Fanfic / Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Silver Resistance

Until the last ember fades.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Silver Resistance is a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Fan Fic written by ScytheRider, something of a Reconstruction of the titular Roguelike games.

It chronicles the story of Char—a human who awakens to find himself having been transformed into a Charmander, stripped of all memories of his past life, and left stranded in Ambera, a world where Pokémon can talk and have built a thriving civilization. All is not well in Ambera however, as it is being ruled by a tyrannical entity only known as "The Master". If that's not bad enough, Ambera is also plagued by "the Watchers", a mysterious group of ghost Pokémon that only appear at night and relentlessly attack any being unfortunate enough to encounter them.

Crossing paths with a fugitive Bulbasaur, Char is quickly drawn into the resistance movement against the enigmatic Master. After their recruitment, the two are taken under the wings of an elderly Scyther who happens to be one of the all-star players of the resistance movement. But things don't stay simple for very long: Char soon learns he was lured into the resistance because he possesses a rare latent ability called the Call that randomly turns him into a psychic atomic bomb and mind-controls every Pokémon who hears his telepathic call. When he learns that the resistance wants to use his power to summon legendary Pokémon and win the war, Char finds himself in over his head in ways he never thought possible.

The story itself can be found here. It has gone through multiple long hiatuses, but is currently (2022) being updated weekly. It has several SpinOffs: Mystery of the Heart by Diego Zeyon (which itself has a prequel and now has it's own page), Delibird Day by Neirdae, and Forgetting by Gorsecloud. Silver Resistance also has an unfinished prequel set several decades in the past, Emerald Chronicles: A Frozen Flame, featuring numerous fan-created characters.

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Tropes featured in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Silver Resistance:

• Abusive Parents: Grim the Zoroark had three children. He decided that since two of them had bad IV's, they weren't worth training, so he poured all his resources into the one he thought was worth training and ignored the others, and then blamed them for not having skills he never taught them.
• The Ace: Scythe to downright everybody.
• Aerith and Bob: There are some relatively "common" sounding names in the story such as Char, Scythe, and Ray. Then later, more exotic names are introduced, such as Syr, Zahira, and Tesla.
  • Also played straight with the Nidoking/Queen House of Starborn. Everyone in their family is a descendant of Centauri the Boundless and has an out of place Latin name. They're named after stars, constellations, and other stellar phenomenon like galaxies and nebulae.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Subverted by Team X. They get into the base surprisingly early into season 4 but it looks like they actually want to work with the division rather than wrecking it.
• An Arm and a Leg: Char in the Temporal Tower arc; subverted within a chapter.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Season 7, "Growth," switches away from third-person following mainly Char to first-person with a different member of Team Flare every chapter.
• Arc Words: The author admitted to "four places at once" and "come crashing down" being these. The latter has been revealed to refer to the fall of Temporal Tower, and the former Scythe using body doubles in his Xanatos Speed Chess with Adiel.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: The Adrellos Scyther clan has a tradition of dueling for leadership rights.
• Awful Truth:
  • The Call is nothing but the result of Celebi calling out to Dialga in an attempt to reach him and cannot be controlled, making it a useless weapon against The Master. At first.
  • According to Eva, the Master has been dead for centuries and his kingdom is ruled by Enigma, who claims to be getting orders from him (though Eva thinks she's gone insane and is refusing to accept the Master's death). Since fighting the Master is the whole reason the Resistance exists, if they found out the truth, the Resistance would collapse- after all, Enigma took the throne and nothing changed, so taking out Enigma wouldn't fix anything, and therefore nothing the Resistance does actually matters. However, Char isn't so sure that this is true- see Spotting the Thread below.
• Bad Boss: Enigma brainwashes people and, whenever someone new is brought into their inner circle, they take whoever's closest to them as collateral in case the newcomer ever wants to leave.
• Badass Creed: Several, including the Adrellos Creed, and Team Remorse's "Why do we rise? So that he will fall!"
