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Description
MEGA ARCANINE (ARCANe+CANINE)
- Fire/Fighting
- Ability: Forewarn
Arcanine's Mega Evolved form is Mega Arcanine and can be accessed using the Arcaninite.
"A benevolent and revered Pokémon, its raging inner fire gives it the energy to travel so quickly that even a bullet train can't outspeed it. Trainers who own one always voyage alongside it as it performs acts of heroism, departing when all is well."
"Supposedly, only a person who has achieve a higher understanding of the world around him or her can mega-evolve a trained Arcanine. Its strength comes from its incredible resolve, shrugging off negative influences as though they don't exist."
BST: 90/120/90/120/90/155 - 655
NOTE: Growlithe can now learn Focus Blast via TM, Pounce* as a starting move, and Rampant Kick* as an egg move from Rapidash or Pyroar.

* Pounce
Category: Physical
Type: Fighting
Power: 65
PP: 20
Accuracy: 100%
Used by skilled quadruped Pokemon. Crouching down, the user launches itself at the enemy's weak point, which may make them flinch. (Compare: Stomp and Steamroller.)
(NOTE: This move has 30% chance of causing flinching, and its base power doubles if the target has used Minimize.)

* Rampant Kick
Category: Physical
Type: Fighting
Power: 100
PP: 15
Accuracy: 80%
A strong rearing kick attack reminiscent of medieval heraldry. If the opponent was about to use a contact move against the user, the opponent's
attack fails.

**********

Before I continue the remaining fakemon of Sundo, three more mega evolutions are planned, along with one more regional variant, so I'm getting these out of the way first. Each of my "Elite Four" - whom I am, as of now, dubbing the Cardinal Heralds - will be using one Mega Evolution each, and the Champion will have a variant and a Mega; the Heralds will specialize in two types, unlike the Gym Leaders, while the Champion has a single type. I've also decided the typings for the Heralds, and as already stated , the Eastern Herald (Spring) owns Grass and Fairy types, and before that I gave away the identity of the Northern Herald (Winter), and he's got Ice and Ghost (which will be reflected in his mega). I've saved one of my previous megas for the Western Herald (Autumn), too, but I'm not spoiling what types they're specialized in - that'd ruin the surprise. Last but certainly not least is the Southern Herald (Summer), who has Fire and Fighting Pokémon - which is where today's post comes in.

I struggled a lot with figuring out the Mega the Southern Herald would have. We already have a Fire/Fighting mega, Blaziken, but I was reluctant about including the Hoenn starters in this region, and anyway Mega Blaziken is ridiculously overpowered as it is, what with that broken Speed Boost ability. Another thought I had was a Fighting/Fire Mega Hariyama based on an oni, but that'd require shoehorning a number of Fire-type moves when the only offensive one he can learn is Fire Punch via Tutor. Then I looked back to the Fire-types we have in canon, and stumbled upon Arcanine, along with the fact that he can learn several Fighting-type moves via TM and breeding, plus Growlithe gets Reversal via level-up as of the Sun and Moon generation. This led me in turn to remember that back in the day, my original Fire-starter was a cat that evolved into a barong , a lion-like king of spirits that looks more like a Pekingese with a weird mask-like face and is famously featured in Balinese traditional dances. Since Litten forced me to dispose of the family entirely, I was left without anything to slap the barong concept onto until much, much more recently. Thinking back to Arcanine and how he's based on a shisa or komainu, which is also a benevolent lion-dog from Asian lore, it all fell into place. A round of sketching later, and my Mega Arcanine was born!

My reasoning for Fire/Fighting rather than, say, Fire/Dragon like most would expect is a little more sensible than you might think, even if it's just so my Western Herald can have a mega with both the Fire and Fighting types. The Fighting type, at least in Japanese, is the explicitly "heroic" type, meaning that in theory, anything with a heroic spirit could theoretically qualify as a Fighting-type, and shisa and barong alike are known to be benevolent and fiercely protective. The barong is even stated to be the enemy of Rangda, the Balinese demon queen. Dragon-types are not, as far as I can tell, explicitly heroic, at least not without the addition of a secondary type suggesting as such (hi, Kommo-o!). In fact, they are more primal in nature in spite of their elevated sense of power, and some of their attacks have been described as employing menace and brutality, not exactly something you'd expect from creatures like the barong. Combining this with the shisa/komianu commonly being portrayed as a guardian, it's easy to see why Fighting would be a better choice if you're gonna be faithful to the folklore. To this end, I added two more moves to Growlithe's moveset, one of which was originally created by cj1206 who has given the blessing for his moves to be used with credit - I think Pounce would make perfect sense on Growlithe, personally. And the new move Rampant Kick goes with egg move Double Kick so well that I couldn't not include it, either!

