>>58537914So if you’re going for the “got filtered by Kabu” thing (which is beyond fine and I honestly like), I really don’t think you can have all three fully evolved at the start of the story. This is literally me being my autistic self, so no worries, but I’ll try to explain my thought process.
Garchomp will hard stomp the whole way up the ladder until rank D and above. It’s basically a cheat code even if it gives no fucks except for meaningful competition. If you haven’t read Borne of Caution, I’ll just say that when you have OP protag Pokémon, every battle you’re trying to make compelling will be such a fucking nightmare to do in order to make it debatable whether the MC will win that you’ll likely lose motivation to do so (like Fuggman himself has).
How I’d do it (which I will re-iterate, you don’t have to, this is just my autistic idea for your story which shouldn’t hold too much weight) is I’d have Gabite and Lairon, but Nidoking got evolved too early so it didn’t learn whatever “necessary skills” it needed as a Nidorino, so it still needs a lot of development. Possibly even have the MC be psyched out by Fire Type specialists, so these would be easy rival characters (or eventual love interests). Take everything I say with a grain of salt tho anon, it’s your story.