Characters / Pokémon Desolation

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Chad/Sienna/Diego/Daniela/Robin/Avery

The player character, narrowly surviving the explosion of the boat taking them to Cellia City. Initially simply trying to regroup with their friends Scarlett and Ava, they end up taking on the journey to the Ayrith League, and become entangled in the events involving Team Crescent and the Black Foxes.

You can chose between six appearances, as well as decide your gender independently from those.

• The Ace: They're this to the Ranger Guild. They singlehandedly make the workload of every place they come by more manageable for the local outpost, despite them being understaffed. They also manage to make the most headway in the search of Majira's vault keys, something Aderyn acknowledges after their rematch.
• Action Survivor: They have to survive the crash of the ship and make their way to the nearest town armed with a single mon retrieved from the ship's wreckage and some spare Poké Balls.
• Ambiguously Brown: The Diego sprite.
• Amnesiac Hero: They don't remember their past before they washed up on the beach near Darkroot Town.
• Angst Coma: There are multiple points throughout the game where they respond to something big happening by abruptly passing out and staying asleep for longer than is normal.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Breaking free of Darkrai's hold requires them to notice the inconsistencies in the narrative fed to them by the twins about the Dreamscape.
• Big Fancy House: They end up owners of the Cellia Manor, complete with a shiny Gardevoir as a maid, thanks to Rosetta.
• Bold Explorer: A good deal of the Ranger subplot has them follow in the footsteps of the first ranger Majira, himself a case of this trope. The game also heavily incentivizes and rewards exploration.
• Dream Walker: They can freely enter and leave the Dreamscape, which is why Darkrai is so interested in them. In gameplay, this translates to being able to freely access the dreamscape by sleeping in your bed in the manor after completing the main story.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Averted entirely. You gain a lot of public recognition following the events of Blackview City and even more so after Cellia, and most gym leaders rapidly come to treat you as an equal when it comes to dealing with most threats. Similarly, many people in the fight clubs will come to respect your battling prowess after you manage to win enough matches.
• Mysterious Past: According to Scarlett, they met Ava when she found them washed up on the beach near Darkroot Town. Late in the game, a mysterious voice repeatedly asks the player who they were before they boarded the cruise ship.
• Naïve Newcomer: Averted. It is mentioned that, like Ava, they were experienced in Pokémon battling even before the story began.
• One-Man Army: Regularly gets into battle with several Crescent grunts or Black Foxes in a row and stomp them without breaking too much of a sweat.
• Prefers the Illusion: Whether they play the trope straight or defy it is up to the player, as it's possible to agree with either Shiv or Nova early in the game.
• The Reliable One: Gym Leaders rapidly come to treat them as their equal whenever a crisis situation happens, and they can rapidly develop a reputation of helping solve people's problems.
• Save the Villain: Despite being a silent protagonist and Nova having done nothing to gain their sympathies, they seem visibly invested in preventing Aurora from throwing her in the Grid.
• Seeker Archetype: This is what they need to be in order to get the better outcomes of situations. Saving Scarlett requires retrieving her lost bow, Saving Nova requires getting a key from Rosetta despite Garett's warning of not telling her about them breaking into the archives, and resisting Darkrai requires searching all around the dreamscape to find insight to understand the true nature of the Dreamscape. One of the murals in the south settlement openly invites them to "Seek the truth".
• Spanner in the Works: To Darkrai, should they play their cards right. Lilith and Nova note that a dreamer realizing the true nature of the dream and openly rejecting Darkrai breaks the entire cycle Darkrai had set up for themselves and shines a new light on the future.
• Unwitting Pawn: They can end up as this to Darkrai, setting them free on the world without realizing what they did wrong.
• Warrior Therapist: Several of the more morally-conflicted antagonists note they make them feel something they had long forgotten, and they can talk down Scarlett from committing suicide during the Blackview Siege. Some quests from the Dreamscape involve helping people to sort through their issues with their new life, and the optimal outcome is always to help them as much as you can.
• Your Days Are Numbered: At the end of episode 6, it's revealed that the player and Waldenhall interacted with Perfection energy, which will kill them eventually, though Reeve is trying to find a cure.

Gym Leaders

Ava

The Grass Gym Leader, hailing from Darkroot Town. A good friend of the protagonist.

• Badass Boast: Likes to boast she's basically invincible, to the point that being worried for her after she's seemingly thrown into the lava gets you negative relationship points with her. Provided she's not trying to fight in a volcano, she can back up the boast just fine.
• Childhood Friend: To Scarlett and the protagonist.
• Disney Death: Twice. First she's thrown into a pool of lava, only to be saved at the last second by Aderyn, then she throws herself off of a cloud platform, but survives by calling her Tropius to catch her mid-fall. In episode 6, she does actually die in the lava instead of being saved, but Nova brings her Back from the Dead.
• Fangirl: Of both Emily and Rosetta, her fellow gym leaders.
• Failed a Spot Check: She seemingly doesn't recognize Scarlett during the Blackview Siege, being busy with holding off Baron.
• Foil: To Scarlett. Both are long-time friends of the protagonist, but where Scarlett would rather side with Team Crescent and help them make a better world at the cost of it being an illusion, Ava viscerally rejects the idea of abandoning reality.
• Heavy Sleeper: After the Cellia tournament, she barely even finishes her conversation with the main character about how she'll sleep on the couch in the manor before falling asleep snoring.
• Heroic Rematch: With Baron. After losing to him the first time at Vejyr, she rematches him during the Blackview Siege and kicks his ass.
• Hot-Blooded: She seems to have a thing for charging headfirst and thinking second. She takes on Baron in a volcano despite knowing the field is putting her at a massive disadvantage because she just want to wipe the smile off his face, she throws herself of a cloud platform sorely to prove a point about her freedom (although she did have a plan to survive the fall), she throws Hardy off a cliff after he insults her only for her to immediately regretting her action, and she apparently forgot to correctly prepare for the battle of Cellia North, to the point she asks you for a full restore mid-battle.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Has this reaction after throwing Hardy of a cliff in the heat of their argument at the top of Hardened Mountain (pre-Episode 6). Thankfully for her, Hardy's revealed to have survived no worse for wear.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: She's the hot-blooded, outgoing red to Scarlett's cheerful, calmer blue.
• Signature Mon: Her Cradily.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: During the Cellia East arc, she and Reeve are constantly throwing jabs at each other. She's also not happy with having to work with Nova, and doesn't bother hiding it.
• The Unfought: Despite being a gym leader, the game has yet to give the player the opportunity to battle her.
• The Worf Effect: She loses once against Baron, to demonstrate the leadership of Team Crescent is not to be taken lightly.
• Worf Had the Flu: Her initial defeat against Baron is largely attributed to having to fight in a volcano, which severely weakens her Grass-type Pokémon. Indeed, during the siege of Blackview, she rematches Baron after setting up the field to her advantage and apparently gives him a sound thrashing.

Connor

The Fire type Gym Leader. Doesn't have much patience for anything.