• Big Bad Duumvirate: At first the Master was the sole Big Bad, but Enigma has steadily grown in importance, especially with the reveal that she's the one ruling Ambera in his stead, and she's hunting Giratina.
• Black Hole Sue: In-universe example/Reconstruction: the author explained in a commentary that the function of "the call" is to turn Pokémon into Black Hole Sues, literally making the plot revolve around them and making them the center of attention in the story.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • So, you have been gifted with a phenomenally powerful form of telepathy that has the ability to subconsciously influence the minds of your friends (see entry under The Empath below), summon Pokémon and Watchers from miles away when you're experiencing an 'episode', compel legendary Pokémon, and whose nature you can barely comprehend, much less control? The Call could be considered the epitome of this trope, especially once its true power is revealed: Char can brainwash anyone in his vicinity to do anything he wants without their realising it.
  • Pokerus. You get stronger in half the time, but you also die in half the time, and you infect anyone you touch while you're contagious- and killing the virus won't help, because the effects stay.
  • One of the Bulbasaur that Saura meets is shiny, and absolutely hates it, because everyone he meets always insists on commenting on it before saying anything else.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • The reason Ray's brother disappeared before Ray joined the resistance was because he became a traitor, and Scythe ordered him to be killed.
  • Subverted with Scythe: After Team Ember decides to trust Scythe, he appears to revert back to Adron, the bloodthirsty servant of the Master. He was faking it, though.
• Bullet Time: A Speed-Brace causes this sort of effect for the wearer.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: A literal example- after the Temporal Tower arc, Celebi, the source of the Call, starts sending Char the ability to use the Call to influence others once a day... whether he wants it or not. Char later inverts this on her after Jirachi grants his wish to talk to Celebi whenever he wants. Time doesn't flow the same way in Temporal Tower, so Celebi keeps getting message after message, and they're not even in the right order.
• Call to Adventure: The author claims that Char's power was not named after this trope, but it seems to evoke this effect on the characters around him.
• Chekhov's Gun: Domo the Ditto can hold his form perfectly except when he laughs. Later, Marrow asks Char to make Scythe laugh as his last request so Char will find out that 'Scythe' is actually Domo in disguise.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Fern, a civilian Furret Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life that Team Ember rescues from a mystery dungeon early on. Later, she helps break out the arrested Bulbasaur in Iron Town. Then The Bus Came Back in season V, where she's the true identity of the Shadow Bandit..
• Cliffhanger: Nearly chapter ends in one. Even the author acknowledges the constant use of this trope.
• Comes Great Responsibility: In chapter 80, Char realises that the true power of the Call is such that he needs to seriously think about it and ask for some advice before he uses it again, because there's just too much potential for it to go wrong.
• Darker and Edgier: Although Pokémon Mystery Dungeon got a bit dark, Silver Resistance goes a few steps beyond sometimes.
• Darkest Hour: The invasion of the Watchers upon the Emerald Division.
• A Day in the Limelight: A majority of the Special Episodes are considered these, giving focus to Scythe and other characters that are not a part of Team Ember.
• Despair Event Horizon: Poor Celebi...
  • Also, poor Prince, when he is told his memories of an awful deed were erased. He even asks to be deleted from the timeline upon hearing it.
  • Char gets one too.
  Char: Look, whoever you are. I failed. I was an awful leader, I let down all of my closest friends, I almost got everyone killed in the blizzard... And now, I just got us captured. We're probably being taken to the Master's dungeon right now, as we speak. I failed, alright? This is the end.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The Dialga fight at the top of Temporal Tower, though slightly subverted in that the Dialga they fought was nothing but an illusion.
• Doomed Hometown: Saura's village certainly qualifies, as does Zona's in the Spin-Off and Frozen Spring in Frozen Flame.
  • Everybody's Dead, Dave in the latter two examples.
• Door Stopper: 50 chapters in, with 20 chapters being either the previous 50 split up into parts or specials, and we are currently over 500,000 words. At the halfway mark. It's not Ri2's Mystery Dungeon epic Brave New World, at over 2,000,000 words, but it still should take a while to read.
