#abomination magic

Boiling Grimer -> Boiling Muk - The First Partner

Remember how I said most witches in the Boiling Isles will receive their first Pokemon at Hexside? This is much like how a witch carves or selects a Palismen in the show proper, and up until that point, while a witchlet may have some experience with raising Pokemon from their parents or community, they generally don't receive one of their own their own until school.

After a half a school year of academic study and prep to learn your type specialty, you are presented the opportunity to go out and catch a Pokemon of your own, or can select from a number of standard Pokemon of a particular type hatched and raised there on school grounds. Every school has a different selection of Pokemon for each type, and all types are represented. Instead of being locked into one school of magic, under Belos, pretty much all trainers are mandated by law to specialize in one type. This is what the Titan wanted, he says, in order to draw out the most potential from Pokemon and Partner one must know their type religiously and never stray from its path. Only he has the right to have no set limitations.

I also said before that for most witches, usually, that first Pokemon they choose ultimately ends up becoming their palisman. Since this is the type they're locked into forever going forward, and that was their first partner, the bond is deepest, strongest. A Palisman Pokemon is not such by nature, a Pokemon only becomes a Palisman when the bond matures and solidifies, when the two become one in heart, mind, and body. But do note I said usually. This is not the case for Amity Blight.

Boiling Grimer and Boiling Muk are Poison/Ground type Pokemon. They are the sludge, slime, grime, and muck of the ground built upon the corpse of a dead Titan, and obviously, they are the stand-in for the Abominations. In this AU, the Abomination Track is essentially the Poison Typing as a whole, and the flagship creature for this type on the Isles is the Grimer line. It is said that Grimer is the descendant of the first life to ever be born of decaying flesh of the Titan's body, and that this shows in its form. That it has persisted as that primordial muck for thousands of generations because it had no need to really change. It is versatile, amorphous, and can be either curative or toxic depending on its mood. The rot of the Titan can make one ill and diseased, or it can give rise to an entire society of new life, and so too can Boiling Grimer, on a smaller scale.

Her father, Alador, is one of the most talented Poison Type Masters on all the Isles, a Professor of Poison who works tirelessly for a company that bears his name to unravel the secrets and innovate the future of Poison Pokemon on the Isles both natural and artificial. He uses their abilities to inspire machines and devices and has made many breakthroughs. And much like in the show, Amity fell in love with Poison the same way she fell in love with Abominations.

She did not receive her Grimer in school, but from her father as a child, to put her on the fast track for success - a suggestion of her mother's. So she went into school already experienced and knowledgeable in the type she was pursuing, and always assumed that her Grimer would end up her palisman. But... try as she might, it never happened. Though she loves it and she loves Poison Pokemon, and this very much is her one true passion in Pokemon Battling, her insistent clinging to an image of who she thought she had to be prevented her from ever fully connecting with her Grimer to pull out its fullest potential. Even though she evolves it into a Muk, even though she repairs her relationship with Willow, she falls in love with Luz, she rebels against her mother - the connection she craves isn't made.

This isn't to say her Muk or expertise in Poison Types are anything to scoff at. It is only to say that her mind and her image of herself were not her truth. There was a disconnect between who she was and who she was trying to be that her Pokemon could sense that prevented them from ever achieving that perfect bond. Instead, her Palisman came from the most unlikely of places, a Pokemon met in a chance encounter and immediately bonded with her when she finally broke down and realized she didn't know who or what she really wanted from her future. When she let go of a dream that was never hers, and gave up on turning her Muk into a Palisman, she immediately and unexpectedly found herself fused with a Pokemon that seemed to understand her perfectly from that moment on. And that Pokemon was

Boiling Purrloin -> Boiling Liepard - The True Palisman

Boiling Purrloin is not a Dark Type Pokemon. It is not a Poison Type Pokemon, either. Much to Amity's surprise, when she first achieved that perfect battle bond she'd sought for so long, it was with the Ghost/Fairy Type Boiling Purrloin. A Purrloin she, fittingly, would go on to name Ghost. As opposed to predominantly purple and yellow, Boiling Purrloin is predominantly white and a deep, faded blue. It is immensely clever, intelligent, sneaky, and something of a trickster by nature, like any good fae creature would be.

