Fanfic / Infinity Train: Voyage of Wisteria

Infinity Train: Voyage of Wisteria Cover Picture

The formal sequel to Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail and final story of the Infinity Train: Blossomverse trilogy by Green_Phantom_Queen, Crossoverpairinglover and ShadyMissionary.

Unmarked spoilers for Blossoming Trail ahead!

Chloe has finally come home... just in time for Goh to heed the call of the Train himself. While he departs on his own 'therapy adventure' riding the rails, she's left trying to navigate the world she's returned to. For much has changed in her absence, and for better or worse, Chloe Cerise is not merely the overshadowed and overlooked daughter of Vermillion City's Pokémon Professor anymore.

But while the Apex may have been disbanded, that doesn't make the Train safe. Not even — or maybe especially not — for the Childhood Friend of the heroine and her friends who helped take down Grace and Simon's cult of murderous children. And safety might not be what Goh's looking for, anyway...

Like Blossoming Trail and Knight of the Orange Lily before it, the central theme talks about healing, redemption and moving on while a subsequent sub-plot talks about how people who have done horrible things must learn to make amends and work on bettering themselves. But what happens if some people don't believe that these people don't deserve a chance to atone? Would that be a disservice to the people that were hurt by their actions? What moral ground is there on an infinite train if the only thing you'll be punished with for hurting others is just a bigger number?

Can be found here.

The main story was completed in February 5th, 2022 with the second epilogue chapter (and final chapter in total) released on June 3rd.

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This work contains examples of:

• Adaptational Context Change:
  • The Darkest Day is a Downplayed example. For the most part, it's the same deal as in canon except for the endgame: while in canon Chairman Rose wants to revive Eternatus to solve Galar's future energy crisis, in here, he wants to revive Eternatus to gather enough energy to stop the Infinity Train.
  • Part of the purpose of the "interview" during Darkest Day is to do this to paint Chloe worse and Goh better: him yelling at her that she had no dream? He was trying to get her to look for one. Him recording her disastrous first fight with Ash? He was trying to record her first steps at trying something new and so on.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The prologue reveals that while communication does work on the Train, denizens are unable to talk to the other worlds as proven when Lexi's attempt turned out badly. When Chloe talks to Goh via the screen, she's unable to clearly see Atticus sitting on Goh's lap.
  • Neither Infinity Train nor Blossoming Trail spent that much time pondering on Amelia's connection to the Apex, though the latter talked a bit more in depth about it than the former. In here, not only is she forced to confront the fact she's the reason they exist, but we even get a reason why she didn't deal with them until now: She was using them as scapegoats so she could ignore the things she did wrong.
  • The source of Grace's belief that Denizens are inferior remains unexplained in the canon show and Blossoming Trail. In here, it turns out to be a defense mechanism she made for herself after witnessing Mark Kessler, who would go on to become The Unsub, kill another Passenger as Cruel Mercy.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Chloe catches her Eevee much earlier than in canon.^note Blossoming Trail ended sometime after Journeys Episode 34, Chloe's Eevee debuted in Episode 49
  • Sobble evolves into Drizzile around the time the Alola arc (ep 37) starts as opposed to Episode 62.
• All for Nothing:
  • After constantly blaming Ash for overshadowing their children, claiming that he forced their kids to pursue other paths in life, the adults of Pallet Town get a much needed wake-up call, learning that their ringleader Carl had been blaming Ash for his own failures as a parent. Their children were fully content with what they'd chosen for themselves, and there was absolutely no reason for them to seek Revenge on Ash... much less go along with a scheme that would have put innocent children at risk of being killed in a forest fire. What's more, their kids learn what they did and that their parents never actually supported their dreams, creating a lot of rifts in a lot of families. All because the adults were pettily jealous of Ash's successes.
  • London bitterly notes that the White Gestalt's quest against the Apex was this. From what we know, it wasn't pretty, it had to be erased from memory, and by the time it sinks in, the statues made in honor of them will be pulled down.
  • Chloe sadly confirms that the massive #CallingChloe movement barely helped her out, both because of her anger at the time and the simple fact that it was happening completely separate from her, and ultimately ended up causing more harm than good.
  • The Train's Denizens and Passengers' perception of The Apex as a great evil is likewise rendered moot by this story's revelations: not only were The Apex's crimes grossly overexaggerated, but it allowed a legitimate greater evil ( Ogami) run around unimpeded.
