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Entry: 088
Grimer, or Betobeta, the sludge pokemon. I confess that this pokemon was one of those cases that had me baffled . Magnimite, koffing, trubbish, and many others like grimer have all been labeled as Matieral Pokemon by me and my colleagues.
All scientists were stumped by the Material Pokemon, until a friend of mine, an archeologist, made an incredible discovery. A fossil, one we couldn't revive. After further investigation, we determined that this creature was the common ancestor to all material pokemon.
We're still deciding on what to call it, but I'm partial to 'Martirialist keklionis' or material keklion, for its ability to blend into any environment so quickly. There's at least one matieral pokemon in every region, and all are decided from this common ancestor.
Its physical appearance is difficult to describe, just know that it would likely have been a normal type.
Now, as to how they became grimer. This was tricky for my research team. We could've just said that grimer didn't exists until the sewers were build by humans, which is true, but it isn't that simple.
The last of the MPCA (Material Pokemon Common Ancestor) were instinct roughly a generation before the invention of the sewer system. That means that grimer don't come directly from the MPCA; there's a missing link.
It took quite a bit of time, but we did eventually find the missing link. The two missing links to be exact.
These proto-pokemon, hmm, protomon, I like the sound of that. Anyway, these protomon were a water type, followed by a water/ground type.
Here is how I believe the MPCA worked. They start in a location, and from there they wait for natural selection to take place. The special thing is, they're able to control, at least to some extent, the mutations of their offspring. Because of this, it almost never took more than two generations of the little buggers to form a new species of pokemon.
The matieral they first adapted in the grimer evolution tree was water. Their bodies were composed entirely of water, with thin skeletons holding it all together. Because they were too fragile for the ocean or sea, they moved tp rivers and ponds.
They weren't strong enough to handle many of the other pond living pokemon, so they incorporated the mud into their bodies, gaining the ground typing. Most of these pokemon died out, as they moved to slowly to find food. The ones that survived were those that evolved to feed not on plants or animals, but on the scum that build up on the top ofthe ponds.
Even with these new advantages, the pokemon were still in danger of going extinct. Because they wete so slow, and had weak bodies without many ways of protecting themselves, they were killed easily. Becoming nocturnal helped some, but it wasn't enough.
And then, we came into play. That's right, the humans. The first sewer system was built, and a small population migrated inside. I believe the reason to be them following the waste that was let out back to the sewer, and taking refuge within.
The adaptive species swapped out mud and water for slime and grime, able to feed on sewage as easily as they did pond scum, and became what we know of today as grimer.
Because there was no competition in the sewers for food, and only the odd zubat to attack them (attacks they could now handle due to their bodies producing so much toxin) the grimer thrived in the sewer pipes for fourty years before being discovered.
Because grimer are notcurnal, whenever anyone went in the sewers during the day, all they saw were the piles of sludge that are grimer's sleeping form. It wasn't until a night time sewer cleaning was grimer discovered. When the moonlight hit the grimer and woke them up, they rose; likely making it appear as though the moonlight had brought the sewage to life, hence the popular myth.
It wasn't until many years later that the grimer first developed the ability to metamorphosize. I'll likely cover their matured form in a later entry.
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