• Butt-Monkey: He quickly devolves into this archetype among the group. He's not recognized by the people of Redcliff Town at first despite being a Gym Leader, and later on, everyone in the group is either a Gym Leader and easily just as competent as he is if not more, the protagonist who already beat them, or Scarlett. As such, any of his attempts to snark at anyone is snarked back at him twice as hard.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: At some point when exploring Tristan's house, Ava wonders how Tristan could even look young since evidence point to him being around fifty years old. Connor makes a "Dermatologists hate him" joke and immediately gets told off by Ava. Optional dialogue with him after that indicates he sincerely thought it was pretty funny.
• Everyone Has Standards: His first reaction upon discovering there's a bomb on the ship is to contact the captain and make everyone evacuate the ship. He may be a rude jerk, but he doesn't want people dead.
• Freudian Excuse: Implied to be the reason he's a such a jerk. The way he acts around his sister Emily and how she talks about him gives the impression he's just treating everyone the way he was himself treated.
• Insufferable Genius: He's pretty smart, putting together what's going on in Keneph Village at least as fast as the player, but he cannot make a complete sentence without calling someone a scrub or an idiot.
• Morality Pet: Scarlett becomes this to him, as he grew attached to her as he helped her start her journey as a trainer. In the battle for Blackview, he's convinced he can reach out to her and convince her to rethink her decision, to the point he tries to stop the player from following him. While he's wrong, it says a lot about how much Scarlett matters to him.
• My God, What Have I Done?: His reaction after telling Scarlett one person can't change the world prompts her to join Team Crescent. It's why he tries to take it upon himself to talk her out of sacrificing herself.
• Primal Fear: He's way too proud to admit it openly, but he's afraid of the dark, enough that he will insist being with the protagonist to explore Keneph Caves.
• Sibling Rivalry: With his sister Emily. Unfortunately for Connor, Emily seems to always win.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: He believes this to be true of him in regards to saving Scarlett, and that no one else can help with that. He's wrong, as it's the player who can actually pull this off, and his attempt to prevent them from following them means he almost accidentally doomed Scarlett.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Zig-Zagged. He's perfectly aware he's an insufferable asshole and doesn't intend on changing anytime soon, from his own admission, but he does genuinely care enough about Scarlett that he will drop the condescending attitude when talking to her, and after losing to you, his attitude towards the protagonist shift from openly dismissive to more passive snarking, making him more tolerable.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Aside from his fear of the dark, he refuses to join the main trio when they try to catch a flight to Cellia because he thinks it's a stupid plan. Scarlett instantly divines that he's also afraid of heights.
• Worf Had the Flu: He's not supposed to be the weakest of the Gym Leaders, but he didn't have his main team on him when the game starts and hasn't had the occasion to get it back since, so he's stuck with a secondary team he had just begun training. Interestingly enough, he doesn't use that excuse too much when losing against the protagonist and simply settles for wanting a rematch with you one day with his real team.

Aderyn

The Flying Gym Leader in charge of Celeste Town. She's also a Ranger and takes both duties very seriously.

• The Beast Master: Is on good terms with the Virizion living on Ruby Island, to the point they're willing to be part of her team for the rematch with her here.
• Dungeon Bypass: Inverted. Her gym is the only one to bother with an actual gym puzzle and trainers to battle on the way instead of immediately sending out the gym leader. Makes sense, as most of them don't even have the opportunity to battle you within their gym.
• Hidden Depths: Behind the stoic ranger façade, she's a regular of the Cellia Fight Club, as she does enjoy battling for the fun of it, she just doesn't show it much.
• Graceful Loser: More noticeable with her, as she doesn't just lose a gym battle or a rematch for fun with you, she loses a fight to determine who should pursue Majira's legacy and still takes it without even a frown and gives you her key along with a stone that will later let you catch Articuno.
• High-Altitude Battle: Her entire gym and battle takes place on a cloud platform, far above the ground.
• Nature Lover: She's shown to care a great deal about the environment, which is probably her reason for joining the Rangers in the first place. She's known about Ruby Island for a long time, among other things, but kept quiet even to other rangers so that the peace of the island and Virizion wouldn't be disturbed. She doesn't hold any ill will for the protagonist and other rangers discovering the place, though. Rather, she notes that this was bound to happen someday anyway and that all that's left is to make best of the current situation.
• The Stoic: She's very professional and calm throughout most circumstances. The only time she really gets fired up is for an intense battle.
• Teleportation Rescue: That's how she saves Ava (pre-episode 6) when Baron pushes her into the lava – She waits until the last second and tells her Xatu to teleport her away in safety, tricking Baron into thinking he's successfully killed her.
• Signature Mon: Her Pidgeot, that she later upgrades to a Mega-Evolution.
• Worthy Opponent: Comes to see the protagonist as this, as they catch up in a pretty short amount of time on all the headways she made on Majira's legacy, which is why she decides to rematch you at Ruby Island – since the quest was obviously designed for one person to undertake and you both have some of the keys, she wants to see the better trainer triumph.

Tristan

The Normal Gym Leader. Resides in Addenfall Town, but seems to wander around in most of the region.

• The Atoner: He is not proud or happy about what he did for Darkrai.
• Attention Whore: He seems to be desperate for the attention of other people. According to him, he tends to get ignored everywhere he goes, to a point you have to wonder if it's natural.
• Dead Person Impersonation: There was a Normal-type Gym Leader called Tristan, but he's been dead for five years. The Tristan you meet in the game is a memory/echo made up by Darkrai, who was pretending to be the Gym Leader to earn the player's trust.
• Driving Question: "What is your dream?", repeatedly asked to the player specifically, and echoed by the narrator. They never get an answer.
• Irony: While the Dreamscape is a pretty miserable place and most people have to come to terms with the fact the life they lived in "the dream" was "meaningless", Tristan adjusts to it remarkably well, in part because people in the Dreamscape have no problem actually noticing him.
• Knight of Cerebus: Not that the game wasn't already dark, but the reveal about the fact he's seemingly been dead for years signals the beginning of the game's Mind Screw antics.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Though he doesn't comment on it, in reality he's supposed to have been dead for years now. Presumedly, this has to do with the Dreamscape's Year Outside, Hour Inside properties.
• The Generic Guy: He tends to get this reaction from everyone around him, as he's seemingly never noticed.
• Hope Spot: He releases his Pokémon in the Dreamscape because he wants them to find new trainers and get a fresh start. He then discovers that his Pokémon were just memories, and they all fade out of existence.
• I Just Want to Be Special: He's pretty open about it. He's spent most of his life hoping to be recognized and acknowledged. It's even the reason he took up Pokémon battling and became a gym-leader in the first place. Unfortunately for him, it only ostracized him further from people as they became jealous of him.
• The Mole: It's revealed late into the game that Tristan was one of Darkrai's pawns, sent to get you to him.
• Signature Mon: His Mega-Lopunny, which is also the first mega evolution you'll have to face through the game.
• The Sneaky Guy: He always wanted to be a ninja. He also seemingly never stands out anywhere he goes, to an almost unnatural point.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: He regards his status as the Normal Gym Leader as this, noting how the "Dragon Gym Leader" sounds way cooler. Doesn't stop him from being a pretty solid challenge.

Emily

The Electric Gym Leader and Idol of Blackview City. Her popularity is second only to Rosetta.

• Big Sister Bully: She doesn't miss on an occasion to pick on Connor. Somewhat justified in that he's already the Butt-Monkey anyway, but some of her interactions may give the impression it runs deeper than that.
• Badass in Distress: She's been captured by the Teal Panthers by the time you reach Blackview and needs your help to escape. She's shown to be more than capable of holding her own after this, taking on Amelia in direct combat and seemingly winning.
• Genki Girl: It's pretty rare to see her in a mood that's not cheerfully upbeat. Between her Blackview idol status and the fact she enjoys battling enough to show up at the Cellia fighting club, she has plenty of energy to spare.
• Jerkass to One: See Nice Girl below.
• Nice Girl: To everyone that's not Connor.
• The Nicknamer: Like some other trainers, every mon on her team is nicknamed. In her case, though, some of her mons are named after people – her Galvantula's named Connor, and her Heliolisk Ava.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: The Energetic Girl to Connor's Savvy Guy.
• Signature Mon: Toss-up between her Electivire for cutscenes and her Mega Manectric for gameplay.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Pulls this on Amelia as she's trying to settle the score with you while you're busy trying to catch up to Scarlett, and successfully forces her to retreat.

