced set of types has quite a few possible meanings, but to know you have such a setup by default instead of trying to get one for mystical purposes is something that really takes some form of scanning of typed energies.
The situation Alexa is in might not have prior metaphysical connotations due to how rare it is and how limited the ability to check for it has been historically. Which is in some ways more hazardous than a negative metaphysical connotation, as it means that everything she does and others think about her could impact what the metaphysical meaning ends up being.
If Alexa is the metaphysical prototype for flat-aspected Energy (Of course, that's not counting being null-aspected like most people from Digi-Earth due to lack of exposure.) I kind of feel sorry for anybody else who winds up like that. At the low end they'd be the sort of person who completely overhauls their look on a weekly basis on a whim, to the more extreme end where odds are they are not going to stay human for very long once they get out in the world. What's worse is that it might wind up picking up the stigma of basically being an inverted Chosen One. Good news you're not going on the adventure of the lifetime against your will! Bad news? Odds are you might wind up dragging your friends and family into such a mess because you got a little too grabby with an evolution stone or something and wound up becoming a new Capital L Legendary by accident....
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
Well, any future people with that extremely rare, basically human-only, and rarely identified typing will at least not have "first notable" among their metaphysical properties. That might be enough to downgrade from "Capital L Legendary" to just "potential to be a Legendary".
You know, I actually kind of like this, that a major unexpressed type can cause reactions with other types becoming the primary type. The downside is that if you adopt this, you might need to look back and make sure nobody else has taken on a type that conflicts with any unexpressed types they may have. Of course, that's helped by the fact that Charizard's affinity towards Water is the only one that's really been explored, as far as I remember.
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
Also, how do we know that she's actually the first? She could just be templating off someone else with an even spread of energy. After all, we know a lot of these 'human legendary forms' are already known about one way or another, and someone had to be the one to originally discover them...
Though that leads to the question of 'if no one remembers or has evidence of that one human ten thousand years ago a Mew taught Transform to and who ended up inventing/finding human adjacent forms for all the types, can someone else get the first bonus for finding those types when they are found again?'
Though that leads to the question of 'if no one remembers or has evidence of that one human ten thousand years ago a Mew taught Transform to and who ended up inventing/finding human adjacent forms for all the types, can someone else get the first bonus for finding those types when they are found again?'
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
That is the nice thing about not specifying everything all the time. It is vague enough for me to work around, and also a case where there are still individual impacts from other factors on top.
Little details like this are why I like to add some specific bits at various points, but not stop and just stick with a single topic to exhaustion of all data.
Ah, but part of metaphysics is what people remember from before as much as what has happened before. It isn't quite like physics where the original event can be perfectly replicated. There is still some impact from what came before, but that is in turn limited by who remembers such things or what records exist.
That said, there can be impact for discovering that a previous individual who was notable for something else also had a given property.
It is unlikely to apply here however, as my general concept for this plot element is that nobody has really had the right sensor setup to scan someone like Alexa and also had someone like Alexa before. It has taken the wider implementation of typed energy scanners from the latest rise in advanced civilization to produce something that doesn't need special mystical calibration to be able to give a "they are equal parts each type" result. Some researchers may have fine tuned their semi-to-mostly-mystical type measurement tools before, but nobody who was aware of a human with entirely, or even mostly equal types.
- Location
- United States
Because I love the depth of thought you put into this kind of stuff what would you consider the metaphysics of discovering the Americas?
For hundreds of years most people would say Christopher Columbus discovered them, then it was found that Eric the Red had sailed there hundreds of years before Columbus.
But both of those ignore the ancient people who crosses the Russian land bridge thousands of years ago and went on the spread out to become the various races and civilizations of the north and south americas.
For hundreds of years most people would say Christopher Columbus discovered them, then it was found that Eric the Red had sailed there hundreds of years before Columbus.
But both of those ignore the ancient people who crosses the Russian land bridge thousands of years ago and went on the spread out to become the various races and civilizations of the north and south americas.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
It depends on the context of what you are discussing having the metaphysical properties.
If you are talking about an individual who is trying to use the metaphysical aspect of being descended from Columbus both before and after it was found that he wasn't the first, then there likely would be a bit of a decline between those two facts being commonly known for the use of that property. It might even take a sharp temporary decline if pointed it out to the individual while they were unaware of the development.
However, if you mean the importance of the first landing sites, then all three would have some degree of metaphysical power of being a place of discovery. Regardless of the order they all represent a kind of location where new knowledge was famously found, although the land bridge might be better seen as a place of importance for travel. The things that matter there are both that the people of the time did not know of the Americas and that they are famous in the modern day for being places where a discovery occurred.
Alternatively as a way of connecting those who came from one of those colonization waves to the land the bridge is definitely the strongest due to both age and the fact that people from that migration lived there the entire time, while the Eric the Red habitation is the weakest because it was mostly abandoned with little evidence left.
For a final example, but nowhere near a final possibility, there is the power of artifacts from each. That is a subject with a lot of side concerns, but if the goal is to have something with the most connection to "discovery of the Americas" then the age of the artifact would be among the most potent contributing factors, but might be exceeded by any artifacts that are specifically used in the discovery itself. Those would likely be most easily identified from the Columbus expedition, but other ships that made the journey without full knowledge of how to get to the other end from the same time period could also produce such artifacts.
Metaphysics is complicated, and the less agreed upon or more abstract concepts included can get even more complicated.
It's getting vaguely Nasuverse in here.
Stop it.
I don't want MHXX and Arceus butting heads.
