Smoochum and Jynx

Smoochum
The Kiss Pokémon
Type: Ice/Psychic
Official Registration #: 238
Entry: A childlike pokémon noted for its extremely sensitive lips. Smoochum possess a high number of nerve endings in their lips, which they use to sense their environments. Much of their behavior revolves around getting close to things that they wish to inspect and giving them a kiss, an act that allows smoochum to take in touch, taste, and smell all at once. This act is also rather unfortunate because smoochum also use their lips to perform the attacks Lick, Sweet Kiss, Lovely Kiss, and Heart Stamp, and as baby pokémon, they have very little control over when their powers are activated.

Jynx
The Human Shape Pokémon
Type: Ice/Psychic
Official Registration #: 124
Entry: The evolved form of smoochum, by battle experience. Jynx are humanoid pokémon whose communicative patterns strongly resemble a combination of the spoken language and interpretive dances of human beings. Because of this, it is thought that jynx may be the first pokémon with whom humanity may one day establish verbal communications. However, all attempts to decipher the jynx language has been rather fruitless for the most part, as most translations of any given recording seem to be strings of expletives concerning “stupid humans on our burial grounds” … which surely must be a mistranslation of some kind.

The Slowpoke Line

Slowpoke
The Dopey Pokémon
Type: Water/Psychic
Official Registration #: 79
Entry: A sweet sap leaks from the tip of this strange pokémon’s tail. Although mysterious in its production, this sap tastes exactly like a sweeter form of honey and thus is effective in attracting pokémon. Slowpoke frequently use this to their advantage, as the core of their behavior centers around their fishing rituals, in which they flock to the banks of a slow-moving body of water, dip their tails in, and wait for a bite. However, as slowpoke are not the brightest pokémon nor pokémon with the fastest reflexes, they often fail to notice when they get a bite—or, for that matter, much about their environment at all. Which leads into the second fact: that some humans have found that slowpoke tails are not particularly nutritious but are quite frankly fun to chew on. How we as a species discovered this about a creature who is completely incapable of noticing when anything—human or otherwise—is chewing on its tail is probably best left up to one’s imagination.

Slowbro
The Hermit Crab Pokémon
Type: Water/Psychic
Official Registration #: 80
Entry: The evolved form of slowpoke, by battle experience. Or, rather, to be more accurate, slowpoke evolves into slowbro after it gains enough strength to fish in waters where shellder naturally live. This is relevant because it is the shellder that enables a slowpoke to evolve by clamping down on the tip of its tail. However, curiously enough, a slowbro will always revert to a slowpoke when the shellder is removed, which raises several questions about the nature of slowpoke’s evolution. One possible hint to the existence of slowbro as its own pokémon lies in the fact that due to shellder’s hold on slowbro’s tail, the slowbro host can no longer fish and is, therefore, forced to hunt literally by hand. Thus, slowbro is quite possibly not a true evolution but instead what happens when a slowpoke is forced to give up its sheer laziness.

Slowking
The Royal Pokémon
Type: Water/Psychic
Official Registration #: 199
Entry: The evolved form of slowpoke, when given a king’s rock and traded. It is said that a king’s rock is actually a piece of fossilized shellder that, when traded, reverts back to being a shellder and subsequently bites its companion slowpoke’s head. Upon dual evolution, this shellder then leaks toxins into its host, which breaks down slowking’s literal mental barriers and gives it a drastic boost in intelligence. Given that this means slowking’s intelligence is chemically enhanced, the writer would like to take the time to note to younger readers that drugs do not, in fact, result in intelligence boosts in humans. Just say no, children, and stay in school. Unless you go on a trainer’s journey, at which point never eat mushrooms you can’t identify.

Bill, in case you were still wondering why Fennel won’t leave Amanita with you unless another adult is present to supervise, this. This is why. —LH

The Caterpie Line

Caterpie
The Worm Pokémon
Type: Bug
Official Registration #: 10
Entry: A small caterpillar pokémon with a voracious appetite for leaves. It spends considerable amounts of time preparing for evolution, usually by focusing on consuming large amounts of leaves. As such, it seems vulnerable and weak, but in actuality, it hides several techniques that it uses to protect itself during its hunt for more leaves. Namely, its antennae have the capability of releasing a strong, foul-smelling odor reminiscent of rotting cabbage. However, this is only one part of its defense mechanism. The rest of its defenses involve wrapping anything that comes close to it with String Shot and proceeding to Tackle until the aforementioned foul-smelling oils are rubbed all over the offending creature, which is then left in the sweltering Kantonian summer heat for hours on end as said offending creature struggles desperately to break free and get to a shower.