Rosetta

The Fairy-type Gym Leader, in charge of Cellia Central. Highly popular among the public.

• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: All gym leaders are technically this, as they're tasked with protecting their hometown, but Rosetta in particular takes this duty very seriously.
• Authority in Name Only: What her position amounts to in South Cellia and in the Undercity. South Cellia hates her guts for letting this side of Cellia fall into disarray, and the Undercity is just plain mafia territory.
• The Beautiful Elite: She's a celebrity, an influential figure in the town's administration, a gym leader, and she does look the part.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Has it with Garret.
• Beneath the Mask: At first she appears to everything the queen of Cellia should be- outgoing, competent and otherwise perfect. Her sidequest reveals that she's actually a claustrophobic introvert who hates crowds and sometimes regrets coming to Cellia in the first place.
• Be Yourself: The Aesop of her sidequest in Episode 6- she feels like she's spent so long trying to be who other people want her to be that she's forgotten how to be the person she really is.
• Dark Secret: She treats the existence of the Undercity of Cellia as this, as she feels its existence makes Cellia just as much of a hellhole, if not more, than Blackview City.
• Foil: She's The Beautiful Elite to Garret's Working-Class Hero. Despite the two getting on each other's nerves, they acknowledge both have ultimately the same goal of making Cellia a better place and will work together without too much bickering should an emergency arise.
• Mama Bear: She holds this attitude toward the entire city of Cellia, and she will personally take down anyone who tarnishes it.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Pulls a heroic example of this after the player helps her track down Nova. After realizing the owner of the manor doesn't actually exist, she hands it over to you.
• Signature Mon: Her Mega Gardevoir.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Her main issue in getting anything done with Cellia's pitiful state is that she's reluctant to let anyone know how bad it even got. When the player gives her a lead that traces back to the Undercity, she basically sends the player to search for someone else to tell them about it while she tries to deal with the problem herself- only to fail because everyone knows her in the Undercity and no one recognizes her authority there, while the player comfortably passes as a nobody and is allowed in the Fox base.
• Teleportation: Not herself, but her Gardevoir is able to do that to her and other people on demand.

Aaron

The Gym Leader of Cellia North and the Director of City Planning, specialising in Steel types. Stays calms under most circumstances.

• The Comically Serious: He doesn't roll with Garret's and Ava's snark and answers in the most stoic way he can come up with. He's not incapable of making jokes, but his particular brand of humor seems to be more of the Pungeon Master variety.
• Deliberate Underperformance: He jobs to Rosetta in the semifinals of the Cellia tournament despite having a crushing type advantage over her, using a Steel-type team against a Fairy-type team. According to an NPC, rumor has it that he has a crush on Rosetta and deliberately threw the fight for that reason.
• Lame Pun Reaction: Does this to himself during his pre-battle speech, trying to come up with a pun about the situation on the spot and ending up with a pretty bad result. He comments that Ava may have a point about his humor.
• Satellite Character: As of the current build, he's the Gym Leader with the least screentime in the story. Garret, while coming after him in the Gym Leader order, was introduced way earlier in the plot, leaving Aaron in this position. He also doesn't have many appearances after the Darkrai reveal, with Reeve taking up a lot of the spotlight.
• Signature Mon: His Mega Aggron.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: He remarks that it seems that many Gym Leaders nowadays don't really bother with the protocol of handing down TMs after their fights, and that he has no idea where you could find anyone willing to hand you down the HM Surf, which his badge enables, so he decides to just cut out the middle-man and gives it to you himself.
• The Smart One: He's shown to be pretty knowledgeable during the exploration of the Fox hideout, recognizing the place you've been transported to by its appearance and making some good points about the purpose of the place. On that front, he's pretty similar to what Connor would be if he could stop being a self-absorbed jackass more often.
• What the Hell, Hero?: During the Cellia North arc, he gives the other Gym Leaders more than a few annoyed comments about how he asked them for help with the gang situation in Cellia North ages ago, and they never bothered to help him.
• Younger Than They Look: He's not any older than the other Gym Leaders, but the silver hair and dignified attitude leads to several other characters off-handedly calling him an old man.
• The Worf Effect: Zig-zagged. He jobs off-screen to Rosetta despite a major type advantage, seemingly because he has a crush on her, but at this point, he hasn't yet been introduced in the story. By the time he's properly introduced, he's seen juggling two member of the Black Foxes at the same time without breaking a sweat, and is exactly as strong as you'd expect a Gym Leader to be.

Garret

The Gym Leader of Cellia South, resident Fighting types specialist. Pretty friendly despite the initial gruff exterior.

• 10-Minute Retirement: He has given on up actually improving Cellia by the time you first meet him, and just opts for taking it out on any Foxes that come his way. The player's actions eventually inspire him at going back to actively fighting out the root problem rather than simply dealing with the symptoms.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Has it with Rosetta.
• Brutal Honesty: He never minces his words for anyone and speaks his mind in all circumstances.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Amusingly, he actually pulls this one off much better than Nova did when she tried. Though he already liked the player for their capacity at getting things done, he respects the passion they put into battling.
• Deadpan Snarker: A master of it. He even takes jabs at the people he works with, which frequently leads to them butting heads.
• Foil: He's the blunt, direct Working-Class Hero to Rosetta's more composed The Beautiful Elite. Despite the two getting on each other's nerves, they acknowledge both have ultimately the same goal of making Cellia a better place and will work together without too much bickering should an emergency arise.
• Long-Lost Relative: His main reason to be so ruthless with the Foxes. They kidnapped his little sister, Eden, several years ago, and he never managed to find any clue as to what became of her. His dialogue after the Waldenhall fight indicates that he thought she was dead.
• The Pig-Pen: A few characters comment on his lack of personal hygiene. According to Word of God, though, he does shower, so presumably he smells from hanging out in the sewers.
• The Power of Friendship: Embraces it wholeheartedly in the closing speech of Episode 5. Depending of the choices that lead you there, it can either come off as trying to motivate the troops after the player's failure, or a reaffirmation of everyone's ability to make it through.
  "Listen up, folks. Until I say we don't have a chance, we always have one. Foxes, Crescent, Darkrai… it doesn't matter. When we work together, we've got the advantage. Why? Cuz we'ge got what Darkrai doesn't. We've got each other… The most talented trainers in Ayrith. What does Darkrai have, huh? Apart from the twins, that monster's all alone. So if we all work together… Ain't nothing that'll get in our way. Ayrith… she's ours to protect. So we'd better get protectin'."
• Promotion to Parent: His father left a long time ago and his mother died in childbirth with his little sister, leaving him in charge of caring for her. He did a pretty good job until his sister was abducted.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: When he realises that Waldenhall knows where his sister is but is trying to escape, Garret takes out over thirty Black Foxes (including Amelia) who try to stand between him and his target, by himself.
• Signature Mon: His Mega Lucario.
• Slobs vs. Snobs: He's South Cellia Slobs to Central Cellia and Rosetta/Cellia East and Reeve's Snobs. At one point, he expresses disdain for the people of Central, stating no one ever cares about anyone but themselves here and never spares a thought for their neighbor.
• True Companions: Garret openly admits that he respects loyalty above most other things, and is pretty open about the fact that you win his over the course of the story. He also invokes this trope in the ending as the reason they still stand a chance against Darkrai as a whole.
  • To Rosetta, to a lesser extent. They don't like each other, but they have Cellia's well-being in mind and they will come for those threaten it.
• Working-Class Hero: Garret doesn't look like he's financially well off, to say the least. Two different characters comment that he smells like he hasn't taken a bath in a long time^note Word of God says he showers every day, so we can infer that the smell is because he often goes into the sewers, and he jumps at the chance of crashing not just him, but his entire crew at your manor (although he's apparently pretty considerate about it and just hangs around in the basement).

