CH175 (789), Proto Evolution/Species (2)

The new Pokemon in the next entry was way more appealing to me, and I could definitely state that I was interested in finding out how one got a Misdreavus to evolve into a Misflumane. The, by me, suspected proto-evolution of Misdreavus was listed as a ghost/fairy type and looked like a much bigger Misdreavus with hair extensions, though said extensions resembled a set of arms with feathers. It also had a series of red spikes growing from the top of its head, and its eyes seemed to have mirrored colors compared to before; Its large eyes were now yellow with red sclerae instead of red with yellow sclerae.

I honestly thought that Misflumane looked pretty good; I personally preferred the looks of this evolution over the Mismagius one, and I was sure I would not be the only one, though I was confident that ghost specialists would be happy to use both. In my opinion, the ghost/fairy combination had a somewhat better type relation chart than the pure ghost one, though there was no denying that both charts were pretty good. Regardless, favorable type combination aside, I was sure that the fairy specialists would be very pleased to add a second ghost to their pool of options besides Mimikyu.

Honestly, these proto-evolutions/Pokemon all seemed pretty impressive, and I looked forward to seeing the others, though if I remembered it right, the foreword mentioned that only 7 or 8 had been discovered so far, so I was already nearly halfway through them. With that thought in mind, I moved on to Entry number 389, and when I saw the picture of Terrampion I had to take a second look before I realized what I was seeing. Terrampion had an unmistakable resemblance to none other than Volcarona, though I very much doubted that it was an evolution of it.

It looked more like an alternate Larvesta proto evolution, maybe even an entire alternate/variant line starting from Larvesta itself. The reason I had to take a second look even though Terrampion had an uncanny resemblance to Volcarona thanks to its head and its six wings, though the wings themselves looked a bit different, was the fact that the Terrampion in the picture was standing on two legs and had two stubby arms. This was something Volcarona did not have but made kinda sense since Terrampion was listed as a bug/fighting type.

Anyway, unlike Vocarona, Terrampion seemed to have a somewhat humanoid body; Well, if one ignored the black insect thorax and its teal-colored tail. Its body outside of its head and its feet as well as hands was covered by white fuzz. Honestly, taking the whole picture into account, it seemed more appropriate to call it a bipedal-capable body rather than a humanoid one. I kinda felt like it looked a bit like an insectoid yeti with wings with all the white fuzz on its body, though all those insect limbs also kind of ruined that impression pretty quickly.

Either way, Terrampion was not bad-looking, even if I frankly preferred Volcarona's looks between the two. That Volcarona's type combination was also slightly better was not as important since I was sure that all bug and fighting type trainers would appreciate the fact that they would be able to add a Pokemon like Terrampion to their teams, though that was obviously assuming that Terrampion had the same or close to the same racial value total as Volcarona.

Not that I was worried about that all too much since it was more likely that Terrampion had a higher RV/BS than Volcarona rather than a lower one. It seemed to be something that all ancient/proto species/evolutions likely had in common. Maybe it was because those were harder times, but either way, that was what I had seen so far. Ancient Pokemon theory aside, I moved on to the next entry, and I nearly had to laugh when I saw what appeared to be a Magneton with a caveman haircut.

Oh, I did see the obvious differences compared to the regular Magneton; It was hard not to see how the two smaller magnets belonging to the second and third head had been replaced by one much larger magnet respectively, but it was the caveman haircut that nearly did me in. It took me only a moment to realize that the "hair" was most likely just magnetic sand that was being manipulated/attracted by, let's see…, Magnesand. *snort* Magnesand what an appropriate name, and it even seemed to have a fitting typing seeing how it was listed as an electric/ground type.

It was not an unheard-of combination since Stunfisk already had the typing, but I would honestly say that the modern Magnemite line had found a better type combination. I was honestly not sure if Magnesand evolved from regular Magnemite or maybe even replaced Magnezone as Magneton's evolution, though it was also possible that it was part of an entirely new variant line of Magnemite due to the electric/ground typing and the Professors simply had not found the prevolutions yet.

Either way, while I honestly thought Magnesand looked interesting/funny enough, I also believed that the type combination of the modern Magnemite line was better, though I was sure that all ground specialists would appreciate another electric/ground Pokemon, especially if Magnesand replaced Magnezone as the second evolution of the proto-Magnemite line. Regardless, I chose to move on to Entry number 391, and I had to take a moment to stop myself from gaping. Honestly, somehow each of these proto Pokemon entries managed to be more surprising than the last.

I certainly did not expect to see what looked like a Proto Salamance when I opened this entry. Lunroagon was listed as a dragon/dark type and actually looked closer to Mega Salamance than it did to the regular Salamance. That naturally did not mean that I believed it to be an evolution on top of Salamance, but it had me consider the possibility that it was actually what Shelgon was supposed to evolve into before the modern dragon/flying type Salamance evolution somehow managed to prevail. I mean, not that Lunroagon could not fly since the picture showed that its wings were not just for show even if it had the dragon/dark typing.

I knew about the story of Bagon and Shelgon yearning for the sky, but I was honestly not sure how Salamance happened if Lunroagon was a thing. Either way, I thought that Lunroagon seemed more legit, especially due to its resemblance to Mega Salamance. That had nothing to do with the fact that Lunroagon had Salamance absolutely beat in the look department with its large crescent moon-like red wings that had blue-tipped feather-like protrusions on the ends along with its wolverine-like claws and side chops-looking spikes as well as the helmet-like white bone/scale cover atop of its head. Not sure what I thought about the black cape that seemed to start somewhere above the base of its tail, but it did not look bad, so I did not dislike it either. 

