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When he received a prophecy that he would rule until pokemon led humans into battle, the tyrannical Shogun of Johto took it as divine sanction for his cruelty. Torture, massacre, and slavery became the order of the day, and even his advisors soon learned to fear for their lives, yet fear of his wrath kept the public in check. He was cruel even to pokemon, dismissing the thought of them leading an army as absurd. When he found a Chikorita absorbing sunlight at the palace grounds, he thought nothing of personally drop-kicking it away; all things considered, he was being lenient.

A street protest was scheduled that day in the town square. It was nothing especially major – a little unrest, a few brave heroes who took another of the shogun's many abuses as an excuse to get themselves killed by the army. When the Chikorita wandered into the square, the soldiers thought it to be a lost pokemon and did not pay it any mind; as the species was practically extinct, they knew little about what it could do. A soothing aroma soon wafted through the city, drawing pokemon from their pokeballs and towards the site of the protest. The crowd grew dramatically, trainers apologizing for their lost pokemon and confused soldiers waving them on, until the crowd's size gave them courage.

When he received word of this, the shogun raced to the town square, emptying the rest of the barracks to bring himself an army capable of crushing the protests. The Chikorita ceased emitting its sweet scent and sent a razor leaf the shogun's way. With the pokemon disoriented from the sweet scent, the trainers charged, the army joined them, the shogun was slain, and Johto was freed. (At least until the next tyrant came around.)

The buds around Bayleef's neck contain a valuable spice which is said to increase one's energy and restore health, but increased aggression is a common side effect. Although the first Japanese voyages to the Orange Islands were sparked more by strange rumors than by any actual pokemon, the next voyages came for Bayleef spice, for it was beloved by all who imbibed it. In time, trade turned to empire, as it was easier to take over an island and force the natives to raise these pokemon for export than it was to obtain and pay for trade goods that they actually wanted.

When alchemists discovered the formula for Bayleef spice and managed to synthesize it independently of the pokemon, the empires of Japanese lords in the Orange Islands soon melted away. Many Bayleef were attacked and murdered as symbols of the oppression the people had endured, and they were soon driven to extinction in the wild. Not all was lost, however, for a small population of Bayleef had been introduced to Japan. They survived and even thrived for a time in the temperate climate of Johto, but were unable to defend themselves when predators such as Stantler and Rapidash encroached on their territory, and survive today only as pets.

It has long been known that Meganium possess the ability to make many plants grow at twice their normal speed. This ability, as many farmers have bemoaned, does not work on grains, vegetables, and other plants domesticated for human consumption. Yet when they are planted in a recently clear-cut forest, or even an abandoned town, they become a powerful demonstration of the healing powers of the environment; no wonder that they have been worshiped for so long as gods of nature!

But unlike gods, Meganium are all too mortal. Even before the Bayleef trade their numbers had been in decline from habitat destruction, and when the former piety of the Orange Islands was replaced by an anti-colonial rage, they were not spared. As time passed and forests were sacrificed to the gods of world trade and industry, it came to be believed that the Orange Islands were being punished by the Meganium for the sin of habitat destruction, and their worship has now become more common than it was in the age when there seemed to be one or two of these pokemon in every forest.

In recent years, efforts have been undertaken to reintroduce Meganium by importing Bayleef from Johto. These efforts have divided the community, with some viewing it as atonement and others as sacrilege, but all the Orange Islands hope it will lead to the forests' welcome return.

Although they appear harmless, the leading cause of forest fires in Johto was once not Typhlosion or Houndoom, but Cyndaquil. It is thought that, unlike their evolved forms, this is because Cyndaquil are unable to control the flames on their backs, although some have viewed it as a deliberate manner to burn out and cook food, albeit one which comes as a high price. This has made the survival of young Cyndaquil difficult, and not solely because of humans; most predatory pokemon (and some who are not) are prone to killing and eating wild Cyndaquil not for taste and nutrients, but to protect their habitat from deadly fires.

Attempts have been made to domesticate the Cyndaquil, mostly for their cute appearance. They are docile in captivity, but have been banned by many cities for the exact same reason, especially cities made of wood. Although they're making a comeback in captivity these days, for trainers are better at handling them and towns less flammable than before, anti-Cyndaquil laws often remain on the books and their repeal is resisted by fire departments everywhere.

Indeed, some villages such as New Bark Town have actually passed these laws recently, spurred on by nearby fires and fear-mongering campaigns. The next day, Professor Elm gave his Cyndaquil away to a young trainer and started him on an amazing journey.

It is a common saying that lava does not harden into rock, but into fur, and in this way a Quilava is born, for the way in which flames sprout from its back recalls a volcano erupting. The reality is somewhat less interesting; Quilava are an early branch of mammalian pokemon often seen as primitive and rely on these fires to regulate their internal body temperature. Their fur has sacrificed warmth for fire resistance, and was used in the old days to make clothing for firefighters, for it protects the wearer so well that they could walk through Cinnabar Volcano unfazed.

Ironically, the very item which protected Quilava from their own heat and those of predators, after tens of millions of years, became the cause of their downfall. People from farflung desert regions and volcanic islands were willing to pay a premium for Quilava fur. The emperor of Johto at this time had lost a palace to a Cyndaquil fire, and was eager to comply, but was far more interested in paying off a vast governmental debt than in maintaining the population as a resource for the future.

Thus passed the wild Quilava from Johto, overhunted like so many others.

One of the more interesting what-ifs of technological history is the failure of Johto to invent the Typhlosion car. Although electricity, despite its modern utility was not and perhaps could not be well-understood or controlled until the modern era, humans have long understood the power of fire, and indeed, plans for using fire pokemon to create motor vehicles have been imagined by a few ancient thinkers. But it is only in Orre, a land too remote from other civilizations to spread its inventions far and wide, that this idea has seen practical use.

The vehicles are large ones, with a rock or earthen frame sitting across four Typhlosion curled up into balls as in the flame wheel attack. An engine at the center powered by the Typhlosion's own flames propels the pokemon forward, allowing them to maintain their motion with little effort and speed across the desert sands at up to fifty miles per hour. Although Ponyta and Rapidash remained more common for personal transport, and Pidgeot likewise for mail, Typhlosion cars gave the land of Orre an unparalleled ability to move goods and machinery across long distances, linking the region together like never before, and allowing children, the disabled, and those who simply were poor pokemon handlers to travel as well.

Unfortunately, moving from one end of Orre to the next ultimately meant little, for there was little in that barren land to move and bandits often attacked the cars in order to steal the Typhlosion. But one can only imagine how much it could have done for Johto, and for Kanto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh as well.

It is amazing that a creature which had survived unchanged for hundreds of millions of years could be nearly wiped out in the wild by man in the space of a few hundred. It is even more amazing that such a creature could be thoroughly domesticated, to the point where Totodile today are a friendly and docile pokemon which have changed so much from their wild forebears that they are properly considered a separate species – T. domesticatus. And yet through the power of artificial selection, Totodile are today among the most common pets in Johto.

Man has created not one species of Totodile, however, but two. For while most Totodile were bred for docility, there were those who saw in the species the seeds of a ferocious, amphibious warrior and bred them to that end. And it is these Totodile which survive in the wild today; indeed, it is their final form of Feraligatr from which we get the term "feral".

The feral Totodile, for all their skill in battle, were simply too hard for their trainers to control. The decision was made to release them all into the wild, for their breeders could not bear to destroy their own creations; perhaps it would have been kinder if they had. The new Totodile and their evolutions went after their prey with complete determination, even chasing pokemon such as Marill and Bidoof onto the land to devour them. The ancient Totodile, who had always waited for their prey to swim by and survived because they always eventually did, never stood a chance.

>>8072902
>and survive only as pets

These are amazing. Nice reads too.

Totodile and Feraligatr are not all that different in appearance, but Croconaw, with its egg torso and short, stubby limbs, seems like something else entirely. Pokemon professors have thought up new hypotheses to explain the mystery of Croconaw every decade, some comparing its body to the shells of other water-types, others to the cocoons of many bug and dragon-type pokemon; none, however, have survived peer review. And where logic and experiment has failed us, legend has once again stepped in.

Totodile, it is said, despise being born. From the moment curiosity leads them to break their eggshells, they are horrified by the chaos and struggle to survive of the outside world. They live like eggs even once hatched, rarely moving or speaking, doing the bare minimum to survive, until some other frustrated pokemon – in some versions a God speaking to the first Totodile ever born - asks why they even bothered to hatch at all. At first the suggestion offends them, but in time it gains a powerful appeal. And then, like Bagon jumping off cliffs to fly, they evolve through sheer willpower and turn half their body into an egg! In time, however, they will grow bored of an egg's life, make peace with the world of the born, and hatch for a second time into Feraligatr.

This is of course a ludicrous explanation, but that has not stopped parents from telling it to their children for generations, nor has it prevented a sizable minority of trainers from asking this very question of their pokemon in the hopes of speeding up its evolution.

Did the otehr thread was archiavd?

Feraligatr, as any zoologist knows, are not bipeds but quadrupeds. It is true that their back legs are thicker than their front legs, that their prior forms of Totodile and Croconaw are bipedal, and that some pet Feraligatr can be trained to stand up, walk around a few steps, and use their newfound height to bite at flying-type prey. But any observation of them on land would reveal the need for four legs to have any sort of real mobility; a bipedal Feraligatr would struggle to so much as support its own weight for a prolonged period of time.

This misconception is enormously common, so much so that some editions of the pokedex devote space to debunking it, for it is an ancient artistic convention to depict Feraligatr standing up. The custom originated as a way to make the pokemon look more fearsome, and it has maintained itself through generations because it serves to anthropomorphize the pokemon. Famous paintings throughout the ages have portrayed Feraligatr in this way, whether they were receiving messages from Arceus or walking out of the ocean like the predecessors of man. Modern portrayals have tried harder to justify it, often showing them in battle or chomping at flying pokemon; few, however, have taken the step of showing them on all fours.

Most people will never encounter a Feraligatr on land. Wild Feraligatr are highly endangered and extremely dangerous, so people stay away from them. They are not considered a strong pokemon, and seldom seen in League events. Totodile are popular pets, but few pets train hard enough to evolve. And because of their enormous height, many zoos are reluctant to shell out the money for an expensive Feraligatr enclosure, for they average a height of 7'7'' when on all fours!

And so the myth survives.

(The other thread was in fact archived, but I'm too lazy to dig up the link. Google "pokemon lore" and you should find it.)

In Johto, it is traditional to trade away Sentret when receiving gifts. This is because of the fact that for all but a select few, pokemon can not be given away, only traded. Even if the ball is handed over, a trade must take place for the pokemon to acknowledge its new trainer. Sentret are used for this purpose because they are so common and easy to catch. (Trades, after all, need not be exchanges of equals.) Their habit of standing on their tails may help them against pokemon assailants, but against superior human eyesight they only stick out like targets, so one usually must only throw a pokeball to capture them.

Because of this, Sentret have entered Johto culture as a symbol of reciprocity. Children at Christmas or other gift-giving holidays will typically buy their parents tiny Sentret figurines, which parents often collect to remind themselves of years gone by. Charities will often display rows or whole halls of Sentret-related merchandise; it is not required, but there are many who wish to give something in return, either when desperate or after turning their lives around. Idioms refer to them as well; the generous are called "Sentret lovers", while returning a gift is called "Taking back your Sentret."

As for the Sentret themselves, most of them sit in pokeballs or as household pets, or are even released into the wild after the trade is made. But in addition to the trade, it is customary to hold a "Sentret battle", where the two traded pokemon face off after a set period of time to make sure the pokemon exchanged for the Sentret is sufficiently cherished. Usually these battles are formalities, but sometimes, even against beloved and highly trained new pokemon, the Sentret even win.

If Weedle are the assassins of the pokemon world, then Furret are the spies. They burrow silently through dirt and sand, or even stone and brick, leaving behind tunnels too narrow for other pokemon to pursue them, or even to notice. They escape easily, for they run through the underground as though it was a vast and endless plain. Although known as spies, they are common enough that the insufficiently cautious will take no note of their presence. And their senses are remarkably keen, allowing them to detect danger and likely even hear enough to report back everything needed, if only they could speak.

It is, of course, only with the invention of portable voice recording technology that Furret began to be employed for espionage. In the old days, human spies or Chatot were used, but it was difficult to disguise Chatot as Pidgey, and humans were often detected and killed – or worse for their employers, captured and turned double-agent.

Outside of Orre, of course, Furret have none of these weaknesses, just one enormous one. Furret have small lungs, and it is this which makes the narrowness of their tunnels often prove to be a tragic double-edged sword. If the tunnels they dig cave in, Furret will usually be unable to dig back to the surface in time. Instead, they die of asphyxiation, their knowledge and incriminating tapes lost with them. This is why those who suspect they are being watched always teach one of their pokemon Earthquake. The truly paranoid, such as Team Rocket's Giovanni, also teach them Fissure.

The feathers which extend out from Hoothoot's eyes rotate around them completely in twenty-four hour cycles. At sunrise on the equinox (although varying times throughout the year) the tufts will cross their eyes, signaling to them that it is time to fall asleep. Some determined insomniacs attempt to stay up later, finishing what they are doing with a restricted field of vision; others go back to sleep when they awake to find the bottom of their eyes blocked by clock feathers.

These tufts are of course called clock feathers, for it was them which inspired the clock. They are not identical to pure clocks; their two hands are always at the same angle and solely tell the hour. (Minute hands and twelve-hour clocks are of course the inventions of clockmakers, and have no counterparts on Hoothoot.) In fact, they are responsible for the very concept of the hour, for when standing, they switch legs every sixty minutes. Indeed, there have been many kings and presidents throughout history who did not trust in the accuracy of clocks and declared their own Hoothoot to be the official timekeeper for all government purposes.

Interestingly, despite its relative rarity in Sinnoh as compared to Johto, Hoothoot actually appear more frequently in the art and iconography with the region. There, they are depicted as Dialga's loyal companions, and even ordinary Hoothoot are said to reach Dialga's ears by speaking while standing on both legs. Given their reluctance to use both legs except in times of grave danger, perhaps there is something to this tale after all.

Some pokemon, such as Snorlax and Abra, sleep away most of their days. Others, such as Sharpedo, sleep rarely, although artificial sleep can be induced. And then there are Noctowl, which can fly over a field of Breloom and Parasect without so much as closing their eyes, and take them all down with air slashes for good measure.

When effective spore traps were first discovered as a means of information warfare, Noctowl were pressed into service as messengers, because their bulky bodies and resistance to sleep allowed them to perform the task far better than carrier Pidgey. Similarly, when chemical agents were developed and spread sleep spores across the battlefield, it was Noctowl who battled in the air and roused their teammates from their slumber. Perhaps the world would have been better off had they not; war would be so much less horrible were it simply a matter of seizing power and killing leaders while the enemy sleeps. And of course, in the year when a certain trainer decided to bring a Darkrai and Breloom to the Indigo Plateau, he was only defeated when a clever trainer included a Noctowl with U-turn in his team.

It has long been suspected that Noctowl have obtained a superior control over their mind and have therefore evolved past the need for sleep. This is of course nonsense. Even with the superior focus of an upside-down head, their psychic powers are far too weak to do the impossible; even Alakazam and Metagross need to rest their brains sometimes.

Instead, whenever Noctowl fly past a sleeping pokemon, they steal its dreams, hypnotizing pokemon into sleep themselves when they get tired. By feasting on the dreams of others, they rejuvenate without sleep, a skill which they lost with their clock feathers the moment they evolved.

Although the five-spotted Ledyba is the most common type, the number of spots on wild Ledyba vary from one to six. This does not depend on the species of Ledyba, but varies like a Spinda's patterns, with different numbers found even in the same family. The spots on these pokemon are more familiar to most people as the arrangement of dots on a six-sided die, which is no accident, for Ledyba have historically been used in a variety of gambling games.

Most common among the games featuring Ledyba was the one which inspired modern dice. Six Ledyba, one of each pattern, were placed in a hexagonal cage, each in corners equidistant from the center, and an inexpensive food item such as an Oran Berry was dropped into the center from a tube. The six raced into the center and whichever Ledyba caught it was declared the winner, as was whoever had placed a bet on that one to win. At richer establishments, this contest was used in a similar fashion to modern die rolls, with multiple berry drops a game, players rolling against each other for the higher number, and a thousand other variants played only in gambling halls and casinos. Ledyba catching contests were also held, where points were tallied not based on the number of Ledyba caught, but on their spots; this in time evolved into the convoluted scoring system of today's Bug Catching contests.

