''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2053520/1/Latias_Journey/ Latias' Journey]]'' by {{Ri2}} is a 67 chapter, 1,000,000+ words {{Pokemon}} fan fiction.

[[{{ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin}} Obviously]], the star is [[OlympusMons Latias]]. When the Ghost King destroys her home city of Alto Mare and kills all of her friends after she spurns his advances, she is forced to embark on a long journey that takes her across the {{Pokemon}} world. There, she meets up with Ash and the other Chosen. Together, the Chosen are forced to embark on many adventures across the land.

It's [[DoorStopper absurdly long]], surreal and bizzare to extremes, interspersed with plenty of lightheartedness, and plenty of fight sequences. And sometimes it's really, ''really'' [[DarkFic dark]], [[{{Squick}} squicky]], [[LudicrousGibs messy]], and all kinds of disturbing.

Oh sorry, we should've mentioned this is rated M. Pack your security blanket and BrainBleach.

The much shorter prequel is [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1969593/1/Your_Secret_Admirer here]]. It has a sequel of similar length called ''FanFic/BraveNewWorld''

!This fanfic provides examples of:

* AMillionIsAStatistic: Judging by the city it is based on, Altomare has over 800,000 people living in it. The Ghost King destroys the whole city. Not even Latias, the sole survivor, holds this against him for more than a few months.
* AnimalTalk: WordOfGod says "For convenience's sake all Pokéspeak will be written in English. Just pretend the humans can't hear them, though."
** And then subverted when [[TheDitz Chimecho's]] dialogue is translated...identically to his PokemonSpeak.
--->'''Chimecho''': CHIIIIIIIIIIII!
* AnyoneCanDie: Many major characters fail to survive the final arc.
* AppealToForce: Tate and Liza wield an array of powerful psychic-based attacks. When Ash threatens to report them to the League, they tell him not to bother because the League fears them too much to do anything about them.
* AscendedGlitch: During the final arc [[spoiler:while everyone gets their EleventhHourSuperpower, Phanpy is evolved into a "corrected" version of one of [[MartyStu Berry Stoo]]'s [[EldritchAbomination Poké-Sues]].]]
** And [[spoiler: Missingno, the [[strike: glitch]] Darklord Pokemon]]
* AuthorVocabularyCalendar: "Piscene" in later chapters.
* TheBet: Wobbuffet's Goth phase turns out to be just a bet with Meowth.
* BetterThanABareBulb: A very common form of comedy throughout the story.
* BloodyHilarious: Eventually you start to get jaded to the {{Gorn}}, and then the less-dramatic cases to characters you don't care about so much start drifting into this. The deluge of BlackComedy throughout [[strike:exacerbates]] helps.
* BodyHorror: Happens a lot during the final arc with the legions of undead monsters. Many of them are multiple characters fused together. And then there's the torture scenes...
* {{Brainwashed}}: Tate and Liza do this to Latias. [[spoiler:It is actually a test to see how strong the bonds between Ash and his Pokémon are]].
* BringMyBrownPants: Happens to the Murkrow at Wing Fortress when Latias incinerates them and a good portion of the forest.
** Also happens to Maxie when the three Regis effortlessly kill all his trainers and their [[{{Mons}} mons]].
** Phanpy has this occur to to him several times.
* ContemplateOurNavels: [[GainaxEnding The entire first epilogue.]] [[spoiler: The second epilogue, written a good deal after the fact when the author had a good deal more experience, tries to blame it all on Mewgle being pretentious.]]
* CostumePorn: Latias in her Songstress outfit.
-->She was wearing a blue bodice with white lace around the collar that ran down her chest to a set of light blue silk skirts. Black straps were crisscrossed across her thin upper arms, and blue velvet cloths were wrapped around her lower arms.
** There's also the description of her wedding dress in her dreams.
* {{Cyberpunk}}: The region of Silica.
