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is one of the fictional species of Pokémon creatures from the multi-billion-dollar[1] Pokémon media franchise—a collection of video games, anime, manga, books, trading cards, and other media created by Satoshi Tajiri. The purpose of Rayquaza in the games, anime, and manga, as with all other Pokémon, is to battle both wild Pokémon—untamed creatures encountered while the player passes through various environments—and tamed Pokémon owned by Pokémon trainers.[2]
Rayquaza represents Pokémon Emerald and appears on the cover art for the game. It is one of a trio of legendary Pokémon, alongside Kyogre and Groudon. In the legend surrounding the three, Rayquaza represents the sky, while Kyogre and Groudon represent the sea and the land, respectively. The name Rayquaza may be derived from the English words ray and quasar, describing how Rayquaza live under the influence of solar phenomena such as the rays of the Sun. The derivation from the word quasar is likely either a misunderstanding of what a quasar really is, or an indication of a cosmic origin. Although not apparent in the Romanization alone, the katakana rendering of the name also contains the Japanese word for .
Rayquaza is based on the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl and the Jewish Ziz. Rayquaza resembles a large emerald-green snake or imperial dragon. It has skinny arms and no legs, as well as pairs of rudder-like wings and two horns protruding from its head. Some have likened its aerodynamic appearance to that of a contorted missile. Rayquaza is the longest pokemon because it is 23 feet in a serpentine curl, meaning it's much longer from nose to tail.
Rayquaza resides within the ozone layer of the Earth and has lived there for hundreds of millions of years without ever descending (see Atmospheric beast). To those who have observed Rayquaza from the surface of the planet, Rayquaza has always appeared to be a zooming meteor. Rayquaza feeds on water and particles in the Earth's atmosphere. Due to its extreme age and living conditions under the rays of the sun, Rayquaza has been tempered to wield incredible power.
Rayquaza is capable of calming any disturbance in nature, be it a storm or drought. This is reflected in its ability Air Lock, which annuls all weather effects. It is said to descend from the ozone layer if Kyogre and Groudon were to fight, in order to break up the feud and maintain the balance of nature.
Rayquaza, Groudon, and Kyogre all share the same characteristic of lines on their skin/carapace/etc.
Rayquaza is available in ''Pokémon Ruby'', ''Pokémon Sapphire'', and Pokémon Emerald only, where it is found on the roof of the Sky Pillar.
In Pokémon Emerald, Rayquaza is seen in a series of cutscenes. Once the player progresses past the Magma and Aqua Hideouts, Kyogre and Groudon wake up and start fighting, with the Red and Blue Orbs unable to control them. Subsequently, Hoenn is torn apart by flash heatwaves and rainstorms as the two battle for dominance. The player must journey up the Sky Pillar, where encountering Rayquaza causes it to fly off, and another series of cutscenes appear where Rayquaza forces the two to knock it off. Then Rayquaza returns to the Sky Pillar, where it can be battled and caught before the player faces the Elite Four. If Rayquaza is accidentally defeated before it can be captured, the player can later return to the Sky Pillar after defeating the Elite Four.
Rayquaza appears as a boss character in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games when the protagonists reach the summit of Sky Tower and is playable if recruited by the player. Perhaps in reference to its position as the moderator of battles amongst Kyogre and Groudon, in the mystery dungeon games Rayquaza is presented as a rigid upholder of what he considers the laws of nature — land Pokémon remaining on the land and sea Pokémon remaining in the water. The protagonist and their partner are sent to the Sky Tower to convince Rayquaza to anniliate a falling star hurtling towards the planet; once there, however, Rayquaza attacks. After it is defeated, Rayquaza quickly recovers, but before it can continue to fight, the star enters the world's atmosphere, and the protagonist's partner asks Rayquaza to destroy the star, to which Rayquaza agrees, even though its Hyper Beam may kill the rescue team. It is revealed that the team survived the attack and explosion from the shooting star.
Rayquaza also appears as a boss character in Pokémon Ranger. In this game, it is capable of whipping up powerful gusts of wind and firing energy balls from its mouth to damage the player's Capture Styler. This is the final boss in the game, not counting the Ranger Net missions.
In Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire, Rayquaza can be captured every other time it is defeated in its bonus stage.
Rayquaza is featured in the seventh Pokémon movie, Destiny Deoxys. Four years prior to the main events of the movie, Rayquaza is nearly injured in the ozone layer by the passage of a meteor containing the essence of Deoxys. Once the alien Pokémon awakens on the ground, Rayquaza's Hyper Beam seemingly blasts it out of existence. Four years later, Rayquaza travels to LaRousse City, sensing that Deoxys has revived itself there. It wages a fierce battle with Deoxys and its clones in the airspace of the city in order to minimize damage, but the fight still causes massive destruction.
After Deoxys finds what it had been searching for, it attempts to beat Rayquaza into submission; however, the security system of the city goes haywire, and suddenly every human and Pokémon in the area is in jeopardy of being swarmed to death by security cubes. Rayquaza is shielded from the flood of cubes by Deoxys until Ash manages to shut down the system. Rayquaza realizes that Deoxys isn't an enemy, so it returns to the ozone layer while Deoxys returns to outer space.
A Rayquaza was seen in the movie Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea being shot at by missles. It was then "captured" and was experimented on for evil deeds (what happens after that is unknown).
Rayquaza has appeared eight times in the Pokémon Trading Card Game, all as Basic, Colorless Pokémon except when otherwise stated:
Like most Dragon-type Pokémon, Rayquaza's TCG attacks require mixed elements of Energy, in this case Fire and Lightning.
In the EX Delta Species and EX Holon Phantoms sets, Rayquaza has good resistance and retreat cost, but is contrastingly weak against Colorless Pokemon.
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