When she first encounters Ghost, it is a long abandoned and solitary Pokemon. Its original partner had found themselves in the same position as Amity, trying desperately to fit a mold they were never made for and to turn their Purrloin into their palisman. And just like Amity, no matter how hard they tried, it never happened. But the difference is that while Amity turned that frustration on herself and her friends, she would never in a million years ever think of laying a hand on her Pokemon or blaming it for her own inadequacies. Ghost's former 'partner' had no such qualms, and rather than sit around and take that abuse, Ghost had simply walked out.

It was on its own for many years after that, under the care of the Bat Queen - a large and unique Swoobat in this AU - until chancing upon Amity at her lowest point. Ghost watched intently, fully expecting the latest failure to have Amity turn on her Grimer and curse or even harm it for failing to meet her expectations - but what she saw was something entirely unexpected. She saw acceptance. And though it was a somewhat resigned and bittersweet acceptance, it was acceptance nonetheless.

When Amity finally verbalized that maybe she had been wrong, that she had no idea what it was she truly wanted from her life, that everything had been so crazy since Luz arrived and she found new friends and stood up to her mother and she was less sure than ever if she wanted to truly commit to Poison Types for the rest of her life, if she could meet the expectations of her father - when Ghost saw a witch at the end of the rope but willing to change, not willing to give up but rather experiment and try something new, she immediately walked up to Amity and caught her attention with a meow.

Ghost was curious to know the heart of this witch for herself, and invited Amity to pat her head. And when she felt the kindness and love with which she reached out and touched her, and Ghost felt all the hope and pain and love and heartache coursing through Amity quite literally firsthand, a bond was forged immediately that will go on to prove itself unbreakable, and Amity and Ghost found themselves immediately fused in a perfect bonded palisman state. Though it only lasted a moment before the shock set them both apart again, it was all that either party needed to know.

This girl was the partner they'd been looking for all along. Maybe they didn't know what their future had in store for them, but maybe together, they could find out and make sure that it was a good one.

Boiling Misdreavus -> Boiling Mismagius - The Fire Witch

On the Isles, Misdreavus is not purely a Ghost Type, but a Ghost/Fire Type Pokemon, like Litwick's line.

Before a permanent Type is chosen, a witch is allowed, both before and in the early days of school, to experiment with as many types as they like until they find their One True Type, as the Emperor likes to put it. So long as they settle on one and release or return any Pokemon not pursuant to that type before their second year of schooling, a witch is free to see where it is exactly their truest talent lies. So if you remember that Fire Spell from The Knee, this Pokemon represents Amity's experimentation with Fire Type Pokemon.

Her focus was always on her Grimer and remained there after the fact, after her struggle to tame and connect with the Fire Type, even though it proved successful, suggested to her that maybe this wasn't to be her path in life. But she had raised her Misdreavus well enough that it remained with her long after the training session on The Knee as something of a reserve member, and after Luz came in and started breaking down barriers with multi type training, and after finally finding her palisman in Ghost, Amity returned to her Misdreavus and saw it through to an evolution into a powerful and witchy Boiling Mismagius. It is now a core member of her Pokemon team.

Eevee -> Espeon - The Bonds Made Manifest

When she was still just a baby and she and Willow were the best of friends, Amity had alongside her Grimer another prized partner who very well could have become her palisman in another life: Eevee. She and Willow had found a pair of Eevee entirely by chance and went on to form an immediate connection and take them home. Though Willow's parents had no issue, Amity had to deal with Odalia.

After Alador gifted Amity a baby Grimer he had hatched, Odalia Blight had locked Amity in on becoming a Poison Specialist like her father before her, fully intending on making her even more powerful and respected than him. So her daughter coming home with a Normal Type was obviously not going to stand.