Reeve

The Gym Leader of Cellia East and a Psychic-type specialist. Knows a lot about evolution.

• Dark and Troubled Past: Even aside from his history with Perfection, Artem and a Crescent Grunt talk about Reeve having been on the wrong side of the law at some point, and Garret says that Reeve was apparently living on the streets in the past.
• Dark Secret: He used to work for the Cellia Council, studying Perfection as Waldenhall's student. After their experiments in replicating Perfection ended with all the subjects dying, Reeve told the Council and was fired.
• Evil Former Friend: Waldenhall is his. Reeve tries to talk him down, but it doesn't work.
• The Fashionista: He owns a clothing store, Surge, and is considered to be one of Cellia's most fashionable residents.
• The Hedonist: He really likes drinking and partying.
• Hidden Depths: At first he looks like a party animal. Then he turns out to be a really competent scientist who's also one of the most knowledgeable about Perfection.
• Life of the Party: He partially owns Cellia East's biggest nightclub and spends a lot of his time there.
• My God, What Have I Done?: His reaction to realising that he spent so much time drinking and partying that he neglected his Gym Leader duties to the point that Crescent were running rings around him and managed to pull off a prison break.
• Purple Is Powerful: He wears purple and has purple hair (dyed) and purple/light blue eyes (actual colour).
• Signature Mon: Mega Alakazam.
• Technicolor Eyes: Reeve has heterochromia, with his eyes being purple and light blue.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He and Ava really don't like each other, and openly show it. He also has to be convinced to just tolerate Nova's presence.

Keneph Village

Kuiki/Keegan

The leader of Keneph Village, whom every inhabitant sings the praises of for saving their lives.

• Burn the Witch!: More like throw the witch in a fight to the death with a Donphan, but that's essentially what he does to Scarlett and Ava.
• Cult of Personality: Explicitly what he has set up in Keneph Village. Merely speaking ill of him is a crime worthy of being put in prison.
• Evil Old Folks: Unlike Shiv, Aurora and Nova who still looks like the teenagers they were in their backstory, Kuiki looks visibly old. It's revealed that Shiv left him in the Grid to age at an accelerated rate.
• Fake Memories: Prior to Episode 6, it was all but directly stated that his given backstory at Weeping Hill as Shiv's untalented little brother was fabricated, as Aurora's existence directly contradicts the possibility of Kuiki being Shiv's younger brother, and the secret entry in her diary, which otherwise doesn't mention him, frames him as an inhabitant of Addenfall Town instead, suggesting he was actually a brainwashed kid all along. Episode 6 retconned this, making his 'fake' backstory true.
• Irony: He could have been just a poor kid who got hit with Fake Memories (pre Episode 6), but then he used a Drowzee to brainwash an entire village into worshipping him and reproduced the very thing that was done to him on a larger scale.
• Killed Offscreen: His fate is initially left ambiguous, as Shiv simply disappears with him, but a gravestone to his name can be found in Weeping Hill, suggesting that Shiv did this to him.
• History Repeats: Brainwashing a kid and manipulating them for your own interest is something that can roughly describe what Darkrai did to Shiv. Shiv, in turn, did this to Kuiki (before Episode 6). Kuiki would then go on to do this to the people of Keneph Village.
• Starter Villain: The first antagonist to be taken care of, he's nothing but a pawn for both the Foxes and Shiv to use.
• Signature Mon: His Drowzee that he used to continually brainwash the village's inhabitants.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Shiv pulls this on him after the player defeats him. A grave with his real name can later be found in the deepest chamber of Weeeping Hill.

Team Crescent

Baron

The Admin of Team Crescent, second only to its leader. Isn't nearly as idealistic as them.

• Assassination Attempt: Twice. Both attempts involved using his Hydreigon to push people, one into lava, one from an elevated platform.
• Combat Pragmatist: Like several other trainers, Baron uses his Pokémon to attack other people, although he's the only person who use them to purposefully attempt murder.
• Dragon Ascendant: Becomes this for a very short while following Nova's disappearance, but is then stopped and sent to jail by the player and Garret. And then he breaks out and goes back to being in charge, with Artem as his second in command.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Follows Nova's orders as her second-in-command, but his comments make it pretty clear that unlike Nova, who seems genuine about wanting to make a better world, all Baron cares about is his own ass and becoming the ruler of the new world.
• Hate Sink: In stark contrast to Lilith and Nova who have pretty clear Anti-Villain traits, and even Amelia who at the very least comes to acknowledge the player as a Worthy Opponent and doesn't try to murder everything in her way, Baron has next to no redeeming qualities. He tries to kill Ava by throwing her into lava sorely to advance his goals, then tries to kill the player character later at Celeste Labyrinth. He's also pretty open about the fact he's only going along with the dream plan so he can be the ruler of the dream world they'll create, all the while being smug about it. Garret's account of his past doesn't exactly make him any more likeable either.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: He doesn't care about making a better world for anyone but himself, and his definition of an ideal world is one where he rules over everyone else.
• Signature Mon: His Hydreigon, not unlike a couple other villains from Pokémon Reborn, although he's a far less imposing threat than either Solaris or Lin.
• Sore Loser: According to Garret, this is a trait he's always had even back when he was just a teacher at school. He's never been the best trainer, but he never managed to take defeat well.
• Stern Teacher: He used to be this, according to Garret. He wasn't a nice person, but he gave effective advice and Garret admits he's part of how he got as strong as he is now.
• Smug Snake: He oozes this. Even as he apologizes for seemingly killing Ava as a tragic necessity, he clearly doesn't think all that much of his action. Similarly, he appears specifically dismissive of the player simply because Nova holds them in interest. But despite his grand ambitions of becoming the king of the dream world, he goes down to the hands of the player and Shiv and becomes the second villain to be put out of commission through the whole story (the first being Kuiki, the Starter Villain)... until he breaks out.

Nova

The leader of Team Crescent, who wants to use the power of the Onyx Stone to put everyone into a dream where everyone's life is perfect and fulfilling.