• The Empath: Inverted by Anyone with the Call. They're essentially impressing their emotions and perceptions on the Pokémon around them without realizing it. In some cases it's good (Lily and Prince), but others not so much (see Nice Job Breaking It, Hero below).
• The Empire: The Master's reign over Ambera has many trappings of this, though it seems to be a surprisingly benign and laissez-faire version, at first... (See Offstage Villainy below.)
• Elaborate Underground Base: The Gold Division base, explained to be a former Pokémon academy.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Watchers, creatures that look like corrupted ghost-type Pokemon. If they come in contact with any living creature, a number of unpleasant things can happen to their victims, including rendering the creature insane or literally plucking their victim's brain from their skull. Then also, the Watchers are later revealed to be unborn spirits that have somehow been tampered with by the Master, making them even more like abominations of nature.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: An inversion, of sorts: Char is surprised to discover that being a Fire-type does not grant him immunity to fire, and that it's not a very good idea to sleep in a burning brazier. Otherwise played mostly straight; this is Pokémon, after all.
• Emergency Transformation: In order to save Otto's life when he crashed into concrete and broke multiple bones with the Watchers closing in quickly, the Shadow Bandit uses a feral-shard to force him to evolve into a Pidgeotto.
• Enemy of My Enemy: Team X don't hate the Master. They do, however, have no problem with allying with the Resistance to take down Enigma.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In Fate Surprises All, Adiel decides not to kill Saura's family and kidnap his siblings, because he fears they're being protected by divine providence.
• Everybody's Dead, Dave: Happens to Celebi when Temporal Tower falls.
• Evil Plan: The Master's plan to lure Team Ember to the top of Temporal Tower to kill all of them. It works for a while.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: The Master's fortress is obliquely described thus.
• Exact Words: Eva discerns from Zachel's mind that contrary to what she said, Zachel is obsessed with Team X's Seviper and is constantly thinking about encounters with him. This is true. Later, it's revealed that Zachel and Seviper don't want to 'fight', as such...
• Eye Scream: Char throws a spike into the eye of the fake Dialga in Temporal Tower.
• Featureless Plane of Disembodied Dialogue: Happens several times, namely in the prologue and the interlude, and in Saura's first-person POV chapter.
  • Also happens shortly after meeting Celebi. Confusingly, quotation marks are not used to indicate most dialogue. It turns out that all the main characters died and are reduced to spirits, and thus are incapable of talking anymore.
• From Bad to Worse: The fate of Emerald Division in general and Prince's Silver Division in particular. Both suffered catastrophic losses in a battle with the Master's forces that took place between the events of Frozen Flame and Silver Resistance.
• Genius Bruiser: Otto, whose IQ is rated at eleven and a half stars. To put this into perspective, Scythe has the same IQ rating, and the scale in the games only goes up to ten stars.
• Genius Loci: Chapter 78 reveals the mystery dungeons are sentient, and can choose which Pokemon are natives it allows to live inside it and which are outsiders to be hostile towards - and realizing you're living in a mystery dungeon automatically makes you an outsider. The only non-feral Pokemon known to live in a mystery dungeon are the Sandslash population of Basin Canyon... until Saura realizes what Grayleaf Reserve is.
• Ghost Town: The Watchers and the Master's other servants have made more than one settlement in Ambera into one of these.
  • Also, there is at least one example of a literal ghost town (i.e. a town populated by ghosts): Blackriver City.
• The Glomp: Saura does this to Char occasionally. Justified as Saura doesn't have arms.
  • Char returns the favor when he learns that Saura didn't lose his memory.
• Golden Ending: Referenced in the Interlude that ends season 6. After Char not only snatches victory from the jaws of defeat at Basin Canyon, but also comes out evolved and with effective full control of the Call, Cepheus explains to Xatu and Dusknoir how absolutely unprecendented the current timeline is, to the point he'd never be able to recreate it if it got discontinued. As such, he declares they should assume they are on the "golden timeline" and see it through to the end, accompanied by throwing his Time Gear off the cliff they're standing on. He starts to regret this decision right after Dusknoir reveals Adiel currently has a Master Ball for capturing Giratina, but Xatu keeps him from going back on it.
