Dratini

It starts a three-stage line that ends in Dragonite, and it looks nothing like the end of the journey. There are no wings or arms here: just a 1.8-metre blue serpent weighing 3.3 kilos, with a white orb on its forehead and two fins on the sides of its head. As long as a tall person and weighing about as much as three bottles of water.

The Pokédex entries insist on two things. The first is its shedding. It constantly casts off its old skin because the energy inside it keeps reaching levels it cannot contain, and each shed leaves it a little bigger; that skin is used to make boots, which one of the entries describes as a luxury product. The second is that almost nobody has seen it. It was called the Mirage Pokémon precisely because of that, and for years the only things ever found were the skins it had left behind. The species was confirmed to exist by a fisherman who fought for more than ten hours before pulling one out of the water.

While it is still weak, it hides on the seabed, eating whatever falls from above. Its official category is Dragon Pokémon, plain and simple.

Three hundred points spread out without a single spike: 64 Attack, 50 flat in Special Attack, Special Defense and Speed, 45 Defense and about 41 HP, among the lowest totals you can take into a battle. Held items do nothing to fix that.

Its two Abilities point in opposite directions. Shed Skin cures status problems. Marvel Scale, its hidden Ability, raises Defense while the Pokémon is suffering from one of those problems, meaning it rewards exactly what the other one removes. The second is the interesting one on paper, but with 45 base Defense and 41 HP, the boost amounts to nothing; that trick belongs to Dragonair and above.

Being pure Dragon gives it a comfortable defensive spread — it resists Fire, Water, Grass and Electric — in exchange for three weaknesses that are everywhere: Ice, Dragon and, since Generation VI, Fairy. On the offensive side, Dragon is super effective only against other dragons, Steel resists it and Fairy completely nullifies it.

It is not a competitive Pokémon, and there is no way to dress that up. Its place is in a normal playthrough, where it works more as an investment than a team member: Dragon Rush arrives at level 35 and Dragon Dance at 50, both well above the level 30 at which it should already have evolved. Before then, all it has of its own type is Twister, with 40 power at level 5, and Dragon Tail, with 60 at level 15.

It belongs to both the Water 1 and Dragon Egg Groups, making it a bridge between two branches that do not usually overlap, and its sex ratio is straightforward: 50% female. So far, so easy.

The difficult part comes afterwards. Forty Egg Cycles amount to about 10 455 steps, one of the highest figures in the Pokédex, and waiting at the end is a Slow growth rate with a base experience of 60: every level costs more and every won battle gives less. Breeding Dratini is a weekend plan.

The eggs produce six moves it cannot learn any other way, and one carries much more weight than the other five. Extreme Speed does no one any harm here with 64 Attack, but it passes unchanged down the line to Dragonite. The others are Supersonic, Mist, Dragon Breath, Water Pulse and Aqua Jet.

It evolves into Dragonair upon reaching level 30, with no stones, no trading and no strange conditions; Dragonair becomes Dragonite at 55. Its habitat is the water's edge and its catch rate is 45, the same as a starter: you have to weaken it before throwing anything. Some wild specimens are holding a Dragon Scale.