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Downloading from The Alola Pokédex Online Appendix . . .
Dragapult (Dreepy, Drakloak)
Overview
Fossil revival, especially of particularly old species, is still an evolving field. The first generation fossils are typically some mix of organic and inorganic, with possessed rocks making up as much of the final organism as tissue and blood. Recent resurrections and fossil pokémon after several generations of breeding with each other and organic pokémon gain more of their original typing and lose more and more of their rock-typing.
The original idea for blending phantoms, minerals, and organic tissue together to revive an ancient species came from dragapult, a species of Jurassic-era salamanders that managed to resurrect themselves into the modern era. Even after countless attempts at replication, the process by which this occurred is still not fully understood.
Dreepy husbandry has been attempted since the first sightings of dragapult occurred in Victorian-era Galar. Only in recent years, with the advent of powerful pokéballs and a better understanding of the species' diet, has there been any real success. Trainers wishing to raise a dragapult should be well aware of the difficulties of meeting their dietary, territorial, and social requirements. If all these needs can be met, dragapult are one of the most formidable ghost-types in the world.
Physiology
Dreepy have prominent yellow eyes on top of their head. Flat green horns extend out both sides of the head, while a pair of red gills billows out beneath the horns. Dreepy's mouth is capable of opening surprisingly wide to engulf large meals. Most of dreepy's body is green, with lighter shades on the bottom and darker shades on top. Three green spikes protrude from the middle section of the tail. Two thin forearms extend out from the main body.
Drakloak are substantially larger than dreepy. The top of their head and horns is black with triangular red markings towards the back of the head. Two ridges extend above the eyes. Grooves in the ridges allow dreepy to anchor onto the drakloak's head, even at high speeds. The bottom of drakloak's body is cream colored. A triangular red marking adorns the chest. The forelimbs are more developed and split into three fingers at the end. Hindlegs emerge from the tail, although they are more akin to fins than proper limbs.
Dragapult have red markings on the front of their head and horns rather than the back. The singular, thin ridges on drakloak's head evolve into complex triangular launching systems designed for storing dreepy and then firing them at supersonic speeds. More triangular markings develop on the chest, although the exact pattern and number of them depends on the individual. Four red claws extend from the forelimbs and the hindlimbs develop into proper legs and four-clawed feet. The tail makes up about half of the dragapult's length.
All stages of the evolutionary line are composed of a strange mix of ecotoplasm and ordinary amphibian tissues. When preparing for physical strikes or eating physical food, the pokémon takes an almost entirely solid form. When moving at high speeds, taking anticipated hits, or seeking to blend into the surroundings, dragapult shift to an almost entirely ectoplasmic form that is nearly invisible and intangible in the physical world.
The line subsists primarily on physical foods such as wailord, jellyfish, and siphonophores. Some of their diet is made up of ectoplasm, often taken from dirfblim or jellicent in the wild.
Dragapult spend more time in water than the air, but they are indifferent to the salinity of the water. In fact, dragapult fair well in almost any liquid of similar density and viscosity.
In the wild, dragapult can live up to thirty years. Successful captive programs are relatively recent. Before their diet was better understood, it was rare for a dreepy to survive a full year in captivity. A full grown dragapult can be three meters long, including the tail. Weight is highly variable depending on the currently ectoplasm-matter balance of the organism, but the largest dragapult can weigh up to nine hundred pounds when fully solid.
Behavior
Dragapult live in silos consisting of a breeding pair of dragapult and multiple generations of offspring. A mature silo can contain up to two dragapult, five drakloak, and ten to fifteen dreepy. The dreepy stick close to the dragapult and drakloak at all times. During hunts and flights the dreepy ride on their parents' and older siblings' heads. Otherwise they roam around and explore the environment while the older pokémon keep watch. Dreepy are rather shy when separated from elders and find a tight hiding place or phase almost entirely into ectoplasm. When under a watchful eye dreepy will watch humans and other pokémon from a distance.
Drakloak keep vast ranges, often spanning hundreds or even thousands of miles from end to end. The silo that visits Alola has also been seen as far east as the Galapagos Islands and Gulf of California. Dragapult are primarily nocturnal. During the day they will rest underwater or in a sheltered, dark place on land. On cloudy and/or rainy days they may become active.
Dragapult hunt at night, when other ghosts are most active. Jellicent, wailord, and drifblim are the primary targets of dragapult hunts. Dragapult will hide invisible, either underwater or high in the sky, until they get a clear shot. Then dreepy will be fired at the target at supersonic speeds, usually causing a lethal rupture and deflation upon collision. As others in the area try to flee, drakloak will hem them in. Other dreepy will take their positions in their parent's launchers and another volley will be fired. The first wave of dreepy will grab any remaining ectoplasm in their jaw and steadily make their way back to their parents. The attack ends when more prey has been killed than the silo can eat, the drakloak are injured and pushed back, or the dragapult run out of dreepy to fire. When the hunt is finished, the dreepy eat first. Dragapult go second. Drakloak eat last, although there is usually enough food for all silo members to eat with food left over.