Stop it.
I don't want MHXX and Arceus butting heads.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
... ok, I'm fairly sure I can avoid how badly the Nasuverse handles metaphysics.
Is it alright if I don't get into a rant on how that setting and its fans overplay the impact of metaphysical properties?
Because in short I greatly dislike things like "the property of being immune to [thing]" and "the property of instantly defeating [thing]" as they tend to go too far into the open ended area of arguments that there is no possible way around them. So I'm probably not going to make a Nasuverse crossover, or an Exalted crossover for the same general reason.
I apologize for my accusation.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
That is one of the big ones, physics can be altered in how it impacts things with metaphysics, but it will still have an impact.
The bigger thing is that even with metaphysical properties there are still limits to them. Metaphysically fire-proof doesn't automatically mean that no fire can damage it, and in some cases it might only mean that the thing can't catch aflame, even if fire can still destroy it.
Apology accepted.
Union Cave
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
--- Union Cave ---
Given that it had taken a Legendary pokemon's intervention to get William a Mareep, it was only expected that they didn't even see a wild Wooper by the time they reached the entrance to Union Cave. It wasn't uncommon to run into that sort of issue, wild pokemon tended to pull back from the routes for a bit after a League started. Just until the larger group of new trainers on the roads thinned out, from actual conversation he knew it was because being tired out by a trainer that couldn't handle them wasn't worth it. The younger pokemon, and those who could spare the energy, would come out more often in the early weeks, but there were only so many of those.
"So, has she forgiven you yet?" Chesnaught asked quietly as they approached the Pokemon Center a bit ahead of Alexa. The other trainer was lagging behind a bit to continue work with Heracross on a switch from Steel to Poison for secondary type.
"I think so, but mostly because I've remembered to actually go over the way a pokemon is supposed to get help if they are caught without wanting to be," William admitted. It was a stupid thing to forget, almost as bad as forgetting that he had been traveling with a Legendary and asking to catch another. While it was something to not pass up, that particularly was fairly rude and he should have known that. "I think knowing that I've got a few practical solutions to the issue for myself helped patch things up, but I really wish I didn't ask to catch Raikou like that in the first place. At best I should have just asked if he could help me find another Electric type in the first place."
"I would have thought her Charizard could have told her about those," his Starter said a bit grumpy with the whole thing.
"They're both from Kanto," William quietly said with a bit more unease than he expected. "Charizard didn't get classes on how to deal with if someone tried to catch him as a trainer. Nobody thought to teach him that." It was a bit horrifying to consider that Charizard would be one of the very first Kanto native pokemon to become trainers, and definitely would have been the first that couldn't speak to humans, but would not get the basic information that the Zoroark had thought was common knowledge among civilized pokemon. "They both needed to know what they could do, and now I'm a bit worried the local Pokemon Centers might not be entirely ready to handle things if any of the three of us are caught by someone else."
"William, that is a worse problem than the Legendary you got Chosen by being mad at you!" Chesnaught argued, then cut off as they spotted a buggy Alexa and a giant blue bat pokemon. "I thought you were done with the Flying type?" she questioned the new arrivals.
"We worked out how to make Stable Cloud," the Vespikiln complained. "It turns out that is the easy part, and I might have overlooked that it is actually a kind of trash for sky living pokemon."
"It does need a bit of Legendary power," Heracross grumbled. "But you only need to know how to use the Flying type around that to have a pile of the stuff."
"You were human the last time I saw you," William noted to the other trainer.
"Chitin Powder buildup in one of the folds of my bag," Alexa complained. "Which I'm going to need to look for after this is over with." The insect trainer sighed. "Although I was planning on turning into Vespikiln again for Azalea Town. Might as well get some experiments with things that extend this one while I can."
William wasn't sure if that was the kind of thing that came from being a shapeshifter, a Professor's daughter, or both, but he did know that he was happy to avoid being a participant in those tests. At most he had a Mareep with an extra Fire type who had been taught how to make other pokemon into Fire types. "I'm going to have to worry about becoming something else if I have to handle your stuff, aren't I?" he questioned with a sigh.
"I'm going to have to learn to clean better so you don't have to worry about that," Alexa corrected strongly. "If you do end up changed by me then I've made a major mistake."
"I will still warn the team, especially Goodra," William admitted. "I want to keep up with his training, and Carracosta wants to head to the ranch so he can call his parents a bit more often."
"Charizard is going to go over his trainer card stuff too, and I'm calling home when we get to that Center," Alexa agreed easily, which was a relief as some trainers with smaller teams William had traveled with had gotten touchy about switching out pokemon. "I kind of wanted to be human for that, but hopefully mom understands."
---
Charizard looked at the counter with some degree of unease as he considered how to handle this. He had the little notepad open to a blank page and a pen in his claws. He knew his trainer ID information well enough. Alexa was over by the phones. He was most definitely stalling.
He quickly wrote down the message he needed to say. A quick hello with his ID details and that he wanted to check on his account before they reached the next town, and after a moment's thought another couple of sentences to say that he was quite happy to be a Starter and only suspected his parents had put money into the account. Hopefully that got across that he only wanted to check on things.
"Oh, hello there, here to help out your trainer?" the Center's Nurse Joy asked with a head bob towards William at the transfer computers. Charizard rolled his eyes, pointed at Alexa over by the phones, and then handed over his notebook.