Unfortunately, their training and feeding was expensive, and the results of Ledyba gambling were often less than purely random, depending on the individual skill levels of the pokemon involved. Today, save at a few traditionalist locations, gambling is done with dice and cards, and no one cares about Ledyba anymore.

There are no known grass-type pokemon which photosynthesize energy primarily from starlight, for starlight can not compare to the brightness of the sun. There is, however, one bug-type pokemon which does exactly that. Ledian are quite unusual in this respect; their larval form of Ledyba subsist on smaller bug pokemon such as Caterpie, and other bugs eat the leaves and nectar of grass-types, but Ledian, unable to process sunlight or eat food, rely on the strange wavelengths of distant stars.

Oddly enough, despite their energy source being easiest by far to receive at night, Ledian are a morning pokemon, and many have speculated as to the reasons for this odd behavior. Grass-type pokemon are diurnal, and their movement is based on spreading pollen, finding good soil and open sky, or in some cases such as Victreebel, supplementing their sunlight with living food. Ledian, however, do none of these things; their mating is in the manner of insects, they do not eat, and they can not filter starlight from sunlight to absorb it in the daytime.

The only explanation which has been ventured for the morning activity of Ledian is one which is not based on evolutionary fitness at all. Ledian, it is argued, are used to an active life as Ledyba, and like humans are capable of feeling boredom. Therefore, after the nights restore their energy, they spend their mornings engaging in whatever activities they enjoy, until they tire in the afternoon and fall asleep once again. There are those who have not accepted this, who believe some hidden purpose for their daytime activity will be eventually found, but most Ledian specialists see this as just another piece of evidence that pokemon are more complex and intelligent than we tend to realize.

Observers of wild Spinarak had long known of the changing expressions on their back, which appeared to have no relation to food or comfort or anything else which produced emotions. This is in sharp contrast to their trained counterparts, whose back emotes like the faces of humans and indeed many pokemon. At the time, the observers had concluded that trained Spinarak learned to mimic humans, and considered them quick learners, yet a good deal of evidence suggested that the speed at which they learned was not merely fast, but instantaneous! Furthermore, web fibers were often found a long way away from any Spinarak, yet always seemed to lead to one – but what purpose could such an enormous web have?

It was only a few decades ago that the mystery was unraveled. Much like the great networks of our modern age, Spinarak are connected by wires of silk. Interlocking webs move throughout most of the forests which these pokemon inhabit, under the ground, inside trees, and anywhere else the durable but thin strands would not be easily disturbed. Alas, there is no "World Wide Web" for them, for the material they use is still too often broken; they are lucky to connect one forest to another.

The Spinarak do not use these webs to catch prey, but to communicate, sending signal beams across the wires to converse. At first, the network was strictly used for practical information, such as the locations of food, predators, and pokemon trainers, and upcoming gatherings. But in time, work gave way to leisure, and the network is now used for everything from love confessions and gossip to local wonders and oral storytelling. The Spinarak of old were bored in their webs, but today few of them ever want to leave.

It is impossible to escape from a Chandelure until it is defeated, and most pokemon are too frightened to flee from a Crobat after meeting its gaze. And yet both of these pokemon pale in comparison to the terror of Ariados, for at least they can be seen and attacked after trapping their prey. Ariados, however, strike from out of nowhere.

The slime which Ariados spit is so thin that they can even strike from the inside of a closed pokeball. The gluey substance can be sent over five hundred feet with precise aim – no small feat for a pokemon of Ariados' small size – and is aimed either at the back of the legs to make turning more difficult, or behind them to create a barrier and cut off the path to retreat.

Trainers must be especially wary when encountering wild Ariados. Ariados slime is illegal in the Pokemon League, because it is impossible to detect when the slime was fired and bench attacks are illegal in standard play. The only rule acknowledged by wild Ariados, however, is the rule of the jungle: kill or be killed. The slime interferes with the ability of a pokemon to return to its pokeball; it can eventually be washed off, but not in a life-or-death battle. Far too many young trainers have lost their first pokemon this way after venturing too far into the Ilex Forest.

It is generally believed that the walls of Fuchsia Gym are made of Ariados slime, and it has been widely rumored that Koga's ascent to the Elite Four involved him using this technique against Agatha to scare her into surrender. (Agatha, protective of her image, maintains that she resigned of her own volition.)

Hah, long time no see, you used to be at the FFA threads right?

The discovery of Crobat a few years ago by researchers in Johto is most remarkable for the fact that it took so long for them to be discovered. Zubat and Golbat have long been known to trainers across the pokemon world, largely as cave pests, but often as comrades as beloved as any Bulbasaur or Pikachu. And yet, despite the requirement for evolution simply being to make them happy, none of them ever evolved.

A Golbat's smile looks more like a painful grimace than a gesture of happiness, and this misunderstanding has stuck with trainers for millennia. It had therefore become a piece of accepted folk wisdom that Golbat hate the great outdoors and prefer their pokeballs and caves; in reality, the opposite is true, for Golbat's ancestors were pushed into caves by humans in the first place. Likewise, Golbat were thought to be unable to digest poffins, and were thought of as too ugly for contests; in reality, they love their taste and enjoy contests as much as battles. So accepted was this belief that when Crobat were finally discovered, it was by accident, when a Golbat was left outside in an open-air enclosure with a pile of poffins nearby.

A great deal is still not known about Crobat, including the long-term health effects of this evolution; indeed, some suspect that poffins are bad for them after all. What they are notable for is restlessness. A Crobat's wings are so big that they can barely stand, nor are they effective enough to glide; instead, they are flapped constantly, with the pokemon never seeming to tire or stop, only to hover with seemingly more effort than it takes to move. But they are almost always smiling, and their smile looks like happiness.

>>8072972

Still am sometimes, when we have them. Not as often as I'd like - I skip out when I haven't written much lately.

Most electric-type pokemon generate their own electricity, but Chinchou are unable to do so. Instead, they most absorb electricity from their surroundings, swimming after thunderstorms until they are struck by lightning, and feeding on other pokemon who are killed by their own weakness and the fact that water conducts electricity.

A thunderstorm is a feast for any Chinchou, but one too infrequent, unreliable, and seasonal to allow them enough food to survive. Although their evolved form of Lanturn can hunt by luring pokemon to their lights, Chinchou lights lack the brightness to draw water pokemon their way, and they are fragile enough that such a hunting method would be extremely dangerous for the hunter. Therefore, when too long has passed without one, Chinchou gather to create a thunderstorm of their own, discharging enough electricity into the water to kill all but the strongest fish within a one-mile radius. As a hunting method, it is complete overkill; the small Chinchou can not possibly consume that much food, and instead it creates an ample meal for scavengers like Pelipper.

"Chinchou" has therefore entered the language as an adjective to describe anything where the benefits of an activity are far outweighed by the destruction it caused. For instance, slash-and-burn agriculture is also called Chinchou agriculture, and like the Chinchou who move across the ocean, farmers who burn forests rotate from forest to forest, allowing them time to rebuild before burning again. The same can not be said, however, of the many "Chinchou factories" in cities like Celadon, where weak environmental protections allow factories to flood rivers with waste, killing water-types as surely as a Chinchou pod's thunderbolts. For these factories, Chinchou themselves are among the victims, and the water remains poisonous for years if not generations.

>>8072970
>It is generally believed that the walls of Fuchsia Gym are made of Ariados slime
Invisible walls

Many stories speak of the terrors of the sea, pokemon such as Poliwrath or Gyarados which few encounter and live to tell the tale. Far fewer, however, discuss the comrades of every sailor, the pokemon who are seen not just as food or danger, but as a blessing of good fortune for all those who encounter them. And yet when these tales are told, they are often read by the light of the very pokemon which counts itself as their subject, for every ship has its Lanturn.

The use of Lanturn for nautical illumination is as old as large wooden ships, for the simple reason that alternatives such as Charmander could cause the boats to ignite. Lanturn, however, maintain an internal light, and have long been popular for illumination among pyrophobes, so they were pressed into service to aid navigation on cloudy nights. They are most popular not for their practical value, however, but for entertainment; long voyages at sea demand some way to stave off boredom, so on nights when starlight was sufficient to guide the ship, sailors spent their downtime huddled around the glowing twin lights of a Lanturn, reading long tales aloud.

It is not only trained Lanturn which are seen as benevolent allies of seamen. When a ship encounters one of the many floating colonies of wild Lanturn, they will perform light shows and communicate information on weather and hazards to the ship's captain. This is because most sailors treat their own Lanturn extremely well, and Lanturn pods repay every kindness given them and always remember their friends.

Thank you for posting these again. Are you going to do Hoenn?

>>8072988

Yeah. And Sinnoh and Unova.

There are many species pokemon which injure themselves in battle, some of which have even gained fame for this tendency. Staraptor are known far and wide for their reckless courage, while Electrode have a reputation for blowing up when losing a battle. And then there are Pichu, which impresses even Wailord with their willingness to absorb and even be knocked out by their own attacks; if only they had the volts to back it up!

Pikachu and Raichu are known to forage over some distance for food, and they are poor diggers, so Pichu are often left alone at a young age. It is believed that their recoil attacks, such as volt tackle, evolved as a defense mechanism. When faced with hungry Pidgeotto or Fearow while their parents were out, Pichu had to rely on their own attacks for survival, and if they injured themselves in the process it was better than being eaten.

Sadly in this case, man has again perfected what nature invented. Today, there is a popular tournament circuit for newborn pokemon known as the Little Cup, and Pichu, with their powerful yet self-destructive attacks, have become a staple. Breeders strive to create stronger and stronger attackers at birth, caring little for how badly the baby pokemon injure themselves, at times even equipping dangerous items such as Choice Band or Life Orb to make their attacks stronger. Many Pichu will have shortened lifespans and permanent injuries even once they evolve, but neither the breeders nor the Pichu seem to care. Instead, they strive for victory in the Little Cup, and with it, the coveted qualification (and inevitable last-place finish) in a more prestigious tournament which even Mewtwo is said to never miss.

Long ago, when Clefable were being driven off the moon and cramming into spaceships to take them to earth, one captain defied orders. Believing earthlings were too dangerous for Clefable to rebuild among them, he took his ship away from the Sun and the Earth, aiming for one of Jupiter's moons, but crashed in the asteroid belt and was never heard from again.

His passengers, however, eked out a living on this strange asteroid. They and their descendants began to terraform (or perhaps lunaform) the asteroid, growing mysterious berry plants capable of gaining nutrients from solid rock. However, because the asteroid was made primarily of everstone, once the first generation passed away, this colony became one made up exclusively of Cleffa. Despite their infant forms, they continued to fall in love, have children (unlike Earth's Cleffa, who must evolve before reproduction), wage war, and survive, if on a bleak and barren asteroid far from any other life.

Collisions with other asteroids are frequent, and every now and then, a meteor big enough to contain a Cleffa is dislodged from the main asteroid. Typically, this results in a slow and lonely life, separated from all others they know until they come too close to the sun and burn up, or drift aimlessly through the asteroid belt for the end of their days. Many of these meteors, however, have found their way to our planet. The Cleffa riding them soon evolve into Clefairy, but they do not join their bretheren in lunar dances and prayer. This is because they do not long for the moon, but are grateful to live on Earth.

The song of Jigglypuff is often sung to completion, although only insomniacs and other Jigglypuff have ever had the opportunity to listen all the way through. The song of Igglybuff, on the other hand, has never been recorded in its entirety, nor are there any alive today who can truthfully claim to have heard it.

Igglybuff, like many baby pokemon, have difficulty remaining awake in the best of times. Even a mild physical exertion can drive them easily to sleep, and they have not yet trained their ears to resist the spellbinding and soporific power of their own vocal cords. Most Igglybuff songs finish after a few bars, without anyone save the singer falling asleep. A few of the higher-level ones make it through the first couple verses, causing the already tired to shut their eyes at last. With the aid of Chesto Berries, some have sung for over three minutes before dozing off, even putting most of the audience to sleep before they themselves ran out of energy.

It is recorded in ancient texts that an Igglybuff once finished its tune. The beauty of its song is said to have caused the armies of two warring nations to refuse to fight, and the kings of these countries, once bitter enemies, became friends and allies for the rest of their days. Some, seeking world peace, have sought to make Igglybuff sing once again, but all they have won for their strain are exhausted pokemon and unintended naps. Perhaps they have simply not figured it out. And perhaps the tale of an Igglybuff's song was never anything more than a legend formed by the human tendency to believe amazing things happen whenever you go beyond the impossible.

Back when Kabutops roamed the land and Omastar the seas, Togekiss and Aerodactyl are known to have filled the skies, like Pidgeotto and Fearow today. Sixty-five million years ago, a large meteor struck the planet, and no Togekiss would be seen again for millions of years. Today, they are still extraordinarily rare, having been well-adapted for a niche which no longer exists. And yet their eggs survived.

Togepi, which do not fully shed their eggshell until completing evolution, have the remarkable ability to determine the time of their own hatching, even at the expense of waiting an eternity. They are an extremely cautious pokemon in this regard, requiring abundant food and often even a willing and capable caretaker before hatching. And so throughout the ages, a small but steady trickle of Togepi have continued to hatch. Most died young, their "mothers" outraged by the strange creatures, their bodies designed to hunt insects which no longer existed. A few found an acceptable diet, lived long lives, and occasionally even reproduced, but very few of their bloodlines grew sufficient in number to be more than a drop in the enormous bucket of ancient, unhatched Togekiss eggs.

To this day, functioning Togepi eggs are found near fossils, and often taken home to be raised by paleontologists. Once they hatch, they are fairly unremarkable creatures, walking around with half their eggshell on as if unsure whether or not conditions are ripe for evolution, notable only for their usage as good luck charms and a lower incidence of mood disorders for their trainers. Interestingly, some Togepi have outlived generations of trainers before concluding that it was time to evolve; it seems that the half-hatching performed by Togepi does not completely remove the remarkable power of their eggs.

Unlike Blissey, who are seen as a natural pokemon center and therefore beloved by all living things, Togetic are not associated by most Pokemon with happiness. For ancient pokemon like Kabuto and Omanyte, they were a source of fear, a predator who could command plant life and slice through their shells from afar with leaves, then feast on the remains. Most modern pokemon regard Togetic with mild indifference, finding them far too rare to be a source of any emotion save for curiosity. And then there is Man, who considers them a good luck charm across all cultures and has dubbed them the "Happiness Pokemon".

It is mysterious that humans would think so highly of Togetic. Unlike many other beloved pokemon such as Growlithe and Pikachu, this appeal to humans did not develop as a result of their domestication; indeed, most pet Togetic predate their owners by millions of years! The effect of Togetic can not be reproduced even in other humanoid pokemon such as Jynx or Mankey, yet it is undeniably real: clinical trials have shown that the presence of a Togetic actually outperforms most antidepressants in humans.

Although there is not yet consensus on the matter, an increasing body of evidence has begun to suggest that domestication is the source of this strange phenomenon; it is simply that Togetic were not the ones domesticated. This theory has been pilloried for its troubling implications, but even those who deny it accept some kind of symbiosis between Togetic and early man. The paucity of shiny stones in this era led to a lack of Togekiss mothers, so before we invented weapons and pokeballs, we cared for Togepi, and were rewarded with happiness when they evolved.

Although Natu are native to the Americas, small flocks have been found from Hoenn to Sinnoh, which are generally thought to have been imported to this region by the ancient city of Alph. And although the climate of the area is not substantially different from that of Violet City, Azalea Town, or many other regions in the area, the tall grass outside Alph's ruins is the only part of Johto where wild Natu can be found.

And like a Growlithe who waits for their master years beyond his death, Natu in Johto have become a symbol of loyalty. Unlike the Unown, who found the vast caverns where Alph once stood uniquely suited to them even when the people there were wiped out, Natu stand guard over a ruin where no people live, refusing to leave the spirits of the dead city which once loved them as pets and treated their evolved forms of Xatu as beings one step below the gods.

Some have said that Natu, because they can see the future, are lying in wait for Alph to rise again, but it is difficult to see how such a future would ever come to pass; it has been over a thousand years and the region has only declined. Today, there are no inhabitants left to rise again, save perhaps for a couple of archaeologists who could theoretically go mad and seek to conquer the world with Unown. Others say they refuse to leave not out of loyalty, but out of bitterness, for the surrounding lands of Johto all participated in the great sack of Alph, and Natu never forget or forgive a grudge.