  • After being effectively torn apart by Vox, Dahlia and Goh, Chloe comes to the conclusion that that everything she did during her angry and spiteful state was completely pointless.
  • Rose and Oleanna learn that Project Silent Taillow was for nothing when it's revealed that anything that crosses dimensions eventually disintegrates, that Tiffany has accepted that she messed up and Arianna is reincarnated as Romsca and she has to stay on the Train until it's time for her to move on.
• And Then What?: The Central Theme of many of the characters.
  • Chloe has finished her destiny to stop the Apex and has returned home, but she's in a world where everything changed because of her actions and she has to rebuild herself by getting herself into Pokémon her own way while trying to move on from her friends on the Infinity Train.
  • Lexi: The Apex are done, and so is Chloe, his two motivations to venture the Train. Now he has to deal with the fact that Chloe is gone and he has to be partnered with the Childhood Friend who left Chloe behind. He also is still bitter at what Grace and Simon did in the first place, something that gets on the nerves of many characters.
  • Goh: After being broken in so many ways, and given Mew without doing anything to "deserve" them, not to mention seeing Chloe more confident, mature and outgoing, he's stuck trying to figure out what his goal in life is supposed to be.
  • Atticus has successfully figured out the whereabouts of King Aloysius, everyone else is safe and sound and the Apex is no more. He decides that his role as part of the Red Lotus Quarto is done, and he will return to Corginia to continue his duties as king.
  • Amelia, for the most part, doesn't really ponder about anything, given that she was already in an And Then What? situation before. However, "Memory Lane" has her reach this upon realizing since the Apex no longer exists she no longer can use them as scapegoats to avoid having to confront her issues and where to go from there.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Oliver was Chloe's guide around Corginia in Blossoming Trail, and revealed to be the stage manager for Corginia's plays. Here, he makes himself the regent of the Corgi Car while Atticus is away and Atticus must partake in trials to regain his crown.
  • Mad Ben was referenced once in Blossoming Trail as someone that the Apex couldn't defeat. In Voyage of Wisteria, he's off to hunt down the Apex and get revenge on Paul London as London encountered him in Knight of the Orange Lily.
  • Tomie has little to no role in Blossoming Trail compared to her daughter and son-in-law, but in Voyage of Wisteria she becomes the caretaker to Mew.
  • Tiffany was just a minor member of The Apex. In here, she's revealed to be Chairman Rose's daughter.
• Ascended Fridge Horror: With the rather... Excessive reputation The Apex had, it was easy to believe that somebody worse than them would use it to their advantage. As "The Hazbin Car" eventually proves, someone has been using The Apex to cover the tracks of their slaughters.
• Asshole Victim: Satou and Shio are killed by Ogami during Chapter 4's flashback. While the latter is sympathetic, the former is a psycho who kidnapped a little girl and made her fall in love with her.
• Back for the Dead: Satou and Shio are among the first Passengers from Blossoming Trail to make a return only to be killed in their first scene by Ogami.
• Back for the Finale: As the last story of the main Blossomverse trilogy, several characters that appeared in the previous two stories make a return for the last time.
• Beyond Redemption: Like the previous story, it's Discussed.
  • Ogami kills Passengers he believes have no hope of ever getting off the Train or even change, and he was planning to do the same to Goh before Ignis interfered. Now, the Red Lotus Quarto try to convince him this doesn't apply to him in order to get him off the Train.
  • The Apex and Grace are also brought up as they did a lot wrong and their actions will never be forgiven. While Charlie of the Hazbin Car is extending a chance to rehabilitate them, Grace never gets that chance as Ogami murders her and she is reincarnated as Warbler.
  • In a peculiar version of this trope, Amelia is this to the Train itself. The absolute chaos that followed her taking the role of The Conductor from One-One, which brought The Apex into existence among other things, has made it so that the Train gives her such a big number that it implicitly tells her she's worse than a bunch of hooligans. She eventually has to face this fact in "Memory Lane" and she doesn't take it well.
• Bittersweet Ending: The first Act ends with Atticus winning the Royal Corginia trials and Oliver steps down as king, but he realizes that he can't ignore his duties as ruler of Corginia and returns to ruling the Corgi Car, leaving Lexi as the only remaining member of the original Red Lotus Trio.