Mega Arcanine is intended as a mixed sweeper, and to do that he needs to be every bit as fast as Arcanine's flavor would suggest. According to the famous Pokéscience and its follow-up , "Arcanine would need to run at about 260 miles per hour (418 kmph), or about 380 feet per second (116 meters per second), for 24 hours straight. 6200 miles is longer than the distance from L.A. to Moscow." As stated by the infographics, he's "really freaking hax" indeed! And yet Arcanine's Speed in the games isn't anything to write home about - his stat spread as a whole is 90/110/80/110/80/95, totaling 555. I decided not to reinvent the wheel, and gave just 10 points each to both offenses and both defenses, and put the remaining 60 points into Speed. The only two canon Pokémon outspeeding this guy would be Ninjask and Speed form Deoxys, and neither of them have the ridiculous attacking options Mega Arcanine would have! This is why I purposely gave Mega Arcanine an ability that does not increase his Speed, Forewarn, which is purely a flavor ability, though hey, at least you'd be able to know if your opponent's packing a specific offensive move tailored to counter him. What I've consistently found during my research is that normal Arcanine lacks potential in terms of combat capability, because of that mediocre Speed I mentioned and being a pure Fire-type, with only Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Flare Blitz, and Heat Wave to his credit for STAB despite solid coverage all around. Fighting STAB and seriously buffed Speed would definitely give him a competitive bite, and be it Focus Blast, Close Combat, or Rampant Kick, tearing through anything weak to Fighting such as Dark, Ice, and Steel would be a welcome change of pace. Iron Head or Iron Tail via tutor destroys tanky Fairy and Poison-types as well, and Solar Beam, Outrage, Crunch, Bulldoze, and Wild Charge are already available as in canon. So hopefully all this absurdity will help the Legendary Pokémon live up to his name once and for all, and turn what used to be a ho-hum build into something as gloriously terrifying as he was meant to be!

Two more Megas remain, plus that stray regional variant, though I'll be visiting my hometown over the weekend and won't be able to color them. Still, they'll likely be up next week if my work schedule permits, so be on the lookout for those soon enough!

Arcanine © Nintendo
Pounce ©
Mega Arcanine © Me!

Description
MEGA ARCANINE (ARCANe+CANINE)
- Fire/Fighting
- Ability: Forewarn
Arcanine's Mega Evolved form is Mega Arcanine and can be accessed using the Arcaninite.
"A benevolent and revered Pokémon, its raging inner fire gives it the energy to travel so quickly that even a bullet train can't outspeed it. Trainers who own one always voyage alongside it as it performs acts of heroism, departing when all is well."
"Supposedly, only a person who has achieve a higher understanding of the world around him or her can mega-evolve a trained Arcanine. Its strength comes from its incredible resolve, shrugging off negative influences as though they don't exist."
BST: 90/120/90/120/90/155 - 655
NOTE: Growlithe can now learn Focus Blast via TM, Pounce* as a starting move, and Rampant Kick* as an egg move from Rapidash or Pyroar.

* Pounce
Category: Physical
Type: Fighting
Power: 65
PP: 20
Accuracy: 100%
Used by skilled quadruped Pokemon. Crouching down, the user launches itself at the enemy's weak point, which may make them flinch. (Compare: Stomp and Steamroller.)
(NOTE: This move has 30% chance of causing flinching, and its base power doubles if the target has used Minimize.)

* Rampant Kick
Category: Physical
Type: Fighting
Power: 100
PP: 15
Accuracy: 80%
A strong rearing kick attack reminiscent of medieval heraldry. If the opponent was about to use a contact move against the user, the opponent's
attack fails.

**********

Before I continue the remaining fakemon of Sundo, three more mega evolutions are planned, along with one more regional variant, so I'm getting these out of the way first. Each of my "Elite Four" - whom I am, as of now, dubbing the Cardinal Heralds - will be using one Mega Evolution each, and the Champion will have a variant and a Mega; the Heralds will specialize in two types, unlike the Gym Leaders, while the Champion has a single type. I've also decided the typings for the Heralds, and as already stated , the Eastern Herald (Spring) owns Grass and Fairy types, and before that I gave away the identity of the Northern Herald (Winter), and he's got Ice and Ghost (which will be reflected in his mega). I've saved one of my previous megas for the Western Herald (Autumn), too, but I'm not spoiling what types they're specialized in - that'd ruin the surprise. Last but certainly not least is the Southern Herald (Summer), who has Fire and Fighting Pokémon - which is where today's post comes in.