• Anti-Villain: She holds this role for most of the story, as a villain whose goal is to grant everyone a perfect life in the dream world and is pretty friendly even if you choose to oppose her. Then The Reveal happens and she becomes an Anti-Hero instead.
• Becoming the Mask: While she only ever approached Shiv in the first place to bring the twins to Darkrai, her affection for Shiv seems to have become genuine, as she does express the desire to save him and regrets having been forced to wrong the twins.
• Dream Walker: She can enter and exit the dream at will, which is what makes her a target of Darkrai.
• Big Damn Heroes: Rescues the protagonist from Darkrai in the best ending as they're about to drop them in the grid and proceeds to force it to retreat.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: She isn't actually in control for most of her screentime and is instead influenced by Darkrai. She eventually snaps out of it and tries to help the protagonist avoid the same fate.
• The Corrupter: Plays this role off-screen to Scarlett, convincing her to join Team Crescent to further their ideal world and potentially getting her killed during the Blackview Battle. Also tries to play this to the player. How much it works is up to you.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Attempts to invoke the trope during the Weeping Depths exploration, trying to convince the player to join her through battling them. How well it succeeds is up to the player, but her attempt does feel at least a bit clumsy.
• Disney Death: Aurora can push her into the void of the Grid at some point. It would certainly be a fatal death for anyone, considering that the Grid goes on forever and you'd eventually die while falling, but considering she can teleport, she shows up just fine later in the story after playing dead for a while. The game does reward you for talking down Aurora from pushing her in the first place, though.
• Faux Affably Evil: When Darkrai's influencing her, she puts on a pretty convincing act of a nice girl when talking to the player and trying to convince people to join her side, trying to inspire sympathy and never belittling the player for disagreeing with them, instead saying she hopes they'll understand each other one day. Scarlett actually buys it, and so can the player. However, her interactions with Shiv makes clear she has a nastier side, and some of her remarks to the player come off as her wondering if they're even useful to her at all. Finally, in the flashback from Lilith's past, she drops the act and showcase how cold and cruel she can be to people that refuse to work for her.
• Foil: To Shiv. During the early game, she's the one openly advocating for trapping everyone in a dream world where everyone gets what they want, while Shiv opposes her on the grounds that reality is all that matters. Fast forward to the end of episode 5, and now Nova's the one trying to stop Darkrai from trapping the world in the dream, while Shiv obeys them, albeit seemingly reluctantly.
• I Owe You My Life: Despite being capable of surviving her encounter with Aurora no matter what, she'll respond with this later in the story if you prevented Aurora from throwing her in the void of the Grid.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: She played this role to Shiv as part of luring them in to Darkrai's trap, breaking him out of his depressed phase. She was effective enough at it that Shiv still holds her in his heart despite knowing she betrayed him, and bringing this up to Aurora is a good enough point that she can't bring herself to kill her in cold blood. In turn, Nova seems to have some genuine attachment to Shiv.
• Morality Chain: To Shiv. He refuses to let anyone- even Aurora- hurt her, and when Nova goes missing, Shiv's response is to take on the entirety of Crescent at Bountilia Island to find out where she is.
• Power Parasite: She says she was born with a weaker version of the powers the twins posess, but she can also steal from them to boost hers. She notably stole most of Aurora's powers, according to her backstory, although Aurora has mostly recovered by now.
• Reformed, but Rejected: Downplayed. Her joining the heroes isn't met with widespread agreement, to say the least. Of the various people in the room, the only ones voicing support for her are Connor, out of rationality that she has nothing to gain at trying to trick them at this point more than anything else, and Garret, for the same reason and because he understands the upcoming fight against Darkrai must be met with a united front.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Delivers one to Darkrai on the behalf of everyone they ever wronged.
  Darkrai: I gave you a purpose, Nova.
  Nova: Damn you… A purpose?! A purpose? Who are you to say you gave me a purpose? You took it from me when I was a child! I never had a chance to have a purpose! You took everything from me! Just like you took everything from the twins, and Lilith!
• Signature Mon: Her Gothitelle. It apparently forces Darkrai of all things to retreat despite Psychic moves having no effect on Dark types.
• Villain Teleportation: The main manifestation of her powers.

Artem

A high ranking scientist of Crescent, who properly becomes lieutenant following Baron's takeover of the team and Nova's defection from the group.

• Chekhov's Gunman: Artem was mentioned at the very beginning of the game as the Crescent lieutenant who'd supposedly gone missing, but who Crescent wasn't looking for.
• Deadpan Snarker: He cracks a lot of sarcastic jokes at Reeve's expense, regarding the party boy gym leader as a total incompetent. Reeve makes him eat those words.
• Expecting Someone Taller: Upon meeting the main character, he says he thought they'd be taller.
• Foil: Seems to be an obvious one to Waldenhall, with them both being cold, mysterious scientists who are the right hand men to their criminal organization's leadership, seem to know a lot more than they should, and were out of commission until the events of Episode 6. Their main differences so far are that Waldenhall is focused on Perfection, while Artem specializes in the Grid, and while Waldenhall is built up to as a major antagonist and threat, Artem is dispatched offscreen as a sidenote to the rematch against Baron and forgotten about for the rest of the episode.
• Extra-ore-dinary: He not only owns a Registeel, but in general might specialize in this, given his workstation in the Crescent lab also has an Iron Plate and Steelium-Z.
• Olympus Mons: In a surprising twist for just being an admin of an evil team, he possesses a Registeel, with even his superior Baron, as well as several trainers around or higher than his level of strength, not owning legendaries themselves.
• Remember the New Guy?: Not quite this trope, as he had been mentioned prior to his official appearance, but very sparingly and it could be easily missed until Reeve brings up the danger he poses in Episode 6.
• The Worf Effect: Despite being touted as a very strong and smart member of Crescent, in his one scene in Episode 6 content, he and another high ranking member of Crescent fail to defeat Reeve in a 2v1.

Black Foxes

Amelia

An Admin of the Black Foxes, responsible for blowing up the boat the protagonist was on in the introduction.

• Blood Knight: Of the antagonists, she's easily the one itching for a fight the most, to the point she hangs around in the Cellia Fight Club in her free time, and she admits she's been looking forward to an opportunity to settle the score with your character. She's also shown to be visibly unhappy with the truce Lilith imposes during the game.
• The Corrupter: She's this to the Black Foxes. While they were always an outlaw organization, it is stated they used to mostly just operate in the shadows, and it's under Amelia's compulsion that they start to resort to violence more openly. In a way, she's a lot like Lin, only less of a monstrous sadist and more of a regular Jerkass with a few positive traits.
• The Coup: After the Darkrai fight, Amelia ousts Lilith as the leader of the Black Foxes.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: She's one of the Elite Trainers of the Cellia fight club and is also seen sitting at a table here. As a result, she can repeatedly be fought with nothing more at stake than money and Credits. Conversely, since what happens in the fight club stays in the fight club and vice-versa, you're can't try to arrest her or otherwise hinder her plans as a Black Fox.
• Jerkass: She's not a good person. While she doesn't actively try to kill anyone onscreen, she blows up a boat sorely to make a demonstration of force with no regard for the safety of the passengers, tries to get Hardy to kill a trainer he beats, and she's the reason the Black Foxes have become a lot more violent. The only person she can look somewhat good compared to would be Baron.
• Signature Mon: Her Blaziken, that she later upgrades to a Mega. If you ever wondered why this thing got banned to Ubers in Smogon, she'll make you understand why.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Her reaction when some grunt tells her they found a promising recruit for the Black Foxes, only for her to turn around and realize they're talking about the player character, whom they just brought right into their base.
  Amelia: Excellent, it's always good to see… [realizes who they are] … All of you… in this room… Absolute… idiots. That's not a recruit- That's THE ENEMY!
• The Friend Nobody Likes: She's not very appreciated by her fellow Foxes, if the record log in the Fox base is to go by – the scientist who wrote the log states that while her competency is undeniable, she's ultimately too volatile and violent and will eventually compromise the Foxes, and Lilith should get rid of her as soon as possible.
• Worthy Opponent: She comes to respect the player's fighting prowess after her third defeat, enough that she actually gives them a Mega-Stone.

Lilith

The Leader of the Black Foxes, she's trying to find the culprit of the murder of her parents and make them pay.

