Expanded Pokédex Volume II: Starters

by Zocarik

An extensive Pokédex containing information about lines of League accepted Starters. Lore, Combat Potential, Breeding, Bonding, Warnings, and more are found within. No character tags due to too many tags needed. This is a fanfiction to inspire thought. Not for profit.

37. Rowlet Line

Rowlet
Grass/Flying
1 male/1 female

Dartrix
Grass/Flying
1 male/1 female

Decidueye
Grass/Ghost
1 male/1 female

Plant-birds with a spiritual side.

Description
Rowlet is a small ball of feathers and leaves that can fit on its trainer's head or shoulder easily. Mostly brown with a white mask around its eyes, it has a few leaves at its chest that resemble a bowtie. Dartrix is, on average, twice the height of its previous evolution. It mostly grew longer/taller, though it did get an increase to wing size. It has more extensive leaves, including a few long ones around its head that help to direct sound to the facial disk feathers, which in turn carry sound to its ears. Decidueye stands almost as tall as a human. It still has wings and could fly, but it has become more attuned to the spirit world and spends a lot of time on the ground. Its head feather-leaves, resembling a hoodie, popularized the clothing in Alola. Two vines grow about its neck, and it can grab them with the small digits on the wings to create a functioning bow and arrow setup.

All three stages can potentially learn to strike precisely while projecting their attacks beyond their body. They have Long Reach and are some of the most accurate throwing Pokémon out there. Most lack the skill to attack like that and focus on triggering Overgrowth when endangered.

Battle Characteristics
Decidueye has the following stats. Moderate Constitution, Toughness, and Speed. It has great Strength, Power, and Resistance. Its strongest natural Ghost move is Spirit Shackle, which damages and pins the target through ghost trickery directed at the target's shadow. It learns several Grass and Flying moves.

Legends/Folklore
Copying this line led to the invention of multiple ranged weapons in ancient Alola. Bow and arrow, poisoned darts, and a style of throwing knife owe their existence in Alola to them. Note that such inventions were independently created in countless ancient cultures.

Dartrix and Decidueye tend to supplement physical food and photosynthesis with spectral bugaboos like lingering regrets and psychic residue. They were once a common site after battles in ancient Alola.

Marowak and Decidueye have a longstanding hostility towards each other. It can be overcome, but they clash frequently in the wild.

Life Cycle/Evolution Conditions
After hatching, it takes two months to fledge and leave the nest. Rowlet has the longest natural lifespan, of fifty years. Dartrix actually has a reduced lifespan of twenty years. Decidueye can live for ten years unless it hunts shades successfully, which can extend its total lifespan for scores of years.

This line evolves as it becomes more attuned with the spirit world. Rowlet can reasonably become attuned within seventeen years or so. Dartrix takes longer to become sufficiently attuned with spirits to survive its death and revival. With some help, it can evolve early.

Diet
Meat and spectral remnants. They focus on smaller prey like Rattata or Grubin. They are quite aggressive and greedy, but the diversity of their food means that no one source is depleted badly.

On the spectral side of their diet, they get the most benefit out of something called a shade, a spiritual and psychic remnant created from deep emotion. Love, joy, hate, sorrow, anything. Shades are among the most slippery prey on that side of the divide.

Breeding
Flying Group. Usually three or four eggs are laid periodically. In tropical areas, it happens every seven months providing that food sources are abundant. In the subtropics or further from the equator, mating occurs in early spring.

Wild Behavior/Threat Level
This line tends to be calm and ignores humans. However, they get erratic if they are dirty.

Bonding and Care
They are rubophobes. Helping them keep clean is mandatory just to keep them from having small emotional breakdowns.

Human/Pokémon Relations
Largely neutral.

With Family
They might roost near a broken family for the chance of hunting lingering resentment or guilt.

Team Compatibility
This line is somewhat unsettling for Grass and Flying types. Their tendency to become perfectly still without proper leaf alignment when spirit hunting triggers a degree of uncanny valley in both types.

Warning
They can and will retaliate to even small degrees of dirt or dust if caused by others.

Summary
Grassy, ghostly birds.