It was only when Alador intervened and spoke of Eevee's malleable nature and his theory of environmental factors up to and including its trainer determining how it evolves, and his personal pet theory of a Poison Type Eeveelution being possible to engineer that she finally relented. Alador specified it wouldn't be easy, and he had never had the time to experiment for himself, but he always planned to one day see if he could encourage a new Eeveelution by steeping an Eevee in the ways of Poison and keeping it around himself, a Professor of the type.

Believing her husband may be on to something, as he often is in these matters, she elected to let Amity keep her Eevee and see how it developed. And so the three grew up together - Amity, Grimer, and Eevee. But Eevee never evolved. Alador simply reminded the innate difficulty in trying to achieve something new that nobody else had, but the excuse began to wear thin for Odalia over time. Though she never outright said it, it was clear in the way she acted that she much preferred Amity focus on her Grimer over her Eevee. And after breaking off her friendship with Willow, that was exactly what Amity did.

Then Luz happened. Oh, Luz... there was just something about that girl that Amity couldn't quite put her finger on. The way she was so confident in being able to do anything a witch could do, to be able to achieve a perfect battle bond, despite the fact that all she had when she first showed up was a very clearly underleveled and underpowered - though admittedly very well cared for - Eevee. Who was this girl with no talent or battle sense that vexed her so?

Well, her lifelong soul mate, as it would turn out. So imagine her surprise that as their rivalry turned to friendship, and that friendship became a crush, Amity's previously long sidelined Eevee - a Pokemon she had now, since befriending Luz, begun training and spending time with again when out of Odalia's sight - spontaneously evolved into an Espeon one day, all on its own. She went to sleep having an Eevee, and woke up to find an Espeon.

What more fitting Pokemon to represent her bond with and blossoming feelings for Luz - the literal and metaphorical light of her life - than an Espeon? A Pokemon that only evolves via friendship under the warm, illuminating rays of the Sun. Just as Luz has an Umbreon that embodies her hidden depths and her love for her girlfriend Amity, Amity in turn has an Espeon that embodies her inner strength and determination and her love for her girlfriend Luz.

Add onto that the extra layer of that initial Eevee having been found with her very first friend, Willow, who would later go on to be Luz's first friend on the Isles and whose relationship Luz would end up mending Amity with, and it all feels rather poetic, doesn't it? More than any dreams or aspirations Grimer represented, that Eevee was the embodiment of love and companionship, of the two people who meant more to Amity than anyone or anything else her life could ever give her.

Because of Luz's influence and the friends she's made and patched things up with through her encouragement, Amity is now as close with her Espeon as she is with Ghost or her Grimer. As she is with her entire team, honestly. She no longer believes in the "One True Type" doctrine of the emperor. She's now beginning to believe, just like Luz, that perhaps there is room in her heart for a perfect bond with more than just one Pokemon or specific Type of Pokemon on the Isles.

Boiling Croagunk -> Boiling Toxicroak -> Ribbilute - Double Toxicity

Ribbilute? What's that? Well, it's the third stage evolution of the Croagunk line, exclusive to the Boiling Isles, of course. Ribbilute's name is a combination of Ribbit, Resolute, and Pollute, and all three together speak to the Pokemon's nature as a strong, loyal, resilient, and toxic fighter. The entire line is Poison/Water as opposed to Poison/Fighting as Luz would be familiar with, but no martially capable.

Amity is a born fighter. Not just physically, but emotionally, growing up the way she did with the family she has. Ribbilute is exemplifies this aspect of her. She was skilled enough to best The Golden Guard, the premiere witch of the Emperor's Coven, for Titan's sake - and one of her favorite things to do seems to be use Abomination magic to make herself some truly Might Mittens. That is Croagunk's whole deal.

With a Water typing speaking to its fluid movements, Boiling Croagunk and its evolutions are a lot like Vaporeon in their cellular makeup, able to disappear into water at will... but with the added effect of poisoning entire lakes when just a single specimen does so. They are frighteningly, virulently toxic creatures, and Croagunk was the first Poison Type that Amity caught on her own as opposed to being gifted by her father. It has always been her secondary as a result, and was intended to be her next palisman candidate if she could never quite achieve it with Grimer... but Ghost showed up and beat it to the punch.

