Crustle, Ferroseed, and Scraggy

The humans were building again, a huge castle in the desert this time. Which meant a lot of work for the Crustles who were owned by them. Shortly after the sun rose, it began. A Crustle would pick up a massive stone block that other Pokemon had obsessively sanded down to a perfect square form (that obsession having been instilled in them by the humans). Then it would follow a line accompanied by a couple of human guards (with Pokemon to do the fighting work) all the way across the sandy city to the building site, carrying the stone block without dropping it. There, the blocks would be passed off to the Gurdurr and Conkeldurr that were in charge of stacking the blocks to the humans' precise demands. Then the Crustle would walk all the way back to the block crafting site two miles away to pick up another block to return with.

"The walk back is the worst of it," one of the Crustle told a new Pokemon at the work site while he waited to be able to pick up a new block.

"Why is that?" the small metallic Pokemon asked. It called itself a Ferroseed and was covered in green spikes. "You don't have a huge block to carry."

The Crustle rubbed one of his claws over his exposed back. "That's exactly why. I like hiding under the huge stones; anything that's out to get me would have a tough time moving my rock. Being like this, anything could attack me and I would be helpless. They make us walk all this way without any more protection than before and if we get stalled at all, I start to feel like a nervous wreck."

"Still, that's a lot of work," the Ferroseed said. "How long have you been doing this?"

"Um, I dunno." He thought about it. "I don't mind carrying the stones, although it does get tiring to do the same thing day after day. The palace is only half done; a year, I think?"

"That's a lot of work. Do they feed you well?"

"It's a little dull, but we get fed every day." He crept forward as the line moved, the Ferroseed hopping in the sand nearby. "What are you doing here? I haven't seen a Pokemon like you here before."

The Ferroseed blinked, retracting his thorns a bit. "I don't know exactly. They pulled me out of my home cave and brought me here into this bright sunlight. Something about security?"

"Oh, then you're probably in one of the guard's fighting teams. You'll be fighting off some of the city Pokemon that try to interfere with the work line."

"Good to know they're stepping up the security teams," the Crustle in front of him said. "Those pests have been causing far too much trouble and delay. We got stopped for an hour yesterday when we were on our way back."

"That was horrible," he agreed.

The Ferroseed tilted itself. "Fighting off pests, huh? I guess I'm okay with that. What Pokemon exactly are causing the problems?"

"A pack of Scraggy," he said. "They've been trouble all along, but lately they've been awful about headbutting stones off our backs and breaking them."

"Huh. I dunno what that is, but if they let me shoot others, I'm fine with it." The Ferroseed half-hopped and half-rolled at the Crustle's side until they got to the area where the blocks were being picked up.

The Crustle was going to pick up a block, but then the nearest human supervisor stepped in front of him. "This fellow has the Ferroseed? Get it to take the blocks over there today; those ones shouldn't have iron in them for that one to weaken the blocks with."

"Bah, there goes my idea that this was an easy meal," the Ferroseed said, extending its thorns in annoyance.

"They don't make it easy for any of us," the Crustle said, walking over with the guard to pick up one of the special blocks.

For instance, once he had the block, the guard picked the Ferroseed up carefully with his thick leather gloves, then began to attach him to the block. "He-hey, you don't have to tie me down!" the Ferroseed complained fruitlessly. "I can attach myself to this rock."

"You okay?" the Crustle asked, not able to see the Ferroseed well now with the block in way of his vision.

There was grumbling, but then the human snapped his whip on the ground, getting the Crustle to get back to his usual place in line. "I guess, but they tied me down," the Ferroseed said. "I hate that. I wouldn't have a problem sticking to a moving block, but if they're going to keep me from rolling away in case I get in trouble? I don't like this anymore."

"You should've rolled away earlier."

The Ferroseed sighed. "Yeah. But they have fire, so that wouldn't be easy either."

Compared to the stone block, the Ferroseed didn't weigh much. This made the walk to the building ground the same as usual. But on the second round, they got stopped halfway to the site by the troublesome Scraggy. There were five of them, clutching their skins in one hand while they shook the other as a fist. "Stop working, you fools!" one of them called out. "We'll break all your blocks if we have to to make you stop!"

"Yeah, you'd have to fight the humans first and that's not happening," the Crustle said, lowering his stance so the block protected him better.

"Ferroseed, fire at them before they start headbutting blocks," the human guard ordered.

"Why...? Aah, get that fire away from me!" The Ferroseed fired off dozens of his sharp green thorns into the Scraggy crowd, in order to get the guard to move the torch away. That must be it; the Crustle had wondered why that guard had a flaming torch during the day instead of night. Not that there was much he could do to help. The humans might decide to punish him as well.

The thorny barrage did make the Scraggy group scatter a little. A couple of them tripped over themselves and got hit. Another of them took a few steps closer and lowered his head. "Ha, you won't scare us into giving up! We're the thick-headed Scraggy! And we're going to support the war against humans when it comes here!"

"War against humans?" the Crustle asked to himself. That was the first warning he had of the chaos that was soon to come to this city, war that would end this drudgery. Yet it wasn't going to make his life any easier.

…

Crustle White entry: It possesses legs of enormous strength, enabling it to carry heavy slabs for many days, even when crossing arid land.

Scraggy B2/W2 entry: Proud of its sturdy skull, it suddenly headbutts everything, but its weight makes it unstable too.

Ferroseed Black entry: When threatened, it attacks by shooting a barrage of spikes, which gives it the chance to escape by rolling away.

Scraggy is a lot of fun to use, especially when you consider that it handles fights with Plasma goons easily. On the other hand, I'm not too familiar with Crustle and only used Ferroseed once, as a bit of help in one Gym in Y. I do find Ferroseed a bit tough to raise in Pokemon Amie. And possibly painful, considering that it does backflips when you make it happy by petting it...