• Gone Horribly Right: The Pokerus. Designed by humans to make Pokemon stronger, it works brilliantly, making Pokemon stronger in half the time it normally takes. It's also incredibly contagious, which wouldn't be a problem except that it also makes them die in half the time they'd normally have.
• Gonna Need More Team Members: Char's reaction once he sees the sheer amount of to-do missions that are posted on their bulletin board. The members of Team Ember then schedule an interview to hire new recruits.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: Domo is a Ditto with the power to transform into any Pokémon he's seen in his life. His life's mission is to see every Pokémon. The revision reveals that Domo has actually become a Mew after copying one, explaining his advanced abilities.
  • Chapter 80 reveals that Enigma caught Dialga and Palkia in Master Balls, and she's going after Giratina.
• Green-Eyed Monster: After joining Team Ember, Eva gets very jealous if other female Pokemon show an interest in Char.
• Heroic BSoD: Char has one after Celebi reveals that the Call allows him to mind-control other Pokemon without their knowing it, to the point that it actually rewrites their memories.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Marrow sacrifices himself at Basin Canyon to buy Char time.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Char has to learn to be a Charmander, and for a while, things like breathing fire are beyond him, or turn up sporadically. He gets better, though.
  • Also, Domo the Ditto can transform into any Pokemon, but he has to learn how to use their techniques and move as them.
  • Played with in Chapter 80. At first, it looks like Char didn't need to spend any time learning how to be a Charmeleon, but he actually spent a month in Palkia's palace learning how to use his new body.
• Humans are Leaders / Humanity Is Superior: Beliefs strongly held by most Pokemon in Ambera, for reasons yet to be made known. (Although it might just have something to do with the fact that humans are usually the ones capturing Pokemon in balls and ordering them around). This causes Char to form personal bonds with several Pokemon he meets by confessing that he is a transformed human, gaining some close friends and lots of special treatment from the resistance in the process. Early in the story, this is the only reason he survives.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Char realises in chapter 57 that he was really enjoying being a weak, low-level team that did simple missions and left the big stuff to Team Remorse and High Intelligence. Unfortunately for him, that was never really an option, even though he doesn't want to do it.
• In the Back: How Scythe attacks Prince and catches him off guard on their way out of Temporal Tower.
• Invulnerable Knuckles: Averted with Prince, who injures his hands punching out a Rampardos.
• Irony: The Master is a Forced Transformation victim similar to Char. It was meant to punish him, but as a reflective transformation, his lust for power turned him into (possibly) Mewtwo.
  • ScytheRider spends the first half-million words of the story building up to a giant spoiler. He then immediately gives it to us (Char's name) in the first sentence of the rewrite commentary.
• Ironic Death: Char dies by choking on a Reviver Seed, which promptly revives him.
• Island of Mystery: According to Scarlet in Chapter 76, Ambera is one. It can't be found on any map, no humans can come there (excepting humans who were turned into Pokemon), and outside Pokemon can only be brought there by a Pokemon who's been to Ambera before.
• Keeping Secrets Sucks: Just about all of the main characters hate having to keep secrets locked up in their hearts, but special mention goes to Char, who begins to fall apart when he receives a new power in Season IV that he can tell no one about. Chapter 76 reveals that the heads of the Resistance are keeping a secret that would cause the Resistance to collapse if it was revealed.
• La Résistance: The Resistance (obviously) serves as one to the Master.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Char is the most obvious example but Prince qualifies as well. He involuntarily burned down an entire town after being attacked by the Watchers and had a psychic erase his memory because of his guilt.
• Last Request: Marrow asks Char to make Scythe laugh just before his Heroic Sacrifice. 'Scythe' is actually Domo, who can't hold his form when he laughs, and Marrow's trying to clue Char in. It works.
• Locked in a Freezer: Char and Prince do this at the Emerald Division, though on purpose so Prince could teach Char about a smoldering.