• Anti-Villain: Despite being the leader of the Black Foxes, she's actually a pretty nice person, whose end goal is merely breaking the vicious cycle set up by Darkrai and avenging the death of her parents. Most of her villainy stems from leading the Black Foxes, or rather, from enabling Amelia to turn them into the terrorist group they're becoming, as they used to keep a much lower profile until she became an Admin (that, and she also brought in Waldenhall and condoned his experiments). There's also the murder of several police officers who tried to arrest her several years ago, although with the current situation, it's entirely possible she was actually framed for that crime.
• Cop Killer: She supposedly murdered the police who tried to arrest her, but this hasn't been confirmed.
• Dream Walker: She's not lumped in with Nova and the twins so it's somewhat unclear whether or not she has the rest of their powers, but this is the same thing Darkrai wants from her, like they do from the twins and Aurora.
• Enemy Mine: With the player against Darkrai. She even forces a truce on the side of the Foxes for a while.
• Friendly Enemy: Despite you wrecking her grunts, she has nothing but genuine advice for your character and urges them to try grasping the truth of the situation they're in. Even the time she battles you is only to prevent you from doing a terrible mistake.
• Freudian Excuse: Darkrai apparently screwed over her entire life to groom her as their next victim, notably orchestrating the murder of her parents when she was a kid.
• Olympus Mons: She has a Meloetta on her team.
• Prefers the Illusion: Zigzagged. She holds the belief that ultimately, reality or dream, the only place that matter is "Home", and the Ayrith region will always be home for her. Fortunately for her, it's also reality.
• Signature Mon: Her Umbreon, who was also her only Pokémon for a long time through her life. Her bond with it is powerful enough it's currently the only Pokémon able to reach Perfection Form.
• Super Mode: Her Umbreon is the only currently known Pokémon capable of reaching Perfection, a stage described as beyond Mega Evolution, that requires a much stronger bond with the trainer to use. In gameplay, it does function like Mega Evolution, though.
• The Unfettered: She will catch whoever is responsible for the death of her parents, legality be damned.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: She just wants to catch her parents' murderers, but she employs a literal mafia gang to reach this goal.
• What You Are in the Dark: Nova and the twins (and by extension, Darkrai) showed up at some point in her life to tempt her with bringing back her parents in exchange for helping with their plan to bring the dream to Ayrith. To their dismay, she had already accepted that her parents were dead at this point and soundly rejected them.

Julian Waldenhall

A scientist who's working on Perfection.

• Above Good and Evil: He thinks he's this trope. Most of the other characters disagree.
• Evil Former Friend: To Reeve, who used to work with him on Perfection.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He went from a scientist who worked for the Cellia Council to one of the new leaders of the Black Foxes.
• Hate Sink: Not only has he killed God knows how many Pokémon and people in his Perfection experiments, and not only did he throw Garret's sister into the Grid upon completion of his experiments, Waldenhall has zero remorse for any of his crimes and even says that Garret should be honoured. He also actively stamps on the chance at redemption he's given at the end of episode 6. Needless to say, he doesn't have a single redeeming quality.
• It's All About Me: As far as he's concerned, Perfection is his destiny and his alone. The idea that anyone else could have it is abhorrent to him, and he's disgusted that people attained it in the past, even though he would never have known about it if they hadn't.
• Mad Scientist: He's the leading researcher on Perfection, and intends to use it to become incredibly powerful.
• Shock and Awe: Besides his Rotom-Frost and his Mega Luxray, Waldenhall himself seems to possess some kind of electrokinetic powers that he uses to knock the player out and make his escape.
• Signature Mon: His Mega Luxray, which is widely regarded as far more dangerous than anything else on his team.
• Smug Snake: He is nothing but condescending and insulting to every single person around him, even the player after they defeat him. The one time this is ever broken is when he confronts the Perfection entity.
• The Sociopath: It's an actual plot point. Reeve describes Waldenhall as a monster who is incapable of loving anyone or anything, and thus is incapable of Perfection, which requires a strong bond with one's Pokémon. Waldenhall trying to locate the Perfection Fragment in Fairbale was his means of using a loophole to get around this limitation.
• Would Hurt a Child: He abducted Garret's sister and threw her into the Grid when he'd decided that she'd outlived her usefulness.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Due to the mirror entity's machinations, Waldenhall was exposed to Perfection energy unnaturally. This is not a good thing, as when this happens, per Waldenhall and Reeve's own experiments, it leads to decay and turning into dust.

WARNING: Due to the massive amount of Walking Spoiler in the game, the characters under this warning have their spoilers untagged. You've been warned.

Rivals

Scarlett

A close friend of the main character, who takes up Pokémon battling shortly after the game's beginning. She's originally from Sinnoh.

• All for Nothing: Should she commit suicide, she does so under the belief her suicide is needed for the creation of the ideal dream world. It isn't, just like how most of the plan of Team Crescent doesn't actually work in practice.
• Childhood Friends: With the main character and Ava.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Her Mega Cinccino loves to inflict it with its Skill Link-boosted Tail Slap.
• Disney Villain Death: Should she go through with her suicide, she does so by throwing herself off of Blackview's highest building.
• Driven to Suicide: This is basically what Nova does to her while offscreen, persuading her she needs to sacrifice herself to be the catalyst for the dream world.
• Everyone Has Standards: She's understandably horrified when Baron throws you off the cloud platform after she just joined him.
• Friendly Rival: She fills this role, even being labeled as rival a couple times in the game's files, contrasting Hardy's portrayal as the more cocky rival. As a result, she's fought three times over the course of the story.
• Fighting Your Friend: This is what her arc up to Blackview City leads to. Depending on how the player handles it, it can end in her suicide, or she can be inspired to stay alive and fix reality the hard way.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Even more so than the main character, who's at least noted to have been a trainer before coming to Ayrith despite not bringing their Pokémon with them. She starts catching her first mons shortly after you get your first badge and gets promoted to Crescent Admin over the course of the story. Even after she defects back to the good guys, she makes it all the way to the semifinals of the grand Cellia Tournament, only losing to the player.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Joins Team Crescent over the course of the game, only to later leave them and rejoins the good guys' side. At least if she lives.
• Heroic Wannabe: Part of how she copes with working for Team Crescent despite them committing unsavory actions, and how she rationalizes her suicide attempt: This time, she's the hero, and heroes make the tough decisions others cannot make. Amusingly enough, she grows closer to being an actual hero after she's talked out of it.
• Hypocrite: Part of her Motive Rant at the top of Blackview Tower involves blaming human nature for how conflict always arises, citing the present conflict in Blackview as evidence, yet Team Crescent are themselves trying to take advantage of the conflict and joining it, despite not even directly furthering their stated goal.
• Important Hair Accessory: Her bow is pretty much associated with her innocence and cheerfulness. She loses it after the Celeste Labyrinth events where she joins Team Crescent, and during the Blackview City arc, she's noticeably gloomier and more depressed. In turn, finding the bow and giving it back to her at Blackview Tower is the key to talking her out of suicide, as it reminds her of her time with the protagonist and Ava.
• Interrupted Suicide: The player can convince her not to go through her attempt, on the condition they retrieved her bow at Celeste Labyrinth beforehand.
• The Load: Not in the actual story, as her battle prowess are pretty good and she's perfectly capable of kicking your ass the two times you battle her, but part of her motivation for joining Team Crescent partly stems from a feeling of helplessness and watching Ava and the protagonist save her from danger, quite literally never being the hero of the story. In accord with this, part of why she manages to leave Team Crescent behind and not look back is that she can now go toe-to-toe with her friends without issue.
• Nice Girl: She's a very cheerful girl who doesn't want to hurt anyone. Even her time as a villain is motivated sorely by a desire to see everyone's life improve and Nova preying on her insecurities.
• Prefers the Illusion: Her rationale for joining Team Crescent. The world will always be a Crapsack World no matter how much the good guys win, so she'd rather take an illusion where everyone is happy over it.
• Signature Mon: Her Mega Cinccino.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: After she joins Crescent, she rationalises that she has to go through with their plans or the player and Ava's supposed deaths would be in vain. In the process, she ignores the fact that Crescent caused these supposed deaths.
• Villain Has a Point: At least on the scale of the Ayrith region. Considering Cellia is allegedly as good as you can get in the region, and that most of the town is just as much of a gutter than Blackview Ctiy, life in Ayrith might not be very happy overall. More broadly, she's right that regardless of how the current conflict ends, another conflict will inevitably arise in the future and ruins the lives of countless people.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: At her core, she just wants everyone to live a happy life. But her method to accomplish this is to join Team Crescent and try to trap everyone into a dream world.