• Call-Back: In Act 3, Serena asks what Chloe knows about Galar. All she can answer is what Ash and Goh said from their last trip — "Pokémon, battles and curry" — and brought up how Goh tried to explain about the Darkest Day myth.
• Cerebus Callback: The story eventually brings back up Chloe's brief encounter with Ogami... while revealing what he was trying to do back then.
• Cerebus Retcon: Grace constantly claiming that Denizens weren't real people and spreading this onto a bunch of children? Infuriating. The reason turning out to be because it's a defense mechanism she made to protect her sanity after witnessing a Passenger kill another? Infuriating, upsetting and tragic.
  • Amelia's attitude towards the Apex, before and after working to stop them, takes a sour tone when it's revealed the she was partially using them to distract herself from addressing her own sins.
• Character Shilling: Carrying over from the previous story, Chloe Cerise is constantly talked on the Train as the greatest thing to happen since Tulip Olsen and the defeat of the False Conductor. However, it's Played for Drama, and the story commits to it: not only are we shown how this trope can be harmful to those who have seen What the person being shilled actually is like (Goh), but it's shown that this ideology is more often than not either used to hide dishonest intentions (Ogami) or used to justify blatantly dickish actions (Lexi).
• Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: As if the world couldn't yank Goh's chain any further, the first Car (The Canals of Fondue Car) he enters has denizens celebrating Chloe like a hero, further spitting on his face how she was so much better she was and how he wasn't a good friend. And then the Red Lotus Quarto arrive...
• Continuity Nod:
  • Chloe seeing Yamper hurt has her briefly see Atticus, just like how Tulip looked in horror at Atticus being shot by the Conductor.
  • Chloe notes that she had to stop a fight against Satou and Zack the last time she was in the Malasada shop.
  • Team Rocket makes a few references to the events of The Bridge Bike Gang, with James even lampshading how rarely they get to reference that episode.
  • When talking to the Fujihachi adults, Amelia brings up the two instances of the Train picking up people from the inside: Grace when the police officer and her parents were in another room, and Ryan and Min-Gi on a subway.
  • Yeardley is reading the book of flowers Chloe gave him at the hospital.
  • Yuna was referenced in Knight of the Orange Lily, who helped Lampetia to take care of Specter in the Living Lightning Car.
  • When Lexi folds some pages into moths, the text depict that it's all about Chloe's trip through the Cyan Desert Car.
  • Chloe states that she's seen Lana as one of the "Alolan Idols".
• Coincidental Broadcast: In Tapper's Car, the Quarto is wondering for a sign where Goh is. The TV then shows off a big announcement in the Canals of Fondue Car that has an interview with Varon...and Goh is working at his malasada shop.
• Contrived Coincidence: It must be a funny joke that Warbler, Goh's denizen partner, was once the leader of the Apex who traumatized Tokio and indirectly caused Chloe to die.
• Death of a Child: Shio is one of the first casualties of the stories, alongside Satou, by the hand of Ogami.
• Didn't Think This Through: The adults in Pallet Town all agreed with Carl to knock Ash off his pedestal...they didn't realize until way too late that this involved setting a forest fire that could have killed a dozen children if Chloe didn't see it in time.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Goh coming down from his adrenaline rush makes his message come off as a drunk text.
• Double Standard: See here.
• Dramatic Irony: See here.
• Driving Question:
  • One that doesn't involve the focus character but rather a previous protagonist: What did Gladion do on his trip that it had to be erased from the Train?
  • For the one that focuses on the focus character: can Goh recover from his Blossoming Trail ordeal, and can his and Chloe's friendship be salvaged? Yes, it can.
• Egging: While the Cerise family starts moving away from Vermillion City to start anew, an egg gets thrown at their vehicle.
• Expy Coexistence: Of a sort. Gladion briefly mistakes Lexi for Specter whom he met in Knight of the Orange Lily. The two of them interact with one another in "The Bake-o-Life Car".
• Foregone Conclusion: The one-shot Blossoming Christmas reveals Goh getting a Christmas gift from Santa months after he gets off the Train, meaning he'll survive the events of the story.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Parker sees Chloe heading for dark times ahead and that her Eevee will be helpful in that regard.
  • The Comm-Switch Car has a few of this in regards to Warbler's identity being a reincarnated Grace Monroe
    • Warbler is initially mute but when she gains a voice, Hazel perks her head up at the sound.