Less dramatic hunts occur in the middle depths of the open ocean. All members of the silo will dive down and scoop up jellyfish in their mouth. Alternatively, multiple silo members may collaborate to pull apart and consume a siphonophore or man-o-war. Wailord hunts are now believed to be very rare; most of the line's organic diet comes from gelatinous organisms.
Husbandry
There are two schools of thought around dragapult husbandry.
The first is raising a dreepy without a drakloak or dragapult to assist. This strategy requires obtaining a dreepy (see Acquisition) and then feeding, housing, and playing with it well enough to replicate a wild environment. The dreepy will require a dusk ball and/or many tight, dark, enclosed spaces to hide in. A pool of water should also be provided for the dreepy to hide and swim in.
Jellyfish are easy enough to obtain, but fresh ectoplasm is exceptionally difficult as most ghosts fade quickly after death. In practice, the dreepy will need other pokémon to wear down a ghost and then allow the dreepy to make the kill and use its own spectral energies to keep the body from fading. Please consult local regulations on using live, captive pokémon for consumption.
Other pokémon, especially ghosts and dragons, help dreepy deal with anxiety and loneliness that occurs when away from a silo. Cannons and catapults custom-built for dreepy are also good for enrichment, emotional regulation, and evolution (see Evolution). Dreepy are usually skittish around humans, but gradually increasing exposure can cause a dreepy to except a trainer as family. It is safe to touch dreepy, even for prolonged periods.
Some trainers have adopted entire silos with some success. A few of these silos are formed from captive-raised dreepy that form a mated pair. Others are simply adopted intact from the wild (see Acquisition). So long as all silo members are captured and chipped (a potentially arduous task for skittish dreepy), they can be allowed to roam and feed themselves over a large range. Unfortunately, free-range dragapult do not often return home at the times their trainer would like them to be there. Channelers and teams with pokémon translators may have more luck, but dragapult are an unfortunate mix of forgetful and spiteful and may decline to return on time even when aware of the deadline.
Illness
Most dragapult and drakloak illnesses stem from eating the ectoplasm of sick ghosts. The diseases tend to transfer directly to the predator and linger for a few days or weeks. With time and health food, a full recover is all but assured.
When under stress, such as isolation from conspecifics, dreepy often refuse to eat even if food is provided for them. Over time they will spend less and less time solid and visible. They will eventually fade away altogether. If a dreepy begins this cycle, it is best to immediately introduce a dreepy or drakloak for companionship. Having other ghosts or dragons can reduce stress, as can launching devices.
Evolution
Dreepy can take up to fifteen to twenty years to evolve in the wild and captivity. With regular success in hunts or launches from man-made catapults, this can be reduced to ten or even five years. Ongoing research suggests that diets that are about 70% ectoplasm can be tied to faster evolution into a drakloak, although dreepy can survive on a diet consisting primarily of gelatinous organisms. Evolution is marked by a fairly rapid expansion of the horns and head size followed by a more gradual expansion of the rest of the body.
Drakloak undergo a similar evolution process after a few solo hunts. The second evolution is comparatively fast and can occur less than two years after the first evolution. The absence of dragapult and presence of dreepy accelerates the evolution timeline as the drakloak evolves to better care for its younger siblings.
Battle
There is fierce debate in universities and league offices as to what constitutes a pokémon. Galar is famously lax in their definition and allows for an entire formation of falinks to battle as one pokémon. Alola is comparatively strict; the only pokémon allowed with multiple minds and physically detached bodies is exeggute, a fairly weak pokémon with a hive mind that evolves into a single contiguous organism. Even wishiwashi are not allowed to form true schools, despite being an iconic symbol of Alola.
The debate is relevant to dragapult as the species' strongest attacks involve launching dreepy. There was an extended delay in putting dragapult in the Alola Pokédex because scholars, politicians, and league officials were concerned about allowing dreepy to accompany a dragapult into battle. This is contentious not because of dragapult itself, which has never been used in an official Alolan league match, but because allowing dreepy for attacks is dangerously close to allowing charjabug to power up a vikavolt's lightning strikes. Dragapult was eventually admitted as a native Alolan species and allowed in league matches, but neither dragapult, drakloak, nor vikavolt can use their juvenile stages in official battles.
Even without dreepy, dragapult is a formidable opponent. Dragapult accelerate and decelerate well and have an incredible top speed. What few attacks they cannot dodge outright can be avoided by fading into other realms. Dragapult can also use their deep and broad energy wells to incapacitate opponents with thunder wave, toxic, or will-o-wisp, blow them away with hex or draco meteor, or use one of dragapult's many coverage moves to turn a neutral matchup into a favorable one.