Although the city of Alph has had its share of kings and emperors, it was long said that the power behind the throne was the royal line of Xatu Oracles. Xatu have long been said to be able to see the future, but this was a sad and lonesome fate, for they were unable to change it. In Alph, however, they were given enough Unown to spell out a full sentence, treated as full members of the royal court, and always consulted in times of great crisis. Such is the way that Alph grew into a great empire.

The Xatu prophecies were not perfect. The simple act of observing the future and communicating it to others can be enough to alter the flow of time. Some Xatu had poorer future sight than others, and often communicated in cryptic prophecies, and even the wisest, because of the vast energy involved in commanding so many Unown to make words, had to resort to this method on occasion. And yet despite this weakness, it worked for hundreds of years, as long as the kings listened to their Xatu and the Xatu loyally gave advice.

But Xatu can be a temperamental pokemon, and kings too proud to listen to their advisors. The sources differ on whether the Xatu or the last king was to blame. Where they agree was that he did not consult the Xatu Oracle, built Alph to its greatest height of glory, and through his megalomania gave rise to a great coalition against him of kings who feared for their own thrones. When Alph was besieged by forces ten times the size of his remaining army, humbled by desperation, the king at last asked what he should do. The Xatu is said to have wept as he answered.

"RUN"

Mareep store their electricity in their wool, and this has long made Mareep wool a prized possession, especially in colder areas such as Sinnoh. Not only can it be made into electric blankets, but Mareep wool also produces warm clothing, if ones which mildly shock the wearer when getting dressed through static electricity. Although with the growth of global trade, clothing made from Cottonee and Whimsicott has also become available, Mareep wool still dominates the fabric market outside of Unova.

Mareep wool expands when they absorb excess amounts of electricity, and farmers have long taken advantage of this fact by using other electric-type pokemon such as Jolteon to shock mareep before shearing – a long-accepted practice. In recent years, Mareep are increasingly not shocked by other pokemon, but hooked up to generators. Although this practice allows for far greater amounts of wool to be produced, many customers find it less comfortable than wool created from a simple thundershock.

Worse, tragedy has recently struck the fabric industry, and called into question the safety of Mareep wool produced in this new manner. A young boy in Violet City was electrocuted putting on a sweatshirt made of generator-produced wool, and a devastating explosion struck an Olivine farm when too much electricity was pumped into a Mareep and it blew up like an Electrode. Public outcry has enforced new limits on the amount of wool which can be produced at one time per Mareep, but critics have argued that they are set too low to ensure the safety of farmers, Mareep, and customers alike.

It is said that the sport of Flaaffyball is aptly named, for so much of how it is played is determined by the ball itself. The blue, rubber, electrically charged sphere grows naturally on the tail of every Flaaffy, and is much smaller than the Voltorb, Sandshrew, and other pokemon traditionally used in Goal Roll. (A related game, Mareepball, is not played professionally because of the ball's even smaller size.) Consequently, the ball is not headed or kicked, and the game is instead played with the hands. Furthermore, because it is uneconomical to raise a Flaaffy simply for its ball (the wool and hide being far more valuable) balls are often in short supply, so they are not replaced during a game. Visibility is actually a greater issue early in the game, as dirt and grass which accumulates over the course of the game prevent it from blending in with the sky when thrown.

Flaaffyball is a fast-paced sport, because the ball retains enough of an electrical charge to make it difficult to handle for prolonged periods. It is played by advancing the ball from one end of a grass and dirt field to another, typically by passing, although dribbling is also legal, if difficult because of the rubber ball's unpredictable bounces. Some players make a show of hitting the ball to advance it, but the ball is too small to bat effectively with one's hands and only goaltenders are allowed bats.

Urbanization has not been kind to Flaaffyball; with fields and Flaaffy alike in short supply, it has lost its former dominance. However, it retains legions of passionate fans, a popular professional league, and is by no means a dying game.

In the art and religion of Ancient Johto, the sun god was always depicted as an Ampharos which carried the sun at the end of its tail. It is not hard to see why. The light of an Ampharos' tail may not actually be bright enough to be seen from space (despite legends to the contrary) but it is no less dangerous to stare at than the sun. Back when rebel leaders were punished by blinding, it was Ampharos who did the job. Indeed, many Ampharos wear tail coverings when not in battle, to avoid injuring their trainers or spectators from prolonged exposure to their light.

Although the Flash hidden machine (later developed into a technical machine) was derived from Ampharos' tail, Ampharos themselves must be taught to use it. When they enter a cave before this training, their light illuminates the cave as though it were daytime, drawing the fury of Golbat and Graveler who vastly prefer their dark homes. Most pokemon must be trained to emit a steady light; training an Ampharos to use flash, however, is the art of training one to control it.

Ampharos' light, like that of the sun, can illuminate as easily as it blinds. And while many fear it, sailors are grateful for Ampharos, for their bright tails are what enable lighthouses to guide them gently into harbors.

Oooh my god.
Oh my god.
I fucking remember this guy, his summaries are just as decriptive as they are humorus.
I fucking love you, OP.

guys, this is a non total horseshit thread on /vp/

pay the fuck attention

>>8072995
>And Sinnoh
Make me proud when you get to the gods

(Thanks, everyone, and glad you're enjoying it!)

It is odd to consider that, while sunlight typically makes plants bigger and stronger, a Gloom exposed to excess sun (or sun stones) will shrink to a smaller size than an Oddish when it evolves into a Bellossom. Furthermore, unlike a Gloom's noxious odor and venom (or that of wild Oddish, although farm Oddish have had the poison bred out), Bellossom are not poisonous and extremely edible pokemon. Indeed, some have questioned if it is even an evolution at all; Gloom certainly turn into Bellossom, but to many it seems like a devolved version of Gloom, or certainly a dead end compared to a Vileplume.

Yet many trainers choose to evolve their Gloom into Bellossom, and there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that they made the right choice. Bellossom emit a sweet, pleasant fragrance which draws their opponents to them, then strike them with a powerful, point-blank Solarbeam, winning many a battle instantly. Their small size and dancing ability allow them to move around and dodge many attacks, whenever their rival either manages to regain focus or lacks a significant sense of smell. These matches often come down to the weather; against opponents of more or less equal strength, Bellossom usually win in the sun, but lose on cloudy and rainy days.

Most trainers who choose the path of Bellossom, however, do not do so for power. Instead, they do so because they find Bellossom to have a kinder temperament, a much better fragrance, and because they grow beautiful flowers which can be picked and given to loved ones. Evolution is nothing more than adaptation, and Bellossom, evolving as they do from domestic Oddish, have become a species which humans love.

Marill, despite being a water-type pokemon, belong to the same evolutionary family as Plusle, Minun, Pachirisu, and Pikachu. They are recent arrivals to the world of pokemon, a creation of the Pleistocene contemporaneous with humans. Specimens of a pokemon blue in color and somewhere between it and Pikachu in shape have been found in glacial ice and dubbed "Pikablu" by the media, a name occasionally and erroneously applied even to true Marill.

Although modern Pikachu are poor swimmers, their ancestors were amphibious, flying creatures who hunted with electricity and preyed on fish in the manner of Chinchou and Lanturn. At times even today a Pikachu is found who has not lost the ability to surf or fly, albeit never both, and Marill descend from these surfing Pikachu. Their color changed to allow for camouflage in water, their body shape became an extremely buoyant one, their tail filled with oil and can even be used as a flotation device, making them need little energy to swim. Even their diet changed dramatically. Pikachu are insectivores, although their ancestors supplemented their diet with small fish and birds. Marill, however, are completely herbivorous, a shift so dramatic it has caused some to wonder whether Marill is merely a case of convergent evolution.

But evolution can work quickly in desperate times, for the ocean in which Marill were born was made so barren by the cold that there were no fish or Surskit left to eat, only seaweed. Although their ancestors vanished with their island home, the Marill, changed enormously, survived.

For most of Japanese history, the region now known as Kanto was referred to as Azuma, after its population of Azumarill. This name came about because Azumarill bubbles were one of the region's most valuable exports, and also because with the rare Electabuzz their only natural predator in the area, their population exploded until they became as common as Tentacool and Tentacruel are today.

In the late Sengoku era, a lord who relied on misdirection through bubbles and powerful water attacks recruited whole battalions of Azumarill into his military to make use of his new tactic, depopulating the wilderness. He was victorious in battle after battle until becoming shogun in fact if not in name, and with his new conquest came endless castles to garrison. Azumarill were posted from castle to castle as garrisons, the bulk of his army coming with him when he moved to the capital in Ecruteak City. In time, as power corrupts, this lord became a tyrant who so feared rebellion that he forced all wild Azumarill into his army, believing that he could only be beaten by his own strategy. He especially feared rebellion from his own homeland, which was stripped bare of wild and trained Azumarill alike (except his own) and renamed to Kanto. And it was all for nothing, for when he died, no others could emulate his strategy, yet his successors maintained the policy out of terror for centuries.

The Azumarill garrisons were set free by lords who did not know how to use them; some populations took to the sea or died out, but the descendants of others survived to the present. Yet Azumarill, despite their ban, have not been forgotten in Kanto; they continue to appear in many hit television shows from the region such as Azumarill Daioh even today.

>>8073051
I'm imagining the Giratina/Dialga/Palkia ones to be like journal entry from a Lovecraft story, dictated by some poor Galactic grunt who was there when the portal to the Broken World opened and is failing to describe or even comprehend what he experienced.

(As for the lovecraftian dialga/palkia/giratina... I would love to do that, if I can even hope to ape his style. Probably won't remember when I get around to it, though.)

Today, Sudowoodo are viewed as a sad little pokemon which wishes to be a tree, when they are remembered at all. Back when forests were not scattered wildlife preserves or homes for weak bug pokemon, but a fearsome symbol of nature's power, Sudowoodo, like Sawsbuck, were seen as a sort of forest spirit which protected the trees by concealing themselves like Voltorb or ninjas within their midst. Whether building vast walls of rocks to fight forest fires or shooing away large flying-types such as Charizard who rip entire trees from the ground to eat them, Sudowoodo fought tirelessly to defend every tree they could save.

The Sudowoodo of this era gave the impression of tall trees, for Sudowoodo grow as slowly as trees do, and the small, shrub-like Sudowoodo so often seen by trainers are saplings compared to those which still stand, undetected, in many forests today. They are unable to offer meaningful resistance against the timber and paper industries, and content themselves by breaking chainsaws and axes with their body whenever an unfortunate logger mistakes them for a tree, then run away to blend back into the forest and damage more equipment another day.

Sudowoodo stone is itself a building material far more valuable than timber, one typically seen only in royal palaces and aristocratic estates. It is valuable not because of its rarity, but because the only way to harvest an old-growth Sudowoodo is to threaten its home with overwhelming force (typically a whole army) and promise to spare the forest at the cost of its own life. These promises are usually kept, for when they are not, the other Sudowoodo of the forest exact an enormous price for this betrayal, and the palace walls themselves often mysteriously cave in.

They have no crown on their head, just a curled hair; no claim to the throne, save for a rock which is called magical because pokemon flinch when it is thrown at them. And yet to their followers, Politoed might as well be sitting on the Chrysanthemum Throne and ruling a vast empire.

Politoed maintain power in the way which most monarchies do; by brainwashing their subjects. Absent a friendly clergy preaching the Divine Right of Kings, or an appeal to the glory of the nation, Politoed brainwash their subjects the old-fashioned way: through hypnosis. The hair on their head contains the same pattern as the spirals of their lesser forms, and along with a small swirl on their chest, allow for a far more complete hypnosis than that of their predecessors. Poliwhirl can put a hostile foe to sleep, but only Politoed can put dozens to sleep at once, then form them into regiments and lead a shambling mass of pokemon into sleepwalking battle. Their battles are futile, over small and unneeded scraps of land, and show little purpose but to provide glory for kings, like a cosmic game of Civilization played with pokemon. Yet unlike kings, they are content to quit the field when the enemy pokemon faints, and if the territory is worthless it is because they rarely plunder and exploit what they win.

Because of their abundance in France and the fact that they claim kingship, Politoed were long seen as a symbol of pre-Revolutionary France. Every negative quality Politoed possess was ascribed to the king in propaganda pamphlets, and every positive quality was wiped from scientific journals of the era. Many Politoed lost their heads during the Terror, despite their short necks, and France's national pokemon was switched to the Poliwrath.

Hoppip are typically seen as a pokemon which drift on the wind without a care in the world, allowing it to take them wherever it may. The truth is not so kind; Hoppip drift because they have no choice, being too light to resist or even to steer themselves, and far too often meet with an early grave when blown out to sea. And although Hoppip may lack the roots of other grass pokemon, they form families and befriend one another and develop metaphorical attachments all the same, only to lose everything to a strong breeze or gale.

There are two ways for Hoppip to resist the terrifying pull of the wind. The first is through evolution, for Skiploom and Jumpfluff are more able to steer themselves, more able to ride currents instead of being tossed by them. Hoppip, however, are not powerful pokemon, and evolution must come after a long journey. The second is called combination, or also the Hoppip cloud. In order to avoid being blown away, groups of Hoppip cluster by linking leaves together, and are able to slow what would otherwise be a long and devastating journey. The wind still picks them up, however, and the vast, slowly steered cloud breaks through power lines and tree branches, only stopping when it collides with a building, tree, or other object large enough to stop them. At this point, the Hoppip cloud disperses in chaos, often breaking windows or clogging up air vents, or at times simply hitting people in the face.

Although the damage they cause is more mild annoyance than natural disaster, many Hoppip still refuse to join these clouds. This is an excuse, however, for there are always those who will make any argument to avoid being tied down too closely to the boring and familiar.

It is said that Skiploom were given their names because no matter where they go, they will soon skip town for the next one looming over the horizon. This is more poetry than etymology: many words are derived from pokemon names, but "skip" and "loom" (at least in this sense) are not among them. What this phrase communicates is a different truth, for Skiploom are known for their wanderlust.

Unlike Hoppip, who detest being blown by the wind. and form Hoppip clouds to bring their home with them wherever they go, Skiploom are seldom seen with any others of their kind, and never for too long. Although their increased weight allows for more resistance than the tiny Hoppip, if a Skiploom does try to alter its path it is only to avoid going where it has been before. Some say they are drawn by strange cultures and different ways, others only by the local flora and fauna, and others say we are simply anthropomorphizing a carefree plant who is more interested in maximum sunlight than travel, and insist that further study will find a pattern to the migration of Skiploom.

It is telling that when humans weave stories of wandering, they set it in space or somewhere else different enough to replace reality with a strange, fascinating, and divided sort of world. Skiploom, however, wander endlessly in the present, never losing interest in the journey. Perhaps this is because, like many other intermediate stages, Skiploom see this phase as a time to discard old bonds and find their desired place in the world, for Jumpluff lay down leech seeds and seldom wander. Or perhaps it is simply that getting there is never as exciting as the journey.

Jumpluff have long been referred to as the 89th constellation, or the sixth visible planet, for against the canvas of the night, a Jumpluff riding high on the wind can be easily mistaken for three stars drifting across the sky. The comparison is an apt one. True, Jumpluff do not move with the rotation of the Earth, but nor are they blown aimlessly like Hoppip; they migrate, spreading their spores far and wide until, like the sailors of the Age of Discovery, they use the seasonal winds to bring them home.

Jumpluff, because of their resemblance to stars, have become a pokemon rich in tradition and superstition. For instance, there are many countries even today where people do not wish on shooting stars, but cover their nose and mouth and scan the ground for seeds. Furthermore, it is said that night comes when three stars appear in the sky, and in ancient times this was used to mark when one day ended and the next begun. This number is deliberately chosen; one or two could be a mistake, but a cloudy night would mean a never-ending day. Three is the number precisely because Jumpluff have three cotton puffs, and when the sky darkens enough that a Jumpluff can be mistaken for stars, night has fallen even if no true stars have appeared. And it is said that when a festival night passes and only three stars appear, the person who spotted them will find a baby Hoppip the next day.

It is said that whenever we play catch, we are playing a game older than humanity, a game which dates to when our ancestors lived in trees. Others disagree, citing the many fundamental differences between Aipom catch and our own game. For instance, Aipom catch is typically played not with the hands, but with the tail; the hands being used more often to hold onto branches although occasionally lifted to catch a low throw. Aipom catch resembles dodgeball as much as catch, as the items thrown are not Flaaffyballs, but iron balls, king's rocks, and other heavy objects which can send an Aipom plunging to the ground.