• Magibabble: The author goes into great detail to explain how a lot of taken-for-granted game mechanics and Pokémon attacks actually work.
• Madness Mantra: Scythe's "Survive, survive, survive, survive..."
• Meaningful Name: Cepheus, one of the Master's generals, is known as the Starborn. Cepheus is a constellation.
• Memory Gambit: Char apparently created one of these for himself before being transformed and having his memory erased.
• The Mentor: Domo the Ditto, and later Prince the Infernape are the only characters who seem to be able to relate directly to Char and teach him more about his fire power.
• Mind Control: Char can do this with the Call once its power gets enhanced by Celebi. Enigma also has this power, and it's how she controls a lot of people.
• Mind Probe: Performed by Eva to sense Char's call ability.
  • Or, rather, not performed at all. As revealed in chapter 71, Eva actually doesn't know how to. She is just a very talented con artist.
• Mind Rape: The byproduct of coming into contact with the Watchers and not dying will usually result in this, to a tragic degree.
• Mind Screw: All of the Temporal Tower floors have something that messes with the minds of the traveling team. Later revealed to be the work of the Watchers messing with the mystery dungeon that was within the tower.
• Minion with an F in Evil: Both the members of Team X and their apparent leader, Dusknoir, seem to be the embodiment of this trope. This may be a clever lampshade by the author, considering what type of character the other Dusknoir was in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers.
  • Except that they were actually Good All Along, after succeeding in saving Team Ember from the aftermath of Temporal Tower and also fighting alongside the resistance against a common enemy. Then Dusknoir reveals to Char he's another part of Amadeus's plan, with Team X's task being to kill Enigma when the time is right.
• More Expendable Than You: Char's selfless spirit does not go along well with the fact that We Cannot Go On Without You is in full effect.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: If "The Master" wasn't bad, try the Watchers.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In a recent chapter, Char realizes that he, Saura, and Lily have been subconsciously broadcasting their doubts to Scythe—who is especially sensitive to the Call—for the past several weeks. Essentially, more they doubted Scythe, the more unstable he became, and it fed a vicious cycle of erratic behavior on his part. (Confused? See The Empath entry above.)
• No-Sell: A rare heroic variant, as the Frozen Flame makes Char and Prince (and any other fire-type Pokemon within range) completely immune to rocks or rock type attacks. Similarly, the Soothe Globe Char gives Lily makes Grass-types immune to fire.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: At Basin Canyon, Char uses the Call to tell the enemy that Cepheus has ordered a total, permanent retreat. Once Cepheus understands what happened, he tells Char that Enigma will interpret this as disobedience on his part, and will retaliate by either sending his kingdom into poverty, or just wiping out some of his kingdom. Char fixes it by using the Call to make the enemy think that Primal Groudon forced their retreat.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: According to Eva, Team X are actually pretty intelligent, and have "conditioned one another to appear clumsy and idiotic so that they would be underestimated by foes."
  • This brings in some interesting Fridge Brilliance, as Team Ember never fought Team X directly-Scythe used Char and Saura as a distraction so he could take them down easily. Team X didn't just inexplicably become competent-they were competent all along.
• Offstage Villainy: The Master, to ridiculous lengths. We never see most of the awful things he's done, only hear about them.
  • The Master's 'queen', Enigma, hasn't appeared in person except in a side-story that took place in a discontinued timeline.
    • However, the DeviantArt exclusive bonus chapters do reveal more about Cepheus. Namely that he's Ray and Rautzen's uncle.
• Olympus Mons: Many legendary Pokémon feature prominently in the story arc, either as a part of the basic mythology or appearing in actual cameos.
  • Though, in a slight subversion (and since this is a Mystery Dungeon Fan Fic), no one is concerned with capturing said gods. Partially because two of them have already been captured.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Clan Adrellos may be an example of this trope, though some could argue they're a subtle subversion.
