Vibrava

Two green, diamond-shaped wings, far too short for the body they are meant to support. The Pokédex keeps coming back to that detail: the wings have not finished growing, they are of little use for covering distances but very useful for something else. By beating them violently, it generates ultrasonic waves strong enough to give a nearby person a headache. Hunting works in two stages — first the sound, which leaves its prey dazed, and then the acid it uses to dissolve it before devouring it. One entry adds the reason for all that voracity: it eats a huge number of prey every day to finish developing those wings.

At 1.1 metres and 15.3 kilograms, it is a medium-sized, yellow, four-legged creature with tiny antennae and a tail ending in two green diamonds. The official category, Vibration Pokémon, focuses on the one thing it can do properly.

It is the middle stage of a three-stage line, and the shortest-lived. It appears when Trapinch reaches level 35 and lasts exactly ten levels, until level 45, when it evolves into Flygon. It lives in rugged terrain.

340 base stat points distributed in a way that is almost funny: 70 Attack, 70 Speed, and then 50, 50, 50 and 50 in HP, Defense, Special Attack and Special Defense. The same figure four times. No single stat is good enough to carry the others.

Its Ability is Levitate, and that is the amusing part here: a Ground-type Pokémon that is immune to Ground-type attacks. Added to the Electric-type immunity that Ground already brings by default, that makes two entire types that do nothing to it. The problem is on the other side of the chart, because Ground and Dragon are both weak to Ice: any move of that type hits four times as hard against 50 HP and 50 Special Defense. Dragon and Fairy hit for double damage.

On the offensive side, the Ground/Dragon pairing leaves very few things out of reach, and it has the moves to back it up: Earth Power at level 38, Earthquake at 44, Dragon Tail at 20 to force the current opponent out, and U-turn by TM if the plan is to hit and leave. Bug Buzz, at level 28, is the closest thing it has to a thematic move.

None of this makes it competitive: its figures are those of a middle stage, and its only reason to exist is reaching level 45. Where it works is in a normal playthrough, during those ten levels, as something that already flies, hits with two different types and shrugs off opposing Earthquakes. When defeated, it yields 1 Attack and 1 Speed.

It belongs to two unusual Egg Groups together, Bug and Dragon, opening up breeding with insectoid creatures on one side and dragons on the other. The gender ratio is 50%, so breeding does not depend on finding a rare female. The 20 Egg cycles come to around 5355 steps, making it a fairly ordinary egg.

There are three Egg Moves worth the slot. Fissure is a one-hit KO Ground-type move, with the miserable accuracy they all have and the same appeal as always. Superpower gives it a 120-power Fighting-type move, something it cannot access by any other route. First Impression, with 90 power, is the strong Bug-type hit it does not learn by levelling up. It can also inherit Feint, Quick Attack, Astonish and Supersonic.

The evolution has no trick to it: Trapinch becomes Vibrava upon reaching level 35, and Vibrava becomes Flygon upon reaching level 45. No stones, no friendship, no time of day. Its growth rate is Medium Slow.

In the wild, it inhabits rugged terrain and has a catch rate of 120, an intermediate value — neither the nightmare of 45 nor the gift of 255. It sometimes holds a Dragon Fang.