The rules of the game are as follows: Players start on opposite trees at equal height. One Aipom throws the ball or rock at the opponent, who attempts to catch it. If they miss, the opponent is allowed to continue making throws until one is caught. Because the game is played in trees, multiple items are typically collected for use in this game, although some games require any Aipom who misses to retrieve the item and make a gentle toss back to the opponent. When a catch is made, play reverses, with the other Aipom being given the chance to throw until it is caught. The object of the game is not to make an easily caught throw, but to hit the opponent with one sufficiently fast enough to knock the other Aipom out of the tree. Players are allowed to grab onto branches when falling, but may not climb back up; whatever branch they land on is their perch until knocked down lower.

The first Aipom to hit the ground loses, and the other will do a victory dance to celebrate their triumph; the fun, however, is in simply playing the game.

It is said that long ago, back when Arceus (or in some versions Mew) was creating the pokemon, the first Sunkern, then among the greatest of the grass pokemon, petitioned Arceus to make his type stronger, for grass pokemon went hungry, being preyed upon often and having only rocks and soil to eat. Arceus disagreed, saying that he had balanced every type except for poison (which was to make up for in guile and subterfuge what they lacked in raw power) in his divine wisdom, and that grass had more advantages than weaknesses.

Sunkern, outraged by Arceus' refusal, gathered a large group of grass-type pokemon to steal away the sun. The fire-types and Groudon joined forces with Arceus to protect the sun, and Sunkern's point seemed proven by the overwhelming force of Grass's defeat. But while Virizion led the army of grass, Sunkern (now Sunflora) snuck past enemy lines and stole away a tiny and enormously bright piece of sunlight, while his comrades faced execution for treason against the gods.

Arceus, hurt, confused, and betrayed, put on a Meadow Plate and attempted to eat soil to determine how so many grass-types could turn on him, and at once he understood. The rebels were pardoned, and Arceus even allowed them to keep their piece of the sun, feigning ignorance of Sunkern's theft, which they used to learn Solarbeam and create chlorophyll to eat sunlight.

But Arceus could not forgive their leader, and Sunkern and his descendants were cursed to forever be the weakest of pokemon, without even the speed to escape which has kept many a Magikarp alive today. Yet he offered them one source of hope. Tiny pieces of the sun were buried around the world, and any Sunkern who seizes one evolves into a Sunflora and escapes Arceus' curse.

The round, yellow, and oversized head of a Sunflora has drawn many comparisons to the sun itself, especially because it is surrounded in golden petals which many have argued resemble the sun's rays. This resemblance exists not by some accidental convergence, nor because it presents a larger face to the sun, but because a Sunflora's head is little more than a case in which to contain a sun stone.

The sun stone typically lays dormant, and most of the pokemon's energy is obtained through photosynthesis. The stone is more like a battery than a generator, and it allows Sunflora the energy to battle hard at night or in the rain. But when a Sunflora is in danger, or enters a battle it is truly desperate to win, and their sun stone is of the right type (for many only make the Sunflora faster, like a water-type in the rain) its true power can be unleashed.

The body temperature of a Sunflora increases dramatically as the atoms within the Sun Stone undergo nuclear fusion. Their head glows like a miniature sun and spins rapidly as it shoots out Solarbeams so fast and piercing that many have said it was more like Arceus' grass-type judgment than the beams of even a Venusaur.

However, the Sun Stone's power comes with a cost. Not only is Sunflora's head often upside-down after it uses the power, but it exacts a heavy toll on the pokemon, which is often knocked out not by its foe, but by its own sun stone. After each battle, the Sunflora's head becomes a little smaller with it the Sun Stone it envelops. It is said that if the Sunflora uses up all the Sun Stone's energy, it will devolve into a Sunkern, a fate many consider worse than death.

It is a good thing that Yanma rarely live near humans, for their loud, high-pitched buzz makes them among the most troublesome of pokemon. Designed to disrupt the echolocation systems of the Zubat which Yanma prey upon in the wild, when a swarm passes a human settlement the buzz will breaks windows and shatter eardrums until driven away by an outraged, terrified, and often deaf crowd. A single Yanma is an annoying pest, or at times a beloved companion, but a swarm is a natural disaster. Apart from the military, which uses it to disrupt enemy radar, large concentrations of Yanma are unknown among humans, and strict regulations hamper effective breeding of and research into this fast and colorful pokemon. Indeed, even training a single Yanma is taboo where it is not outright illegal.

And this is an enormous shame, for properly trained Yanma can alter the frequency of their buzz. And when the pitch is controlled and made one suitable for large objects and human ears, a Yanma's beautiful song shines through. Many popular composers have used Yanma recordings in their symphonies for generations, although others refused on the grounds that it made it too easy to win fame.

It is said that there is a colony of Yanma deep in the Great Marsh who were exiled there ages ago after their trainer was executed for collecting such a dangerous pokemon. (Others have considered it a strange mutation, for how could a group of Yanma live so long?) Their mournful song is said to be the most beautiful tune in the world, but those who listen to it seldom manage or desire to return to tell the tale.

It is said that if one looks at a Wooper for long enough, that person will soon be infused with renewed purpose and a strong will to live. This is as much illustration as exaggeration, for there is something about a frolicking group of Wooper which brings people to contentment and inner peace.

Wooper are beloved not just for their cute faces, however, but also for their immense determination. They are known to drag drowning swimmers to the surface using only their mouths, for they lack arms to hold them. They painstakingly manipulate objects with their tails, using tools in the manner of Mankey or Oshawott despite lacking the limbs to do so effectively. And when in battle, although their grit alone rarely allows them victory, one must remember that opposing pokemon refuse to use moves such as Selfdestruct against them, for they too are inspired by Wooper to live for them to explode.

Rarer than even the golden Wooper, which is said to be the finest anti-depressant known to man, is a variant of the species known as a "Reverse Wooper". These Wooper are born with an upside-down mouth, and their pouting frown of a face fills people with such despair that many are driven to suicide instantly.

It is said that while Bagon wish for wings, Wooper wish for arms, and through evolution both of these dreams have come true. A Quagsire's arms are not the most useful appendages - they are short, lack thumbs, and are as much flippers for swimming as tools for manipulating objects – but for Wooper used to using only their tail, they are more than enough.

It is commonly believed that Quagsire are so happy to have arms at long last that nothing can bring them sorrow. This is quite possibly a myth; Wooper themselves are far from being a sad pokemon. But it is easy to see how this misconception developed, for Quagsire are a tough species of pokemon which shrug off being struck by lightning, fight their battles without a grimace when hit by all except grass attacks, and their mouth seems to be in a perpetual smile even wider than Wooper's.

The slime surrounding its body, not the arms, is believed by many researchers to be the cause of this happiness. Unlike Wooper's toxic film, Quagsire slime has long been a popular recreational drug and has recently been approved to treat depression. When overdosed on, it can have a negative effect on intelligence and cause the body to be slow to react to dangers, symptoms also seen in virtually all Quagsire. Quagsire do, however, become happier when given large objects to manipulate, and in the rare cases where their arms are lost in an accident, they seem to live in perpetual mourning, taking it harder than even pokemon which rely on their arms to attack.

Regardless of the reason, Quagsire smile even more than Wooper, for they are even happier.

The changing weather patterns are subject not only to many meteorological phenomena, but also the actions of countless pokemon from Hippopotas to the legendary Kyogre. More confusing still, the future as a whole is subject to billions of individuals who can alter it in countless tiny ways. And although some say gods and legends can foretell the future as easily as the past, it seems impossible that a mere evolution of Eevee could be capable of such perception.

And yet, unlike Xatu, consulted only in the narrow field of matters of state for Alph, an Espeon's fur grants them not only the power to predict the weather, but to foretell even the personal lives of people with surprising accuracy decades down the line. Indeed, so common is this belief that humans who can predict the future (or charlatans who claim this ability) are often called ESPers, a term which derives from Espeon.

An Espeon's future sight is a useful gift and a horrible curse. It is true that they can comfort some through knowledge of pleasant fates or improve their own life this way, and weather predictions make them prized among many. But it is also true that they must see in vivid detail the moment of their own deaths, and if they avoid one death a different one will surely show. Their ability to predict the weather is little better, for although rain and clear skies grow less perceptible as time goes on, an Espeon's fur shows them the moment billions of years away at which the sun boils the oceans even more clearly than it does tomorrow's storms.

There are very few people who realize that Espeon fur is not lavender, but bright green, for rare is the Espeon who allows their fur to grow at all.

>>8073018
>>8073024
I like this.

Travelers are often warned against going off alone on dark nights or staying in black rooms, lest the eerie glow of an Umbreon's eight rings be the last thing they ever see, despite the fact that Umbreon are not adept assassins. Although they can sneak around extraordinarily well, they lack a Scyther's claws or even a Weedle's sting; it will typically take several blows for an Umbreon to fell its opponent, unless the target is a human whose pokeballs are dislodged with a single swipe of the paw.

Umbreon may attack without killing in a single strike, like most pokemon which haunt our nightmares, but they do not need to. Invisible except for their rings in darkness, Umbreon are a sturdy pokemon which heal themselves and become even harder to see by stealing the light of the moon. They strike from every angle, their flickering rings the only giveaway to their presence, for they are as silent as they are dark. Trainers have famously described fighting them as like catching Beldum, for the task is equally difficult and requires perfect precision.

And most importantly, Umbreon understand the value of a tactical retreat and of picking one's battles, and although this has been made them ignored by many a trainer or killer, it has allowed them a far greater chance of survival. When faced with a real possibility of defeat, they slink back into the shadows and wait for an easier food source to come by, be it Kirlia, Kadabra, or Man.

Although a variety of pokemon have been depicted in heraldry, none are quite so prolific as Murkrow. This is not the most obvious choice, for they are a cowardly race of birds which gathers in flocks to peck people and pokemon repeatedly and feast upon their eyes – quite far from a symbol of majesty or power! What Murkrow did represent was the ability of nations to rise to power through cloak-and-dagger schemes.

For one of these nations, it was a matter of personal preference turned into a national symbol. A great and terrible king had declared Murkrow his favorite of pokemon, mostly because he identified with their reputation and enjoyed blinding as a means of punishing his vanquished foes. For another, it represented their nation's roots as a group of thieves and brigands plundering shiny objects in the name of their god. And for the last, it was a two-headed Murkrow, which claimed to represent east and west, the two halves of their perpetually divided nation: in reality, a mutant Murkrow had a nest in their castle when they had gained independence from the Emperor so many years ago.

Inherited kingdoms and fabricated casus belli were the ways of empire in this age, and those who rose to the top in such a tumultuous world would inevitably be compared to Murkrow; cartoonists portrayed them as a flock of three when they acted together to partition a rival; even without the coincidences of history, the comparison was inevitable. As for the birds themselves, they flourished behind kings who, caring more for their symbols than their subjects, forbade them to be killed. Then came revolution, and the republic which followed the old empires slapped a Honchkrow on the flag to demonstrate the evolution of government.

THESE ARE SO FUCKING AMAZING
THE SUNKERN ONE FUCK YEAH.

The hard thing about battling a Slowking in the old days was not their own power – for they were never anything impressive – but the fact that pokemon must battle them without being able to count on their trainer. The psychic waves emitted by a Slowking disrupt the communication between pokemon and trainer, filling the pokemon's head with such confusion that they only hear half their trainer's commands. In some battles, this is no issue at all. With a few exceptions, pokemon are not stupid, and they know when to use super-effective or simply powerful techniques; it is with good reason that those who command pokemon are called trainers and not tacticians. They are not an invincible pokemon.

What Slowking are, and why the League banned them unless they wear a frequency-altering item, is an anti-strategy which can counter every strategy. Thunder Waves paralyze pokemon, but Slowking paralyze the trainers, and it is after all the trainers who make the rules. Yet it is hard not to side with the trainers. Pokemon battles of the Slowking era were as dull as the Slowpoke from which they evolve, a simple trading of attacks with none of the dramatic flair, clever techniques, or even tactical retreats which have made these battles beloved around the world. Double and triple battles were even worse, with multiple Slowking being used for a truly terrifying disruption; indeed, many trainers used a Slowking simply to counter other Slowking! Something had to change.

One must weep for the Slowking who were abandoned by their trainers after the ban, and only a few brave souls still use them with frequency limiters today. But one must also remember that banning Slowking not only saved the League; it saved the great game of pokemon battles.

When a necklace is stained with blood during a spurned lover's suicide or a murder, a Misdreavus is born. The only corporeal component of these ghost-type pokemon is a blood-red necklace at its center, and while sleeping or hiding they sink back into the necklace as though it were a pokeball. Initially, a Misdreavus haunt, play vicious pranks on, or even kill the person who either killed them or who they blame for their death, but such a revenge does not allow their spirit to move on.

Instead, Misdreavus forget what they loved in life and become addicted to causing pain and terror in others. Their happiness seems entirely a thing of the past, and they only remember that they were happy when alive, not what it felt like to be happy. This fact creates a deep envy in them and causes them to torment others all the more, for the closest thing they feel to happiness or vitality is schadenfreude. Whether yanking people's hair, floating above them in their dreams, or making them lose their balance on staircases and steep hills with their haunting cry, they are a vicious pokemon which make even Haunter seem friendly, and for many people the sight of a Misdreavus is even scarier than their actual pranks.

It takes a skilled trainer to tame a Misdreavus, to put up with their haunting trickery long enough to to make them remember that there is more to life than suffering. But when they do, they are rewarded with a wonderful friend and a pokemon with the potential to achieve an amazing power.

An Unown's Hidden Power, despite the mystique of millennia and many a theory, is nothing more than language. Alone an Unown is futile, a stray letter drifting in the breeze, but it is able to join with other pokemon in a myriad of different ways, giving each a different power. They are most powerful combined with other Unown: a team of one Unown I, one K, and two L's can produce an attack which slays most foes in a single hit. In large circles the size of an alphabet or two, they form word after word, shifting with a fascinating array of tactics requiring the creativity of a Scrabble champion to use effectively. And most importantly, they can communicate over distances not through saying their name or charades, but as easily as humans use neon billboards and the spoken word.

Indeed, it is primarily from Unown that human language developed. The power words of an Unown's attacks and their combinations with existing pokemon provide the building blocks of our language. Consider the term "ghastly", developed to describe Unown H combined with Gastly, an eerie mix which make regular Gastly seem harmless. And although words also came from the need to describe new concepts, and many others originated from the names spoken by other pokemon, one must only recall the Unown techniques of "THE" for targeting and "AND" for summoning teammates to remember how strongly the Unown grip the roots of our speech. After all, every form of writing known to man has developed from either pictographs or stylized representation of the Unown.

Some have sought to tap into the Unown's power in order to conquer the world. These people are called writers, and they have already done so a thousand times over.

t is typically believed that Wobbuffet live in caves to hide their tails, a source of embarrassment, from other pokemon and trainers. In reality, the reverse is true: Wobbuffet live in caves in the faint hope of hiding other pokemon from their tails.

Wobbuffet were initially a truly pacifist species, but this left them little more than punching bags, so in the rough and tumble world of pokemon they were forced to develop Counter and Mirror Coat for self-defense. Indeed, even these techniques Wobbuffet use only reluctantly, and they feel guilt whenever they knock out another pokemon. But their tails, symbiotic spirits which absorb a Wobbuffet's pain, burned for revenge on all living things. It is these tails which developed Shadow Tag, forcing pokemon into battle with a Wobbuffet only wants peace. It is these tails which learned Destiny Bond, slaying those unfortunate pokemon slower than Wobbuffet who still manage to slay one. And it was these tails which caused Wobbuffet to retreat into darkness, hiding from foes and hoping passersby can sneak past their tails unseen.

Most pokemon trapped by a rebellious body part would rip their tails off and endure the wound, but reclaim their freedom. Dugtrio and Magneton, after all, live in harmony, and it is sadly common to see a one-headed Dodrio walking around after a three-headed fight to the death. Wobbuffet possess this power as well, although they must use a great deal of psychic power to rip their tails off, for their arms are incapable of performing this task. They refuse for the same reason they refuse to attack with techniques such as Psychic: because they can not live with hurting anyone else save for in self-defense, even if it would save many others.

Even if it would save themselves.