    • When Raboot asks how Warbler has so much sagely advice, she flusters a little by stating she got it from listening to too many sad songs, trying to dodge the question.
    • Warbler has an intense dislike of Lexi. Of course she does, as Lexi really hates Grace for what she did to him years ago.
    • Warbler mentioning how ten-year-olds mess up and how she knew about the rabbit and his "boy friend" in which Goh recalls the graffiti even though it was before her time. Warbler wouldn't know... her past self Grace would.
• Framing Device:
  • The prologue is written as Chloe sending a message to Mallow, recapping everything that has happened since the end of Blossoming Trail.
  • Chapter 4 is framed as a flashback as to Goh's first day on the Infinity Train.
• Get Out!: Kurune tells this to the Cerises, but primarily Chloe, once the fact their son has been taken by the Train is starting to become too much for them.
• Grand Finale: Serves as this for the main Blossomverse trilogy, which includes Blossoming Trail and Knight of the Orange Lily.
• Hanlon's Razor: In the Darkest Day, during her "Eureka!" Moment, Chloe finally stumbles upon a connecting factor between a lot of the actions that shaped the Blossomverse: Goh getting so hung up over a misunderstanding with Tokio, only to take her friendship for granted; Tokio letting the guilt for that incident drive him onto the Train, when he could have reconnected with Goh with a phone call or a train to Vermillion City; Ash Ketchum being so helpless in connecting with Chloe, and instead let her turn him into an icon of resentment; Trip barging onto the scene like a Tauros in a china shop, when he really did want Ash, and to a lesser extent Goh, to learn from their mistakes; Yeardley joking about being a "work in progress" in class; and Chloe's Character Development having to result in her loved ones being traumatized and her hometown hating her? To put it quite simply, it was because they were all children. They kept encountering situations that they didn't know how to handle and kept making mistakes because they didn’t know better. Most of the players in this game really did have good intentions, even if their actions made it seem otherwise. Even those individuals who were malicious weren't one dimensional monsters that couldn't be redeemed. The bullies of Class 5-E were inexcusably cruel to Chloe, but that rose out of being Driven by Envy and believing Loners Are Freaks. If they had received better instruction on what being a Trainer was actually like, and allowed themselves to get a better picture of Chloe and what her life was like, who knows how things might have turned out? As for Chloe and Parker Cerise, their malicious actions came about when they ignored the Razor and assumed malicious intentions from everyone in Vermillion City. Subconsciously, Chloe believed that her trauma had to be something massive and horrible, so she could make sense of both the hurt she felt and the hurt she inflicted upon others as catharsis.
• Heinousness Retcon: The story does this for The Apex. In the previous story, they were labeled the absolute worst thing on the Train, with everyone calling them out over their supposed crimes and Denizen wheeling ways. However, when Charlie and Vaggie investigate these delegations, they find out that not only were most of what they heard hearsay created to make them look bad, but an overwhelming number of said crimes were done out of self-defense, something that none of the other antagonistic Denizens and Passengers (including Paul London, one of their biggest critics) can claim.
• History Repeats:
  • Discussed. When Ikuo is calling Goh, he doesn't want Goh to repeat Chloe's mistakes of shutting herself away from her father and refuse to talk to him as an act of revenge. Goh states that he won't; he just doesn't want to talk to them for the moment.
  • Like in Blossoming Trail, the friend of a current-Passenger panics when they realize they're about to face insurmountable odds and their perceived inability to help. In this case, it's Chloe who panics while Goh is getting ready to face Ogami.
• Hourglass Plot: Natch. Goh is on the train, and Chloe is the one scared for him. As if to highlight this, Amelia and Chloe will be communicating through each other's phone, with Chloe's cell on the train and Goh's broken screen on Chloe's side.
  • Blossoming Trail begins with Chloe shy and withdrawn without a dream of her own while Goh is happily leaving her behind and with Ash. By the time this story starts, Goh is completely broken and has no dream on his own while Chloe's the one finding Pokémon with Ash.
  • In Blossoming Trail, Grace had to keep Hazel's true form secret for fear of Simon wheeling her. Now Hazel has to keep Warbler's true form a secret for fear of everyone wanting to murder her should they learn that Warbler is Grace Monroe reincarnated.
  • Throughout Blossoming Trail and Knight of the Orange Lily, the denizens were running away in fear as the Apex came in and murdered them. Now the denizens are getting ready to chase them as payback.
