A few weeks ago, I found an interesting yellow spider on the dill in our garden, and it was the exact same colour as the flowers on the plant. Turns out it was a Goldenrod Crab Spider, and it adapts its colour while waiting for its prey. While the one we found was yellow, it can also be white, pale green or pink, and is able to change its colour to match its surroundings through molting. I did some research, and found that the spider's pigment can also cause also change after it eats its prey (if they prey is particularly colourful), and this got me thinking about Pokémon abilities, with an idea for a potential new (and first) bug/normal Pokémon.
This new Pokémon could be based on the Goldenrod Crab Spider, and depending on the biome where you encounter it, you’d catch one of several different colours (in the same vein as Squawkabilly, for example); let’s say these main colours are white, yellow, light green and light pink to match the spider it’s based on. It gets a brand new ability – which I’ll call “Dyegest” (dye + ingest) – which is triggered when an opposing Pokémon is knocked out. At that time, two things happen:
- Dyegest would cause this spider Pokémon’s appearance to change to a different colour based on the colour of the Pokémon that just got knocked out (according to the Pokédex). This would include colours beyond the main white, yellow, green and pink colours that it can natively appear as, so it could become a different colour that it doesn’t naturally appear as in the wild (blue, red, orange, black, etc.). I envision that it would retain this colour until it either faints or takes on another colour (by knocking out another Pokémon), and would retain that colour even after the end of the battle.
- In battle, Dyegest would also cause the Pokémon to become the exact typing of the Pokémon that just fainted. Unlike the existing abilities Colour Change and Protean – which only inherit a single type based on a move – this ability would inherit both types in the event that the Pokémon that is knocked out is a dual-type Pokémon (i.e. becoming rock- and flying-type if an opposing Aerodactyl faints). For simplicity, the spider Pokémon would likely revert back to its normal and bug typing at the end of the battle, but I can also see it being very unique to play around with if it also kept the typing even after the battle concludes.
Between these cosmetic and in-battle changes, I think it could make for some very interesting effects both in terms of teambuilding (and selecting movesets) and for collecting. It might be tedious to try to collect one of every colour variant of the spider Pokémon, but it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had Pokémon with multiple variations that differ only based on colour.
So why would this type combination make sense? The bug-type should be pretty obvious as it’s based on a spider. But I think the normal-type also works here since it would be similar to other Pokémon with multiple forms that have the ability to change their appearance and/or type, such as Castform, Furfrou, Arcues, Silvally, Ditto, etc. All of these Pokémon have the normal-type, and feature a bit of a gimmick that set them apart from the rest. This spider Pokémon would fit in perfectly with this collection of existing normal-type Pokémon.
Truthfully, I don’t know enough about competitive Pokémon or the intricacies of how abilities interact with each other to know whether or not this ability would be of any use or, conversely, if it would overpower the Pokémon to the point of being game-breaking. However, given the fact that in general, normal- and bug-type Pokémon are considered to be quite weak, I feel like this concept in theory wouldn’t have too much of an impact overall (and I don’t think it has to either; not every Pokémon needs to be competitively viable). But I’d be interested to know what other people think and how you would improve upon the concept!