--> '''Rukario''': A desolate wasteland devoid of Pokemon or plant life, a hollow kingdom of neon and twisted metal populated by people who hungered more for short-lived pleasures and comforts than the simple pleasures of living.
** HilariousInHindsight: Now look at Black City in [[PokemonBlackAndWhite Pokemon Black]]...
* DarkFic: When it's not being [[SlidingScaleOfComedyAndHorror funny]]. Or sometimes [[BlackComedy both at the same time]].
* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way ,[[OverlyLongGag way]]'' more than the source material. As well as BloodierAndGorier.
* DashingHispanic: Zorro and his entire team, and Brock's Lombre.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Pokemon, being essentially animals, tend to be pretty [[NoSocialSkills direct]] about [[CarnivoreConfusion certain]] [[EverybodyHasLotsOfSex things]], and it often weirds out their human trainers and those Pokemon that have spent more time among humans.
* {{Determinator}}: [[spoiler:Giovanni]] is killed no less than ''three times''. [[spoiler:He's]] still alive at the end too.
* [[spoiler:TheDogShotFirst: The final chapter {{Retcon}}s the beginning of the story as Kyogre forcing the Ghost King to destroy Alto Mare via mind control.]]
* DoomedHometown: Alto Mare as early as the prequel.
* DoorStopper: 1,186,409 words of text. For comparison, the ''LordOfTheRings'' trilogy is around 525,000.
* [[DudeShesLikeInAComa Dude, He's Like, In A Coma!]]: [[spoiler:''Molly! [[WhatTheHellHero What the hell?!]]'']]
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:May. Doesn't quite work. [[TheWoobie She might've been better off if it had.]]]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Full force. Keep in mind what the Unown are offering the good guys if they win is basically a ResetButton. The hope of this may at times be [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy the only reason you can keep bearing to read]].
* {{Expy}}: A lot of people, if they don't outright {{Cameo}}. At one point, Ash battles Zorro and Mr. T. [[spoiler:Zorro joins the recurring cast.]]
* EleventhHourSuperpower: [[spoiler:''The entire cast'' at the end of the last battle.]]
* FaceFault
* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: [[AnyoneCanDie There are countless in this series.]] Some are subtle and some are just diabolical {{Gorn}}. Most notably are:
** About 99% of Earth's population are [[spoiler: turned into undead monsters.]]
** Most members of [[spoiler: Team Rocket]] get grizzly ends.
** The world leaders in all categories are crammed into a giant crusher.
** [[spoiler: Lord and Lady Ho-Oh's deaths involve gratuitous vivisection.]]
** [[spoiler: Meowth]] gets eaten and digested by Chimecho.
** [[spoiler: May and her Pokemon.]]
* FateWorseThanDeath: Several are shown in the series, including the Master Ball. And Dark Karma.
** Poor, poor Latias gets this during the final battle when she is [[spoiler: thrown into a never ending cycle of pain and lust by Dark Latios to perform his NotSafeForWork fantasies on her, turning her into a zombie.]]
* FromBadToWorse: Goes from Latias trying to hide from the Ghost King's forces to [[spoiler: having to fight armies of the undead, which are controlled by utterly heinous abominations.]]
* FunWithAcronyms: [[Series/PowerRangersSPD Poke Rangers]] '''A'''stro '''S'''quad '''S'''igma. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Bayleef.
--> '''Bayleef:''' "What is it with people and stupid acronyms these days!"
* GainaxEnding: ''Twice''.
** The first one [[spoiler:results in a relatively small fraction of the cast still alive, the good goddess heavily wounded, all of them setting up a last stand, and the bad guy has just destroyed the entire universe around them. And some three chapters of extremely esoteric [[ContemplateOurNavels navel gazing]].]]
