Xatu

A metre and a half tall and fifteen kilos in weight: the height of an adult human packed into a body that barely weighs as much as a medium-sized dog. It is the build of a bird that hardly uses its skeleton, which fits with what it does during the day, namely nothing.

The six Pokédex entries describe the same scene in different words. It starts meditating at dawn and loses track of time. It remains standing, motionless and silent, in the same place until night falls. The explanation given is uncomfortable: it does not move out of fear of what it has seen is going to happen. Another entry leaves no room for doubt — it possesses the gift of clairvoyance, lacks the power to alter the future and has no intention whatsoever of trying.

Hence its official category, Mystic Pokémon, and the fact that some people worship it. The eyes painted on its wings point in opposite directions because, according to one of the entries, it watches the past and the future at the same time.

It is the second and final form in its evolutionary line. Natu reaches this point at level 25, and there is nothing after that: 470 base stat points, and growth stops there.

The 470 points are split between two peaks and a long valley. Ninety-five Special Attack and ninety-five Speed; then 75 Attack, 70 Defence, 70 Special Defence and 65 HP. That last figure determines almost everything it can and cannot do.

Magic Bounce, its hidden ability, is the entire reason anyone pays attention to it. It reflects status moves aimed at it back at the opponent — paralysis, poison, stat reductions — as well as entry hazards, so anyone trying to set them up in front of it ends up with them on their own side of the field. It appeared in Generation V and is found in only ten species, never as a regular ability: always as a hidden ability or through Mega Evolution.

The rest of its movepool supports that job. Roost from TM restores health without requiring a charging turn, U-turn lets it leave after reflecting something, and Wish, learned at level 48, heals the teammate that comes in afterwards. For offence, it relies on Psychic, at level 41, and Air Slash, which it already knows by default.

Its body is what holds it back. With 65 HP and two 70s in its defences, it takes one neutral hit and not much more, while the Psychic/Flying combination leaves it with five weaknesses: Electric, Ice, Rock, Ghost and Dark. None of them is uncommon. In return, it completely ignores Ground and takes a quarter damage from Fighting.

Its other two abilities are no competition. Synchronize passes poisoning, paralysis or a burn back to whoever inflicted it; Early Bird halves the time it spends asleep. Both are reasonable in a normal playthrough, and neither justifies taking up the slot.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Flying, which lets it breed with birds and little else. The gender split is clean, 50% female, so there is no need to fight probability to get one: any breeding pair from the line will do.

Its 20 Egg Cycles amount to about 5355 steps, an average figure within the group. Its movepool contains no Egg Moves and no moves from a Move Tutor either, so the inheritance tree is short: what you breed is what you get.

Its evolution has no trick to it. Natu reaches level 25 and that is it — no items, no time of day, no friendship. Its experience growth rate is average, the most predictable of the six, and its base friendship is 70.

In the wild, it inhabits forests. Its catch rate, 75, sits in the middle range: above the 45 that marks the difficult ones and far from the 255 of those that fall to the first Poké Ball, which in practice means two or three Balls if its health is lowered first.

One breeding detail is visible at a glance: males have three stripes on their bodies and females do not. It is one of the few cases in Generation II where sex can be distinguished by appearance.