Nurse Joy spent a long moment reading the page, with an occasional glance towards Alexa, before she responded. "Let me just verify your records," she carefully said and went over to her computer. Charizard waited patiently, but soon grew nervous as she frowned deeply. "I can see you are registered as both a trainer and a Starter. Both of those are actually still valid, even if you don't have your own team yet. I'll admit that I've not met a pokemon who is also a trainer before, but I was under the impression it was a one or the other thing."
Charizard pointed quite clearly at the word 'Starter' on his writing. "I'm going to have to look some things up," Nurse Joy told him professionally. "I'll call you back up when I have a better answer for you." He walked away with a huff and moved back to Alexa.
---
Alexa started up the phone with just a glance over to where Charizard had started to approach the desk. Her mother answered, although it took a moment for Alexa to fully process the other Vespikiln on the video screen. "Uh, hi mom. I, um, had a bit of a cleanup issue," Alexa nervously admitted, with a glance at the other trainers in the building. Most of them seemed to have looked up when she said something, then returned to their own tasks with the sight of the video display.
"You take after your father a bit too much," her mother buzzed a bit dryly. "He's been a bit careless with this powder stuff, and I've had to clean up a lot to try and keep from being stuck like this for another week."
"Well, I haven't gotten anyone I'm traveling with by accident yet," Alexa was able to note, although it wasn't a great defense. Her mother hummed, which was a strange sound made more with wings than anything else, and clearly wanted more explanation. "Did dad pass along that I'm traveling with another trainer this time?"
"Yes, he did bring it up," her mother replied with a bit of a head movement that meant the older Vespikiln was aware of how many humans were present. "Has that been going well?"
"I'm bad at translating for other pokemon," Alexa joked. "He's got an actual trained translator on his team, so it has been nice to have someone who doesn't look at me a bit funny for talking with my team so much."
"Is that really that hard to do?" her mother, who had taught her everything she knew about interacting with pokemon, questioned with honest confusion that reassured Alexa greatly.
"Apparently, Charizard even agreed with him about it," Alexa complained with a huff-like buzz.
"Well, it looks like I'm going to be waiting for paperwork stuff before I can-" Charizard then interrupted as he stomped up, and then paused as he spotted Alexa's mother on the monitor. "Um, Miss Larch, I see you can probably understand me."
"Your parents have let me know the full situation Charles," Alexa's mother replied with some strange and horrible movement of her mandibles.
"Who is 'Charles' and stop trying to smile, it has not worked for Alexa in that form and it isn't working for you," Charizard demanded. "I wonder if other Vespikiln try and smile like that too."
"You don't recognize the name Charles," her mother said dully, it clearly wasn't a question.
"It sounds kind of like the kind of pun my human brother would give to a char," Charizard answered with a deep frown. "I'm going to yell at him. Maybe try and light him- No, wait I'm going to soak him, he's used to fire."
"Alright, if you weren't aware that your officially recognized name is 'Charles Larch' due to some obscure adoption laws, then I probably should have told Alexa about it right after the Lucario came over to talk about them," Alexa's mother added.
Alexa nodded at that with a bit of confusion. "Don't call you 'Charles'?" she questioned her Starter.
"Do not call me Charles," he agreed with a huff of flames.
"Charles Larch," Nurse Joy called out.
Alexa didn't try and give her pokemon a smile this time, but he at least didn't stomp back to the counter. "So, did you think I already knew about Charizard being a trainer, or...?" she wasn't actually sure what the 'or' would be honestly.
"I figured that he would have told you after you became a pokemon for the first time," her mother said serenely. "So have you seen any interesting sights? I know you planned on visiting the Ruins before you set off further away."
"That went well all things considered. I ended up recruited into helping out a science team," Alexa answered easily avoiding the core issue for a bit longer to discuss how much her father seemed to have set things up absentmindedly without letting her know again. However, she did eventually shift to a buzz that the humans in the building would not understand to explain the encounter with the Unown. "And then we met up with the researcher again and she mentioned that they sometimes fight Legendary pokemon who don't let them scan them."
"Have you met any Legendary pokemon?" her mother questioned with a bit of a joking laugh, and a still human understandable speech.
"A Raikou, the one from the last Johto League, showed up to check on what the Unown found," Alexa nervously admitted, still in a buzz.
"The Burned Tower's Raikou? One of Ho-Oh's adopted children?" her mother buzzed back with a lot more concern.
"His father wanted to know more about me," the younger Vespikiln added with a rustle-sigh. "Mom, if anything happens to me, or I don't call for too long, can you try and contact him to see if he can help?"
"If you don't make a call in time I can and will contact Ho-Oh to fix that, yes," her mother firmly stated.
"Uh, wait I meant Raikou, not Ho-Oh!" Alexa quickly corrected.
---
William looked over Goodra outside of the Center as he waited for Alexa to emerge for some afternoon training. "Okay," the Dragon noted. "So, most of them know Acid Armor at least some of the time? Because I still think I can work out how to teach the rest of you. It is a wonderful way to de-stress."
"I think they have plenty of options I don't want to take that would help me learn," Chesnaught grumbled. "Have you introduced Mareep to our Dragon yet?"
"I've met the cute little blob of magma," Goodra happily declared. "I'm very certain he can learn it."
"I'm honestly a bit unsure that asking Alexa and her team about teaching Acid Armor is a great idea," William somewhat desperately noted. Goodra had been fairly consistent about that desire for multiple Leagues now, and they had been treated to a number of little lectures that sometimes had William's fur itching in strange ways. Which he now realized was a major reason that he should not let his Dragon meet Alexa and her team, but it was likely a bit late for that.
"I want to roar at her," Charizard then said as the Fire/Flying type stomped out of the Pokemon Center. "I really want to roar at her, but I know she's just doing her job."