• Rage Against the Mentor: Char gradually treats Scythe more personally throughout the story, and eventually starts trying to call him out on things he disagrees with.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Evergreen Guild in Emerald Chronicles. You've got the leader with split personality, Yuu the overly-excitable second-in-command, Seismic, a child in an adult's body, several more who are mentioned, and Lily, who has The Call. This is actually Lampshaded by the fact that upon seeing all their quirks, Lily runs away from the Guild after she first came to join.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Played completely straight by Scythe and Adiel. Both (relatively) tower over their subordinates in martial prowess, wisdom, and experience.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Cepheus, one of the Master's generals, is a Nidoking with red eyes.
• The Remnant: A rare non-villainous example, but the Emerald Division in its present form may qualify after the sack of Rayquaza's Clutch.
• Ret-Gone: What happens to mortals that die in the Hall of Origin, including the top of Temporal Tower. The Master planned to destroy Char this way, but as that would turn out to have disastrous effects on the timeline, Dialga and Celebi manage to reverse it.
• The Reveal: A BIG one in chapter 47. After finally reaching the top of Temporal Tower, Char and the others meet Dialga, who explains that Char is one of many humans that transformed, but unable to determine his real name or purpose with no past to go on. Why he/she is a Physical God that can't abuse the power of Time. That Fate CAN be changed, only its very hard to do so. Watchers, or Newborns, are really Pokemon not born yet that reside in Giratina's Reverse Realm and appear as ghost pokemon to better comprehend them. And finally, the Call is really called Heart-speak, an ability found dormant in all Pokemon that allow them to understand humans and other Pokemon to a telepathic level, based on how much time they spend with humans. However, it's a subtle and unchanging force, and isn't meant to grow in strength or be controlled, much less explode like Char's case.
  • This is all true... except that Dialga was just A SECOND projection made by Celebi, as a means to answer their questions. The first one she also made for 'security' to scare the team away because Dialga's been missing for some time now. And The Call that happened every 27 years? It was Celebi broadcasting a signal through the Time Gears, trying to find Dialga, but unaware of what damage she was doing. Scythe doesn't take it well.
  • To clear up the terminology about the Call, "Heart-speak" is the innate ability that allows the main game series' near-instant strong bonds between Pokémon and humans, causing attraction on a subconscious level. "The Call" is what happens when Celebi's signals are received by someone with very high heart-speak (which increases through interaction with humans), which causes the resulting attraction in others toward them to spike.
  • The rewrite commentary on DeviantArt isn't particularly subtle. The first line has ScytheRider tossing out the fact that Char is named Amadeus, and that the voice is Giratina - both facts that aren't revealed until Chapter 69.
  • The special episode "Fate Surprises All" reveals that Celebi's slight mistake while reincarnating Team Ember in Temporal Tower saved Saura's family, thanks to Adiel and Saurlee witnessing time going backward for six minutes and the former being convinced the family have some kind of divine protection, allowing them to be listed as untouchable and saving their lives (Word of God outright states said divinity is Amadeus's plan, which would logically protect Saura from Adiel). Also, Saura was actually adopted, and was given to his family by Adiel, who found him originally.
  • Another commentary-given reveal. Domo, the Ditto who saw Mew, was actually transformed permanently into a Mew, but is held back because he thinks that he is still a Ditto.
  • The end of "Discontinued" reveals what Amadeus's end goal is: the elimination of the Mystery Dungeon phenomenon, before they all grow into one giant continent-spanning dungeon.
  • Chapter 76 drops some big reveals: Scarlet, like Char, is a human in the body of a Pokemon. She used to be on a team with other humans-turned-Pokemon, but the Master hunted them down, killed several and the rest fled. Eva is one of the Master's original Pokemon, is actually thousands of years old, and reveals that the Master has apparently been dead for centuries (though Char thinks he's still out there somewhere). Enigma rules Ambera in his name, and seems to have gone insane and refuses to accept that. Most of the senior Resistance Pokemon know this, but can't admit the truth or the Resistance will collapse.