• Hypocrisy Nod: Delia Ketchum admitted to Talia Cerise that she is afraid Ash and Chloe will forgive her for her role in Goh's departure, despite refusing to give Chloe any kind of forgiveness. She acknowledged the hypocrisy in her being forgiven. At the same time, she refuses to do the same. Delia even refuses to use the parent's card to justify her hypocrisy by pointing out she did that before, and if she does it again, Ash will start second-guessing everything she says and does.
• Immediate Sequel: The story picks up a few days after the end of Blossoming Trail.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • Chloe tries to reassure Goh's parents that he'll be fine under the care of the Red Lotus Quarto. Of course, she fails to realize they're more concerned about the fact he got Trainnapped in the first place, to the point Kurune has to tell the Cerises to leave so they can rest.
  • Rotomdex starts gushing over how Chloe is an internet sensation which is not helping since it reminds Chloe about how her brother caused a lot of damage that ruined her reputation.
• Irony: See here.
• Karaoke Bonding Scene: "The Music Car" is all about this, not only featuring karaoke songs that tell something about the singer, but it also features the first Denizen that is actually friendly with Goh.
• Kazoos Mean Silliness: Leaf remarks that, after an incredibly undignified victory (an hours-long Wobbuffet softlock that ended when her opponent had to use the bathroom) she heard kazoos playing during her trophy acceptance.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Where do we begin?
  • Chloe's journey and some of the things she did aren't kept a secret at all; in fact, it's being celebrated by the very beginning of the first proper chapter.
  • The Apex is blatantly stated to have been disbanded and no longer a train-wide threat.
  • Not only does the Red Lotus Quarto keep being one, but one of its members is Hazel.
  • Goh's circumstances, and the damage Parker and Zeno did to him, is made clear.
  • Parker's atrocities are pointed out when he and Chloe meet, as well as the fact that, in a way, she's responsible for them.
  • The climax of Blossoming Trail is not kept a secret, as not only is Ms. Turner mentioned, but Vermillion International School has been closed down and Vermillion City itself has become a shell of its former self.
  • Tomie is taking care of Mew, who was critically injured by Ms. Turner.
• Legendary in the Sequel: Chloe and the Red Lotus Quarto are praised and celebrated as heroes for slaying the Apex.
• Mental Health Recovery Arc: The story extends Goh's arc from Blossoming Trail and makes it the pivotal point of the Train story.
• Misery Poker: Deconstructed. The interview with Vox and Dahlia has Chloe come to face with the fact she has been doing this since the first story, bringing up her issues and making them seem worse than they were. The deconstruction comes from the fact that, once Vox and Dahlia reveal everything she did to the Train Denizens and further context is given, Chloe has to face the fact she was ultimately (at least partially) part of the problem, doing things even her bullies found reprehensible, and the Denizens have to deal with the fact the seemingly perfect Train hero was in fact a little brat who blew her problems out of proportions just for pity points.
• Poor Communication Kills: See here.
• Put on a Bus: Atticus leaves the Red Lotus Quarto when they return to Corginia as he realizes that he can't abandon his duties anymore. However he does return for the "Darkest Day" arc.
• Reincarnation: After the previous stories didn't put much focus into it, the trope is put front and center in Wisteria, not only introducing more reincarnated Passengers and Denizens and explaining it more in-depth, but Ogami's entire plan revolves around messing with the reincarnation system in order to enforce what he believes to be paradise.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Chloe gives a harsh dressing-down to her little brother for his role in utterly ruining her hopes for coming home. Combined with a 'The Reason I Suck' Speech, as she acknowledges how the girl who wanted to keep calling out and shaming everyone who hurt her in the past never would have made it off the Train, and that she played a role in shaping his worldview.
    Chloe: Funny. That's how all my ‘return-speech’ drafts started. You know, what I was gonna say to everyone when I came home, and they all got on their knees and started begging for forgiveness and offering me everything...and I’d make it clear what I really wanted from them all before I’d forgive them. If I forgave them, I was gonna make them grovel and prove themselves first. I imagine that was what was going through your head at first.
