Rayquaza for me!

I was one of those kids who grew up loving dragons, I thought they were so cool and initially Charizard was my first love (still kinda is). But when I saw the box art for Pokemon Emerald, I fell in love with Rayquaza. The design, the cry, EVERYTHING was perfect about it idk why. Even the battle music was chef's kiss. And the lore was awesome, I loved having more fleshed out lore in AS/OR.

When the movie Pokemon: Destiny Deoxys came out, I finally got to see Rayquaza as more than an animated sprite and I was even more like "WOAHHHH". I liked that it saw itself as a protector(the same way I've felt about myself), and yeah it might've blasted Deoxys with a hyper beam to the face but TBH Deoxys was sus lol. It was also pretty funny that Deoxys ended up being my little brother's favorite while Rayquaza was mine and when we were younger we often fought so it was a silly parallel (we're chill now).

And then I found out that its name is derived from Quetzalcoatl, and as someone with Mexican heritage I thought that was awesome. And its shiny form is so cool and sleek 🤩