"At least you don't actually need to do anything?" Alexa nervously suggested just behind the winged reptile. Charizard was holding onto a small card.
"I'm going to turn my brother into a proper Fire type and then... Wait, Magma Contagion makes humans immune to the Water type, that won't work," Charizard continued to complain and William was able to spot that the card was specifically a trainer card, possibly with Charizard's face on it. "Ugh, well good news is that I do have some extra money I can prop us up with, bad news is I am legally a team-less trainer."
"So, you are both trainers then? How does that work?" Chesnaught questioned as they all started towards the nearest open area to work on combat.
"I'm still registered to Alexa's team, apparently that's not hard to setup, but I also 'left my home region' so I 'need ID on hand' for League reasons since I'm in the system," Charizard specified with a wave of the trainer card. "Apparently it is the case that the League wants to make sure people who have trainer education are kept track of when they travel, even when they've never gotten a Starter, let alone acted like a trainer."
"I wish I could say something about that, but you are the first open pokemon who are also trainers I've ever met," William admitted. "The only others I've met have been able to either transform or illusion themselves as humans."
"Maybe another topic will help get your mind off it," Goodra suggested suddenly. "How about Acid Armor, what do you think of it?"
"Haven't had much chance to try it myself, just a bit when we arrived in the region," Charizard admitted with a hint of a smile, while William internally screamed loud enough that a Psychic might actually hear it.
"I've tried it a bit so far, but I do have a couple of options for it so I know there are differences in how it works in practice," Alexa agreed far too easily. "Molten metal definitely flows easier than molten rock, although I think it also gets hotter so I'm not the safest in those forms."
Goodra looked like the happiest slug in the world, while Chesnaught had turned a dark look towards William that he honestly found fully justified.
---
Union Cave had a very well traveled path, and also a number of warning signs that said other paths were restricted due to connection to the Ruins of Alph. Alexa, currently molten and hardened metal in the shape of a bee, looked over those next to her similarly liquid metal Starter. "So, how worried should I be about those signs being here when we're days away from the Ruins?" she asked mostly in general.
"Probably not very worried unless we try to go down those paths," Charizard joked, once again in his Water/Steel form they had started off the trip with. "I don't think our luck is that bad."
"Please don't tempt fate," William lamented idly as he kept an eye on the wider caverns and wetter areas. "Also keep an eye out, this cave is supposed to be a good place to find Wooper, and I really would like to have one on the team. I looked it up at the Center and this is the best place in the region to find them."
Alexa had never sought out a specific pokemon before, so the idea was still a bit strange to her. "Well, you can ask pokemon we spot can't you?" she suggested just to say something. "That always seemed to be the best method to try that for me."
William looked at her with some confusion. "That is... that is exactly what every Zoroark I've met has said before they actually try it," he said with a blink. "It is sort of a fifty/fifty thing, you either end up with one who really wants a trainer, or spook them all by starting off with asking. Usually it is better to just look for some and ask them when you find them. If they don't attack first."
"I'm fairly sure you asked about me back when you caught me," Goodra noted. Alexa liked the strange foreign Dragon type, and he had some interesting ideas about the application of Acid Armor. It was a rare skill, and she had wanted a pokemon around to help on that topic, even if it had seemed unlikely all things considered. "But I suppose I did really want a trainer back when I was a Goomy."
"You're a Dragon. Spotting a Dragon is hard enough that spooking you wasn't much worse than looking first," William said with a smile. "Not to mention you were far enough off the path I knew I'd need to deal with parents first."
"Kingler still wants to work out an easier Dragon option for us," Charizard considered out loud, and Alexa nodded.
"Yeah, I'm not exactly up for most Dragons. Kingler has already been fairly strange to train after the change," she said in quiet agreement.
"Which is trainer?" a passing Zubat questioned with a bit of confusion. Alexa, William, and an unhappy Charizard all held up a claw. "Quagsire in third water down main path," they said to William. "Pokemon can be trainer?" they asked afterwards with concern but simply flew off without an answer.
"So that's happened to us six times that I know of," Goodra said. "And I usually sit things out a lot since I finished evolving."
"I was helping someone else look for four of those," William grumbled as they set off for the apparent location of his goal. "And it happens to every trainer."
"It does," Alexa agreed at the same time as Charizard. "They always do that. If a trainer mentions that they are after something specific then the nearest pokemon in earshot tends to say where that species lives around there," Charizard continued with more detail.
"My team and I tried to get across what they were hearing a couple of times, but it takes a while for them to tell me when I'm human, and we weren't actually traveling with any of those trainers," Alexa added. She left out that the real problem was that other trainers that she had told didn't believe her about it. "Why do you want a Wooper? Are they really impressive?" she asked, because the last time she tried to help with this sort of thing was for some wild Dratini from a larger group that had escaped the Safari Zone, or maybe just been released by trainers. A 'small' group of six Dragonite parents, aunts, and uncles was an issue only a Champion would go up against casually, and it had taken a very carefully worded discussion to avoid any issues.
"Not typically, but they are Water/Ground types," William easily answered. "It is a combination that makes the Water type completely immune to Electric types. How would you handle that?" he asked absentmindedly.
"My only typical Electric type is also Grass, I have another Grass type most of the time, and a few of my pokemon know Soak," Alexa answered easily, and on a whim melted her body to mimic each of the pokemon vaguely as she mentioned them. Bellossom's shape was easy enough, although Alexa went for the new reptile shape instead of the more typical Bellossom shape. Rhydon's altered form was something she didn't think she pulled off, as there were just too many leaves to split off. Charizard was also simple, and got a laugh out of her Starter. Kingler was at least the right number of limbs and felt easier to hold than the rest of that set.