The most reliable counter-strategy to dragapult is to simply bait them into breaking the rules. The species is one of very few that can easily slip past even the most potent of defensive barriers. Ordinarily out-of-bounds violations are rare as all competitors are physically stopped. Dragapult reflexively phase through them rather than allowing themselves to be hit. Putting a pokémon, especially a ranged attacker, at the edge of an arena and baiting the opponent into attacking often leads to the dragapult slipping out-of-bounds after a physical attack and being disqualified.
More reliable counterplay to dragapult includes very bulky normal-types like blissey and porygon2, powerful ghost-types that can strike dragapult even when they are faded, homing attacks, and some fairy- and dark-type area of effect moves that can punish dragapult however they try to avoid it. Dragapult are also not built for close-quarters combat, with their claws as more of a last-ditch defense than anything. If a physically-inclined flier can get close, it can deal a fair bit of damage.
Dragapult and drakloak have never been used on the island challenge. It is probable that they function best as flying artillery that can dodge almost any attack and wear down the opponent over time. Dreepy is substantially weaker than either of its evolved forms and will struggle on its own, even in early trials.
Acquisition
A silo is most commonly sighted feeding on tentacruel as well as jellicent and other ghosts in the Route 14 area. They are only occasional visitors to Alola, arriving to feed and explore once every three to eight months and staying for a matter of days or weeks. All evolutionary stages are very good at staying hidden if they do not wish to be seen, effectively necessitating a Silph Scope for would-be capturers.
It will not be easy to capture a dreepy. Dragapult and drakloak are fiercely protective of the baby dragons and will pursue abductors for quite some distance. The only reliable way to shake them is to defeat every single member of the silo, capture one or all of them, and then, if a dragapult remains, flee a very long distance with the dreepy in its ball.
A captured silo can be bribed to regularly come back with offerings of food or direct communication through translators or channelers. An individual dreepy will probably become skittish, refuse to eat, and take any chance it finds to escape. It is more reliable to purchase one of the very expensive children of previously-captured dreepy. The primary markets for this are in Galar, although less well-documented specimens can be acquired in Morocco and Anahuac.
Dreepy, drakloak, and dragapult all require a Class IV license to obtain.
Breeding
Dragapult mating has never occurred in sight of humans. It may not occur in the physical world at all. What is known is that a female dragpault will occasionally release already-fertilized eggs into a body of water. The eggs float just below the surface, anchored in place by forces unknown. All members of the silo fiercely guard the eggs. Any interlopers that are not scared away by eerie noises or displays of aggression will be attacked and probably killed. As the eggs are plainly visible, at least one drakloak or dragapult will also remain visible near the eggs, often half-submerged in the water with their tail wrapped around them. Dragapult have never been seen laying eggs in Alola, but any trainers encountering a drakloak or dragapult behaving as such should leave the area immediately and contact the DNR.
Dragapult steadfastly refuse human help in raising their children. Even fairly loyal specimens will attempt to flee to some place secluded for at least one year after new children hatch, only returning to their trainer once the babies are sufficiently grown.
Subspecies
Early dragapult sightings (c. 1870) reported the pokémon as being mottled brown and unable to become fully transparent. Deceased individuals left behind a fossilized skeleton. Over the course of several generations the species has left its rock-typing behind and become more traditionally ghostly and draconic. The process has inspired many scientists interested in fossil reproduction. It is the basis for the current method of creating questionably organic rock-types first before using genetic engineering and selective intra- and interspecies breeding to remove the unnatural traits.
Dragapult themselves are believed to be related to the ancient amphibian Koolasuchus lata. Whether the species was a breed of self-resurrecting ghost-types, or whether dragapult are the result of a modern ghost type leeching a form, DNA, and memory from ancient bones, is a matter of ongoing scientific debate. Ectoplasm preserves extremely poorly and is very soft at the best of times, making it unlikely to fossilize. The remains of any bones suggests that K. lata was not, in fact, a ghost-type. However, if a modern ghost did latch onto K. lata's bones, it raises the question of why this has not occurred with any other fossilized pokémon.
In any case, K. lata was an amphibian whose fossils have been found in Europe, Northwest Africa, and Baja California. The unusual distribution suggests that they were competent seafarers capable of crossing the Tethys Ocean. Alternatively, if fossils were to be found in other regions of North America, it would suggests that they were simply a coastal species that lived along the very edge of the Tethys Ocean, as the then-archipelago of Europe was not far removed from North America at the time.
It is believed that K. lata preyed on small dinosaurs and mid-sized fish, presumably using ambush tactics to take down prey. If they were to be fast, airborne ghost-types like their modern equivalents, K. lata may have had no trouble at all crossing the oceans of the Jurassic world and catching prey in much the same way as dragapult do now.