Fanfic / Arcanum Universe: Scarlet Heists

"Let's end this reverie!"

Arcanum Universe: Scarlet Heists is a Pokémon Journeys: The Series, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and The Amazing Spiez! crossover written by SpinnerNite, Green Phantom Queen and Nash Walker, and acts as a side-story to Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus that details the alternate universe of Arcanum that was foreshadowed during the second act of Seeker of Crocus. According to author notes, it's described as a combination of a Phantom Thief and Buddy Cop story with inspiration coming from Kamen Rider W.

It was supposed to be a normal field trip for the students of Southdale Middle School. But for one Tony Clark, he finds himself seeing a strange Phantom Thief stealing a rock before getting grounded by his mother for his bad grades. Then his day gets a lot worse when he gets kidnapped before the same thief saves him and he's somehow whisked away to another world. More specifically, he ends up in the basement of an institute located in Vermillion City.

Not only that, but the professor of that institute isn't what he seems. While he's normally a Professor, loving husband and kind father, he also acts as one half of a famous thief called "Indigo", who is on a quest to gather a collection of powerful and dangerous gems called "Possessed Jewels" that can warp people's emotions and turn them into Tormentors, while their desires can be projected into Nightmares. And it just so happens that Tony's world is full of people who can become villains from ultimately petty reasons...

Tony's life as a normal kid and WOOHP agent quickly turns upside down when he finds himself mixed up with phantom thieves, the usual super villains he faces and potentially becoming a Pokémon trainer. But has that ever stopped the Tonester from barreling ahead? Not on your life! However, it becomes apparent that there are benefactors who are supplying the supervillains of Tony's world with powers beyond imagination and dreams, and Cerise has to be careful for his daughter starting to get closer to the truth...and perhaps the idea that she is also keeping secrets of her own to him.

The story is a companion piece to Arcanum Archives: Descendant's Shadow as the former starts some time before Scarlet Heists begins.

This fanfic provides examples of:

• Adaptational Intelligence: Tony was known to be Book Dumb in his series, the story even starting during the events of Operation: Tony Trouble when Tony was grounded for his bad report card, but here he's able to understand basic trigonometry once Renji explains it with visual aids.
• Alliterative Name: There's the fashion label Rhea Rage and the Possessed Jewel Rebellions Ruby. Author notes reveal that all the Possessed Jewels and those related to them will have allierative names.
• Alternate Self:
  • This story stars an alternate version of Tony Clark than the one in Crocus.
  • The Kyler Wilton in this story is vastly different than the one in Crocus, the main one being is that the former is not a denizen on the Train.
• Always Night: Juliana describes Arcanum as "a city of eternal night" to which Tony questions how it works because the sun is needed for things like growing food.
• Anachronism Stew: Brought up by the authors; the world of Amazing Spiez is set in the year 2010, but during the battle of the bands amp fight during "Tony's Trouble", they admitted that they used songs from Steven Universe ("15 Minutes" by Mike Krol and "Disobedient" from the movie) which takes place in the late tens.
• And I'm the Queen of Sheba: When Renji tries to explain to Tony that his Magnemite, Francois, is actually a real Pokémon, Tony remarks that his brother, Marc, is the King of England.
• Author Appeal: "Breakout" begins with the authors gushing on how they just love Fuecoco and want to give the little fire croc more of a presence.
• Bowdlerise: After Tony reveals he's got one of Flaky Fructose's decoder rings, he decides to recite a line from one of John Cena's old rap songs "Bad Bad Man", but instead of saying "Don't fuck with Tony Clark", he goes "Don't mess with Tony Clark".
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Cerise is not happy of the idea of having his daughter dating anyone, getting annoyed with Tony proclaiming his love outloud, to mentioning boys that Chloe might have feelings for (Hop and Spencer Thompson).
• Call-Forward: Professor Cerise notices that the characters in the cover of the Glass Kingdom remind him of his daughter and that "other boy" — said boy he describes (tall, white hair, blue eyes and an orchid motif) is Spencer Thompson, who Chloe (or rather "Colette Cadieux") will be teaming up with in Infinity Train: Orchid Observer.
• Cuteness Proximity: Tony finds himself practically falling in love with Chloe's Galarian Ponyta and is saddened when the pony runs off in fear of him. Megan herself also can't help but play with her at the end of the Super Spies Undercover arc.
• Decomposite Character: In a Kamen Rider W sense, Juliana and Tony share traits of Akiko Narumi. Juliana has the fiery girl who smacks people across the head with something (a slipper for Akiko and an umbrella for Juliana) while Tony acts as the Audience Surrogate who is completely out of his league.
• Dope Slap:
  • Juliana is quite fond of these with her umbrella.
  • Cerise gives one to Tony in retaliation for the boy getting his daughter obsessed with the Glass Kingdom books. He later does this to Kyler when he makes too many Squid Game references.
• Dramatic Irony: Cerise constantly remarks that his daughter is completely normal. Those who read Arcanum Archives: Descendant's Shadow (which takes place in the same timeframe as Scarlet Heists) would know that she is not normal at all.
• Exact Words: In his UNO game with Flaky Fructose, Cerise lets Flaky change the rules of two Wild Cards with prompts of his choosing. He never said anything about there being a third card.
• Expy: There are many characters that share analogues with those from Kamen Rider W.
  • The two cops whom Indigo gets info from are based off of Jinno and Makura with the former (Jake) having a backscratcher like Jinno and the other one (Matt) loudly correcting his name like the latter (being called "Mack" instead of "Matt").
  • Professor Cerise is the equivalent to Shotaro Hidari: a Badass Normal with a black color aesthetic when it's time to get serious.
• Fairytale Motifs: In "Tony's Trouble", the victim is a girl named Elle who is into a series of books based off of Cinderella. The title of the book is called Glass Kingdom with the first book having a clocktower being close to midnight, there's the Verre Academy (Verre is French for "Glass") and a food that the protagonist can't eat are Cendrillon oranges ("Cendrillon" being the French name of Cinderella). When Elle gets corrupted, she summons a myriad of glass animals.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Tony's world is set in 2010^note The Amazing Spiez! broadcasted from 2007-09 whereas the Pokémon world takes place in 2020. Because of this, Tony is way behind in terms of Pokémon games and anime (As he mentions that Black and White will be coming in a few months). The end of the "Super Spies Undercover" arc would reveal that it takes place near the end of 2010 given that Tony and Lee start watching an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic which premiered in late October of that year.
  • This gets weaponized in the UNO game between Cerise and Flaky Fructose. Customized Wild Cards came out in 2015, and Flaky was tricked into changing the rules for two cards. Kyler, however, notes that there are usually three Customized Wild Cards and the famous Draw 25 meme would come out in 2020.
• For the Lulz: Why does Tami act like such a bitch to the Clarks? According to Kyler, it's because she finds it fun. The authors admit that this is their headcanon for her.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • The story begins during the events of "Operation: Tami Trouble" and changes because Tony decides to walk off to a rock exhibit in the museum and sees a thief swap one of the rocks for himself.
  • Because Juliana snuck into the Super Spy Flakes factory tour, she is able to swap her fake ring with Tony's, preventing him from being brainwashed.
• Foregone Conclusion: Cerise makes a cameo in Seeker of Crocus, so he survives the events of this story.
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: Tony exclaims that "Rebellious Ruby" sounds like either a name of a rock band or a fashion label.