Hardy

A trainer you meet on Route 1. Determined to take on the Pokémon League with his partner Zorua.

• Anti-Villain: He doesn't want anything to do with the Foxes, but he sticks with them because he needs the research on Perfection form to save his Zoroark.
• Apologetic Attacker: Repeatedly expresses regrets he has to fight you as a Black Fox rather than as a friend and misses the times you two just fought as trainers rather than in the middle of a gang war.
• Evil Costume Switch: He's fought sporting a Fox outfit during the battle for Cellia North.
• Forced into Evil: He's pretty open about the fact he'd rather not have anything to do with the Black Foxes, but that he seemingly has no way to leave them.
• Made of Iron: Ava accidentally throws him off of Hardened Mountain (prior to Episode 6). He survives the fall no worse for wear.
• Recurring Boss: He's fought up to five times over the course of the story depending on your actions, making him the trainer with the most battles.
• The Resenter: He's oddly resentful of Ava for being a Gym Leader and seemingly having a "perfect" life, hinting at a Dark and Troubled Past that has yet to be expanded upon.
• The Rival: To the protagonist. They start their journey around the same time and he sees them as a Worthy Opponent. It later gets complicated once it's revealed he joined the Black Foxes, although he misses the time where he played the trope more straightforward.
• Rival Turned Evil: He used to simply want to challenge the Pokémon league, but then he joined the Black Foxes for unclear reasons, and now he's stuck with them as he needs their work on Perfection form to save his Zoroark.
• Signature Mon: His Zorua/Zoroark. The fact it later disappears from his team hints at his motives for sticking with the Black Foxes.
• Trapped in Villainy: He repeatedly affirms he can't leave the Foxes for now. It's later revealed that his Zoroark is dying and the Foxes' research could save its life.

The Twins

Shiv

A mysterious stranger with strange powers who seems to take an interest in the protagonist.

• The Ace: He's the Champion of Ayrith, and seemingly also had time for several meaningful contribution to the scientific fields.
• Becoming the Mask: Inverted. When he's first introduced, he has a clearly shady vibe going on. As you get to interact with him, he becomes gradually more honest and straightforward about his goals, which Darkrai describes as "losing himself to the dream". But since the Dreamscape isn't actually reality, this may actually be more in line with his real personality resurfacing and him breaking free from Darkrai's hold, only for Aurora to Yank the Dog's Chain.
• Dream Weaver: What his powers are initially explained as – the twins are the only people aware of the dream nature of Ayrith and take advantage of its nature to pull some lucid dreams stunts. The Reveal puts this explanation into question.
• Dream Walker: His actual power, according to Nova – they can freely move from the dream world to reality. Which is why they become a target for Darkrai.
• Foil: To Nova. Both are defined by their opposition to each other. But where Nova starts out defending the merits of the dream world to better everyone's life, Shiv is initially firmly on the side of reality, claiming that no matter how hard it is, the only viable choice is to face it. Fast forward to the end of the current build, and Nova is now the one fighting Darkrai and by extension, defending reality, while Shiv is working for Darkrai, albeit reluctantly.
  • Also to his own sister, Aurora. Upon discovering his powers, Shiv just accepted them as part of him and ran with it, seemingly never taking issue with them, and doesn't seem too bothered by losing some of them to Nova. Aurora initially hated them and tried to get rid of them, but embraced them after using them to murder the scientists who laughed at her and instead settled on trying to destroy anything that could take her powers away from her, and will not forgive Nova from taking them away from her.
• I Am What I Am: This seems to be his attitude towards his powers, contrasting Aurora. Even Nova stealing some of them never seems to bother him, unlike Aurora, who repeatedly brings it up to Nova whenever she can.
• Ironic Name: 'Shiv' is a kind of knife, and is also slang for stabbing someone. Shiv never stabs anyone, but Nova stabs him twice.
• It Meant Something to Me: He feels this way towards his time with Nova, who managed to make him love life again after his bout of depression. It's strong enough that he's willing to face his own sister's fury to protect her, all the while knowing full well Nova only ever approached him to steal his powers, because that's how much she helped him.
• Older Than They Look: Considering Kuiki was once younger than him, he has no business being this young. Possibly a side-effect of the Year Outside, Hour Inside of the Dreamscape.
• One-Man Army: He storms Crescent's base on Bountilia Island by himself and takes out nearly all of their forces.
• Reality Warper: This is what his powers are described as. He's shown to be able to teleport, and his backstory indicate he used his powers to help with his journey to become the champion of the region.
• Reluctant Monster: After waking up at Odis Village, he follows Darkrai's plan, but some dialogue of his indicates he's still trying to sort through what's real and not, and he's seen in the ending wondering about Nova, hinting there's still hope that he can be freed from Darkrai's influence.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He does this to Team Crescent once Nova disappears. By the time you get to Baron, he has stomped half of the grunts himself and teams up with you for one last battle against Baron and an Ace.
• Scavenger Hunt: He sets one up for the player with the colored pieces to find all around Ayrith, for a purpose yet unknown.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Him killing off Kuiki/Keegan. While it's unclear how he felt towards them and it's possible to read their actions as somewhat sympathetically, he still basically stole Keegan's life away from him, threw him away when he didn't need him anymore, let him be other people's problem for years, and then killed him off the second it was beneficial for him to do so.
• Signature Mon: His Aipom/Ambipom. Even the way of catching an Aipom involves battling what is seemingly a lingering ghost of him fighting with an Ambipom way overlevelled compared to your team.
• Start of Darkness: He seemingly had this after becoming the champion. His only answer to the boredom that came with being the best was messing with the village of Addenfall town, unearthing the Onyx Stone and trying to use it in some way. And then Nova and Darkrai entered the picture…
• Then Let Me Be Evil: His reaction at the possibility Nova may be dead for good. He wasn't afraid to threaten Baron with detonating the entire island by accident and didn't cared about the consequences if it meant getting some easy catharsis. Fortunately for everyone, Aurora stops him right before it's too late.
• Trapped in Villainy: What the ending seems to be pointing towards. He'd rather not work for Darkrai, but he doesn't have the freedom to escape them.
• Victory Is Boring: This is the brick wall he hit after becoming the champion. He didn't know what to do next, and the only solution to his boredom he seemingly came up with was trying to disprove Evil Is Not a Toy.

Aurora

Shiv's twin sister. She seems to hold a grudge towards Nova specifically.

