The Clamperl Line

Clamperl
The Bivalve Pokémon
Type: Water
Official Registration #: 366
Entry: This oyster-like pokémon is protected by a rock-hard shell throughout most of its life. It keeps this shell clamped shut at all times, protecting itself from virtually every threat. Not even the most persistent corphish can crack its shell and get at the tender meat inside. The only time clamperl’s shell opens is when it’s close to evolution, when it grows too big to close its shell properly. Before then—and right up until evolution—it expends a great deal of energy crafting its signature pearl. It creates only one of these in its lifetime, spending every waking moment shaping this pearl to perfection within the safety of its shell. This pearl is clamperl’s first and only treasure, an object worth so much to each individual clamperl that it may bring the pokémon to tears just by looking at it. So naturally, the second clamperl opens its shell, the pearl is perfectly safe and sound and carried with that clamperl through evolution. (Just kidding. It’s instantly lifted by a grumpig using telekinesis from the shoreline to be given to a newborn spoink.)

Huntail
The Deep Sea Pokémon
Type: Water
Official Registration #: 367
Entry: The evolved form of clamperl, via trading if the subject has been given a deep sea tooth. Using its tail—which is shaped like a small fish—huntail glides through the murky depths of the sea and attracts fish and smaller water pokémon. Once its prey gets close, huntail whirls around, unhinges its jaw, and swallows its prey whole. The act of unhinging its jaw opens its mouth wide, almost to unnatural degrees, and it can be quite alarming to watch. However, despite this ability and huntail’s already alarming appearance, huntail is not the most horrifying deep-sea creature in existence. That particular note of recognition goes to…

Gorebyss
The South Sea Pokémon
Type: Water
Official Registration #: 368
Entry: The evolved form of clamperl, via trading if the subject has been given a deep sea scale. This beautiful pokémon glides elegantly through the depths of warm oceans. Its brilliant, pink or golden scales shimmer as it moves—especially during the spring, when its coloration turns even more vivid. This change in color is likely because spring is typically the beginning of the mating season for most other water-types, a time when they are largely distracted and unable to notice a passing gorebyss until it stabs its thin, dagger-like mouth into their potential mates’ bodies and drains them of all their bodily fluids.

Gulpin and Swalot

Gulpin
The Stomach Pokémon
Type: Poison
Official Registration #: 316
Entry: The rubbery body of this foot-tall, sac-like pokémon consists of a large stomach but small heart, brain, and other internal organs. Thus, it thinks of very little else besides consuming anything in front of it. The enzymes contained within its stomach are so corrosive they may dissolve practically anything, including solid metal. Needless to say, as it digests, the breakdown of said objects may release gases that are extremely foul-smelling in nature. It is thus a pokémon that only thinks about food and releases foul-smelling odors at random intervals … or, in other words, the perfect pokémon representation of that one roommate you may have had in college.

Swalot
The Poison Bag Pokémon
Type: Poison
Official Registration #: 317
Entry: The evolved form of gulpin, by battle experience. This formidable pokémon is known for its hunting habits. When it encounters potential prey (which is to say, more or less anything that moves and can fit in its mouth), it sprays an acidic, toxic fluid from its skin to weaken and paralyze the object. Once its prey is weakened, swalot will scoop it up with its cavernous mouth and swallow it whole, to be digested within its sizable, rubbery stomach. At this point, the author would like to share that he is well aware that, like the entry on lopunny, this is also something that induces thoughts of questionable virtue among some of his readers. Therefore, he would like to restate that if you happen to be one of those people, the author is not going to judge you for your interests, but he would prefer it if he didn’t know about which of you this would apply to.

Relicanth

Relicanth
The Longevity Pokémon
Type: Water/Rock
Official Registration #: 369
Entry: This rare, coelacanth-like pokémon is considered a living fossil. In the 100 million years that it has existed in the deep seas of Hoenn, it has not changed in the slightest. While civilizations, species, and even its own environment itself have changed with the passing of eons, relicanth continued onward through time, surviving just as its ancestors had in the Cretaceous Period. Thus, remember, readers. No matter how harsh the world is around you, do as the relicanth does and remember that it’s relicanth, not relican’tth.