    But here’s the thing. The girl who drafted those speeches, the one who wrote that email? She was never going to get off the train. My journey wasn’t just about realizing how special and unappreciated I am, and how I needed to believe in myself and become stronger. It was about realizing how responsible I was for my own situation; how my attitude, biases and selfishness hurt everyone around me. How I needed to be better just as much as they did. So when they asked for forgiveness and a second chance...I would’ve heard them out, and given some apologies of my own. [...] But I. Can’t. Do. ANY. Of that now. I can’t even set foot in the town I grew up in. A town that I, we both , took for granted. And all that is just how you hurt me by accident. Side-effects of how you hurt everybody else on purpose .
    Parker, don’t say ‘it was for me’. Doing things for me that went wrong is dad keeping me away from bullies at the lab. You went way beyond that, and in the end, it was for you, not me. I never wanted this retribution, no mental or physical trauma for everyone I know, and you knew this.
    Yes, that includes Sara and Yeardley. Were they mean? Yes? Did I hate what they were doing? YES. Did I want them brutally tortured? Absolutely NOT. [...] And then there’s Goh. What I wanted, all I wanted, was a better friend, who still had his dreams and happiness but was also there for me as well. Instead, I come home to an empty glass shell wearing his face, too scared to look at me...scared to tell anyone that his dream had come true.
    [...] In a way, I’m responsible for causing you to become this way. I...I should’ve never gotten you into my hobbies before you were ready. I shouldn’t have made you see me violently assault Sara like that. You should never have been attacked or heard how my former classmates loved bullying me...but we both know that things could have been better if we told dad or mom sooner. If we told everything ...they would’ve helped us both. But you’re responsible for everything you chose to do, and what you did was heinous. We’ll all be paying for it for years at the very least.
  • In Chapter 6, Chloe tears Annie's jealousy and bitterness towards Ash into pieces. The first time is when Chloe points out that Trainers don't have glamorous lives as everyone came to believe. The second time is when Annie wants to pin the blame on the forest fire on Ash instead of the dangers that someone wanted to kill a dozen children in their tents and would only care about Chloe and everyone else so her daughter (who does a funerary flower business) would get noticed.
  • Chapter 11 has Goh hit his limit with Lexi's attitude, finally letting out his feelings.
    Goh: I. Am. So. SICK. Of this! I am sick of YOU! Chloe said you were so kind, so helpful, so wonderful...but I’m starting to think you were only ever good to Chloe. You don’t seem to give a damn about anyone else’s feelings! And don’t you dare turn this on me! An innocent girl whose only crime is playing a film role gets you snarling, and someone who got conned nearly gets mauled by you! You’ll do all that for Chloe’s honor, but you’ll ignore the actual promise you made to her to help me, treat me like shit and ignore what I have to say, because of a stupid Facedex post I made a lifetime ago?!? The boy who made that post, the boy you’re so damn eager to hurt, he’s been dead for so long, and everyone, especially your precious Chloe of the Vermillion, knows it except you!
  • A smaller version of this trope happens during The Hazbin Car, where London is called out by Charlie and Vaggie for hypocritically condemning the Apex for having blood on their hands, when he himself also has blood on his hands, and unlike the Apex and their ignorance, he was very well aware of what he was doing when he did so.
  • Much, much later in the story, Goh gets another shot at this alongside Hazel when the duo decide to call out Amelia for trying to snap at Guide-Grace for what the original Grace did, not only telling her that people around know about the story and it's been said to death, but telling her right to her face that no matter how hard she tries to say otherwise, what the Apex did is nothing compared to the thirty years she spent terrorizing the Train and also indirectly creating the Apex, and that she has to accept this, work on herself, and stop diverting the blame to everybody else.
  • In Chapter 37, the penultimate one happens to Chloe herself. Vox and Dahlia invoked this by setting her up for a public "interview", with Goh, Gard, and Julie attending, with the intention of thoroughly tarnishing Chloe's hero reputation in the eyes of the train. The interview ends with Goh unleashing an epic What the Hell, Hero? speech detailing all of Chloe's flaws and how she effectively destroyed his life for not being the ideal friend she wanted. Chloe finally realizes how utterly cruel she had been to her best friend all this time, and she gets on her knees and tearfully, sincerely apologizes for her actions. Vox and Dahlia's plan goes off the rails, however, when Goh accepts Chloe's apology and forgives her instead of spitting in her face as expected.
    Goh: That’s putting it mildly. It’s either you saying no to everything we offered, or a big speech about how everyone is so mean to you, how the world is so unfair to you, or how miserable your life is. We gave you chance after chance to join us, to get out of your shell and take a look at the world, but you always turned us down. And then you turned around and started blaming us for it. Do you know why ‘she’s not interested in Pokémon anymore’ was the one thing I could tell Ash? Because it’s one thing you told me in weeks.