Ultimately, I thought Lunroagon was awesome and I genuinely hoped there was a way for me to get one. Looking into the reason for the loss of contact between Paldea and the alliance, or rather the rest of humanity since the alliance did not yet exist when the expedition happened, felt more and more important. Anyway, after giving Lunroagon's picture a final look, I moved on to the next entry. Interestingly enough, the entry title/name was Delibird, though the typing listed below made it evident that the entry was on a variant and not the original since the Delibird of Entry number 392 was listed as an ice/water type.

The Delibird variant looked pretty much like the regular one, with just two differences. The first one was that its feet were longer than that of the regular Delibird, they actually resembled short skis. The second difference was the white hollow tail that regular Delibird loved to use as a bag. That white bag was gone and had been replaced by what appeared to be a blue ice gourd. I was not sure if the skis and Delibird's new typing meant that it had suddenly turned into a proper penguin and lost its ability to fly along with that particular typing since the picture only showed it skiing on what looked like a snowy hill.

Anyway, I remembered that the foreword mentioned that the second group of new entries, which I was pretty sure Delibird belonged to, consisted of not only type variants but also of species that all shared the same ability, Terrain Drive, making them dual variants, and I could not help but wonder what that ability was. While I could make an educated guess by the name alone, I wanted to know for sure, so for the first time since opening the Paldean Pokemon Index, I did more than just look at the picture, name, and typing of a Pokemon (Entry). 

I actually skimmed through the entry notes on Delibird and found out what Terrain Drive did. It ensured that, as long as a Pokemon in possession of Terrain Drive appeared on any terrain created by a move or special environment, the Pokémon's most proficient stat got a boost. My first thought when I read that was whether that was limited to a single boost regardless of the type of terrain got set up, or if different kinds of terrains would all give a boost if a Pokemon was able to set up multiple terrains in succession. Unfortunately, the notes did not provide the answer to that question, so I would have to later see if the notes of Professor Turo had the answers I wanted. 

Anyway, since I had already taken a look at the ability of this group, I decided to go back to Lunroagon's entry to take a look at the notes to see what Protosynthesis did, even if I was able to make an educated guess for this one as well. It turned out that the ability was pretty similar to Terrain Drive, just that the Terrain moves had been changed with the move Sunny Day and that the special environments were limited to strong sunlight-related ones. Still, even if this seemed simpler than Terrain Drive, I could not help but wonder if the intensity of the sunlight had an impact on the boost provided by Protosynthesis. 

Would the harsh sunlight triggered by Mars/Ursasol provide the same boost as any random Sunny Day, or would it provide two or more boosts instead? Sadly, I could not find the answer to that question in Lunroagon's notes as well, so I would have to go through Professor Sada's notes for this one. Curiosity satisfied, even if only partially, I chose to move on to the next entry, so after skipping past Delibird's entry, I took a look at Entry 393. Said entry happened to be on Hariyama, or at least the special Paldean dual variant of it. 

The Hariyama in question was listed as a fighting/electric type, which would have actually made it the first common species with that type combination if not for the Pawmo and Pawmot that had been introduced among the many new Paldean Pokemon, so it was only the third Pokemon with that typing. That tidbit aside, this Hariyama looked pretty much identical to the regular one with two little color differences. The first one was that its hand and feet were yellow instead of orange, and the second one was that the half-circle marking on its torso was light black or a very dark grey; I was not sure which one.

Nonetheless, that was it; Visually there was nothing else that differentiated the Paldean Hariyama dual variant from the regular Hariyama we knew. That seemed to be a theme considering how the Paldean Delibird was pretty similar to its regular counterpart as well, even if its differences were a bit more prominent. The next entry confirmed that theory for me since I had trouble noticing any obvious difference in the Volcarona shown in the picture compared to its regular counterpart, even though it was listed as a fire/poison type. Only after mentally comparing it side by side with the regular Volcarona did I notice some difference, which I had to admit, I probably could have noticed even without the comparison if I had focused more on spotting any less obvious differences.

Anyway, the one I should have really noticed was that it had black and white spots on its wings instead of just black ones. A difference that was a bit harder to notice/remember was that its eyes were orange rather than blue, and the hardest difference to notice was that its horn-like structures at the side of its face were a deeper shade of red. That was it, other than that it looked identical to the regular Volcarona. Honestly, considering the fact that it was listed as a fire/poison type, I would have expected it to have some purple somewhere, but that was not the case. Well, at least the original looked pretty great, so the same automatically applied to this dual variant as well. 

Add-on Notice (Not included in the word count):

(1): Had been regarding the name for Roaring Moon but this has been dealt with after a discussion/conversation with my patron(s). I used Roarlundra at first but changed it to Lunroagon after discussing it with a patron.

(2): Oh, and yes, as you've read, I've decided to turn the future/robot Paradox into regular variants; Well, if you can call dual variants, specifically type and ability variants, regular that is. I already mentioned in the chapter on the foreword of the index that the second group of "new" Pokemon had an ability in common, and I declared way back when paradox Pokemon got revealed that there would be no robot Pokemon from the future in my story, so this adaptation should not have come as much of a surprise. 

Anyway, unlike Protosynthesis, Quark Drive does in my opinion not fit what I want as much so I've decided to change it to Terrain Drive, which as you had to have read works on any terrain move instead of just Electric Terrain.

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