Abra

The fennec is the smallest fox in the desert: it sleeps through the hottest hours and carries enormous ears for the size of its head. That is where Abra’s ears and yellow fur come from. The posture comes from somewhere else — sitting cross-legged with its eyes always closed, in the pose of someone meditating. The brown shell covering its shoulders and chest is the only thing resembling any sort of defence that it wears.

Every Pokédex entry insists on the same figure: it sleeps eighteen hours a day. It is not a quirk, but the requirement for keeping its telekinesis; if it does not rest for those hours, it loses it. While asleep, it detects anyone approaching and uses Teleport before the blow lands, and the move can carry it a long way away. It climbs into the treetops to eat Berries without waking up and ends up opening its eyes in a place it does not recognise.

It is 0.9 metres tall and weighs 19.5 kilos, quite a lot for something that can barely stand on its own. Its official category is the Psi Pokémon.

Within its evolutionary line, it is the phase that does the least. It evolves into Kadabra at level 16, and until then the only thing it knows how to do is leave.

A total of 310 distributed with no attempt at subtlety: 105 Special Attack and 90 Speed on one side; 25 HP, 15 Defense and 20 Attack on the other. The 55 Special Defense do nothing to fix it. It moves before almost anything its size and goes down to the first thing that gets through.

What keeps it afloat in Little Cup is Magic Guard, its Hidden Ability: only direct attacks can damage it, so Life Orb recoil, entry hazards, poison and burn stop counting. With Focus Sash, the combination is even dirtier, because the sash guarantees that it survives one hit and Magic Guard prevents prior chip damage from breaking it first; the result is the format’s best finisher. With Life Orb, the same paper-thin body gets to work breaking walls.

Psychic is the signature move. Counter deals double the physical damage received and turns Focus Sash into a trap for physical attackers, which is why its opponents cannot simply hit it as hard as possible. Teleport, since Generation VIII, switches it out for a teammate.

The drawbacks are obvious. On offense, Psychic does not touch Dark types and bounces off Steel and other Psychic types; on defense, Bug, Ghost and Dark tear it apart. With 15 Defense, any priority move kills it before it can move, and anything that prevents switching or fleeing leaves it trapped with no way out. Even so, Smogon put it to a ban vote and it was acquitted.

Synchronize and Inner Focus, its other two Abilities, are not part of the conversation: the former passes poison, paralysis or burns back to whoever inflicts them, and the latter only prevents flinching.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Human-Like, and the gender ratio is three males for every female: 25% female. Its 20 Egg cycles come out to roughly 5355 steps, a short wait.

It inherits nothing useful from the Egg, because its level-up move list consists of a single move and it has no Egg Moves of its own. The point of breeding it, then, is Magic Guard and the distribution of its stats, not an extra attack.

Its evolution condition has no trick to it: reach level 16 and it is Kadabra. No items, no time of day, no friendship. The jump to Alakazam does have one, though, and it is trading, with everything that implies for anyone who plays solo.

Its habitat is urban, and its catch rate, 200, is just shy of the 255 that makes catching a species trivial. The figure is misleading: it is one of the most awkward Pokémon to get into a ball, because it spends its first turn leaving. It sometimes holds a Twisted Spoon, which can be stolen.

It grows at a Medium Slow pace, gives 62 base experience when defeated and yields 1 Special Attack effort point. Its starting friendship is 70.