** The ''second'' one was added ''two years after the book's completion''. [[spoiler:The whole "universe ending" thing was Mewgle screwing with everyone and trying to brainwash ''both'' dueling gods under his control. He's stopped by [[DeusExMachina Squirtle]] (who is thoroughly pissed off that he hasn't been in the story yet) coming out of nowhere.]]
* GambitPileup: On a cosmic level by the end. The sheer amount of contingencies and [[UnspokenPlanGuarantee unspoken plans]] both sides have in play is staggering.
* GoingCosmic: The finale.
* {{Gorn}}: The torture and "fatal battle" scenes are ''quite'' gory. Taken UpToEleven in the final arc.
* GratuitousRape: Not only is there a lot of rapes in this story, but a lot of them can be removed/replaced AND they make the villains [[BondVillainStupidity look pretty stupid]] for doing so. Fearow is a good example. If his ''modus operandi'' is to eat other Pokemon and take their power, [[MotiveDecay why is he stopping to rape Latias]]?
* GroinAttack: Not just kicks to the jumblies either; the story contains quite a bit of genital mutilation.
** Oniichan [[spoiler:who is Eusine transformed into a Raikou]] uses his spiked tail to rip out the undead Raikou's genitals in a fight.
** Alpha Ranger kills [[spoiler:Brock]], cuts off his genitals and shoves them into the corpse's mouth.
** [[spoiler:Sphinx!May rips off Vigoroth's genitals, thinking that it was one of Deoxys's monsters assuming her father's Pokemon's form. It wasn't.]]
* HandWave: See FridgeLogic.
* HalfHumanHybrid: Many examples:
** Mariah Susanson, a blatant ParodySue who hits every "Pokemorph" cliche in the book and then some. [[spoiler:She's actually an insane psychic construct created from an experiment GoneHorriblyWrong.]]
** Various inhabitants on [[spoiler: Mewgle's fake version of]] Birth Island, including [[spoiler: "Raiki," Ash and Pikachu's fake father]].
** [[spoiler: Ash, Misty and May during the final story arcs, via EleventhHourSuperpower.]]
* HarmfulToMinors / PrimalScene: When Phanpy walks in on Crawdaunt's massive orgy, [[CrowningMomentOfFunny it immediately renders him comatose and erases his memory of the incident.]]
* HealingFactor: Most of [[spoiler:Deoxys]]'s armies of shambling horrors regenerate endlessly. [[spoiler:Dark Latios gets totally ''vaporized'' and comes back.]]
** [[spoiler:Latias gets in on this as well during the final arc -- it gets to the point where when she's blinded, she just ''[[EyeScream rips out her motherfucking eyes]]'' because it's faster to just grow a new pair than to bother clearing her vision.]]
* HeroesPreferSwords: [[DashingHispanic Zorro, El Gato, Lombre]], and [[spoiler:Pikachu]].
* HoldYourHippogriffs: Many times.
* {{Infodump}}: The most common way background information is explained. A random character, usually one that's just been introduced, will go on a long-winded story about a particular plot point, usually with Latias as the LittleJimmy.
** Pidgeot's explanation of the Wing Fortress
** Mewtwo's exposition about the nature of Pokeballs
** Mew and Celebi's explanation of Lady Ho-Oh's StartOfDarkness
* InterspeciesRomance: What kicks off the plot. It's exactly as awkward a topic for all parties involved as it sounds.
** And Delia Ketchum's fiancée at one point is [[spoiler: Mr. Mime. She may or may not be even paired up with him at the end. It's actually [[ShrugOfGod left up to you.]]]]
* LampshadeHanging: ''Constantly.''
-->"It's like the laws of reality are being repealed or something, allowing impossible things to happen," the intelligent talking yellow rodent who had the ability to generate thunderbolts speculated.
* LemonyNarrator: Progressively more so over the course of the book.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Trust us on this one.
* LovesTheSoundOfScreaming: A lot of the villains of the story, but most the noticeable is [[spoiler:Deoxys]]
* LudicrousGibs: Wing Fortress massacre for one. The entirety of the final act for another.