"That was amazing," Goodra said with wonder at her display. "You looked just like your Charizard, even the color." Alexa was surprised about that, she hadn't really been thinking about changing color.
"I'm not sure if I want to clarify if he can use Soak all the time, and I am sure I asked the wrong person that question," William sighed as Alexa returned to her current default shape. "Anyway, I've missed out on the combination a couple of times now, and Wooper are this region's."
"We have options for both the Ground and Water types," Alexa had to note. "We even know how to make sure the final setup is only those two."
A large blue salamander with a purple back then emerged from the specified pool of water, and they had a smaller blue salamander with a giant head in their paws. "Here, she's your problem now," the Quagsire declared and handed the Wooper to William. "Maybe being around some weird Legendary will calm her down." Before they could ask any questions the larger salamander slipped beneath the surface of the water.
"I think this is the second time that's happened to us, but Hawlucha wasn't that great of a fit for the team," Goodra noted uneasily while William sighed loudly. "I hope that isn't a bad sign."
Given that it had taken a Legendary pokemon's intervention to get William a Mareep, it was only expected that they didn't even see a wild Wooper by the time they reached the entrance to Union Cave. It wasn't uncommon to run into that sort of issue, wild pokemon tended to pull back from the routes for a bit after a League started. Just until the larger group of new trainers on the roads thinned out, from actual conversation he knew it was because being tired out by a trainer that couldn't handle them wasn't worth it. The younger pokemon, and those who could spare the energy, would come out more often in the early weeks, but there were only so many of those.
"So, has she forgiven you yet?" Chesnaught asked quietly as they approached the Pokemon Center a bit ahead of Alexa. The other trainer was lagging behind a bit to continue work with Heracross on a switch from Steel to Poison for secondary type.
"I think so, but mostly because I've remembered to actually go over the way a pokemon is supposed to get help if they are caught without wanting to be," William admitted. It was a stupid thing to forget, almost as bad as forgetting that he had been traveling with a Legendary and asking to catch another. While it was something to not pass up, that particularly was fairly rude and he should have known that. "I think knowing that I've got a few practical solutions to the issue for myself helped patch things up, but I really wish I didn't ask to catch Raikou like that in the first place. At best I should have just asked if he could help me find another Electric type in the first place."
"I would have thought her Charizard could have told her about those," his Starter said a bit grumpy with the whole thing.
"They're both from Kanto," William quietly said with a bit more unease than he expected. "Charizard didn't get classes on how to deal with if someone tried to catch him as a trainer. Nobody thought to teach him that." It was a bit horrifying to consider that Charizard would be one of the very first Kanto native pokemon to become trainers, and definitely would have been the first that couldn't speak to humans, but would not get the basic information that the Zoroark had thought was common knowledge among civilized pokemon. "They both needed to know what they could do, and now I'm a bit worried the local Pokemon Centers might not be entirely ready to handle things if any of the three of us are caught by someone else."
"William, that is a worse problem than the Legendary you got Chosen by being mad at you!" Chesnaught argued, then cut off as they spotted a buggy Alexa and a giant blue bat pokemon. "I thought you were done with the Flying type?" she questioned the new arrivals.
"We worked out how to make Stable Cloud," the Vespikiln complained. "It turns out that is the easy part, and I might have overlooked that it is actually a kind of trash for sky living pokemon."
"It does need a bit of Legendary power," Heracross grumbled. "But you only need to know how to use the Flying type around that to have a pile of the stuff."
"You were human the last time I saw you," William noted to the other trainer.
"Chitin Powder buildup in one of the folds of my bag," Alexa complained. "Which I'm going to need to look for after this is over with." The insect trainer sighed. "Although I was planning on turning into Vespikiln again for Azalea Town. Might as well get some experiments with things that extend this one while I can."
William wasn't sure if that was the kind of thing that came from being a shapeshifter, a Professor's daughter, or both, but he did know that he was happy to avoid being a participant in those tests. At most he had a Mareep with an extra Fire type who had been taught how to make other pokemon into Fire types. "I'm going to have to worry about becoming something else if I have to handle your stuff, aren't I?" he questioned with a sigh.
"I'm going to have to learn to clean better so you don't have to worry about that," Alexa corrected strongly. "If you do end up changed by me then I've made a major mistake."
"I will still warn the team, especially Goodra," William admitted. "I want to keep up with his training, and Carracosta wants to head to the ranch so he can call his parents a bit more often."
"Charizard is going to go over his trainer card stuff too, and I'm calling home when we get to that Center," Alexa agreed easily, which was a relief as some trainers with smaller teams William had traveled with had gotten touchy about switching out pokemon. "I kind of wanted to be human for that, but hopefully mom understands."
---
Charizard looked at the counter with some degree of unease as he considered how to handle this. He had the little notepad open to a blank page and a pen in his claws. He knew his trainer ID information well enough. Alexa was over by the phones. He was most definitely stalling.
He quickly wrote down the message he needed to say. A quick hello with his ID details and that he wanted to check on his account before they reached the next town, and after a moment's thought another couple of sentences to say that he was quite happy to be a Starter and only suspected his parents had put money into the account. Hopefully that got across that he only wanted to check on things.
"Oh, hello there, here to help out your trainer?" the Center's Nurse Joy asked with a head bob towards William at the transfer computers. Charizard rolled his eyes, pointed at Alexa over by the phones, and then handed over his notebook.