Metapod
The Cocoon Pokémon
Type: Bug
Official Registration #: 11
Entry: The evolved form of caterpie, by battle experience. A tenacious pokémon, metapod sits perfectly still as it waits for evolution. Its rock-hard shell is resilient on its own, but it uses its only move, Harden, to toughen its body even more in order to resist damage from predators. Even a pinsir’s spiked mandibles are no match for a metapod’s body. Incidentally, the fact that it will not move until evolution, as well as the facts that it is twenty-one pounds and a durable pokémon at that, make it the perfect pokémon to serve as a doorstop. Not that this writer has ever tried, of course.

Butterfree
The Butterfly Pokémon
Type: Bug/Flying
Official Registration #: 12
Entry: The evolved form of metapod, by battle experience. While the writer would normally talk at length about butterfree’s obsession with honey, the toxic dust that coats its wings, or the fact that much of its free time is spent either consuming vast amounts of honey or mating, in truth, this writer is more astounded by the fact that metapod—a pokémon incapable of independent battling, whose entire existence is devoted to avoiding any sort of movement whatsoever—can only evolve into butterfree by battling.

Tirtouga and Carracosta

Tirtouga
The Prototurtle Pokémon
Type: Water/Rock
Official Registration #: 564
Entry: A two-foot-tall Protostega pokémon. The presence of tirtouga and other ancient marine pokémon throughout Unova (and, for that matter, its home nation of the United States) indicate that there had once been vast seas taking up the majority of the continent. However, thanks to the receding water levels, tirtouga from the interior seas died out completely, while those that called the present-day coastlines home eventually made way for modern-day turtle species such as the squirtle line. Many Unovans have pointed out that all of their discovered fossil species are therefore the ancestors of modern pokémon. Because this is true, some casual pokémon fans in Unova like to jokingly imply that this indicates a lack of variety among Unova’s faunal species, whereas some casual pokémonologists like to jokingly respond with the idea that it’s a shame tirtouga’s habitat is no longer submerged in the ocean.

Carracosta
The Prototurtle Pokémon
Type: Water/Rock
Official Registration #: 565
Entry: The evolved form of tirtouga, by battle experience. An amphibious pokémon, carracosta uses its front flippers not only for swimming but also for attacking, and it is generally known that a single slap from this pokémon’s flipper can rip a hole in the side of a tanker. Of course, given the fact that tankers did not exist when carracosta inhabited the seas, one should ask why the scientific community chose that oddly specific example to gauge its strength—or, better yet, how we know that it can rip a hole in the side of a tanker—to which this writer responds with science.

Archen and Archeops

Archen
The First Bird Pokémon
Type: Rock/Flying
Official Registration #: 566
Entry: A two-foot-tall Archaeopteryx pokémon. Although incapable of flying, this feathered pokémon once hopped from treetop to treetop in the ancient Unovan forests in order to forage for food. Remarkably, recent evidence has linked archen to all bird pokémon, meaning every bird pokémon in existence is really descended from this mighty, dinosaur-like creature. Every bird pokémon, that is, from the mighty braviary to the somewhat less mighty psyduck.

Archeops
The First Bird Pokémon
Type: Rock/Flying
Official Registration #: 567
Entry: The evolved form of archen, by battle experience. While these fast predatory pokémon were capable of flight, they much preferred chasing after prey on foot in large groups. Evidence suggests that these were vastly intelligent pokémon capable of coordinating well enough to take down prey much larger and stronger than any individual archeops. Thus, it is even more astounding that for all its cunning and swiftness, we refer to its modern-day counterparts as “birbs” and make memes out of them.

Shieldon and Bastiodon

Shieldon
The Shield Pokémon
Type: Rock/Steel
Official Registration #: 410
Entry: A two-foot-tall pokémon that strongly resembles the Protoceratops. Like cranidos, shieldon inhabited the jungles of Sinnoh over 100 million years ago. Also like cranidos, shieldon had a habit of assaulting the plant life of the Sinnohan jungles, only rather than headbutt trees, it preferred to rub its face against the rough bark in order to toughen the iron-like hide that covered its face. In short, between the cranidos and shieldon, the jungles of Sinnoh barely stood a chance.