In many religions and philosophical schools of the pokemon world, Girafarig are seen as a symbol of harmony, and it is not hard to see why. In many ways, they seem like two completely different pokemon fused together, unlike most pokemon with multiple heads which at least look like they belong on similar bodies. The front head of a Girafarig is a normal-type head, yellow, herbivorous, and says Giraf. The back head is a psychic-type head, brown, insectivorous, and says Farig. Even their shape is different; it is not so much that the heads are opposites as much as they seem to simply be grafted onto one another.

Yet their shared body, with its twin long necks and a reversing color scheme, makes this grafting feel as natural as electric-types being yellow. Even more remarkably, the front and back heads of a Girafarig never seem to conflict, despite having so little in common. They share control of their legs, each half controlling one pair, the front usually in control, but always following the back head's lead when the back legs move first. This trust enables them to use their 360-degree vision to dodge attacks with ease or even be used as cavalry forces when one is suspecting an ambush.

Much has been made by theologians of the resemblance between Sinnoh's dragon trio and Girafarig, although most laypeople believe it to be a coincidence made into a theory by the hand of the church and boosted traditional conceptions of time and space. But their long tails and long necks do recall Girafarig's two heads, and for many the names Giratina and Giraf are simply too close for comfort.

Although a Pineco's life is long by the standards of bug pokemon, like human life it is finite. Pineco live most of their lives hanging on or bouncing across trees, growing larger, until they can no longer hold on, drop to the ground, and explode to their deaths. Pineco are remarkable, however, in that they can escape death through evolution, for the mechanized body of a Forretress does not age and can survive many blows, even its own explosion, and can only be slain through fire.

Pineco are even more remarkable in that, although many grow powerful enough to have the opportunity to evolve and live forever, they are sharply divided on whether to actually do so. For Pineco, evolution is an enormous dilemma fraught with indecision. Forretress are a species of great procrastinators, robbed of any urgency in life by the fact of an eternal tomorrow, and they waste away in hedonistic, often vicious pleasures like laying spikes in the forest and making other pokemon walk across them while they shoot gyro balls at them. Nor does refusing to evolve mean immediate death, and when at death's door, it is often too late for evolution.

Whichever decision a Pineco makes, it is often fraught with regret. The forests where Pineco grow do not burn easily, and many Forretress, unable to simply explode, go on long journeys in search of fire. And although the dead can not voice their regret, the old, weak, and dying often wish for evolution in sheer terror at the thought of their life's end.

Deep in the Ilex Forest sit four long walls of Forretress arranged as an open box, stacked upon each other like a reef of Corsola. Although they are calm enough that tourists can walk straight up to these walls, they remain fierce guardians who relentlessly protect the integrity of their wall and whatever lies within. Those who tried Electrode found another wall behind the first one, those who tried fire found each Forretress equipped with Occa berries; all of them ran for their lives.

The Forretress are normally silent, but when an aggressor approaches, they speak in unison words understood by other pokemon as meaning "You shall not pass." Attempts to gain information from them have proven fruitless, save for one exception: when asked why they guard the walls, they answer that it is a "contract with master." Who this master is, or what they are guarding, is left unanswered and unknown.

Therefore, there are no reliable reports of what lies within the Forretress walls. The difficulty of flight within and thick canopy of the forest has made aerial observance impossible, especially as low-flying observers are within range of the Forretress' Gyro Balls. None have breached the wall in recorded history. And so mythology has filled the gap, although the myths do not agree. Some say that what they guard is a strange land where Celebi sleeps forever, even while simultaneously awake and messing with continuity elsewhere in a time travel paradox. Others say they guard the gate to hell, yet it is different to imagine any hell worse than an eternity as part of an unmoving wall, never speaking with your own voice. One can only wonder about their contract, and what it gave the Forretress to make it worth it to stay in this wall forever.

The small white wings of a Dunsparce, which let it float a couple feet off the ground with great effort, were once thought to be vestigial. The fossil record has proven this not to be the case; their ancestors were in fact wingless creatures bearing a modest resemblance to Ekans and Arbok. Instead, it is a matter of nutrition. The production of Dunsparce wings requires a protein found only in small quantities in modern pokemon, all of them quite large and rare. In prehistory, Dunsparce hunted these creatures with a paralyzing glare, then feasted on a limb before they recovered, alive but crippled, but the surviving Johto megafauna are either too fast or have too tough skin for Dunsparce to hunt them successfully.

It is greatly fortunate for Dunsparce that their glorious, many-colored feathers has often seen them mistaken for gods – a Palkia in miniature, a serpentine Ho-oh. Their beauty and power were so great, or perhaps their glare so fearsome, that rituals of animal and at times even human sacrifice developed out of a need to feed these Dunsparce, who became seen as defenders of their communities and of the universe itself – a custom which continued in many other faiths for generations.

When the feathered serpent cult declined, so did the glorious Dunsparce of old. Modern Dunsparce, with their small, white wings and pathetic fighting prowess, are larvae. The depictions of old Dunsparce in art, a pokemon species unknown in modern times, baffled archaeologists and paleontologists alike until a few years ago. A rogue Team Rocket member was recently found with a large-winged Dunsparce in her hideout along with a pyramid of human skulls.

When rain pours from the clouds and lightning fills the sky, most flying-type pokemon search desperately for cover, hiding from the vast packs of electric types it brings as much as from the actual storm. And then there is Gligar, who do not hide, but swarm. Many have speculated as to why they are immune to electricity; some have suggested that they are not flying-types at all, because they merely glide through the air. Yet their gliding is more flight than levitation, and their reaction to other types leaves no doubt. They are both flying and ground, a fact which made the phrase "Gligar's type" a synonym for a paradox.

And it is this paradox which has allowed them to be nicknamed "Tornadus' revenge." When thunderclouds gather in the air, Gligar climb the tallest tree around: some desert Gligar even take advantage of their excellent hearing to climb cacti and travel long distances to the storm. When the rain comes, so do the Gligar, who search for other flying pokemon who can not locate cover and follow them until they find their prey; electric-type avivores such as Shinx and Pikachu. When they have found such creatures, they circle around the pack from a few feet over the ground, firing poison stings and felling them one by one, until their number is sufficiently reduced to finish them off with an earthquake.

This is not type solidarity, of course, but the law of the jungle. Gligar protect other fliers incidentally; their purpose is to use them as bait. But the sight of a Gligar fighting off a pack of small electric pokemon singlehandedly while a Pidgey or Hoothoot escapes leaves a powerful impression on many bird keepers, who capture one themselves to protect their own pokemon from thundershocks and thunderbolts.

If the domestication of Oddish and Miltank created civilization, the domestication of Steelix created empires. Wars in the Bronze Age, before pokeballs and most domestic pokemon, were fought with weapons: spears, shields, javelins, and chariots pulled by Ponyta. For a time crawling behind trained Onix was a common tactic to avoid ranged attacks, similar to more recent modes of trench warfare. Onix, however, could not move easily in the grasslands and flood plains where many wars were fought, and their thin joints rendered them vulnerable targets, so their effectiveness was limited; they could not protect many men, and the valuable Onix were themselves often slain.

And then came the Iron Age, which is often dated not from the use of iron tools, but from the application of metal coats to Onix, creating the first Steelix. Larger, stronger, and most importantly, sturdier than their predecessors, not only could a hundred men advance behind them (if the old historians are to be believed), but they could break a chariot with a single thrash of their tail, and spears bounced off them like thrown rocks. Armies declined and became abandoned outright for a time, for the only thing which could beat a Steelix was another Steelix, and a community's military power became based on access to Onix caves and iron.

Thus human battles were replaced by pokemon battles. Centuries later, great upheavals occurred as the first grass and water pokemon were domesticated and a tactical revolution swept the world. Steelix, despite their strong physical defenses, were slain in war and abandoned in peace. The modern population of Steelix descends not from the Steelix champions of the Iron Age, but from wild Onix fashioning coats of their own from scrap metal to protect themselves from predators; ancient Steelix are known only from ruins.

Although the art of Growlithe breeding is an ancient one, few breeds survive to the present day, and fewer still have diverged so much from their ancestors that they speak a name other than Growlithe. Among these are Snubbull (and its evolution of Granbull), a breed developed by desert tribesmen to get around religious prohibitions regarding the training of Growlithe, prohibitions which likely had their origin as much in the increased dangers of heat stroke involved in training Growlithe or other fire-types in that climate as from any divine order.

Unable to use fire, Snubbull instead developed a large and terrifying face in an effort to scare off its foes. It is not powerful in combat, but need not be, for they rarely fight alone. Throughout most of history they have been used to protect women, children, and the elderly while the men were off scouting; their four large ears and loud bark allowed them to alert the men from miles away and give them enough time to return. Snubbull are not cruel pokemon - in modern times, they are often found taking care of the disabled – but most pokemon and men fear them all the same, much to their dismay. To women, however, they might as well be Clefairy, and are kept as their pets as often as Pikachu.

There are many similarities between the fairy pokemon and Snubbull, such as their distinctive pink color. Snubbull are considered a "chain species" for their ability to breed with multiple egg groups, and many have suspected that modern Snubbull are the result of a Growlithe breeding with a Clefairy who passed down more than just their attacks. Some have dismissed this as impossible, while others considered it evidence of just how little we understand about pokemon genetics.

Before the invention of the pokeball, there were many different tools used for controlling domestic pokemon, none more ubiquitous than the collar and manacles. Initially used on ferocious, untamed pokemon such as the Granbull of that age, their ease of use and effectiveness saw them extended bit by bit to nearly all pokemon they could be fit around, and eventually even to human slaves. Their impact on the psyche was much like that of a pokeball, but where a pokeball produces loyalty, the collars produced only docility and a broken spirit. It was this age from which Team Plasma took their inspiration; had they been founded in those ancient and brutal days, they might actually have had a point.

The collars of modern Granbull are a legacy of that awful era. Early Granbull evolved from Snubbull who either neglected their responsibilities in order to pick fights from wild pokemon, or from Snubbull who accompanied their trainers on the hunt; both types were too proud to be treated as a mere domestic pokemon. And so they were shackled, and manacled, with stronger shackles each generation, removed less and less often as they rebelled and time went by. And in some twisted, Lamarckian nightmare, they began to evolve not into proud beasts, but into slaves who can never be freed, for their binds have become part of their body.

It is not needed to weep for modern Granbull, for the collar is lighter every generation since they have gained the half-freedom of the pokeball. They have always had the strength to battle through their bonds, although they can not simply drop the weights like so many heroes of martial arts anime. But until the day comes where their bodies are free, we are right to remember the cruelty of our ancestors.

In the ocean which serves as the habitat for most Qwilfish, they are an enormously fragile pokemon. Their dense hide requires them to contain an enormous amount of air inside their body just to float, and a single puncture wound beneath the surface can send them tumbling to the bottom of the sea as water replaces air, where they are crushed to death by the water pressure. In addition to poisoning their prey, Qwilfish also use their spikes to pop one another to reduce competition for food: it is a common sight in deep waters to see two of them bobbing up and down while ramming another in the hopes of deflating the other before being popped themselves.

There is only one method for a Qwilfish to defend itself from obstacles, and paradoxically, that is to knock itself unconscious with an Explosion. Although the attack will not be used on other Qwilfish, for even if successful it will only knock them out, wild Qwilfish have been known to use it against everything from boats to Gyarados as a last resort. Trained Qwilfish have even been pressed into service as naval mines for this reason, but this is not commonly done, for Qwilfish require a great deal of training not to attack one another on sight.

On land, where most trained Qwilfish battle, their lower spikes instead act as something similar to legs, allowing them to walk with surprising mobility. Indeed, between this and their ability to survive being popped, many wonder why they remain in the water at all; perhaps it is simply that they enjoy the ocean too much to leave except in a pokeball.

At the north end of the Safari Zone is a long, winding path marked on maps as the Road of a Hundred Scizor, which terminates in the hideout of the ninjas who rule Fuchsia City, a secret capitol where issues of war and governance and nefarious deeds are determined. The road is aptly named, for any who travel on it are chased away by what seem like a hundred Scizor, although to be fair most are too busy running away to count them. At times, they have chased away whole armies, and even great heroes fear and avoid this road, for a Scizor's claws are sharp enough to cut the threads of fate.

In reality, there are nowhere near a hundred Scizor guarding this road, nor even in all of Fuchsia City. If there were that many, Scizor would be reported frequently in the foreign wars and internecine strife which makes up so much of that city's history, and Fuchsia would import massive amounts of the rare metals which make up a Scizor's coat in order to maintain such a large population. Most researchers believe there to be at most six Scizor protecting that road, and maybe even as few as one.

Why, then, have eyewitnesses reported massive swarms? Fuchsia pokemon are masters of illusion and Scizor skilled users of double team, and their bullet punches strike with such speed that it is impossible to identify the direction of the user, and difficult to even see the punch. Fighting one Scizor seems as difficult as fighting one hundred, and this holds as true in the Indigo Plateau as in Fuchsia City. This is especially true if one neglects or forgets their one weakness, for the only reliable way to defeat a Scizor is to set it on fire.

In the early days of Pokemon contests, before there were Poffins and Pokeblocks, berries were turned into appeal-enhancing items through the use of live Shuckle. Shuckle are a pokemon which naturally cause berries to turn into a juice which has its own beneficial effects when prepared properly. In pokemon and humans alike, it restores health and cures illness, and further fermentation allows it to be turned into a hard cider which has replaced beer and wine on Cinnabar Island.

This process took far too long for most coordinators, who instead used the hole on a Shuckle's back to stir a mix of berries with a stylus while swinging the pokemon around until it became dizzy; dizziness signified that the Shuckleberry was completed. Although Shuckle are more than sturdy enough not to be harmed by this technique, many find it so annoying that they hide under rocks whenever a coordinator, or indeed a trainer (for they can not tell them apart) passes by.

Competition between cider brewers and coordinators combined to virtually wipe out the wild population of Shuckle, a problem compounded as increasing shortages changed the process from one of using wild Shuckle to one of capture to secure one for future usage. In time, the brewers won out, and other methods were developed to allow contest pokemon to make use of berries. But among a select few coordinators on Cinnabar, the ancient art of Shuckleberries continues, using Shuckle passed down as heirlooms for generations.

In war, a Heracross horn can serve as a catapult or a battering ram; indeed, both weapons were invented to free up powerful Heracross for hand-to-hand combat. In the popular sport of Goal Roll, it has made them great scorers, a fact true of many other sports throughout the ages. And in pokemon battles, it allows them to use Megahorn, an astonishingly powerful bug attack which knocks out countless pokemon in a single strike, especially psychics, grass types, and the forces of darkness.

It is for the latter reason that when a Heracross dies its horn is typically removed and used as a totem to protect the holder from evil. The horns themselves are fairly large, but are lightweight enough to allow Heracross to swing them around and humans to lift them without difficulty. Their carrying case must be clear, however: a hidden horn is no protection to anyone. Their power is partially explained by the fact that dark-type pokemon fear not Heracross but their horns, for a hornless Heracross is nothing but easy prey, yet most accounts suggest it defends against bad luck and villainous humans just as well as from dark-type pokemon, and an enormous body of evidence suggests this is no mere superstition.

Although it protects the holder from evil, however, it often simply trades one type of foe for another. To large flying pokemon such as Pidgeotto and Fearow, a Heracross horn is not frightening, but delicious, and these birds are often found mobbing those who rely on them for luck. It is not wise to seek a Heracross horn for protection unless one is prepared to defend it from flying pokemon, but many Bug Catchers who outlive their Heracross do so to honor their memories and maintain a piece of their power all the same.

It is said that whenever you see a Sneasel, black ice is not far behind. This is not entirely true – black ice forms naturally on pavement – but Sneasel and Weavile, being both dark and ice types, can spray it as well, and Sneasel in particular are quite fond of doing so. Although this technique probably originated as a way for packs of Sneasel to hunt large pokemon such as Stantler and Meganium, in this era it is done more often as a prank against humans, its only purpose a Sneasel's own amusement.

Less well-documented, but nearly as widely believed, is their association with heartbreak. Terms like "black-hearted" and "cold" are often used to describe people after a breakup, but it is not as though Sneasel harden hearts in the way which Luvdisc warm them. In all likelihood, this has its roots in an ancient tradition, where a man who wished to divorce his wife must first seek out and catch a Sneasel to present it to her. (Women, in this era, had no such rights.) This was intended both as a test of the man's sincerity and as compensation for the divorced woman: Sneasel are rare and hard to catch, fiercely protective of their trainers, and skilled thieves capable of stealing enough for a single mother to get by. This tradition died out centuries ago, more from the convenience of men and the increasing rarity of Sneasel than from any newfound egalitarianism. This tradition is dead, but remains in our historical memory; Sneasel trainers are still thought of as unreliable lovers, and women often weep at the sight of a newly-caught Sneasel.