* MindRape: A few times, most notably [[spoiler:Lugia, who is tricked into unnecessarily killing his BrainwashedAndCrazy son and wife, then forced to dream [[DreamWithinADream an infinite loop]] of suicides.]]
** This is topped spectacularly by [[spoiler:Latias, in probably the {{Squick}}iest part of the book.]]
* MindScrew: There is quite a bit of allegory and symbolism in the story and some of the elements in the story are quite bizarre. Indeed, many reviewers have commented on this.
* MoodWhiplash: From a greater-story standpoint, entire lighthearted and easygoing story arcs can [[FromBadToWorse go very quickly to hell]]. Sometimes they go ''literally'' to Hell.
** On a smaller scale, comedic and disturbing moments can and will occur in the same paragraph.
* MurderTheHypotenuse: [[spoiler: Bulbasaur]] eventually kills [[spoiler: Sceptile]] via UnfriendlyFire.
* MyNaymeIs: Phanpy spells his name "Phanphy" because he likes it better that way.
* OverlyLongGag: One could consider the [[DoorStopper whole book]] one such, but the author is rather fond of these on the whole.
* PairTheSpares: Ri2 gleefully sticks characters together throughout the book. [[spoiler:During the [[TheStinger epilogue]], an OverlyLongGag recaps all the pairings he's made. It lasts over two pages, has a RunningGag ''within itself'', and leaves the choice of Delia's significant other [[NoFourthWall to the reader's discretion]].]]
* ParentalAbandonment: Subverted. Ash despises his father for ditching his mother before he was born. At the very end of the book, [[spoiler:he finds out his father is freaking ''Zorro''. Turns out someone spiked the punch at a fundraiser, they did a few things they might not have otherwise (Delia specifically [[ReallyGetsAround did several]]), and neither one remembered anything the next morning.]]
* PokemonSpeak: Averted. See WordOfGod under AnimalTalk.
* ThePowerOfRock: ''Jigglypuff'' and the Pokerockers defeating Team Snagem with Breaking Benjamin's "Blow Me Away."
** Latias bringing down an EldritchAbomination while singing "[[FinalFantasyX Otherworld]]" -- not the kind of song you'd expect her to be singing.
** [[spoiler:The Pokerockers' GurrenLagann-style charge against Mewgle draws its power from "[[VideoGame/SonicAdventure Live and Learn]]."]]
* PsychicPowers: Psychic type humans are mentioned in this verse but they pay some ''serious'' [[BlessedWithSuck costs]] for their power.
** And of course Psychic Pokémon.
* RatedMForManly: There's no shortage of action and violence in here. Oddly enough, the main character is female!
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Deoxys delivers a very long one to Mewtwo.
* ReferenceOverdosed: This story has {{Shout Out}}s to everything from [[Franchise/PowerRangers PokeRangers]] to [[CthulhuMythos Tentacthulhu]].
* ReincarnationRomance: Most notably [[spoiler: Latias and Rayquaza,]] but this is also hinted at for other couples.
* ResetButton: The Unown offer this to the good guys if they can stop the upcoming cataclysm, [[spoiler: though they had no intention of actually following through with it, as they expected the universe to end no matter who won. Fortunately, thanks to Mewgle's botched attempt at a universal takeover, the universe is intact at the end. The local deities at this point basically [[ShrugOfGod shrug]] and implement the ResetButton anyway.]]
* RetCon: The fic originally ended on a huge cliffhanger [[spoiler:with the majority of the cast dead and ''the entire universe annihilated'', and the remaining people set up for a last stand on a flying island]]. Two years later, Ri2 added a sequel that undid the entire last chunk of the story. A good quarter of the way into the sequel, he added a second epilogue that revealed [[spoiler:the entire ending sequence was just Mewgle screwing with everyone, ''including the two gods duking it out'', in a [[TheStarscream Starscream]] gambit. He gets his ass handed to him by [[CoolShades Squirtle]], who [[DeusExMachina comes out of absolutely nowhere]] and earns everyone's happy ending.]]