• Interspecies Romance: Solumni, Dragon of Nightmares, wishes to take both Kyler (a shadowy demon) and Cerise (a human) as her lovers. Neither of them accept this offer.
• Lampshade Hanging: Tony hangs one of these when he questions why there are so many villains in his world that love using mind control.
• Lying by Omission: Stated by Indigo himself. In their UNO game, Cerise tells Flaky that he can change the rules of two wild cards. What Cerise didn't say was there are actually three cards.
• Morton's Fork: Through the use of a popular UNO meme, Flaky is forced to either confess to his crimes to the public or draw 25 cards. If Flaky confesses, then he loses his company. If he doesn't, he will have a huge disadvantage from his bloated hand.
• Mundane Utility:
  • When Tony learns that Cerise has shadow thorn abilities, he begins wondering if he can use those to clean his room. He later asks if he can use a memory-sharing technique Juliana shows to help him share answers with Marc in regards to math homework.
  • Cerise notes that his wife uses Chloe's Alcremie for a baking side-job.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Jerry remarks that he once was part of a music duo called "Double Digits" and the battle of the bands chaos is more chaotic than the incident with the aliens.
  • When Cerise reads the description of the Paranoid Peridot, it's summed up as "push people away and then wonder why everyone hates them" just like in Pokémon Detective Pikachu.
• Recurring Element: Gamer Chick Chloe and her love of CarnEvil returns as Professor Cerise recalls a time the two of them played it and lampshading the Rickety Town level being Christmas themed.
• Saved by Canon: Cerise is going to survive the events of the story since he has a cameo in Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus.
• Selective Obliviousness: When Tony asks Cerise if he noticed anything weird with his daughter, Cerise goes through three certain scenes — Chloe devouring three beef bowls to build up protein for martial arts training, cleaning up her room and writing numerous papers with a purple pen — before stating he sees nothing wrong with it.
• Self-Deprecation: The Glass Kingdom books references some of the Author Appeal Spinner and Queen are known to have: specifically the fact that Crocus is known to have lots of angst and tragedy in the first act and the latter for the rather familiar red-haired girl and white-haired knight.
• Shout-Out:
  • The authors revealed that the battle of the bands scene in "Tony's Trouble" was based on Scott's fight with the Katayanagi Twins from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.
  • When Flaky states how he wants to get "rid of the competition", Cerise plainly points out that doing so would make him be sent to jail as it's considered manslaughter.
  • Cerise shouts "Son of a Sandshrew!" when Flaky drives off.
  • Juliana notes that Flaky's factory looks more like a classic Zubatman trap.
  • As they leave school, Chloe tells Eevee that she'd like to be energize by drinking tea that has been mixed with three sugar cubes and three spoonfuls of jam.
  • Chapter 5 has multiple references to Squid Game: Flaky initiates a game of "Red Light Green Light" with a giant doll that shoots (cereal) at the losers, Kyler suggests the honeycomb game and Cerise states that his son now double checks his marbles bag to reassure that it's not filled with rocks, with the bag having a "119", referencing Ali being tricked by Cho Sang-woo in the infamous marbles episode.
  • When Tony notes what's so special about Korea that he has to pay attention to in the future (since his world is set in late 2010), Cerise's number 1 item is about seven boys associated with purple whales, running and debating the existence on mint chocolate anything. (Because BTS debuted in June 2013)
  • Just before Cerise plays his UNO card, he says that he has two words for Flaky. Tony questions if the words are "Suck it".
  • While in WOOHP prison, Kyler and Cerise instigate a prison right, with someone screaming "HEY, RIOT!!"
  • When Cerise recalls how he and Chloe played CarnEvil, Parker gleefully shouts "Get 'em! Get 'em!" while recording it.
• Show Within a Show: The first arc has to deal with a girl named Elle who is into a dark fairytale series called Glass Kingdom.
• Stealth Pun: Elle gains the power to summon animals made of glass. Essentially, it's a glass menagerie.
• Take That!: Tony says he'll barf if he learns that Tami has a Freudian Excuse of rich but neglectful parents that explains why she acts so annoying and nasty to everyone, which the authors reference that it's very cliche of the Alpha Bitch to have a tragic backstory nowadays.
• Theme Naming: All gems are usually given a description of [Emotion/Job] with a certain gemstone that has an alliterative theme. Examples include Rebellious Ruby, Paranoid Paradot and Surveillance Soapstone.
• Waxing Lyrical:
  • In "Tami's Trouble", Juliana proclaims on a Cyclizar that "this girl's got a ticket to ride and she don't care".
  • In "Super Spy Flakes", Chloe mutters "I can't decide" to which Hop goes "Whether you should live or die", which is from the chorus of "I Can't Decide" by Scissor Sisters.
  • In "Super Spy Undercover", Tony paraphrases a G-rated version of lyrics from a song from John Cena's rap album, "Bad Bad Man".
• Wham Line:
  • Flaky is about to win the UNO game between Cerise and himself. But then Cerise reveals his customizable Wild Card that reads that Flaky has to reveal to the world that he's brainwashed three kids or draw 25 cards!^Spoilers The UNO meme came out in 2020, but the events of Scarlet Heists takes place in 2010.
• Wham Shot: The opening of the "Breakout" arc ends with a shot of Tony's face along with a student application to the Naranja academy.
• You Are Grounded!: Just like in "Operation: Tami Trouble", Tony is grounded for his low grades. This also happens to the Victim of the Week, Elle Connors, who is frustrated from it because this mean she's banned from reading the next book of her favorite series. However, thanks to Professor Cerise's intervention, he tells the parents to reduce the one-month sentence to two weeks and convince them to give the kids some extracurricular activities to help them focus better.

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