Nidorina

Put next to Nidorino, the first thing you notice is what she lacks. He stands upright on his hind legs and stretches out a long horn; she walks on all fours and has little more than a stump on her forehead. The Pokédex gives a specific reason for that atrophy: her horn shrank so she wouldn't hurt the young while feeding them. And feeding them is meant literally — she chews their food until it softens, then spits it out for her offspring.

The spines on her back are retractable and act as a mood ring. Around family or friends, she keeps them hidden to avoid accidents. She retracts them inside the burrow too, and there the signal is that she feels safe. Separated from the group, she gets pretty agitated. When danger reaches the herd, they all emit a chorus of ultrasonic waves at once: the same trick she uses alone to confuse a rival, multiplied by the number of neighbors.

She is 80 centimeters tall and weighs 20 kilograms, with a blue body and the stance of a small quadruped. She is the middle stage of a line that does not finish by leveling up, and retains the Poison Pin Pokémon category she has had since Nidoran♀ and shares with the male half of the family.

The spread is flat to the point of monotony: 70 HP, 67 Defense, 62 Attack, 56 Speed, and exactly 55 in both Special stats. Total: 365. There is no stat to build around, and her only type, Poison, only hits Grass and Fairy for extra damage, bounces off Steel, and comes up short against Ground, Rock, and Ghost. Defensively, she holds up a little better than she looks, but Ground and Psychic run her over.

The Abilities do not fix the problem, and one of them almost makes it worse. Poison Point can poison anything that makes contact with her, which, for a species with nothing better to do, is the most useful of the three. Rivalry raises damage against targets of the same sex, and since 100% of specimens here are female, the Ability turns into a lottery that depends on the opponent: it punishes females and leaves her damage below normal against everything else. Hustle, her Hidden Ability, raises Attack at the cost of Accuracy — on a base of 62, the trade-off is not worth it.

Her movepool is that of a transitional stage. Poison Jab and Sludge Bomb come from TMs and are the strongest moves she can use; Double Kick, at level 29, is her only answer to Steel and Rock. Toxic Spikes, at 22, is the move that truly justifies keeping her on the team for a while: it puts a layer of poison on the opposing side of the field and asks nothing of her stats. Crunch does not arrive until 64, and Earth Power until 71, two numbers designed for a creature that should no longer exist by then.

Breeding is not possible. She belongs to the Undiscovered Egg Group, so she cannot breed with a partner or Ditto, and shares that condition with Nidoqueen. The curious detail is that her previous form can breed normally: Nidoran♀ belongs to the Monster and Field Egg Groups, and is the only link in the female branch that can lay eggs. Evolving closes the door. The 20 Egg Cycles recorded in the data — about 5355 steps — only have an effect when the egg is produced by her previous form, and the Egg Move list is empty, so everything she learns comes from leveling up or TMs.

100% of specimens are female. Evolution into Nidoqueen does not depend on level, friendship, or time of day: you only need to use a Moon Stone, and it works at any time from the moment she evolves at level 16 from Nidoran♀.

In the wild, her habitat is grassland. Her catch rate, 120, puts her in a comfortable zone — neither the 45 of elusive species nor the 255 of those that go down to the first Poké Ball — so a Great Ball with some damage already dealt will usually be enough. She grows at a medium-slow rate and gives 2 effort points in HP.