As for them bringing bad luck, that is probably a combination of these two stories, warped and simplified by centuries of forgetfulness.

Although Beedrill and Vespiquen honey is harmless, one must be careful when eating honey, for the honey concocted by Teddiursa contains a powerful spell. In small quantities, it only means extra body hair and a somewhat plush-like appearance, but if too much is eaten, one must be careful not to go outside on the night of the crescent moon, lest they turn into a Teddiursa.

Parents have often warned their children of the dangers of eating too much honey, but the children seldom listen; surrounded by Teddiursa toys and obsessed with pokemon training, it encourages them as often as it discourages them. Nor is a Teddiursa's life a harsh one; it is spent climbing trees and making and eating honey, and the paw over their face hides a smile. Most Teddiursa continue to live in their old homes, their horrified and loving parents pretend they had captured these pokemon, and that their children had run away. Others whose families are not so kind flee for the forest and for the most part live peaceful lives, but must dodge avian predators such as Fearow and find shelter to hibernate in during the winter.

It is not only children who choose to become Teddiursa, nor who change into it by accident. Many an adult can find grave sorrow even in this world of pokemon training, and choose to start over as a pokemon, or simply have a sweet tooth and eat the wrong honey. They are distinguished from younger Teddiursa only in that the crescent moon on their chest is far less open and more circular, a sign of the pokemon's experience: when it closes completely, they evolve into Ursaring.

It is said that when an Ursaring hibernates for the winter, they can do so in broad daylight, for no pokemon or trainer will dare disturb them. If they do, the Ursaring typically recieves a nice meal and goes back to sleep. It is notable that this story refers to sleeping Ursaring; awake, they are even scarier.

Ursaring are a pokemon which climb trees, walk on their hind legs, and are intelligent enough to open doors: they decline to do so, however, because it is far easier to just break them down. Paralysis, burns, and poisons work as defenses against many pokemon, but Ursaring simply get stronger when such techniques are used against them, and angrier to boot. Nor do human weapons work easily against their thick hide, which repels most gunfire and is too thick to easily cut with a sword – as for pokemon, their sole weakness is fighting, and few fighting-types wish to face a bear of any type in hand-to-hand combat. Needless to say, there are very few ways to escape once one has made an Ursaring mad.

It is only their fierce, untamed nature which has kept them out off the battlefield in wartime; few pokemon trainers can command them, and far fewer officers. But there was once a great conqueror who relied on a force of armed bears (Ursaring and Beartic alike) and won war after war, as much from the terror they create as from their own power: it is amazing how many soldiers are willing to risk death, provided it does not come by being mauled and eaten. Theoretically, there are many ways to defeat an Ursaring: in practice, most people prefer to hand over any extra food and either play dead or run for their lives.

It is often imagined that if Slugma sleep somewhere away from the hot magma vents or the Earth's mantle, both of which many call home, they will harden into a petrified Slugma-shaped statue. This is not exactly the case; a Slugma will harden into rock, but will evolve in doing so, becoming a Magcargo. And yet Slugma resist this evolution with almost as much raw determination as most pokemon resist death – a likely source for this common misconception.

Slugma are probably the oldest pokemon known to science, an anaerobic relic of the Precambrian age. They have had only one significant change since that bygone era, one which allowed them to survive in the oxygen-laden atmosphere of the modern world: still, they prefer sulfur for respiration, and are therefore usually found in locations where sulfur is common enough to survive on. The reason their genome is so resistant to change is probably because of Slugma's own staunch conservatism - many refuse to mate with their shiny, gray counterparts, let alone other species in their egg group – and this fear of change applies equally well to an individual's evolution as to the species as a whole.

Or perhaps this explanation too is a red herring, and the true answer is a far simpler one. Magcargo, after all, burn hotter than the sun, and most larval Slugma, even with their enormous tolerance for heat (being made of magma themselves) have been accidentally scorched by their mothers soon after hatching, for Magcargo are prized as incubators. Although Magcargo themselves do not burn in the manner of Magmar, few Slugma realize this, and none wish, like a pyromaniac Midas, to make everything they touch turn to ashes.

Wherever a Magcargo slithers, its trail of flames is not far behind. insanely hot body temperatures heat the ground up like a volcanic eruption, and their slow, legless method of locomotion leaves their own lava there long enough to sink into the ground, burning through the Earth's crust and creating a river of lava prone to bursting into flames.

This is one of the reasons that, despite their obvious power, many trainers decline to use Magcargo: even though they spend the vast majority of their time carried in pokeballs, few trainers wish to clean up after them after they are sent into battle. Water is often used to combat fire, but against this heat it will simply evaporate; instead, one must wait hours for the trail to begin to cool, then cover it with enough rocks and dirt to stop its flow. It is not an accident that Blaine of Cinnabar Island, their most notorious trainer, holds his battles inside an active volcano where his Magcargo will simply be another source of magma.

Ironically enough, Magcargo were once prized for this very ability. Moats were usually made of water, but wealthy lords or those living on volcanic islands often preferred Magcargo lava as a defensive material, for water is not nearly as terrifying. Although few ever were so daring as to lay siege to such castles, they contained large food stockpiles all the same. This was because at times the Magcargo flames would burn away the bridge connecting the castle to the outside world, leaving the people there isolated for months until the moat began to cool.

A Swinub's method of locomotion bears little in common with that of its evolutions, or indeed to any other pokemon known to science. Swinub have short legs, and can move slowly with them when stranded, but like a Persian's claws they are retractable and more often than not retracted. In the wild, Swinub move like trainers through the puzzles of Johto's Ice Path, sliding across ice from boulder to boulder.

A Swinub's nose is best known for its excellent sense of smell, and it indeed uses this nose to sniff for small bug and water-type pokemon which hide under snow and ice. But the strength of a Swinub's nose is equally remarkable: it is this nose, not its weak front legs, which it uses to push off boulders to begin its slide. Likewise, Swinub plunge their noses into the ground, often punching through ice, when one needs to stop and there is no rock large enough nearby.

Sadly, most Swinub today travel inside pokeballs, leaving them only to walk and battle very slowly on short, stubby legs. They are owned by trainers who carry them far from the majestic snows they call home and they use their noses only to sniff for treasure.

It is the deserts of the arctic, a land too cold for any rain to fall except during the rarest intervals, which most wild Piloswine call home. Their fur, probably the warmest and thickest in the entire pokemon world, protects them from temperatures cold enough to make other ice types shiver and flee for warmth; in temperate climates, special care must be used to prevent them from overheating. (A fact which has proven dangerous at times, as many people hunt Piloswine for their fur to get through cold, northern winters. This, however, is of little concern for most Piloswine, who live further north than any significant human settlements.) The hump on their back resembles the twin humps of a Camerupt, despite the lack of volcanoes, it contains Piloswine's food and water supply, along with ice for many of its attacks.

Unlike Swinub, who can only break through the surface with their strong noses, Piloswine are skilled diggers who use their shovel tusks to tunnel under cavernous walls of ice and snow in search of eggs and smaller burrowing ice-types such as Snover. Their digging is so fast and powerful that icebergs are known to form when a Piloswine inadvertently burrows too far and cracks the polar icecap itself, a fact which was believed to be a sailor's tall tale until recently confirmed by satellite imagery.

In this phase of evolution, wild Piloswine rarely venture even into subarctic zones, although the few who evolve into Mamoswine often migrate south for vegetation. However, isolated populations have been found in Johto caves, leading some to theorize that Piloswine got lost and tunneled not only under polar ice, but through the earth's crust, then searched beneath the ground until they could surface somewhere cold enough for them to survive.

Although wild Corsola have not yet been spotted in western Sinnoh's many poorly-mapped swamps and lakes, many have speculated that the difference in color between the two types of Shellos and Gastrodon is due to the presence of Corsola in the western group's diet. Crushed Corsola provide a pink dye which looks remarkably like a Gastrodon's color, but this does not explain the brown shell, a weakness in the theory which many consider fatal.

It is not completely impossible; pink dye from Corsola was traded as far north as Sinnoh in antiquity, and perhaps some live specimens were given to a king by a rogue trader – rogue, for the pink dye was a source of great wealth and the pokemon it came from became a closely guarded secret. If the ruler lived in Western Sinnoh, Mount Coronet would block their spread east and Corsola multiply quickly anywhere they can grow. Yet it must be remembered that virtually every pink pokemon from Clefairy to Mew has been theorized at one time or another to use Corsola dye in its skin, for Corsola have long been associated with beauty. And this is not a Milotic's beauty, but a beauty which, like its dye, can be seized by humans. Corsola, being part rock-type, are inedible for humans and most pokemon (interestingly, Gastrodon are among the few exceptions) but in every age, a few foolish beauty seekers have broken their teeth trying.

Even today some skin care products tout the benefits of their Corsola-based formulas, claiming to give your skin a beautiful pinkish hue. Were they made from real Corsola, however, they would only cause massive itching. The dye does not create a soft and pleasant tint, but a bright pink which would make the unwitting user look more Mr. Mime than human.

It is common on hot summer days to see children running around, spraying one another or wild Pidgey with jets of water from the mouths of toy Remoraid in the manner of a BubbleBeam attack, or a Hydro Pump on some of the newer versions. It is with good reason that, out of the countless pokemon which shoot water these toys are shaped like Remoraid, for wild Remoraid attached to Mantine act in a strikingly similar way.

Mantyke, a Mantine's infant, Remoraid-less form, are capable of using water attacks, but the attacks bear more resemblance to an altered current than to the attacks of most water pokemon. Once they evolve into Mantine, the attacks become blasts with more force than a hose, and are expelled not through their own mouth, but by the sharing of water between Mantine and their attached Remoraid. This allows Mantine to focus on manuevering in midair, while their Remoraid, shoot small birds such as Wingull out of the air with jets of water, or repel other Mantine from their territory. Once a Remoraid lands a successful strike, the Mantine feasts, and the Remoraid picks up the scraps.

In time, as they grow in skill and feast on more and more scraps, a Remoraid will grow too large for their attached Mantine to fly. When this happens, they will lay an egg on their host's wing, which hatches at a rapid pace into a new Remoraid. This is a traumatic experience for many Mantine, who lament the loss of their partner, ignore their new host, and start using physical moves such as Take Down and Wing Attack instead. The Remoraid soon evolve into Octillery and, lacking someone to take them flying, trade in their water attacks for powerful, blinding blasts of ink.

In retrospect, there were many telltale signs that Octillery were smarter than we realized. They learn psychic attacks and pick up rocks – tools, weapons - in order to hunt their prey, even in the so-called wild. With a human trainer, they are remarkably adaptable, and can learn even fire attacks with remarkable ease. The oddest thing about Professor Elm's recent discovery was not that the Octillery ink marks so often found in underwater caves were a form of writing, it was that it took so long for any of us (save a few presumed crackpots) to notice.

Human language is based to a large degree on the powers of the Unown and the vocalizations of countless wild pokemon, yet this has proven little use in deciphering the Octillery script, a strange array of ink which resembles no letters or symbols known to man. What we have learned from it is little; we do not know if they tell stories on cave walls and inside their burrows, keep records, or merely relay elaborate orders in astonishing detail. What little we do now know is that Octillery ink is not a naturally occurring substance, but one carefully crafted in small holes from undersea minerals, eaten, and spit out by Octillery to produce messages which other Octillery clearly comprehend. The rest is conjecture.

Interestingly, when the black ink ball called Octazooka explodes on an Octillery's opponent, many of the signs seen in its explosion bear a striking resemblance to those commonly seen in undersea caves. Perhaps this is a coincidence, but most consider it likely that Octillery write messages on their target when they attack which only their own kind can understand.

One of the oddest traditions of Mahogany Town, or indeed all of Johto, is the festival known as the Day of the Delibird. Held in the darkest days of winter, the day contains all the usual celebrations of a favorite pokemon, such as a parade of Delibird floats and a one-pokemon battle tournament to determine the town's Delibird king or queen. And then there is the gift-giving.

In the twisted manner of a Delibird's presents, people on the Day of the Delibird fill their wrapping paper with either genuine gifts or explosive devices, and give one to everyone in town they know. Some explosives are practical jokes – a present is opened, a faceful of powder received, and everyone has a good laugh. Others are a mess to clean up after and intended as statements of contempt, and even cause slight injury. It is for this reason that all kinds of potions and soft drinks are also commonly wrapped as presents for good friends, and sometimes even revives.

According to a deeply ingrained custom which has achieved the force of law, no present may be refused on this day, and no person prosecuted for any injuries which their presents cause. Although this is a festive and joyful day for children and those who know they lack enemies, for many it is a day of fear, a day for settling old scores, a way for the people of Mahogany to resolve their feuds with death before they tear the community apart.

And it is exactly like the capricious pokemon this festival honors. Despite the common belief which many trainers desperately cling to, there is nothing random whatsoever about a Delibird's presents.

In ancient times, a story was told about how the strange, black, target-shaped markings on a Mantine's back and wings were really eyes – and not just any eyes, but the eyes of Zubat, whose ancestor gave Mantine his eyes so that they might still watch the great blue sky, not the dank walls of caves. The fact that Mantine have four of these "eyes", while Golbat have two was little concern to the ancients, for it explained two great mysteries at once.

In the warring states era, this story morphed into a more violent form. Mantine were not born with their eyes (which is true; they are not found on Mantyke) but must steal them from baby Zubat before their mother returns; if she does, the babies maintain their eyes and evolve quickly into Golbat. Their wing eyes were explained by the fact that Mantine rob not one Zubat, but two; they would steal more if they had anywhere good to put them.

Today, the eyes are thought to be an adaptation for a Mantine's dual environment; their front eyes are for vision in the air, their back eyes for vision in the water, although why two of the eyes are placed on the wings is not yet fully understood. Yet living in a modern and rational age has not made these eyes any less of a magnet for strange tales. It is common for travelers out at sea to see a sleeping Mantine floating upside-down above the water. When they do, its four back eyes, antennae, and near-saucer shape drive many of them to a common and ridiculous conclusion; that they have sighted an Elgyem spacecraft.

The annually molted blade feathers of a Skarmory's wings have often been described as natural swords, for when placed in a soldier's hands and given a hilt, they work as well as the artificial kind. Because of this, Skarmory feathers were prized as a source of weaponry in many lands without access to significant metal reserves, from the dawn of the Iron Age until the era when gunpowder finally replaced swords in warfare.

Skarmory typically live in remote areas which in that era were far from any nation's real authority, and when multiple armies came to claim them, the Skarmory usually flew away in the chaos. This gave the impetus for the Skarmory Sword Challenge, a competition where champions from each interested nation would face off in an effort to win these coveted blades. And it was a challenge – for if the champions themselves did not kill each other, stealing feathers from a Skarmory was no easy task either, even with their pokemon.

Skarmory nest on hazardous cliffs and mountaintops which are never too accessible for climbers. They cover the approaches to their nests with long arrays of Spikes and Stealth Rocks, as much to toughen up their chicks' defenses as for any real protection. The Skarmory, despite their new steel coats, are hazards in themselves, for they spend the competition spitting old feathers from their beaks at the contestants or attempting to blow them into the sea with their wings.

If any survive long enough to reach the Skarmory's sword-covered nest, they will find more than an armory there, for Skarmory are all too glad to be trained by those who have proven their strength and courage. Today, it is the Skarmory, not their feathers, that are the real prize of this contest.

It is often said that, while Growlithe are the pets of Arceus, Houndour are the pets of Darkrai or Giratina – an explanation which was once taken literally. Others had theorized that the differences between Houndour and Growlithe come from them being different species before domestication, albeit related ones. Recent DNA sequencing, however, has demonstrated conclusively that Houndour were the result of crossbreeding between female Growlithe and a variety of dark-type pokemon over a period of many generations – and moreover, their molecular clocks demonstrated that this crossbreeding took place after domestication.

In other words, Houndour are as man-made as the pokeball, and their vicious treatment of strangers is nothing more than a manifestation of man's inhumanity towards their fellow man. This too has led to a variety of theories; some have thought them attack dogs, bred for war, their viciousness a means of making them better fighters. Others have thought them guards bred to protect their trainers from the ravages of psychics and the dead, their cruelty an unfortunate side effect. Perhaps they protected aristocratic estates in ancient times, or perhaps they worked with police or patrolled the borders of particularly isolationist villages.

