Welcome to day three of Dragon Week. On day one, I covered a dragon line of the sea, and on day two I covered a dragon line of the land. And now for today I’ll be covering an evolutionary line of dragons of the air from the Hoenn Region. Well, at least one member of this line is a dragon of the air. Presenting Bagon, Shelgon, and Salamence.
I’ve always found Bagon to be a little amusing, but I also feel a bit sorry for the little guys. All Bagon are born with a very powerful desire to fly, but unfortunately the little dragons do not have wings. To vent their frustration they often ram their heads into boulders and even dive off of cliffs in a futile attempt to take flight. Because of this, Bagon have developed a rock hard head. You know, it’d probably be a good idea to wear some sort of hardhat while walking through an area populated by Bagon, because if one of those dragons dives off a cliff and hits someone in the head, that person would probably be killed.
Anyway, Bagon’s dreams of flying eventually come true though. After going through an odd pupa stage that I’ll get into later, the dragon finally becomes a Salamence, one of the Hoenn Region’s two pseudo-Legendary Pokemon. Salamence are known as being rather vicious and have a bit of an ego. But then I suppose that ego is well earned, considering all it had to go through to gain its wings. Not to mention the sheer power that Salamence possesses.
In the Games: In Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, Bagon can be found in a deep cave within Meteor Falls. In Pearl and Platinum, you can find Bagon on Route 210 by using the Poke Radar. And in HeartGold and SoulSilver you can find both Bagon and Shelgon in the Johto Safari Zone. Sadly these Pokemon are a little harder to find in Generation Five. But, Bagon can be found in White Forest in the original White Version. And in Black 2 and White 2 they can be found in the Hidden Grottos of Pinwheel Forest.
Evolution: The evolution Bagon into Salamence, while not as odd as Flygon’s evolution, is quite interesting. At level thirty, Bagon evolves into Shelgon, at which point hard plates of bone cover the little dragon’s body, leaving only the legs and two openings at the front and back exposed. In this pupa state, during which a cellular transformation takes place inside the boney shell, and a metamorphosis begins. Once at level fifty, the boney plates fall away and Shelgon evolves into Salamance. Immediately after evolving, Salamence learns the HM move, Fly. Aside from Rayquaza, Salamence is the only Pokemon to learn Fly without using the HM. One more thing I feel is should mention is that Salamence might be a tiny bit easier to train than Dragonite, considering that Shelgon evolves five levels sooner than Dragonair.
The Wrong Spot: I thought I’d close this post by revealing my own difficulties in finding Bagon. When I had first learned of Bagon I immediately began trying to find it. I looked up Bagon’s location on the Pokedex and found that it was centered in Meteor Falls. I must’ve misread the map pretty badly, because I ended up trying to find Bagon by fishing in the water outside the falls near Rustboro City. I don’t know how many Wailmer I ended up reeling in before I realized that I was in completely the wrong place. And I was also so used to Dragon Pokemon being aquatic that it never occurred to me that Bagon might be a land fairing Pokemon. But eventually I finally figure it out and caught the very first Bagon that I encountered.
That covers it for today’s post. For tomorrow I’ll be covering a set of dragons from the Sinnoh Region. So until tomorrow, stay tuned.