Nurse Joy spent a long moment reading the page, with an occasional glance towards Alexa, before she responded. "Let me just verify your records," she carefully said and went over to her computer. Charizard waited patiently, but soon grew nervous as she frowned deeply. "I can see you are registered as both a trainer and a Starter. Both of those are actually still valid, even if you don't have your own team yet. I'll admit that I've not met a pokemon who is also a trainer before, but I was under the impression it was a one or the other thing."
Charizard pointed quite clearly at the word 'Starter' on his writing. "I'm going to have to look some things up," Nurse Joy told him professionally. "I'll call you back up when I have a better answer for you." He walked away with a huff and moved back to Alexa.
---
Alexa started up the phone with just a glance over to where Charizard had started to approach the desk. Her mother answered, although it took a moment for Alexa to fully process the other Vespikiln on the video screen. "Uh, hi mom. I, um, had a bit of a cleanup issue," Alexa nervously admitted, with a glance at the other trainers in the building. Most of them seemed to have looked up when she said something, then returned to their own tasks with the sight of the video display.
"You take after your father a bit too much," her mother buzzed a bit dryly. "He's been a bit careless with this powder stuff, and I've had to clean up a lot to try and keep from being stuck like this for another week."
"Well, I haven't gotten anyone I'm traveling with by accident yet," Alexa was able to note, although it wasn't a great defense. Her mother hummed, which was a strange sound made more with wings than anything else, and clearly wanted more explanation. "Did dad pass along that I'm traveling with another trainer this time?"
"Yes, he did bring it up," her mother replied with a bit of a head movement that meant the older Vespikiln was aware of how many humans were present. "Has that been going well?"
"I'm bad at translating for other pokemon," Alexa joked. "He's got an actual trained translator on his team, so it has been nice to have someone who doesn't look at me a bit funny for talking with my team so much."
"Is that really that hard to do?" her mother, who had taught her everything she knew about interacting with pokemon, questioned with honest confusion that reassured Alexa greatly.
"Apparently, Charizard even agreed with him about it," Alexa complained with a huff-like buzz.
"Well, it looks like I'm going to be waiting for paperwork stuff before I can-" Charizard then interrupted as he stomped up, and then paused as he spotted Alexa's mother on the monitor. "Um, Miss Larch, I see you can probably understand me."
"Your parents have let me know the full situation Charles," Alexa's mother replied with some strange and horrible movement of her mandibles.
"Who is 'Charles' and stop trying to smile, it has not worked for Alexa in that form and it isn't working for you," Charizard demanded. "I wonder if other Vespikiln try and smile like that too."
"You don't recognize the name Charles," her mother said dully, it clearly wasn't a question.
"It sounds kind of like the kind of pun my human brother would give to a char," Charizard answered with a deep frown. "I'm going to yell at him. Maybe try and light him- No, wait I'm going to soak him, he's used to fire."
"Alright, if you weren't aware that your officially recognized name is 'Charles Larch' due to some obscure adoption laws, then I probably should have told Alexa about it right after the Lucario came over to talk about them," Alexa's mother added.
Alexa nodded at that with a bit of confusion. "Don't call you 'Charles'?" she questioned her Starter.
"Do not call me Charles," he agreed with a huff of flames.
"Charles Larch," Nurse Joy called out.
Alexa didn't try and give her pokemon a smile this time, but he at least didn't stomp back to the counter. "So, did you think I already knew about Charizard being a trainer, or...?" she wasn't actually sure what the 'or' would be honestly.
"I figured that he would have told you after you became a pokemon for the first time," her mother said serenely. "So have you seen any interesting sights? I know you planned on visiting the Ruins before you set off further away."
"That went well all things considered. I ended up recruited into helping out a science team," Alexa answered easily avoiding the core issue for a bit longer to discuss how much her father seemed to have set things up absentmindedly without letting her know again. However, she did eventually shift to a buzz that the humans in the building would not understand to explain the encounter with the Unown. "And then we met up with the researcher again and she mentioned that they sometimes fight Legendary pokemon who don't let them scan them."
"Have you met any Legendary pokemon?" her mother questioned with a bit of a joking laugh, and a still human understandable speech.
"A Raikou, the one from the last Johto League, showed up to check on what the Unown found," Alexa nervously admitted, still in a buzz.
"The Burned Tower's Raikou? One of Ho-Oh's adopted children?" her mother buzzed back with a lot more concern.
"His father wanted to know more about me," the younger Vespikiln added with a rustle-sigh. "Mom, if anything happens to me, or I don't call for too long, can you try and contact him to see if he can help?"
"If you don't make a call in time I can and will contact Ho-Oh to fix that, yes," her mother firmly stated.
"Uh, wait I meant Raikou, not Ho-Oh!" Alexa quickly corrected.
---
William looked over Goodra outside of the Center as he waited for Alexa to emerge for some afternoon training. "Okay," the Dragon noted. "So, most of them know Acid Armor at least some of the time? Because I still think I can work out how to teach the rest of you. It is a wonderful way to de-stress."
"I think they have plenty of options I don't want to take that would help me learn," Chesnaught grumbled. "Have you introduced Mareep to our Dragon yet?"
"I've met the cute little blob of magma," Goodra happily declared. "I'm very certain he can learn it."