When Houndour enter the historical record, they are found doing all these things, as well as acting as pets for those few who could tame and handle them – along with a sad number of those who couldn't. Which if any of these is their original purpose has been lost to history.

Houndoom have long been associated with the dead, perhaps because they are notorious scavengers, perhaps because of the many protruding decorative bones along their bodies. In some traditions, they bring the dead to the afterlife, while others see them as demons who will bring about a premature end.

To the monks who train them, and to most of Kanto and Johto, however, their main role in the afterlife is to prepare souls for reincarnation through a process of burning.

Their burn is not a complete one, for that would leave no soul left – the pure, enlightened aspects of a person remain, while memories and attachments are usually burnt away. The form changes, too – the souls of sinful human and righteous pokemon change into pokemon and humans respectively, so it is said, and other aspects may also be altered by this burning. To this day, Houndoom are a common sight at funerals, where they are trained to spit fire at the deceased's heart, while mourners attempt to discern by the strength of the burn and arrow of the Houndoom's tail just what their loved ones will be in the next life.

A Houndoom's flame burns slowly, stinks of sulfur, and gives almost everything it touches among the living a searing pain which never quite seems to go away. And yet they are kept commonly by monks, who walk through their fires to test themselves, for it is thought that those who are truly enlightened will not feel even the tiniest of pains from a Houndoom's flame, even when alive. And indeed, these monks seem to handle the flames better than most, although their contorted faces make it obvious that they have not yet achieved enlightenment, if there even is such a thing.

The recent tragedy across Hoenn's coast should remind us how fortunate we are that most Kingdra sleep in the deep trenches of the ocean, where the strange storms which come about whenever they wake up are merely weather hazards for ships and water pokemon. When one drifts towards the coast when it ends its long slumber, it is certainly destructive, but nowhere near the total devastation that occurred when Team Aqua became involved.

After Kyogre's defeat, what remained of Team Aqua discovered how to manipulate ocean currents to bring Kingdra (and countless other water-types) closer to shore, and managed to send the sound of a Poke Flute from Dewford to Mossdeep through the use of an amplified Wailord song. When the Kingdra awakened simultaneously, the force of their numbers joined a hundred twisters into one; rather than a small, manageable storm, Hoenn was struck by the largest, most devastating typhoon in its history. And the devastation was made far worse by the fierce whirlpools which formed around Hoenn as soon as the sleepy Kingdra yawned; no outside relief could reach the island, and the local Pokemon League was not nearly up to the task.

For a moment, it seemed like Team Aqua's mad victory had come and Hoenn would be reclaimed by the sea. Yet they were soon annihilated by an unlikely enemy in the Kingdra themselves, who were as annoyed by being woken up as they were appalled by the devastation they caused. Before long they sent a new storm, this one aimed directly at the source of the melody which had roused them from their sleep, then got to work destroying their own whirlpools and freeing people trapped under rubble.

Team Aqua has not been heard from since and is thought to have been drowned at sea.

A Phanpy's enormous ears are natural fans which are used to not only cool wild Phanpy, but their entire herds, Donphan and Phanpy alike. Indeed, Donphan, with their thick armor and heavy, narrow ears, must reproduce or form groups with other Donphan's Phanpy in order to regulate their own body temperature. Humans have also caught on to the value of Phanpy, and in warm climates they are often preferred for cooling to even ice and water-type pokemon.

Despite these ears producing a fairly strong breeze, Phanpy do not flap them at a high enough speed to use flying attacks such as Gust and Hurricane. It was once thought by science that this was because their ears did not allow for such movement; certainly it would use such an attack to defeat the often dangerous grass-type pokemon they eat if they could! Recent anatomical research on Phanpy, however, suggests that Phanpy indeed have this ability, but refuse to use it, likely because they fear blowing their prey too far away.

Tradition ascribes another reason for Phanpy's reluctance to use Gust. Phanpy are ground-type pokemon, but know few ground-type attacks. Because of this, they find their connection to the ground tenuous, and fear that if they get picked up by too strong a wind, their ears will carry them like a Hoppip across the skies. Today, this theory is usually thought of as an old superstition, but there is a tempting logic to it: if their artificial orange pads are removed, Phanpy ears look remarkably like Lugia or Swanna wings.

It is a common saying of the history teachers of Johto that Donphan are the reason why castles are built on hilltops. This is an exaggeration, for height confers enough advantages that castles are built on high ground even in lands far away from any Donphan. However, castles on flat plains are often toppled by these pokemon and there are few more terrifying sights in warfare than an avalanche of Donphan rolling downhill.

Other large, round pokemon, such as Electrode and Graveler, are often used in the same way as Donphan; heavy balls which plummet downhill with enough force to knock over anything from trees to attacking armies. But Donphan have two major advantages over these these other pokemon: its tusks, low to the ground, make its Rollout a wider attack in area with the potential to stab as well as send flying. It can also cease its rolling by extending its long, armored trunk, either to protect itself or to trip up its enemies, unlike rounder pokemon who are easily blocked by tower shields.

There was one reliable way to defeat these Donphan before the invention of cannon. I do not refer to water or grass attacks, which seldom have enough momentum to alter the course of a rolling Donphan, and a fainted Donphan which continues moving is nearly as dangerous as a conscious one! They do lose momentum going uphill, and if the incline is too steep the Donphan will simply be sent flying over the battlefield. Therefore, in the age of castles and Donphan, earthworks were probably the most important part of warfare, for altering the ground was the best defense against Rollout. (Flying pokemon were also used, but could be shot down too easily by Stone Edge.)

And few pokemon dig better earthworks than other Donphan.

The idea that Porygon2 are some sort of poorly designed flightless spaceship is too absurd to be believed, yet it has spread far and wide. Although it is true that they need not breathe air and could theoretically survive in the vacuum of space, Porygon2 lack many things necessary to be effective space probes. Flight, however, is not one of them; they must merely use their strange Conversion technique against the right pokemon in order to take to the skies.

The reason this misconception has held out for so long is a tale in its own right. The scientists who developed on the Up-Grade were a secretive group who feared a repeat of the death threats against the original Porygon's creator, so they gave a false story to the media in order to divert public attention. This ought to have been corrected by now, but many researchers share the general public's phobia of all Porgyon forms, owing to an early Porygon's role in a tragic laboratory accident which hospitalized hundreds. With no interest in meeting one, let alone studying it, they carelessly repeated this lie through countless earlier editions of the Pokedex.

It has now become apparent that Porygon2's real purpose was not the exploration of outer space, but of cyberspace. A search engine on steroids, they delve through the Internet's past and present, read virtually every language, and synthesize the information as well as a supercomputer or an Alakazam. Porygon2 have been responsible for the invention of many new technologies, most notably the armor called Eviolite. More interestingly, they have recently discovered of a network in a language too strange for them to translate, with lag times far longer than their technological level would justify, leading many to speculate that Porygon2 have found a truly alien civilization after all.

The fabled black balls on a Stantler's antlers do far more than create illusions; they are said to have the strange and awesome power to warp reality itself. Whether this is indeed the case or whether they act by altering memories is a debate which has intrigued many philosophers throughout the ages, and leaves too much room for argument to ever be resolved. What is undisputed is that once they are caught in a Stantler's illusion, people will wake up to a reality which has been changed from the one they left.

Sometimes their reality is dramatically altered, with the friends and family and world they knew completely replaced; other times, it is merely a collection of subtle changes to one's personal circumstances and the history they learned growing up. Even the subtle changes can prove disorienting, and most people do not wish to risk the major ones, so Stantler are feared and avoided, and their illusions are forbidden in battle. (This is probably the reason why Stantler's power evolved, for predatory pokemon are scared away as easily as humans.) Although this world of peace and pokemon is perhaps not the best of all possible worlds, there are so many ways it could have gone horribly wrong, and so few which would have made it better.

In times of personal tragedy, grief, and despair, however, it is common for those who have lost the will to live to watch Stantler herds race by. They hope that when they wake up, they will find themselves in a better world, or at least a world free of their own agony. Some people, either out of wanderlust or after watching them until it appears futile, even capture a Stantler and train it for themselves.

For Stantler trainers, every day is a new beginning.

It is quite common for pokemon such as Ditto, Parasect or Cradily, who develop amazing skill in performing a rare or unique attack, to regard Smeargle with jealousy or even hatred. It is not difficult to see why, for not only can Smeargle learn an in instant these attacks which take pokemon years to master, but they can combine them in nearly infinite ways of which other pokemon can only dream. This versatility has made Smeargle a popular pokemon among trainers and brought them to the highest heights of the Pokemon League.

There was once a Smeargle for whom merely being among the greatest was not enough, for he sought the power of the gods. He traveled from across the lands, tracking down and doing "battle" with various pokemon of legend, losing each match. He was a brilliant painter of objects as well as techniques, and used his income to purchase countless Focus Sashes, which he used in order to last long enough to Sketch their wrath. In time, he climbed Mount Coronet, faced off against Dialga and Palkia in turn, and gained control over time and space itself, a power which he used to perform miracles for personal gain.

To preserve the harmony of the world, Arceus descended from the heavens and cast Judgment upon this Smeargle. Smeargle, badly wounded but not yet vanquished, sketched out the attack in all its heavenly glory, and the god was too surprised to move. Smeargle then cast his own Judgment on Arceus itself, bringing forth and condemning it for every atrocity of mythology, every cruel thing in creation. And Arceus – Mighty Arceus, Arceus the Creator –was defeated in battle for the only time in its life.

Thus passed the power of the priests. Thus began the Age of Reason.

The punch of a Tyrogue is nearly as strong as a Hitmonchan's, and even more remarkable is how effortlessly they appear to do it. Tyrogue do not sweat, pant, or breathe heavily, and to the untrained observer their fighting is as much a painful mockery of their opponents as a serious attempt to win. In reality, Tyrogue push themselves to their limits, and are equally known for falling asleep in the middle of combat. Sleep, however, only slows them down, as their feet dodge attacks with footwork rivaling a Hitmonlee's.

The reason they do this is because to Tyrogue, this is the essence of what it means to be a man. Tyrogue, like their evolutions, are deeply steeped in an ideal form of masculinity, which they identify with unflinching courage and enormous power, and stamina. There are no female Tyrogue, nor is there a counterpart species as with Miltank and Nidorina; those few born with the capacity to lay eggs switch their gender not like Azurill by random chance during in evolution, but by pure willpower soon after birth.

Given that the same gender cannot breed, it is unclear how Tyrogue continue to be born. To be sure, Ditto likely play a role – they must in captivity, and unless their mothers are yet to be discovered, so do they in the wild. But what do they turn into? What sort of strange creatures were once Tyrogue's mothers? What form do Ditto take to mate and lay their eggs? And if a Tyrogue was born female and did not see all that is good in the world in a single gender, what sort of pokemon would they become after evolution?

Perhaps someday, science will shine its light on this fascinating pokemon and the mystery of its birth.

Although Hitmontop can stand on and even walk with their legs, it is as painful and disorienting as a human standing on their head. Yet standing on their head for a Hitmontop is not much better; they can only balance on their head while standing still for about a minute, and must rely on the centrifugal force generated by their spinning kicks to stay upright. Because of this, most Hitmontop continue spinning until they fall over, and it is this trait which has led small spinning toys to be called "tops".

Their lack of mobility and restricted field of vision makes them poor athletes in all sports save perhaps for pokemon battles, where their spinning kicks allow them to block many an attack; indeed, it is common for their heads to drill into the ground while they spin in place. (They are, however, quite overrated in fighting video games, where their spin-kicks require little more than button mashing to perform effectively.) Where they are useful, however, is in training. If one tosses a ball to a Hitmontop, they can kick it with a mighty force at virtually any angle, a fact which has seen them pressed into service to train goaltenders in Goal Roll. To many goaltenders, this training is more difficult than a match itself.

A couple enterprising coaches have gone so far as to use Hitmontop, despite their lack of mobility, as players, making them stand near the front and receive passes in order to take advantage of their excellent shots. This strategy has been generally dismissed as a failure, for Hitmontop who try to stay in place and wait for a pass get as dizzy as humans who try to spin like Hitmontop.

Under no circumstances should anyone ever allow a Smoochum to kiss them, for its kiss is far more dangerous than even that of a fully-grown Jynx. Jynx only steal luck – certainly an important thing, but even the cursed can manage to trudge stubbornly onwards. And Smoochum, despite their youth, steal far more.

The first kiss of a Smoochum, the so-called sweet kiss, can be placed anywhere on the skin, and will cause the victim to hallucinate a series of bizarre and fantastic visions and sounds. A small number of fools have sought out Smoochum for that very reason, but most stick to other pokemon like Ivysaur, which are far less dangerous to the victim. For inevitably the vision will center on a short but beautiful woman, who gives them a lovely and wonderful kiss on the lips. The woman is the Smoochum, so well disguised by the powerful illusions of the previous kiss that none ever stop to wonder where she came from, or where the Smoochum went. And like a Sleeping Beauty in reverse, this kiss robs them of their waking hours, and they slumber for years or even decades.

Smoochum do not kiss out of cruelty, but for warmth and energy; they must rob the victims of their waking hours in order to survive in their cold mountain homes, where sleep means being buried under an avalanche. When they finally evolve into Jynx, they will take special care to protect those they have kissed from danger – sometimes from afar, others by protecting their victims' still-sleeping bodies from the elements. After all, it is noteworthy that none who have fallen asleep in this way report having nightmares; the nightmare is what happens once they wake up.

Much like old, worn-out electronics, the activity of an Elekid is sharply limited by its abysmal battery life. An Elekid which does not charge can last only two hours at full power, so wild Elekid are extremely hard to find. They spend their days sleeping until a thunderstorm comes, are awakened by lightning, and frolic, eat, and chase more lightning bolts until they fall back asleep.

Apart from their historical range, these pokemon have also become common in Kanto's abandoned Power Plant. The size and shape of an Elekid's horns resembles that of an electrical outlet so well that Elekid can be charged by simply plugging them into the wall. More remarkably, when the managers of the Power Plant tried on multiple occasions to change the outlet's shape in frustration with them using up too much electricity, the next generation of Elekid were born with horns adjusted to match the new outlets! The managers in time gave up and learned to make use of their evolution of Electabuzz, while pokemon researchers far and wide were left baffled as to how Elekid could do such a thing.

The power plant is long abandoned, but to this day, its walls teem with plugged-in Elekid, while their tired brethren wait their turns. Their Electabuzz parents distract trainers from their children at the risk of their own freedom; many trainers in Kanto fail realize that wild Elekid even exist, for they are much more interested in capturing their parents. If a trainer does manage to obtain an Elekid, either by catching one or breeding one of their own, they should remember to charge it at every opportunity. Not only does this replenish their energy, but it also slowly allows them to build up the massive amount of electricity needed to evolve into Electabuzz.

As recently as when Red defeated Team Rocket, it was believed that Magmar could not breed. Theories abounded as to why this was the case: perhaps their reproductive organs had been scorched away when they were reborn in the fire of volcanoes, perhaps their flame body which incubates the eggs of other pokemon so well was causing their own eggs to hatch prematurely. But the utter absence of any infant Magmar in the wild, and their refusal to breed in captivity, understandably led people to believe they were as sterile as Voltorb.

Recent advances in the science of pokemon breeding have led to many baby pokemon being bred for the first time in captivity, and seen others like Pichu reclassified from mere infants to their own evolutionary stage. Yet none of these discoveries have shocked the scientific world as much as the breeding of Magbee or Magby. (The latter transcription is favored, owing to its similarity to the word "baby", but a vocal minority continues to insist on the former one.) An elderly couple of pokemon breeders at a daycare in Johto have recently managed to induce a pair of Magmar to breed, and the method they used has since become as commonplace among breeders as Rattata in tall grass.

The resultant pokemon, Magby, has one striking difference from Magmar; its fire is contained internally, so it does not burn everything it touches, a fact which allows trainers to raise one without fear of committing arson. (One must use care when handling a Magby, however, for the lack of flames does not mean a safe body temperature.) Sadly, they do not get used to the sensation of burning from infancy, so once they evolve they are as pained by the heat as a Magmar born of a volcano.