Zigzagoon and Linoone

Zigzagoon
The Tiny Raccoon Pokémon
Type: Normal
Official Registration #: 263
Entry: This small, raccoon-like pokémon possesses both an insatiable sense of curiosity and rough, barb-like hairs that stick to objects. As it wanders, it marks its territory by rubbing up against objects and shedding hairs, but if an object sticks to its body as a result, it brings these back to its nest to add to its collection. For some trainers, this can be a good thing, as zigzagoon will bring back objects that may be useful to their journey, such as stones or berries. For other trainers, this can be a bad thing, as zigzagoon will bring back objects that may be slightly less useful to their journey … such as other trainers’ badges and equipment.

Linoone
The Rushing Pokémon
Type: Normal
Official Registration #: 264
Entry: The evolved form of zigzagoon, by battle experience. Linoone charge at prey with overwhelming speeds, hoping to catch them off-guard. Unfortunately, despite its high speeds, linoone can only run in a straight line, which means they frequently miss their targets. One would think that it would be prudent to inform a linoone that if it turned, it may be slightly more successful, but to be frank, when a seventy-pound object with sharp claws and teeth is hurtling towards a person at sixty miles an hour, giving that object constructive criticism has the unfortunate tendency to be the last thing on their mind.

Spoink and Grumpig

Spoink
The Bounce Pokémon
Type: Psychic
Official Registration #: 325
Entry: A small, pig-like pokémon native to mountainous regions. The pearl on its head, which is collected from regional clamperl, amplifies its telekinetic abilities greatly. Most spoink spend their entire lives searching for even better pearls … which is understandable, seeing as clamperl are obviously not native to spoink’s natural mountainous habitat. (How wild spoink managed to get their first pearls is both a mystery and a subject of pokémonological interest.)

Grumpig
The Manipulate Pokémon
Type: Psychic
Official Registration #: 326
Entry: The evolved form of spoink, by battle experience. Grumpig control targets by channeling telekinetic forces through their black pearls and doing a hypnotic dance. The dance is so alluring, so irresistible, so inescapable that the moment a grumpig performs it on a single human, every other human in the area will flock to them and dance along with it. For this reason, the dance itself has become hugely popular overseas and is often performed at events, regardless of whether or not a grumpig is present for the festivities. This is especially so in Unova, where the dance is known by locals as the “Electric Slide.”

Torkoal

Torkoal
The Coal Pokémon
Type: Fire
Official Registration #: 324
Entry: This large, tortoise-like pokémon primarily lives in abandoned coal mines in warmer regions such as Hoenn. It constantly lumbers through shafts on the hunt for its primary food source, coal. When it finds a deposit, it immediately digs up the ore and stuffs it in the orifices in its shell, which then burns the coal for energy. If it builds up excess energy, senses danger, or is otherwise excited, torkoal will exhale clouds of sooty smoke and gas, which is one of two reasons why the mine shafts it lives in are typically much hotter than the surrounding mountain. (The other, of course, is the presence of volcanic vents and other fire-types.) Of course, seeing as coal is not remotely a clean energy source, this self-defense mechanism has rendered this pokémon as “problematic” to most environmentally conscious groups in existence today. It may also at least partly explain why, in torkoal’s native region of Hoenn, at least one extreme environmentalist group thought it would be a wondrous idea if we drowned the planet, while at least one other took into consideration how many pokémon in the region eat rocks and thought it would be an even better idea to turn it into a sunlit wasteland.