I struggled a lot with figuring out the Mega the Southern Herald would have. We already have a Fire/Fighting mega, Blaziken, but I was reluctant about including the Hoenn starters in this region, and anyway Mega Blaziken is ridiculously overpowered as it is, what with that broken Speed Boost ability. Another thought I had was a Fighting/Fire Mega Hariyama based on an oni, but that'd require shoehorning a number of Fire-type moves when the only offensive one he can learn is Fire Punch via Tutor. Then I looked back to the Fire-types we have in canon, and stumbled upon Arcanine, along with the fact that he can learn several Fighting-type moves via TM and breeding, plus Growlithe gets Reversal via level-up as of the Sun and Moon generation. This led me in turn to remember that back in the day, my original Fire-starter was a cat that evolved into a barong , a lion-like king of spirits that looks more like a Pekingese with a weird mask-like face and is famously featured in Balinese traditional dances. Since Litten forced me to dispose of the family entirely, I was left without anything to slap the barong concept onto until much, much more recently. Thinking back to Arcanine and how he's based on a shisa or komainu, which is also a benevolent lion-dog from Asian lore, it all fell into place. A round of sketching later, and my Mega Arcanine was born!

My reasoning for Fire/Fighting rather than, say, Fire/Dragon like most would expect is a little more sensible than you might think, even if it's just so my Western Herald can have a mega with both the Fire and Fighting types. The Fighting type, at least in Japanese, is the explicitly "heroic" type, meaning that in theory, anything with a heroic spirit could theoretically qualify as a Fighting-type, and shisa and barong alike are known to be benevolent and fiercely protective. The barong is even stated to be the enemy of Rangda, the Balinese demon queen. Dragon-types are not, as far as I can tell, explicitly heroic, at least not without the addition of a secondary type suggesting as such (hi, Kommo-o!). In fact, they are more primal in nature in spite of their elevated sense of power, and some of their attacks have been described as employing menace and brutality, not exactly something you'd expect from creatures like the barong. Combining this with the shisa/komianu commonly being portrayed as a guardian, it's easy to see why Fighting would be a better choice if you're gonna be faithful to the folklore. To this end, I added two more moves to Growlithe's moveset, one of which was originally created by cj1206 who has given the blessing for his moves to be used with credit - I think Pounce would make perfect sense on Growlithe, personally. And the new move Rampant Kick goes with egg move Double Kick so well that I couldn't not include it, either!

Mega Arcanine is intended as a mixed sweeper, and to do that he needs to be every bit as fast as Arcanine's flavor would suggest. According to the famous Pokéscience and its follow-up , "Arcanine would need to run at about 260 miles per hour (418 kmph), or about 380 feet per second (116 meters per second), for 24 hours straight. 6200 miles is longer than the distance from L.A. to Moscow." As stated by the infographics, he's "really freaking hax" indeed! And yet Arcanine's Speed in the games isn't anything to write home about - his stat spread as a whole is 90/110/80/110/80/95, totaling 555. I decided not to reinvent the wheel, and gave just 10 points each to both offenses and both defenses, and put the remaining 60 points into Speed. The only two canon Pokémon outspeeding this guy would be Ninjask and Speed form Deoxys, and neither of them have the ridiculous attacking options Mega Arcanine would have! This is why I purposely gave Mega Arcanine an ability that does not increase his Speed, Forewarn, which is purely a flavor ability, though hey, at least you'd be able to know if your opponent's packing a specific offensive move tailored to counter him. What I've consistently found during my research is that normal Arcanine lacks potential in terms of combat capability, because of that mediocre Speed I mentioned and being a pure Fire-type, with only Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Flare Blitz, and Heat Wave to his credit for STAB despite solid coverage all around. Fighting STAB and seriously buffed Speed would definitely give him a competitive bite, and be it Focus Blast, Close Combat, or Rampant Kick, tearing through anything weak to Fighting such as Dark, Ice, and Steel would be a welcome change of pace. Iron Head or Iron Tail via tutor destroys tanky Fairy and Poison-types as well, and Solar Beam, Outrage, Crunch, Bulldoze, and Wild Charge are already available as in canon. So hopefully all this absurdity will help the Legendary Pokémon live up to his name once and for all, and turn what used to be a ho-hum build into something as gloriously terrifying as he was meant to be!

Two more Megas remain, plus that stray regional variant, though I'll be visiting my hometown over the weekend and won't be able to color them. Still, they'll likely be up next week if my work schedule permits, so be on the lookout for those soon enough!

Arcanine © Nintendo
Pounce ©
Mega Arcanine © Me!