Not only is Moomoo Milk nutritious, but it also possesses the unusual ability to heal the injuries of pokemon and people alike. Today, it is thought to have developed as a way to encourage other pokemon (and later, people) to protect them, for Miltank are not especially strong fighters. Yet their hide is too tough for most predators to bite through, and the stories of old offer a different explanation...

It is said that in ancient times, the first Miltank and Chansey were close friends. Chansey, then as now, was relied on to heal the injuries of other pokemon, but to do so it had to sacrifice its eggs – and every time it did so, it wept, for it feared it would never be able to lay eggs and have children. Miltank prayed to Arceus and any other legend it could think of, asking for a way to heal pokemon without seizing its friends eggs. Its prayers went unanswered, so instead it used its own body as an experiment, adding stomachs and trying different combinations of grasses. At times, it fell ill with food poisoning from taste-testing its own milk, but eventually it found a combination which could heal other pokemon.

And sadly, it was not enough to help its friend; instead, with an extra healer, pokemon battles merely became more common. Frustrated by this disrespect for its efforts, Miltank began charging pokemon for its milk, while Chansey, ever-compassionate, continued to heal all who asked for free. Even today, Chansey are rare because they staff pokemon centers and seldom have a chance to lay eggs of their own. The Moomoo Milk of Miltank, on the other hand, has made the farms of Olivine so rich that they might as well print money.

Blissey have often been imagined as angels of good fortune, as a sort of pokemon who strive not to achieve dominance in battle, but to heal and protect and bring happiness to their fellow pokemon and people alike. It is not hard to see why such an idea developed; Blissey seem to be as weak attackers as Shuckle (although their short, stubby arms can hurl their opponents to amazing heights) yet they have the power to heal and protect not only themselves but others with ease. Comforting though it may be in a world where so many pokemon only know the law of the jungle, and despite having spread from ancient lore around the world as far as older scientific texts, this idea has little basis in fact.

It is true that Blissey eschew hand-to-hand combat – but the reason for the latter fact may lie as much in the fact that, while neither snow nor rain nor heat can stop them, they do have a remarkable, extreme weakness to a punch in the face, and take major damage from even weak physical attacks. Although it is true that they are healers, provided they are treated well there is no one too good or evil for Blissey to serve, and ruthless dictators need Blissey for themselves and their armies just as much as everyone else.

Perhaps in this peaceful age the dream of the angelic Blissey is finally coming true. As war has begun to vanish from the world, their old use as battlefield medics has likewise diminished, and today they are primarily found as elite healers in hospitals and pokemon centers. Yet one must be weary of stereotyping, for many Blissey have found a new calling – as impermeable defenders battling at the highest levels of the Pokemon League!

Congratulations, you can copy/paste from Bulbapedia and make up your own lies!

From New Bark to Olivine, Raikou races across Johto, like its siblings running day and night, awake and asleep, across land and water. Unlike the fiery Entei and naturally aquatic Suicune, however a Raikou's journeys across water are a source for immense terror; an old water pokemon in Johto is often defined as one who has learned to avoid its many routes. Water, after all, conducts electricity, and Raikou offer plenty of volts to conduct.

It is generally held that Raikou run because they can not stop, for much as Kanto's weather is dependent on the legendary birds only rarely venturing from their lairs, so is Johto's on the legendary beasts racing constantly across the land; the storms they summon keep worse chaos at bay. But many, citing the constant storms which batter Cianwood and the Whirl Islands, are unconvinced that Raikou need venture out so far at all. Instead, they claim that Raikou, like Meowth and other feline pokemon, are said to love the taste of fish, and a legendary pokemon has a legendary appetite. (Needless to say, this theory is rejected by those who favor a canine explanation for Raikou's origins.)

Raikou, however, has not existed forever, but was born when Ecruteak's tower burned. Although most claim Ho-oh regulated the weather before the tower burned, some have used this fact to deny that Raikou have anything to do with the weather at all. They say that Raikou neither accidentally electrocutes pokemon, nor fishes with lightning, but targets the sea because, in another life, it saw a sailor on leave burn down the Brass Tower and swore revenge against everything he loved.

Whatever reason they run, nowhere along Johto's coast do people forget to leave offerings and pray for Raikou and its thunder to stay far away from them.

The brass tower was not the only thing which burned in Ecruteak on that awful night. When Ho-oh raised them from the dead, Raikou and Suicune fled town, grateful to be again alive, yet fearing they would be killed again. Those two were long gone when Entei exited the burning building. So was the voice in the crowd who had cursed Ho-oh and swore he would crush the pokemon of the wilderness and claim the power of the gods, so was the one who had thrown the torch which ignited the Brass Tower. So was the rest of the mob who had cheered as their god, their shrine, and three innocent pokemon in the basement burned.

They were sleeping when one of those pokemon took its revenge. With a single roar Entei set fires across half of Ecruteak, from the gym to the city's famous dance hall, burning faster than the local Squirtle Squad could stop it. On the other side of Ecruteak, Entei stood majestically in the city square, covered in those same flames, daring anyone to seek revenge for what it had done. One day later, with immense aid from neighboring towns, the fire was finally put out.

Yet not even the most hotheaded or powerful trainers in the city sought revenge on Entei. The people of Ecruteak had become overcome with remorse for their attack on the tower, and those who thought otherwise still feared the wrath of the gods. Some went so far as to build a shrine to the great beast from the wreckage, hoping to calm its rage.

The next day, Entei left Ecruteak, traveling across Johto in a search of centuries for a place like Ecruteak had once been; a place it could call home. It is still searching to this day.

When the Brass Tower burned, it was a sudden downpour carried by a northern wind which finally quashed the flames. Some say that it was in gratitude for this storm that Ho-oh, just reawakened, created Suicune to be god of the north wind, while others say that the spirit of the wind itself entered one of the fallen pokemon, carrying with it the power of water. Either way, what it did not bring Suicune was the power of flight, for the north wind which sweeps down upon the Johto plain is so heavy with water that wings become waterlogged and birds struggle to fly.

Suicune is called the north wind because of this legend, and because like the north wind brings pure water and blows dirt and grime out to sea, so does a simple touch of Suicune's foot turn the most toxic stream a shining blue. This fact has given it countless priests and shrines, who spend their time leading prayer and environmental cleanup efforts alike in polluted cities like Celadon and Goldenrod. Suicune does not always blow from the north, for if it did, it would reach the south pole and stop blowing. But sometimes, Suicune allows itself to be taken too far on the wind it calls home, and returns from the antarctic carrying an aurora in its fur. This is how it rests, for Suicune, unlike its siblings, fears the consequences of stopping. A walking Suicune, after all, is a slow breeze, but wind at rest is merely air and not wind at all.

Every now and then, a child's life is saved from fire by a sudden storm carried on the north wind and they grow up to chase legends.

Today Johto is primarily a land of plains, its only major peak of Mount Silver located at its far eastern edge. However, Bronze Age Johto was known in foreign records for its many mountains and a pokemon called Larvitar with a thick hide which could be ground up into Hard Stones. Mount Silver in that era was twice its current height and bordered a Mount Gold and Mount Crystal, with countless smaller peaks and valleys nestled in between.

Yet even these enormous mountains were much smaller than they had been in prehistoric times. The reason for their cataclysmic disappearance was neither the chaos of nature called plate tectonics, nor the savage disregard of Man for his environment, but the evolution of a tiny rock-type pokemon called Larvitar. Stories of a single Larvitar eating a whole mountain are either exaggeration or use a significantly more generous definition of "mountain" than current science, but it was true that an individual Larvitar could devour a reasonably large hill; over a few generations, every mountain in Johto is and was doomed.

It is lucky for all who love Mount Silver, or even Larvitar themselves, that they take a thousand years in the wild to reach maturity. Their numbers have dwindled dramatically, both from starvation and other mountain pokemon who feared the fate of their brethren throughout Johto, who now live shortened lives and only reach a fraction of their potential. Although Mount Silver is still shrinking, any trainer brave and powerful enough to venture in, and lucky enough to spot one, can still find a Larvitar. These pokemon have amazing potential, but even the greatest should be warned, for they cost a small fortune in soil to feed!

>>8073403

>Squirtle Squad

Heh.

You've got my seal of approval, keep going man. I'll pray that the Dex doesn't expand faster then then your entries.

Metapod and Kakuna are renowned for their hard shells, but are far from invincible; Pidgeot and Fearow drop them onto rocks and break them with relative ease. This is not the case with Pupitar, however, for those few Skarmory brave enough to try and eat them soon find that Pupitar more than live up to their reputation as a virtually indestructible pokemon, often beaten but never slain.

The earth's atmosphere, which burns up meteors so easily, is equally incapable of harming Pupitar. Some say they climb into space with their rocket propulsion to search for a better mountain than their decaying Mount Silver, and quite a few have developed craters from these strange, armored pokemon. It is lucky for the world that they are still outnumbered by even the endangered Torterra, so that mountains continue to be born faster than Larvitar can eat them. Others merely claim that they do this because one must see the world to rule the world, and every Tyranitar, like its name implies, strives to rule the world. Although ethics obviously prevent direct testing, eyewitness reports imply that Pupitar can also survive dynamite and even nuclear explosions.

It is odd to think that Pupitar, so expertly camouflaged against Mount Silver's terrain that few among the trainers great enough to enter notice them at all, even bother to hide. Some speculate that they once had natural predators, who have since went extinct. Others claim that they hide from the fratricidal violence of other Tyranitar, for the only thing which can break a Pupitar is a Tyranitar, and Pupitar only evolve once they are strong enough to smash through their own cocoons.

>>8073397
Still takes more work than most the bullshit this board comes out with

>>8073421

Don't worry about that. You only get a new gen every four years ago, and even I'm not that slow. Though I hope to write these for Gen VI too, when it comes.

There are many pokemon associated with royalty, from the regal Nidoqueen and vicious Nidoking to the withdrawn Kingdra, who rule other pokemon by a mix of birth, tradition, and might. There are only two species, however, who have no claim to monarchy, yet strive to seize its power for themselves. Of these two, Empoleon rise through a mixture of opportunity and megalomania, rule through human Substitutes, and strive to reform as much as they conquer. Tyranitar, on the other hand, rule over humans and pokemon alike through the power of brute force alone.

Surrounded by a mobile sandstorm as fierce as the deserts where Hippowdon roam, Tyranitar subjugate others not through actually winning battles as much as they do from the fear of facing one in combat, and collect tribute and avoid rebellions from the terror of a royal visit. Their retainers – rock, ground, and steel-type beasts like Excadrill and Dugtrio – are scary enough, for their camouflage and quick movements make them seem invisible against any would-be opponent's battered eyes. But they are nothing when compared to the mighty Tyranitar itself, a beast so heavy and powerful that it creates Earthquakes with every step, whose Stone Edge is said to slay many a legend in a single attack.

A single Tyranitar can reign for generations, and Johto's history abounds with the tales of the vast lands they have ground beneath their green, clawed foot. But the time eventually comes when every empire falls, for the courage of pokemon will in time bring a great fighter close enough to punch, kick, or Aura Sphere the Tyranitar into the realm of the dead.

Some say that Lugia's claims to lead the other legendary birds originated as nothing more than an empty boast by the people of the Whirl Islands, a silly claim that their god was better than those of Kanto. Yet its casual acceptance even in the other birds' homes belies the weakness of that explanation, and perhaps the real reason is the same reason why it was once worshiped like it was Arceus, and even today is called its assistant. Humans may be eager to ascribe weather or strange occurrences to the gods, but they find it difficult to imagine how birds or dogs or even Arceus itself can create. Lugia, however, has hands.

According to many of Lugia's followers in Johto, it was these enormous hands which crafted the continents themselves and hurled the stars and moon into the sky. Across the lands it is said that Lugia grabbed the elements themselves and fused them to other flying pokemon (which ones change in each region) to create the legendary birds. In the far north, it is said that Lugia is locked in a perpetual embrace with Ho-oh, the sky is Lugia's arm-wing, and the northern lights are Ho-oh's wing peeking through Lugia's fingers. For the fishing communities of the whirl islands, conversely, Lugia sleeps beneath the waves, and the islands themselves are its heavy fingers; its many whirlpools and earthquakes are created when Lugia must adjust its position beneath the weight of the lands which have grown upon it. Many more stories have been ascribed to Lugia's hands; they are too numerous to even attempt to summarize here.

In reality, Lugia is a psychic-type, it creates with telekinesis, and its hands are mostly for decoration: it can not even use doubleslap.

There are those even today who claim that Ho-oh perished in the flames which burnt down the Brass Tower, that even a fire-type could not survive that inferno, and that any claims to the contrary are the work of a priesthood trying to regain its relevance after Ecruteak turned its back on its god. There are a few who claim that Ho-oh never left, that it made a nest on the neighboring Tin Tower and watches silently and protectively over Ecruteak to this day. And there is the story which every child knows, which the priests teach to this day:

Ho-oh, its tower burned while war raged around it, rose from the ashes only to turn its back on the world. It will return only when humans and pokemon have truly learned to live together in harmony. Before it flew away, it left behind two holy items. One, a Sacred Fire it lit in the center of the ruins, maintained by the priesthood, which has burnt for centuries without consuming a thing. The other, the pile of Sacred Ash it rose from, which is said to be infused with the power to raise pokemon from the dead. Many pilgrims visit the ash every year in the hopes of not having to lay their dear pokemon to rest, though few are rewarded for their journey.

Today, humans and pokemon rarely wage open war, and this age is more peaceful than the time when Ho-oh first came to Ecruteak. However, the time for Ho-oh's return has still not come, for too often pokemon habitat is seized by civilization, and too many trainers treat their pokemon more like servants than friends. Yet sometimes, when people are truly kind to pokemon, a rainbow appears without rain; it is said to be Ho-oh's approving wing.

The GS ball in which Celebi was caught was sealed tighter than a Master Ball, closed so shut that professors failed to open it and a man who made pokeballs from apricorns had to be called in. And yet when he opened it, with cameras surrounding him, it was empty. At first, speculation centered on foul play – had the delivery man or some professor or the apricorn man himself opened the ball? Soon, however, forensic tests revealed that the ball had never been opened since Celebi was captured!

There are no pokemon capable of teleporting from inside a pokeball; if there were, Abra could never be captured for long. There was no explanation short of time travel, and although legends discussed it, physics held it to be impossible. The research team who had captured them was humiliated by this escape, denounced as frauds, their reputations ruined. They were even more shocked a few weeks later, when they discovered that the evidence that they had ever captured it, their public shame, and everyone else's memories of the GS ball had simply disappeared!

There was only one explanation for this, no matter how unlikely it seemed. Celebi, ever free-spirited, had gone back in time to prevent its own capture. So were Gold and Silver stymied, so have generations of greats failed. The saga of the disappearing Celebi has been repeated through the ages, forever and yet never through the magic of time travel.

This concludes the Pokedex entries for the Johto region. I'd like to thank everyone who's helped me out along the way, be it ideas, inspiration, or pointing out errors. I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you in Hoenn! (Though I'll stick around the thread too, if anyone has questions.)

>>8073438
Hey, douche bag. I was following this thread only to wait for something about Lugia, and you give me this meaningless pile of shit? Fuck you.

Pic related, my fucking tattoo. Jerk off.

I'd just like to say,

...Thank you.

I miss my biothreads.

>>8073456

I'm sorry, man. I thought it was decent.

Should we archive?

>>8073438

He's awfully good at creating love though. :3

>>8073471
+1 to archive

>>8073471

No objections here. I made archive last time, but it's still flattering to think about.

>Entire thread

>>8073471
Regardless, it has my vote.

>>8073522

this thread has received 3 of 6 requests needed to trigger archival.

+1 more

this thread has received 5 of 6 requests needed to trigger archival.

I did my part. :x

+1 because fuck you , thats why

so, is this archived now?

>>8074173

Yeah. Thanks, everyone - it's an honor.

>>8074173
http://chanarchive.org/4chan/vp/23868

Bumping because only good thread right now.

>>8075318

This is one of the greatest threads I have ever seen. Thankyou anon

>>8075318
>>8075490

Bumping one last time for the morning crowd. It's already archived, but it needs another trip to the front page.

Bampu, so /vp/ can have at least one decent thread for a little bit longer.

A lot of these are actually really good OP

>>8073146

To those who know of Virgil, I think they would agree that this is more than fitting.

Never Forget.

And to you, OP, you have indeed crafted some excellent pokedex entries. I doff my hat to you, sir.

>>8073353
sheeeeit

>>8073353