That doesn't make it any less important to Amity, though. Ribbilute is her knight in toxic armor, fiercely protective of her since she was young.

After being forced to give up on her Eevee by her mother, Amity's relationship with Grimer changed. She never blamed it or hated it, but she could never be as close with it as what she wanted of it demanded of her. Because Grimer was as much a set of chains on her future and obligation as it was her trusted partner. Eevee is a naturally cuddly and affectionate Pokemon, and with how her family was as a child, she didn't get much in the way of affection from them physical or emotional.

Croagunk was there for her through all of that and understood that. Croagunk protected her and bonded with her in ways Grimer couldn't, through no fault of its own, or even of Amity's own. It was her rock, and it's not hard to see that the way she carries herself and fights with her own two hands of feet are all perfect mirrors of how a Boiling Toxicroak moves.

She evolved Croagunk much quicker than Grimer, but the evolution into Ribbilute took a bit more time and growth on her part. Ribbilute is a lot like Crobat in that it is a final form achievable only through a close friendship with one's Pokemon, and while the trust was always there, and Toxicroak was always Amity's #1 champion and defender, the closed-off bully she became put under the pressure of walking in Odalia's shoes prevented her from being the kind of partner her Toxicroak could really connect with in a way that would let it reach its fullest potential.

It was only when Luz came into her life that things finally started changing for the better, and by the time Hooty finally got them to ask each other out, Toxicroak finally had a partner it could reach its full potential with, and Ribbilute finally became hers. It is a remarkably fierce and powerful Pokemon, known to Poison and Burn in equal measure with just about any move it used, its skin covered in a caustic, toxic film that would harm anybody it did not trust, inflicting them with either a Burn or Poison simply for brushing up against it.

But for those it cherishes and respects? That same film can be used to create an elixir whose healing properties are unmatched. Poison Type in the Isles is a double-sided Type capable of ending or restoring life in equal measure, very much unlike the Poison Type Luz knows back on Earth. The Poison Type on the Isles could be said to not be the original Poison Type, but rather a unique variant created by virtue of being born of the decaying, liquefying flesh of a dead Titan, a godlike Pokemon in its own right. When given will as a Poison Pokemon, this rot can heal or harm at that Pokemon's discretion, making it capable of endlessly versatile creation or destruction alike.

Ribbilute is an irreplaceable member of Amity's team and a reminder of where she came from and what she, with a little love, is truly capable of. Of all the Pokemon on her team, Ribbilute is the most likely Pokemon to act as the first partner to fuse with both her and Ghost to create that forbidden "Mixed Magic" Pokewitch that Emperor Belos fears so much. But given what it represents, that Espeon isn't very far behind, either.

Boiling Teddiursa -> Boiling Ursaring -> Boiling Ursaluna - The Moon

The last member of Amity's team, and the most symbolic of the bunch, representing Amity's association with the Moon and Eclipses. Boiling Teddiursa and Ursaring are a Fighting type, which turns into Ghost/Fighting as Ursaluna.

Amity Blight is, if nothing else, a fighter. While Ribbilute represents one aspect of that in its fluid adaptability and loyalty to its loved ones, the scrappy indomitable nature of Boiling Teddiursa and its evolutions speak to another side of that fighting spirit. So dedicated and determined is it that even death cannot keep it down, and if it is ever mortally wounded with unfinished business, reaches the end of its lifespan and has an intense bond with its trainer, or if a Dusk Stone is given to it after its friendship is maxed, the Pokemon becomes a Moon Eclipsed and attains new power as the Isles' legendary and feared 'Ghost in the Moon'.

It's no accident just how many of Amity's Pokemon evolve via friendship or how much of their power, and by extension her power, is locked beyond the requirement of a strong bond. Her name literally means friendship, and it is her bonds with others that ironically free her the most and help her be the Pokewitch she was always meant to be. Boiling Ursaluna is just another aspect of that.