Cacnea and Cacturne

Cacnea
The Cactus Pokémon
Type: Grass
Official Registration #: 331
Entry: A large, cactus-like pokémon native to arid environments. Its round and plump body can store large reservoirs of water, which enable cacnea to survive the driest of deserts for up to thirty days. Knowing this, some early settlers to areas where cacnea may be found have tried to slice open and eat water-engorged cacnea, establishing the misconception that cacnea meat can stave off dehydration. In actuality, no part of a cacnea should be ingested if one is in dire need of water. Meat from the arms is often contained in smaller reservoirs within tougher, denser tissue, and if you do go through the effort of obtaining it, the resulting water is highly acidic and can lead to vomiting or worse. Meat from its main body, meanwhile, is a pokémon-based source of peyote, and ingesting it induces extremely vivid hallucinations … or worse. Cacnea, in other words, is not the quenchiest, no.

Cacturne
The Scarecrow Pokémon
Type: Grass/Dark
Official Registration #: 332
Entry: The evolved form of cacnea, by battle experience. During the day, these tall, cactus-like pokémon stand motionless in their native deserts. When the sun goes down and the desert cools, however, cacturne awaken and begin moving across the desert in search of prey. Interestingly enough, most cacturne eat birds—particularly any murkrow and vullaby that have, for whatever reason, settled in their desert territories—so cacturne is less of a scarecrow and more of an eatcrow. Or perhaps a killcrow. Devourcrow?

Have we mentioned the fact that you’re not allowed to name things? —LH

Surskit and Masquerain

Surskit
The Pond Skater Pokémon
Type: Bug/Water
Official Registration #: 283
Entry: The tips of this water strider-like pokémon’s feet are coated with an oil that assists in keeping surskit afloat. This trait works in combination with its long legs, which distributes the weight of its relatively light body in just the precise way to make it next to impossible for surskit to sink on its own. Consequently, no matter what it does—from hunting to sleeping to jetting along at full speed—so long as all four feet are spread out and in contact with just the surface of the water, surskit will be able to stay afloat. This, of course, makes surskit’s mating rituals some of the most scientifically interesting in Hoenn, seeing as surskit do this while floating as well.

Masquerain
The Eyeball Pokémon
Type: Bug/Flying
Official Registration #: 284
Entry: The evolved form of surskit, by battle experience. The second thing lanternfly-like pokémon is known for is its ability to hover and fly in any direction, thanks to its four wings. This enables masquerain to escape danger in any direction at great speeds. Of course, it hardly needs that skill, thanks to the first thing it’s known for: the giant eyespots on its specialized antennae, which give it the appearance of a menacing face. In dark or foggy conditions, this face can startle to death predators, prey, and most half-asleep researchers who came to study the mating rituals of their preevolved forms. (For science, of course.)

Sableye

Sableye
The Darkness Pokémon
Type: Dark/Ghost
Official Registration #: 302
Entry: A small, imp-like pokémon first discovered in the cave systems of Hoenn. In the wild, this pokémon subsists entirely on the jewels and precious stones found in its native habitat. It consumes so many of these on a daily basis that parts of its body have crystalized into gem-like forms. This includes its eyes; at birth, wild sableye actually possess two completely organic eyeballs. It’s just that these eyes harden into a diamond-like substance over time. Domestically bred sableye, however, possess these diamond eyes from the start, due to the fact that trainers and breeders wishing to hatch sableye are extremely careful in maintaining a high mineral content not only in the parents’ diet but also in the incubator holding the egg. And this is done because wild newborn sableye typically look like this:

Mawile

Mawile
The Deceiver Pokémon
Type: Steel/Fairy
Official Registration #: 303
Entry: A small, childlike pokémon first discovered in the cave systems of Hoenn. This pokémon is famous for its giant and fantastically strong set of false jaws growing from its head. Trainers should take caution: the front of this pokémon looks adorable, a fact that this pokémon uses to its advantage in order to lure in prey. When prey is close enough, it turns abruptly and chomps down on the unsuspecting victim with its false jaws. As for its strength, mawile is capable of biting through steel beams. Its false jaws, meanwhile, can do much worse.