"I'm honestly a bit unsure that asking Alexa and her team about teaching Acid Armor is a great idea," William somewhat desperately noted. Goodra had been fairly consistent about that desire for multiple Leagues now, and they had been treated to a number of little lectures that sometimes had William's fur itching in strange ways. Which he now realized was a major reason that he should not let his Dragon meet Alexa and her team, but it was likely a bit late for that.
"I want to roar at her," Charizard then said as the Fire/Flying type stomped out of the Pokemon Center. "I really want to roar at her, but I know she's just doing her job."
"At least you don't actually need to do anything?" Alexa nervously suggested just behind the winged reptile. Charizard was holding onto a small card.
"I'm going to turn my brother into a proper Fire type and then... Wait, Magma Contagion makes humans immune to the Water type, that won't work," Charizard continued to complain and William was able to spot that the card was specifically a trainer card, possibly with Charizard's face on it. "Ugh, well good news is that I do have some extra money I can prop us up with, bad news is I am legally a team-less trainer."
"So, you are both trainers then? How does that work?" Chesnaught questioned as they all started towards the nearest open area to work on combat.
"I'm still registered to Alexa's team, apparently that's not hard to setup, but I also 'left my home region' so I 'need ID on hand' for League reasons since I'm in the system," Charizard specified with a wave of the trainer card. "Apparently it is the case that the League wants to make sure people who have trainer education are kept track of when they travel, even when they've never gotten a Starter, let alone acted like a trainer."
"I wish I could say something about that, but you are the first open pokemon who are also trainers I've ever met," William admitted. "The only others I've met have been able to either transform or illusion themselves as humans."
"Maybe another topic will help get your mind off it," Goodra suggested suddenly. "How about Acid Armor, what do you think of it?"
"Haven't had much chance to try it myself, just a bit when we arrived in the region," Charizard admitted with a hint of a smile, while William internally screamed loud enough that a Psychic might actually hear it.
"I've tried it a bit so far, but I do have a couple of options for it so I know there are differences in how it works in practice," Alexa agreed far too easily. "Molten metal definitely flows easier than molten rock, although I think it also gets hotter so I'm not the safest in those forms."
Goodra looked like the happiest slug in the world, while Chesnaught had turned a dark look towards William that he honestly found fully justified.
---
Union Cave had a very well traveled path, and also a number of warning signs that said other paths were restricted due to connection to the Ruins of Alph. Alexa, currently molten and hardened metal in the shape of a bee, looked over those next to her similarly liquid metal Starter. "So, how worried should I be about those signs being here when we're days away from the Ruins?" she asked mostly in general.
"Probably not very worried unless we try to go down those paths," Charizard joked, once again in his Water/Steel form they had started off the trip with. "I don't think our luck is that bad."
"Please don't tempt fate," William lamented idly as he kept an eye on the wider caverns and wetter areas. "Also keep an eye out, this cave is supposed to be a good place to find Wooper, and I really would like to have one on the team. I looked it up at the Center and this is the best place in the region to find them."
Alexa had never sought out a specific pokemon before, so the idea was still a bit strange to her. "Well, you can ask pokemon we spot can't you?" she suggested just to say something. "That always seemed to be the best method to try that for me."
William looked at her with some confusion. "That is... that is exactly what every Zoroark I've met has said before they actually try it," he said with a blink. "It is sort of a fifty/fifty thing, you either end up with one who really wants a trainer, or spook them all by starting off with asking. Usually it is better to just look for some and ask them when you find them. If they don't attack first."
"I'm fairly sure you asked about me back when you caught me," Goodra noted. Alexa liked the strange foreign Dragon type, and he had some interesting ideas about the application of Acid Armor. It was a rare skill, and she had wanted a pokemon around to help on that topic, even if it had seemed unlikely all things considered. "But I suppose I did really want a trainer back when I was a Goomy."
"You're a Dragon. Spotting a Dragon is hard enough that spooking you wasn't much worse than looking first," William said with a smile. "Not to mention you were far enough off the path I knew I'd need to deal with parents first."
"Kingler still wants to work out an easier Dragon option for us," Charizard considered out loud, and Alexa nodded.
"Yeah, I'm not exactly up for most Dragons. Kingler has already been fairly strange to train after the change," she said in quiet agreement.
"Which is trainer?" a passing Zubat questioned with a bit of confusion. Alexa, William, and an unhappy Charizard all held up a claw. "Quagsire in third water down main path," they said to William. "Pokemon can be trainer?" they asked afterwards with concern but simply flew off without an answer.
"So that's happened to us six times that I know of," Goodra said. "And I usually sit things out a lot since I finished evolving."
"I was helping someone else look for four of those," William grumbled as they set off for the apparent location of his goal. "And it happens to every trainer."
"It does," Alexa agreed at the same time as Charizard. "They always do that. If a trainer mentions that they are after something specific then the nearest pokemon in earshot tends to say where that species lives around there," Charizard continued with more detail.
"My team and I tried to get across what they were hearing a couple of times, but it takes a while for them to tell me when I'm human, and we weren't actually traveling with any of those trainers," Alexa added. She left out that the real problem was that other trainers that she had told didn't believe her about it. "Why do you want a Wooper? Are they really impressive?" she asked, because the last time she tried to help with this sort of thing was for some wild Dratini from a larger group that had escaped the Safari Zone, or maybe just been released by trainers. A 'small' group of six Dragonite parents, aunts, and uncles was an issue only a Champion would go up against casually, and it had taken a very carefully worded discussion to avoid any issues.
"Not typically, but they are Water/Ground types," William easily answered. "It is a combination that makes the Water type completely immune to Electric types. How would you handle that?" he asked absentmindedly.