* SerialEscalation: Gets pretty epic fairly early on, proceeds to top itself repeatedly. The sequel ''starts off'' somewhere around the level of epic of the first book's penultimate arc, and just keeps running from there.
* SlidingScaleOfComedyAndHorror: Breaks both ends of the scale. Sometimes simultaneously.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Weavile and Lucario are referred to as Manyula and Rukario respectively. These two were cameo appearances before Gen 4's English names/romanizations were finalized.
* SubvertedRhymeEveryOccasion: [[CrowningMomentOfFunny Crawdaunt's 'Assumption]],' which is successfully used as a BrownNote to defeat an EldritchAbomination.
* SweatDrop
* TakeThat: Ash's encounter with Mariah Susanson is one big ol' "Take That" against [[MarySue Mary Sues]] in general.
** As is Latias' encounter with the first MarySue early on, who captures ''most of the legendaries in the world''.
** And in a flashback in Chapter 6, when Latias is told to "go to Hell" by a member of a cult that thinks Pokemon are satanic, a stab at the people in the real world that think Pokemon is satanic.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Repeatedly, and almost always from the bad guys. [[spoiler:Deoxys]] uses this to psych out his opponents through sheer {{Gorn}}.
* TookALevelInBadass: Anyone in the cast who doesn't die soon after introduction is likely to take ''several''.
* TrainingFromHell: Lance and Drake force Ash and Latias to journey through an ice cavern with no winter clothing to toughen them up for the Hoenn League Championships. [[spoiler:A bunch of Glalie nearly kill them.]].
* TranslatorMicrobes: Latias's telepathy allows Ash to understand and converse with his Pokémon. After Ash is [[spoiler:is selected as an honorary Chosen]], he is fully capable of understanding Pokéspeak thanks to the [[AWizardDidIt Unown]].
** Latias's translation extends to anyone who considers her a friend, thereby subconsciously giving her freer psychic access to their perception. She still has to [[TheVoiceless write things out]] for everyone else [[spoiler:prior to her EleventhHourSuperpower]], and had to convince Misty that she wasn't a [[InterspeciesRomance rival for Ash's affections]] anymore before she could be let in on it.
* {{Troperiffic}}: By the time the sequel rolls around, Ri2 is a confirmed [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife troper]].
** And up until the sequel, just look at the percentage of this page coated in [[PotHole blue]].
* VirginSacrifice: Team Aqua brings in a naked woman to sacrifice to Kyogre. For Groudon, Team Magma brings in a fat, nerdy, unattractive man who is [[AManIsNotAVirgin far more embarrassed about his status]] than worried about being chucked into a lava pit.
* TheVoiceless: Played with. Latias can PokemonSpeak just fine, and later learns how to put up a psychic [[TranslatorMicrobes translation net]] for her friends, but her human disguise is mute. She has to carry around a notepad to scribble messages in when she has to communicate with humans who aren't in on her translation net.
* WhyWontYouDie: Often said against the undead horrors toward the end of the story.
* WorldOfBadass: Almost all the main characters are given some kind of epic scene or learn an epic ability.
* WretchedHive: Lilycove City is portrayed as an ''utterly'' lawless hellhole as a result of Team Magma and Team Aqua fighting each other.
* XMeetsY: {{Pokemon}}: The ExploitationFilm
** The last arc is ''{{Pokemon}}'' meets ''GurrenLagann'' meets ''Film/EventHorizon''.
** In-universe example. The Battle Palace's rules are amended for the Hoenn League Championships so the roles are reversed. The end result is something like mixed martial arts meets Pokémon battling.
-->'''Ford''': Instead of Pokemon competing against Pokemon, it will be human against ''human'', with their Pokemon giving them commands from the sidelines!
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