Flareon

The habitat record places it in urban areas, near houses, and that fits with the only thing needed for it to exist: someone with a Fire Stone in their pocket. Beneath its fur it has an internal pouch where it stores flames, and Pokédex entries have spent six generations arguing over the temperature at which it keeps them. Some give it a body temperature of 900 °C, others lower it to between 700 and 800, and they all agree that what it expels reaches 1700 °C. When it takes a deep breath, it's about to let it loose.

The fluffy fur isn't decorative. It serves a mechanical purpose — it releases heat so the animal doesn't suffocate in its own, and without that radiator it couldn't store anything. It also has a domestic habit that no other branch of the line shares: before eating, whether berries or prey, it cooks them with its flames until they're well done.

It is 90 centimetres tall, weighs 25 kilograms and walks on four legs. Its official category is Flame Pokémon. It is one of Eevee's eight possible evolutions and one of the original three, alongside the Water and Electric ones. This is where the line ends: the stone is the end of the road.

The 525 base points are distributed in a way that contradicts itself. The 130 Attack is the figure that stands out, followed by 65 HP, 60 Defense and 65 Speed: it hits hard once, and almost any opponent moves before it and deals damage in return. The 110 Special Defense is the odd part of the set, because it holds up reasonably well on one side and falls apart on the other.

Flash Fire, its regular Ability, makes it immune to Fire-type attacks and powers up its own as soon as it takes one. Guts, its Hidden Ability, is the one that really gives it options: any status condition raises its Attack, and in the case of a burn it also cancels out the reduction that burn imposes. With Guts active, Facade doubles its 70 Power and becomes its most reliable hit, even ahead of Flare Blitz, which it learns at level 50 and which deals recoil damage.

What holds it back is its movepool. With 130 Attack, almost everything it can throw out physically is Normal- or Fire-type; Dig is practically the only physical coverage of another type in its entire TM list, and Temper Flare forces it to repeat a move for several turns. Being pure Fire leaves it with three well-spread weaknesses: Water, Ground and Rock.

It does more than enough in a campaign playthrough. It comes out of the stone hitting from the first turn, and against Grass, Ice, Bug or Steel it closes out battles that take other Pokémon two turns. Against an Arcanine, which is faster and bulkier, the comparison doesn't favour it in any category except Attack.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Field, one of the most populous, so breeding with almost any land-dwelling quadruped works. The gender ratio is seven to one in favour of males: only 12.5% are female.

The 35 Egg Cycles amount to around 9180 steps, among the longest stretches there are. And it's worth being clear about one detail before starting: a Flareon doesn't hatch from the Egg. An Eevee does, just as with the other seven branches, so each offspring has to be decided again with a stone. The Egg Move list is empty; it inherits whatever Eevee can pass on, nothing specific to Flareon.

The evolution condition has no trick to it. Expose Eevee to a Fire Stone, with no minimum level, no friendship requirement, no time-of-day condition and no specific location. The only barrier is getting the stone, and in return the change is immediate and irreversible, which cuts off any level-up moves Eevee still had left to learn.

Its Catch Rate is 45, that of a species that's difficult to catch, although almost all existing Flareon evolved from a stone rather than coming out of a Poké Ball. It grows at a medium rate, starts with a base friendship of 70 and yields 2 Attack Effort Points when defeated.