"My only typical Electric type is also Grass, I have another Grass type most of the time, and a few of my pokemon know Soak," Alexa answered easily, and on a whim melted her body to mimic each of the pokemon vaguely as she mentioned them. Bellossom's shape was easy enough, although Alexa went for the new reptile shape instead of the more typical Bellossom shape. Rhydon's altered form was something she didn't think she pulled off, as there were just too many leaves to split off. Charizard was also simple, and got a laugh out of her Starter. Kingler was at least the right number of limbs and felt easier to hold than the rest of that set.
"That was amazing," Goodra said with wonder at her display. "You looked just like your Charizard, even the color." Alexa was surprised about that, she hadn't really been thinking about changing color.
"I'm not sure if I want to clarify if he can use Soak all the time, and I am sure I asked the wrong person that question," William sighed as Alexa returned to her current default shape. "Anyway, I've missed out on the combination a couple of times now, and Wooper are this region's."
"We have options for both the Ground and Water types," Alexa had to note. "We even know how to make sure the final setup is only those two."
A large blue salamander with a purple back then emerged from the specified pool of water, and they had a smaller blue salamander with a giant head in their paws. "Here, she's your problem now," the Quagsire declared and handed the Wooper to William. "Maybe being around some weird Legendary will calm her down." Before they could ask any questions the larger salamander slipped beneath the surface of the water.
"I think this is the second time that's happened to us, but Hawlucha wasn't that great of a fit for the team," Goodra noted uneasily while William sighed loudly. "I hope that isn't a bad sign."
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Charles? Heh, typical punny Char name. Perhaps you've been reading CharCole recently? 
Charles Charizard is certainly having a hard time avoiding the whole being-a-Trainer thing, even if he'd much rather just be Alexa's starter. Honestly, I'm half-expecting this to eventually go full circle and for Alexa to get officially registered as Charizard's starter due to some sort of misunderstanding. He certainly acts as her minder most of the time, even though she handles (most of) the Trainer duties for the team as a whole.
William's suffering amuses me. Usually it's the Zoararks masquerading as Humans who cause the headaches, but this time the shoe is on the other foot.
William's suffering amuses me. Usually it's the Zoararks masquerading as Humans who cause the headaches, but this time the shoe is on the other foot.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
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CharCole is a very interesting pokemon TF comic indeed, and the main character of that getting a punny char name twice over might have inspired a bit of the name joke here.Charles? Heh, typical punny Char name. Perhaps you've been reading CharCole recently?
That is a possibility that Charizard is both fully aware of happening, and quite actively attempting to ensure never actually happens.
This League is rather life changing for him. For once he is the normal looking one by comparison.
Good job, William. Don't just learn from your mistakes, but even help make sure that if Alexa's worries become reality, she knows how to handle it.
Translation: "Can't you stay human for 5 minutes?"
In other words, yes, William's going to inevitably change type at some point. Though it's good that Alexa is at least going to try and prevent that, I suspect it's going to happen regardless.
Oh dear Arceus, it's genetic.
As someone with a perfectly reasonable name for my species, I can't relate. I can only imagine how uncomfortable finding out that you not only have an individual name you didn't know is, but also finding out that it's a pun.
Poor Charles.
Take it from me, Alexa. If you can't be contacted, your mom will call Raikou, Ho-Oh, and Arceus if it proves necessary to get in contact with you.
Oh, don't worry Goodra. It won't be too long until everybody will have the ability to learn Acid Armor.
Impressive.
Good question. Next question, please?
So, Alexa helped negotiate with a family of Dragonite to try and get a Dratini for another trainer? I kinda want to hear more of that. She's had an interesting journey even before the story started.
Bad question, Alexa has way too many options for handling weird type combinations. Including changing them into types she can handle more easily.
Well that was abrupt. Quagsire really didn't want to deal with them, or with Wooper.
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Robo-Bird
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It was a proper apology from him, the kind where you don't just say something but actually fix the problem.
It can be surprisingly difficult.
That seems to be something of a safe bet all things considered.
She gets plenty of qualities from her parents.
Well at least in the pokemon world punny names are far more common even for humans.
Good moms are like that.
I know you mean with Alexa's transformations, but on top of that Digital Storage Solutions features a TM like method of teaching the move that will come out several months from the current point in this story.
In case it wasn't clear Acid Armor is one of my favorite moves.
I have a feeling you caught the joke there.
Alexa has had an entire other League before this one. It likely will get more mentions as things go on.
Yeah, she kind of is the type of trainer who makes planning around just type advantages a poor idea.
Admittedly a Legendary pokemon is probably a safe babysitter for your overactive kid, but yeah that was a touch harsh on their part.
Oh no, I fully meant the DSS option. Alexa's transformation options are a good stopgap, but giving everybody the ability in their base forms is much more impressive.
Absolutely.
We don't get many details on it, or at least we haven't so far, so I've kinda quietly filed her previous journey under "average journey," with the interesting stuff happening after she started working with her dad. Apparently I was wrong.
It's better to not focus on types as your only advantage anyway, but Alexa just invalidates the concept entirely.
I suppose a Legendary would make a good sitter, but I suspect Wooper will be a handful if Quagsire is that desperate to get rid of them.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
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Alright, wasn't sure. Alexa does have a lot of options that let it happen.
Perhaps a better way to say it is that an "average journey" in this take on the world is possibly a bit more interesting than you expected. Her first was fairly average overall, only a few encounters with unusual things.
Or at least means her opponents need to think on their feet about how to handle them more.
She might be.