Bastiodon
The Shield Pokémon
Type: Rock/Steel
Official Registration #: 411
Entry: The evolved form of shieldon, by battle experience. After evolution, bastiodon’s facial plates harden to the point where it can resist virtually any frontal attack. This allowed the normally docile bastiodon and its shieldon young to graze in peace. Should anyone wonder why those two statements should be related, one only needs to remember that bastiodon thrived during the exact same era as the “charge forward without any intent whatsoever of changing course for any reason” rampardos.

Cranidos and Rampardos

Cranidos
The Head Butt Pokémon
Type: Rock
Official Registration #: 408
Entry: A three-foot-tall pokémon that strongly resembles the Pachycephalosaurus. Cranidos once lived in the ancient jungles that once spanned the Sinnoh region, where it would harden the iron-hard plates in its skull by headbutting palm trees. It is said that the climate shifts that the region had experienced millions of years ago were due in part to herds of cranidos cutting down swaths of trees purely by accident using this training method. This, as to be expected, very likely did not do wonders for the creature’s brain.

Rampardos
The Head Butt Pokémon
Type: Rock
Official Registration #: 409
Entry: The evolved form of cranidos, by battle experience. Rampardos’s skull continues to harden after evolution until it reaches a foot thick. On the positive side, this means that blows to the head hardly faze this pokémon, which it uses to its great advantage in its battling style. On the negative side, as to be expected, the thickening skull leaves very little room for its brain, which means that this pokémon was very likely the least intelligent creature to roam the Sinnohan jungles. Further evidence of this lies in the state of petrified trees in the vicinity of rampardos fossils: the fact that vast numbers of trees were ripped in half, rather than uprooted suggest that rampardos’s average hunting methods involved barreling directly into trees, rather than working their ways around them.

Bidoof and Bibarel

Bidoof
The Plump Mouse Pokémon
Type: Normal
Official Registration #: 399
Entry: A two-foot-tall rodent-like pokémon common to the Sinnoh region. Although it looks cute, unassuming, and dim-witted, bidoof are actually among the most destructive and dangerous beginner-level rodent pokémon in existence, even more so than its cousin the rattata. The reason why is that while rattata are quick to flee from danger and while many rattata forage alone, bidoof are tenacious, brave, and prone to forming large foraging groups. Therefore, whereas a rattata can be scared away by the presence of a trained machamp, a bidoof will merely tilt its head, emit a rallying cry, and charge forward with hundreds of its fluffy, biting brethren in tow. Needless to say, trainers would be wise to take caution around the mighty bidoof.

Bibarel
The Beaver Pokémon
Type: Normal/Water
Official Registration #: 400
Entry: The evolved form of bidoof, by battle experience. While many other pokémon develop a longing for wandering or expanding their territories upon evolution, bibarel becomes more domesticated. That is to say, rather than attempting to expand its territory, bibarel spends most of its efforts focusing on very specific points of rivers, where it builds giant dams where it will raise its young. These dams have been known to have huge ecological impacts. For most humans, they become a blessing, as in building the dam, the bibarel may create a natural reservoir or divert a river to a village in dire need of water. However, it should be noted that bibarel are largely oblivious to any damage their actions may cause, and they still retain their tendency to congregate in large groups from their time as bidoof. As such, in very certain cases, large numbers of bibarel have been known to singlehandedly flood entire Sinnohean towns without even realizing it.

Stunfisk

Stunfisk
The Trap Pokémon
Type: Ground/Electric
Official Registration #: 618
Entry: A sizable flounder-like pokémon known to hide in the muddy expanses of marshlands and heaths. Blending in with the ground, stunfisk is virtually undetectable until it’s stepped on, at which point it delivers a strong electric shock directly into its victim. Why it does this is still a mystery to behaviorists, particularly given the fact that a stunfisk’s body has been found to be durable enough to withstand hundreds of pounds of pressure. The only real clue scientists have for the answer to this mystery lies in the fact that stunfisk smiles with extreme pleasure as it delivers electric shocks … a fact that has dampened quite a few scientists’ curiosities, to be completely frank.

Chatot

Chatot
The Music Note Pokémon
Type: Normal/Flying
Official Registration #: 441
Entry: A highly intelligent parrot-like pokémon capable of mimicking human speech. Because of this unique ability, many people like to catch them, teach them adorable phrases and tricks, and keep them as pets. Or, in the case of trainers like the Sinnoh storage system administrator, catch six of them, teach them to sing Tom Jones’s “What’s New Pussycat” in rounds, and replace every alarm clock in your house with this team of six chatot when you have company in order to dissuade your closest colleagues from ever visiting your home again.