Combee
Bug/Flying
Functionally 7 male/1 female
Vespiquen
Bug/Flying
All Female
The premier producers of honey everywhere except Alola. As a food provider, this is a Class D Restricted Pokémon.
Description
Combee is a trio of conjoined yellow insects with black stripes. They are nestled in wax hexagons. The bottom one is the attacking mind while the top two coordinate with their exposed wings to fly the trio.
Vespiquen is a much larger bug. Usually about the size of a human torso, a third of her mass is her abdomen. Vespiquen also builds a large wax hive onto her abdomen in which she carries mindless lesser bees and grubs. Only her forelimbs are outside of her hive. The two blunt horns on her head act to help her control her hive.
Most Combee are raised to act as general soldiers and workers. They can Gather pollen and nectar to make Honey on a regular basis. Some, raised in specialized cells of steroid-rich honey, are adapted to Hustle more as dedicated soldiers, albeit bumbling ones.
Vespquen usually use a combination of pheromones and energy to dampen attacks and force foes to use more energy just to hurt them. Some, however, were former soldiers themselves and focus on using their powers to Unnerve anything that might try to eat her, her hive, or her hive's honey supply.
Battle Characteristics
Aside from moderate Speed, Combee is rather weak. The rare Combee able to evolve into Vespiquen can look forward to moderate Constitution, moderately good Strength and Power, low Speed due to being weighted down by the hive, and great Toughness and Resistance.
Vespiquen's bread and butter are her three signature Moves. Defend Order draws from the mindless workers in her abdomen-hive to improve her already good defenses. Heal Order directs them to apply rapid healing energy to her wounds, with more healing from more bugs working. Attack Order is a swarming attack involving potentially hundreds of bees stinging a target. She can also learn Fell Stinger, a move that, if successful in defeating a target, drains the target's energy to boost offensive power. Aside from them, she learns a moderately diverse array of other Moves naturally.
Legends/Folklore
Few stories focus on the Combee. They don't make much noise or activity to draw cultural attention.
Vespiquen rarely ever break their hives from their abdomens for the boost in speed. If they do abandon their hives, it means something horrifying is in the area. Pokérus D is one of the few things that can motivate such desperation.
Vespiquen have engaged in diplomatic meetings with each other and humans. There is a very complicated set of politics governing interactions between queens.
Some Queens conquer and subjugate lesser queens and force them and their colonies to serve the greater Queen.
Her Grand Majesty of the Eternal Hive, the Vespiquen Empress, is the mightiest Vespiquen in the world. The Empress lives in the Honey Forest, a forest that has been cultivated and modified until it is really more of a garden. It is believed that at least one specimen of any non-Legendary Grass Type Pokémon lives there at the Empress's insistence. She enslaved at least twenty lesser queens before she achieved an ageless immortality. Her rapidly expanding empire was only halted when an unknown Divine stopped her. Her major hive is more than just a large wax structure, mound on the ground, or network of small hives between trees. She rules a small, hollowed out mountain and the forest around it. The forest has one of the highest ratios of fully evolved Pokémon for any wild area. Local Pokémon offer her tribute in exchange for her honey, which is said to do various things from extending life, to curing diseases, to granting incredible power.
The many lesser queens in the Empress's hive are like a noble court, vying for the Empress's favor and blessing, but trying to avoid growing strong enough for her to kill them as threats to her reign.
Conquering Vespiquen can produce a higher grade of honey. Royal Honey is able to accelerate evolution in most Pokémon by years if they maintain a steady diet of it. The Empress produces a blend so potent, that it is toxic unless diluted, but can trigger evolution instantly and turn humans into Pokémon.
Life Cycle/Evolution Conditions
'Males' can expect to live for ten years after breaking out of their grub-cells. Females can, if able to eat enough for about twenty-one months, evolve into Vespiquen. Vespiquen tend to live for forty years before politics does them in. If political strife is avoided, she can live to seventy.
Vespiquen only evolve if all three cells are female. Their minds merge to give the Vespiquen a multi-track mind. Their reproductive systems merge to allow for multiple clutches of eggs to be in progress at the same time.
Diet
Mostly liquid. In nature, they consume sap, nectar, juices from fruit, juice from Shuckle, and honey. With trainers or around humans, they can add a variety of human beverages to the list, including alcoholic drinks, fizzy soft drinks, and sugar water.
Breeding
Bug Group. Both stages will be described separately. Egg prices vary depending on the politics and negotiating with the Vespiquen. Even a Combee will end up dragging things out into negotiations.
Combee is effectively 7/1 in favor of males, but the truth is a bit more complex. The three fertilized eggs must be laid in associated trios of honeycomb cells. They merge as grubs, forming trios that develop like conjoined triplets. If even one of the three is male, they will act male. They can still lay eggs if one or two are female, but the male will prevent evolution.
Vespiquen has three reproductive systems. At least one will be producing unfertilized eggs for her abdominal hive every day. If she thinks she can support a hive with available resources, she will mate with any available male Bug Group Pokémon, even if she has to drug them on pheromones and special honey. The Empress is said to have somehow mated with a Genesect.
Wild Behavior/Threat Level
Unless times are tough, Combee and their Queens are only aggressive in self- or hive-defense. They can even be persuaded to offer honey for some good or service in better times. Even entering the primary hive complex is allowed in exchange for suitable offerings.
Vespiquen have political issues with each other, and bringing one into the territory of another can cause problems, as outlined below.
The strongest Vespiquen can dominate lesser Vespiquen and force them to guard her hive. Their eggs are forcibly taken and indoctrinated to her hive-mind. There is internal politics as the lesser queens try to break away or usurp the older, larger, and stronger queen. Internal competition using the workers left from before the dominant queen took over defines, builds, and destroys these colonies. This is the primary purpose of using female Combee to breed, getting workers not monitored by the greater Queen. Even if it risks having another rival, it still provides a means of fighting back against the overlady. Sometimes the lesser queens simply try to flee with their hives. Given the low speed and reduced endurance of Vespiquen, the flight away from an oppressive hive can take days, if not weeks, with the alpha queen constantly trying to kill the deserter, least more try to stage an escape.
Bonding and Care
Bee Keepers treat the Vespiquen as something between co-workers and a foreign merchant that must be negotiated with.
Catching a Combee and providing it with safety and security to compensate for the lack of hive is the first step. Male Combee can adapt, treating their trainer as a queen. Female Combee are known to join humans to escape their queens and have a better chance of evolving. Vespiquen tend to start treating their trainers as something between servants and trusted advisors.
Human/Pokémon Relations
Vespiquen and Combee were never domesticated. They merely reached an agreement with humans, leading to general good feelings between the Pokémon and humanity, like two neighboring nations that have a somewhat boisterous friendship.
They can love their trainers, to the point of forbidding any member of their hive from stinging.
With Family
Raised well, they will come to help their human's family. Mostly in the form of excess honey supplies.
Team Compatibility
Combee is prey for many carnivores and insectivores, but may try to bribe them with honey. Vespiquen tends to act as a stabilizing force in a team as she barters honey for services. Do not be surprised if she acts lazy and makes the rest of the team run around doing tasks for her.
Warning
Some people are allergic to Combee stings to a fatal degree. Angering a swarm can be fatal through sheer numbers.
Summary
Probably the foremost example of eusocial organisms.