Grovyle Report

Grovyle (the Wood Gecko Pokémon) is an exceptionally rare Grass-type Pokémon found among forested areas within the Hoenn region, portions of South American jungles, the Blueberry Academy Terarium and the Alola region on rare occasions. Unmatched in speed among the treetops, Grovyle are powerful creatures that are more than capable of taking down even the hardiest of foes with their strong Leaf Blade attack. Climbing a tree in the middle of the woods might not be a bad idea to escape most creatures, but make sure to look where you are going beforehand; otherwise, you may end up facing something much worse in the process!

Grovyle can walk on walls and ceiling just like Treecko as a result of the numerous small, cleat-like spikes that line the bottoms of their digits. However, Grovyle do have an advantage over their pre-evolution in that they possess incredibly strong thigh muscles; with these stronger muscles, Grovyle are far more agile and can easily leap to great heights with little effort. The endurance of their muscles is also far greater, allowing them to easily leap from tree to tree at incredible speeds for long periods of time. For reasons still not completely understood, Grovyle actually move much faster while leaping from tree to tree then they do while running; a twitch reflex in their leg muscles is believed to be the root cause of this issue but the reasoning behind why it only occurs in trees is still a mystery. What is known is that this makes Grovyle literally uncatchable among tree tops; no matter how fast their prey might be, Grovyle are always able to catch up to them by moving across trees before slicing them open with their specialized Leaf Blade attack.

The main focus of concern for Grovyle, however, is the parasitic plant attached to them. When Bulbasaur evolve into Ivysaur, the parasitic plant on their backs simply grows and matures further; besides this, the Bulbasaur itself only grows slightly and matures in age to match the plant. With Grovyle, it's an entirely different story: When Treecko finally evolve, the seed of their parasitic plant finally breaks and the parasitic plant completely invades their anatomy. As a result, leaf shoots from the parasitic plant naturally grow from the creatures' arms, head and tail region. The sudden integration of the parasitic plant into their soft tissue results in some other key anatomical distortions within their growth cycle, namely that their head crest is slightly deformed and reduced and they lose a finger on each foot. While some anatomical distortions are corrected upon evolution, they nonetheless can hamper a newly-evolved Grovyle's combat functions until they get used to them. On the other hand, they do give Grovyle two key advantages. For one thing, this allows them to learn and utilize moves that take advantage of their changing anatomy and exceptional agility, particularly the Fury Cutter, X-Scissor, False Swipe and Leaf Blade attacks, though the first three require artificial assistance to fully access. Secondly, Grovyle in particular are able to use the large leaves on their bodies for camouflage in the wild, allowing them to hide themselves from both predators and prey alike without trouble.

Although many trainers might find Grovyle more difficult to use than Treecko because of their radically different anatomy, they shouldn't be given up on; considering how fast Grovyle are, offense shouldn't even be a major concern. With a demeanor just as calm and collected as their pre-evolved form, Grovyle are determined fighters that will gladly give any stubborn opponents the business end of their Leaf Blade attack over and over. If anything else, hold on to one until it evolves into a Sceptile; once they can overcome the parasitic plant in their bodies, it will be very difficult for any opponent to take them down without a serious type advantage!

Professor Wormwood