• Armor-Piercing Response: When she sarcastically asks the player what she should do to Nova, fully intending on pushing her off the cliff anyway, the player can tell her "She saved Shiv's life" as a possible choice, which she didn't expected to the point she actually stops and let Nova live because of it.
• Control Freak: As she puts it herself, the only way she likes life is when she's in complete control, which is what she likes about her powers. When you return to Cellia to search for Shiv, she repeatedly pesters you from the Dreamscape to drop whatever you're doing and search Shiv until she gets cut off from you.
• Dream Walker: Her actual powers: She can freely enter and exit the dream world. One too many trips have loosened her grip on which one is reality, though.
• Foil: To her own brother, Shiv, regarding their powers. Aurora hated her powers but later came to embrace them and try to keep them at all costs, which is why she's so mad at Nova for stealing them. Shiv, on the other hand, seems to have always just accepted they existed and ran with it, and doesn't seems to bothered at Nova for stealing part of them.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Start out as an antagonist, caring only about getting her revenge on Nova with no regard for the lives of the people in her way, then becomes your ally in the Dreamscape, as her true goal was waking up people from the dream, only for this to be revealed to be a lie at the end of the current build where it's confirmed the Dreamscape is the actual dream and she's working with Darkrai.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Defeating her won't stop her from killing Nova. Downplayed, in that not winning against her robs you of the opportunity to save her by talking Aurora down.
• The Nicknamer: She nicknamed her entire team, most often after concepts like dreams or soul. Her Mightyena, however, is named Fenrir.
• Reality Warper: She's the one who really shows how powerful the twins are. Aside from the usual feat of teleportation and passively accelerating the growth of her Pokémon, she's shown opening a portal to presumably the Dreamscape with her powers, owning a personal space in the Grid, and turning a bush in the Dreamscape into a Turtwig for her to catch.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: She's pretty much in a perpetual state of this against Nova for most of her time on screen. During her final confrontation with her, their battle sets the street of Cellia on fire.
• Start of Darkness: She used to hate her powers for making her different from everyone else, so she tried to find an explanation for them and how to get rid of them. Unfortunately, no one took her seriously when she showed her findings to other scientists, causing her to snap and use her powers to murder them. The incident caused her to realize her Control Freak tendencies and embraced them wholeheartedly, deciding to use her research to perfect her powers instead.
• Smug Super: She knows she's better than everyone else in the room and doesn't bother hiding it. She just won't actively provoke people the way Connor does. Even her portrait gives a smug smile.
• Spared, but Not Forgiven: Should the player remind to her that Nova did legitimately help Shiv through a depressive period, she'll settle for this, admitting that while Nova fully deserves to suffer for what she did, it is not her place to be the executioner.
• Signature Mon: Her Mega Mightyena. It even gets a special music theme, that is later reused by Lilith's Umbreon.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Exploited. She specifically built her team to counter Shiv's team in order to push him to improve. She changed her team by the time the story takes places, though.
• Villain Takes an Interest: The protagonist provokes this reaction from her after some time, which might be her subconsciously realizing that they're the target Darkrai has been looking for.
• Yandere: Toward her own brother, Shiv. Should the player decides to fight her to prevent her from killing Nova, she'll decide they're not different from Nova, parasites trying to steal her brother away from her.

Spoiler Characters

Darkrai

A Pokémon living in the depths of the Dreamscape. Their abilities to induce dreams and nightmares are central to the plot.

• Adaptational Villainy: Much like another game's take on Darkrai, this openly malevolent schemer is a far cry from the canon portrayal of Darkrai as a Pok&eacutemon who means no harm. This is also commented on by the game itself, where Ava notes that much like in canon, Darkrai is usually a harmless Pokémon whose nightmares are only a self-defense mechanism, making the behavior of this specific Darkrai all the more jarring.
• Big Bad: The true mastermind behind pretty much everything bad happening in Ayrith, as their actions directly leads to the creation of both Team Crescent and the Black Foxes, and as both Lilith and Nova pulls an Enemy Mine with the player to face them.
• The Chessmaster: They've been at this for years. They flawlessly manipulated everyone who ever had the ability to dream into trying to free them, and, should it fail, make them into their pawns to help manipulating the next victim. The only things they ever failed to account for are Lilith accepting the death of her parents, and the protagonist grasping the truth of the Dreamscape and rejecting him. Even so, they still actually get what they wanted: They're now free in the real world and scheming to bring the dream into reality.
• Dark Is Evil: They're a Dark-type Pokémon who's also the main antagonist. It's actually noted by the game to be abnormal for a Darkrai to be so unrelentingly evil.
• Hero Killer: Should you obtain the worst ending of the game, where you reject their offer but lack the willpower to resist them, they'll drop you into the endless void of the Grid with no way out, giving you an early bad ending.
• I Just Want to Be Free: The closest thing to a humanizing trait they have. The speech they give at the end of Episode 5 seems to indicate they resent being trapped in the dreamscape and envy the real world for being full of change, conflicts and hope.
• The Man Behind the Man: It takes a while to even realize they're an antagonist with their own agenda instead of merely a plot device for other villains like Nova to try to use.
• Manipulative Bastard: Much like the Darkrai from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers, this Darkrai is an accidental dead ringer of, their favorite way of getting things done is to manipulate people through their emotional weaknesses into furthering their plans. If Lilith is to be taken literally, they've orchestrated the events of their entire childhood, including the murder of her parents, to mold her into someone he could manipulate, and Nova states they took control of her life back when she was a child.
• Narrator All Along: They were the voice narrating your story and occasionally directly adressing the player all along, meaning the whole speech about Leaning on the Fourth Wall was actually them trying to mess with you.
• Reality Warper: If the accounts of their Perfection forms are accurate, they could trap the entire world into an endless dream, should they reach it.
• The Sociopath: It's made painfully clear they don't care for anyone's life or well-being other than themselves and see everything else as tools or entertainment.
• Walking Spoiler: There's next to nothing that can be said about it without spoiling most of the game's twists in the process.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Tries to pull this on the protagonist, should they refuse to go along with their plans. Depending on whether or not the player did their homework, it can succeed, or be stopped by Nova. Also tried to pull this on Nova offscreen, to no avail.

Mirror Entity

A strange being that communicates to the player over the course of the game, and later Waldenhall.

• Armor-Piercing Question: It has one that it constantly repeats to the player. "Before you boarded that cruise ship, all that time ago... who were you?"
• Ambiguous Situation: Who it is, or what it is, is not remotely clear. All that is concretely known is that it is a being that has achived a partial form of Perfection, where the trainer ascended but their Pokémon did not. It also seems to despise humanity, and shows contempt towards the player and Waldenhall.
• Big Bad: Possibly, given that it is heavily implied to be Darkrai's trainer.
• Cosmic Horror Reveal: While the plot up to when you first see it in action is quite dark, it's not that out of the realm of normal Pokémon stories - a legendary being goes berserk and your goal is to defeat it, right? Then you meet this strange, incomprehensible, non-Pokémon entity that allegedly harkens from a higher plane of existence that threatens doom for humanity, and it treats a powerful antagonist the story has been building up to like a toy.
• Deity of Human Origin: It achieved Perfection, which caused it to transcend to an incomprehensible plane of reality, in line with both Waldenhall and Reeve's theories. Its Pokémon did not ascend, which means that part of it is stuck in the current reality and able to interact with the world.
• Evil All Along: The weird disembodied voice who asks the player multiple strange questions about their past shows itself to be actively malevolent when confronting Waldenhall, using creepy apparitions of the man to torment him while promising nothing but ruin for both him and humanity as a whole.
• Eviler than Thou: Pulls a brutal one of these on Waldenhall, being the only thing that even fazes the man. After Garret and the player trounce dozens of Foxes, Amelia and Waldenhall himself, Waldenhall retains his Smug Snake exterior. Within just a few minutes of meeting the entity, he's reduced to a shivering wreck.
• Logical Weakness: Reeve deduces that since Perfection is supposed to be a one way road, the fact that the entity is even capable of talking with and interacting with objects means that it hasn't fully ascended with its Pokémon and is only able to stay in reality because of said Pokémon. This means that if the entity's Pokémon was destroyed, its link to the world would be severed.
• Mirror Monster: It communicates to Waldenhall as one of these, showing Waldenhall a bloodied phantom version of himself before taking off its skin and revealing a silhouetted, red eyed form.
• The Man Behind the Man: In this case, the man behind the man behind the man, presuming that it was the former trainer of Darkrai.
• Painting the Medium: Its text, unlike any other character, is centered and italicized.
• Reality Warper: Given that it has achieved Perfection, it is presumably one of if not the most powerful being in the entire game. It's shown to have some degree of control over time, being able to apparently freeze it for the player and also is able to show them Waldenhall's past.
• Walking Spoiler: As with Darkrai, its very existence and the player knowing who it is beyond a strange voice reveals several things about the end of the current version.
• Was Once a Man: It used to be a person, but it's not known who.