    And now...now you keep feeling sorry for yourself. Like you’re still the only one who’s been hurt, ever. That your pain and misery is the most important thing in the world. Because nobody else has been bullied, or had friends who messed up, or wasn’t into the same thing everyone else was. Or this ‘pressure’ you keep assuming everybody was putting on you, pressure that could’ve stopped easily if you had talked about it. Or are you still thinking that no-one could possibly understand your hardships?
    (sniffling) I was your friend, Chloe. We hung out together at camp, we saw Mew together, and you told me it was great that I had a new inspiration! And even when I was delayed by my search for Mew or other Pokémon, I tried to be there for you, even when I was late. I tried to bring you on our adventures, spend time with you seeing the world. I gave you what you wanted for your birthday even though I didn't realize you didn't have the other classmates show up, and I believed you when you told me that you supported my dream. That things were ok between us. I would’ve been happy to help at school if you had just told me, or help you find a good dream and reach it, but...why didn’t you trust me to help you? Why couldn’t you just tell me if I was doing something wrong? You always said it was fine if I was late or I forgot something...until you didn’t. Why did you give up on me?
    And when you went missing because I said something stupid and didn't realize how bad it was, I had to see myself replay that scene a hundred times, everytime failing. And I only wanted you to be better . And I searched so hard for you, wanting to make things right. And I apologized so much, so many times to you and everyone else about everything I ever did . I apologized for being myself! I can’t apologize for anything else at this point! Why didn’t that...prove anything to you? Why wasn’t it enough ?! Was I...really that terrible a person?
• Rule of Symbolism: Much like in Blossoming Trail, there are multiple details that show how Chloe and Goh are coping with events on and off the Infinity Train.
  • Despite its cracked screen, Goh's phone functions well enough that Chloe can use it to contact Amelia through the cell she inadvertently left behind on the Train.
  • When Chloe gets a video call from Goh, she can't see Atticus on his lap, enforcing how she can never see him, Lexi or Hazel again. The fact that she can't even see anything on the Train besides Goh likewise represents how she needs to stop thinking about the Train, and focus on getting help for her childhood friend.
  • Chloe is still having a hard time with letting go of her friends: she briefly sees Yamper as Atticus when he gets hit by Team Rocket's cannon and giving him a red handkerchief to wear is similar to the red dome on Atticus's crown.
  • Grace has a Freak Out where she is haunted by everyone's accusations of her while in a giant birdcage, making her a prisoner of her own thoughts.
• Running Gag: People mistaking Lexi for Specter — as Lexi was specifically based off of Specter himself — and vice versa.
• Sequel Goes Foreign: For the Pokémon World, since the trope's kinda redundant for the Train side. The story first begins in Kanto before going to Alola for a much needed vacation, before then going to Galar as the setup for the final confrontation.
• Shout-Out:
  • The unofficial rules of the children's storytelling night in the Cyan Desert Car is "no stories wholly true, no stories wholly false, and no repeats."
  • When Chloe hugs Ash's Dragonite, she asks if hugs from him always feel this warm.
  • Upon seeing their statues, Amelia states hers makes her look like a man, like how Mai described herself in Sokka's victory portrait. Hazel even shouts that the statues "look perfect" like Toph did.
  • The fact that there was a poetry slam in the Baking Soda Volcanoes Car is a reference to Phineas and Ferb where Dr. Doofenschmirtz apparently lost a poetry slam to one of these volcanoes.
  • The first line of the poem Lexi recites is actually from The Mortal Instruments when Clary and Simon see one of Simon's friends on stage doing poetry.
    Lexi: "Come my faux ziggurat! My nefarious loins! Torture me with arid zeal!"
  • The cyclops and skeleton monsters in the Clay Car are from the Gravity Falls episode "Little Gift Shop of Horrors", more specifically the Clay Day short.
  • Orel's explanation of Santa Claus comes from The Love, Death and Robots episode All Through the House.
  • The Hazbin car...take a wild guess.
• Take That!: See here.
• Titled After the Song: The three acts are titled after songs once again. Act 1 is Video Kid, Act 2 is Awakening and Act 3 is Resurrected.
• Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object: As revealed during Act 3, Chairman Rose's plan basically involves trying to create an artificial Immovable Object by using energy from Eternatus in order to stop the Unstoppable Force that is the Infinity Train.
• Wham Episode:
  • The Canals of Fondue Car is set up to be this as it reveals that Gladion was hiding a lot more to his adventures when Amelia suddenly remembers something about the White Gestalt, Goh is found with something involving Satou and Shio when it was revealed they were murdered on his first day and Chloe gets an Eevee and a Boltund as her Pokémon partners.
  • The Clay Car ends with Paul London issuing an open challenge for the Train to drag all the Apex into the car he's staying in, the Hazbin Car. One of the passengers is Mad Ben in the Desert Racetrack Car who wants to squash the Apex and get revenge on London for an incident that happened between the two.
  • The Hazbin Car is shaping up to be the Cyan Desert Car of the story in terms of shockers, particularly how Grace Monroe was killed off by Ogami.
  • The Mediterranean Car is actually a trap where Star-Crossed Lovers can be killed off to be reincarnated, revealing that Higgins is otherwise known as Sarang/Ogami. And this leads to...
  • The Fall of the 400 Rabbits Car where communication has been taken out thanks to Vox, Mad Ben drags the 400 Rabbits Car far away, leaving Kisaragi to abdicate the throne and the Darkest Hour is upon the Red Lotus Quarto.
• Wham Line: The very last line of The Comm-Switch Car changes Warbler for good. For context, the car makes people and their partners swap voices so the former can speak their name and the latter speak like humans. Warbler doesn't have a mouth normally so she gets to speak here. And when she does...it's with Grace's voice.
  • The final line of Part 1 of the Hazbin Car confirms the above when Lucy states that Grace is dead.
  • And then the next part reveals another one in a Bait-and-Switch.
  Goh: I know him! It's Ogami!
• Wham Shot: In the Darkest Day arc, Chloe sees a picture of Chairman Rose with a young girl, and said girl looks like Tiffany of the Apex.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Amelia calls Lexi out on his taking out his frustrations on the hapless Konifer and rubbing salt in Goh's wounds in the process.
    "We will deal with it [the fake Chloe]! I'm upset too, believe me. But that does NOT excuse what you're doing...both to a victim of some scammer and a victim of at least three traumatic experiences in a row! You are not the only person who misses Chloe on this train, so stop acting like this! Now. APOLOGIZE."
  • Chloe calls out all of the adults who were willing to go along with Carl's schemes just for the sake of getting revenge on Ash. She receives plenty of backup from the children they were supposedly doing all this 'for'.
  • Carl is ripped a new one once it's revealed that he abandoned Kris for being a 'failure' when he wasn't able to gather all the badges before the Indigo League held its yearly session.
  • Gladion gives Tokio an earful for the promise he demanded of Goh, and orders him to apologize the next time they talk.
  • Kiawe gives a shorter one for how blasé Ash and Chloe are about Goh’s situation. But they respond that focusing too much on their worries will just make things worse for everyone, since they can't do anything more on this side of the train and trying to board it will cause more problems.
  • In the "interview" during the Darkest Day, Vox And Dahlia reveal the extent of Chloe's past cruelty, spitefulness, and emotionally abusive behavior, leaving both Gard and Julie appalled and disgusted with Chloe. Everyone else on the Train who knew her as a nice girl who could do no wrong starts going through a Broken Pedestal moment as they all learn how Chloe treated her family and friends back in Vermillion City. But the crowner comes from Goh, who gives her a tearful "The Reason You Suck" Speech detailing everything Chloe did to him to make his life an utter hell, just because she thought he was a poor friend and was more concerned with Playing the Victim Card instead of hearing his side of the story. Chloe is reduced to tears by the end of it, and she grovels at Goh's feet (which is karmic on her end for previously wanting everyone to beg for her forgiveness) and tearfully, genuinely apologizes for her mistreatment of him.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Ogami murders Satou and Shio (age 4) under the idea of helping them
  • Carl Foster is willing to start a forest fire that could have potentially murdered a dozen children just to get back at Ash.
  • Heavily implied by London's words that he doesn't mind if the Apex kids go through a lot of pain by denizens dragging them to the Hazbin Car. Given how he's actually dealt with the kids in his own quest and their apathy — particularly in the one who spitefully stole Lampetia's heart — he has good reason to hate them.

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