  • Chapter 79 reveals that feral-shards are not space rocks, but space rocks, as in spacetime; they're sensitive to Palkia's space powers and he can use them to make whatever, and they aid evolution because that's a spacial-rending process itself. It also reveals why the mystery dungeons exist: both Dialga and Palkia were captured in Pokeballs, so they can't maintain order and balance, resulting in reality getting disentangled.
  • Chapter 80 adds several that bring together various other plot threads since Temporal Tower: Scythe is using body doubles such as Domo and Adarc in his latest round of Xanatos Speed Chess with Adiel, who is in turn trying to capture Giratina in a Pokeball. This turns out to be because Enigma is the one that has captured Dialga and Palkia to take control of all the creation gods.
  • Chapter 86: Glower the Hoothoot, one of Team Ember's new members, is actually a Zorua named Arcana who's pretending to be a Hoothoot because she's terrified of what could happen if her team needed her to use her illusions for a mission and she screwed it up.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: Played somewhat straight in the case of Ambera's resistance divisions.
• Running Gag: Evidence that Game Freak/Chunsoft reads Silver Resistance in the revision's author commentary.
• Shout-Out:
  • The author has used the fic to make numerous of these to its inspiration, the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games, as well as roguelikes in general.
  • There are also several Shout Outs to others fanworks, such as CharCole.
  • He even shouts out to his own fics, including, of all things, his badfic: "RAYQUAZA DOES NOT PLAY WITH BLOCKS."
• Song Fic: Subverted. The story contains lots of poetry inserts, but most of them are actually original lyrics to melodies from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. The others are just free verse poetry.
• Spanner in the Works: Before the mission to Temporal Tower, Scythe repeatedly tries to cut down the number of people who are going, only to be continually foiled. The reason for this is made clear: he is not planning on coming back at all, due to his secret plot to confront Adiel, and doesn't want his companions to be endangered when they are left alone.
• Spotting the Thread: When Eva reveals the Awful Truth to Char in Chapter 76, he believes that she's telling him the truth as she knows it, but spots a glaring flaw that Eva has no way of knowing: According to Eva, the Master has been dead for centuries and Enigma is ruling in his stead, claiming to be receiving orders from him. But the Master tried to kill Char during the Temporal Tower arc, ergo the Master must still be out there somewhere- the spirit realm, another dimension, somewhere.
  • At the end of Chapter 80, Char realizes why Cepheus said that the edited memory of the battle of Basin Canyon should be of Primal Groudon emerging from the Spacial Rift instead of Palkia, its actual resident. This is because Cepheus knows that Enigma would instantly know that it was a fake memory... because Enigma is the one that has Palkia in a Pokeball.
  • Hunter was already suspicious, but he's absolutely certain that 'Glower' isn't actually a Hoothoot because her diary has several entries talking about how she wants to migrate south for the winter, but Hoothoot don't migrate south- they're very territorial of their nests and will stay there year-round.
• The Stoic: Otto, when he officially joins Team Ember in Season 4.
• Supernatural Aid: Char gains the ability to control his Call at certain intervals during time thanks to Celebi after the visit to Temporal Tower. Then, after falling to the bottom of Basin Canyon and through a portal to the Spacial Rift, he receives a wish from Jirachi that lets him telepathically contact Celebi whenever he wants, giving him at-will control over the Call (though it takes a lot of energy).
• This Is Gonna Suck: While scaling Temporal Tower, Prince uses the Rock Smash technique to excavate a makeshift shelter in a mountainside for the group to evade the coming Watchers (who've infested the tower). Though he succeeds in his task, he fails to direct the cracks properly, causing several of them to extend upwards. He simply looks up, expresses recognition, and then gets a look of shame right before a giant slab of stone falls right on top of him. As Lily soon explains, this exact same incident has happened THREE times in the past.
• The Tooth Hurts: When Arcana tries to eat Golden Seeds, she finds that the outer part of the seed is incredibly hard, almost like glass. She manages to eat the first without a problem, but shatters a fang on the second one and winds up eating parts of her fang mixed in with the seed.
• Too Awesome to Use: Invoked and Played for Drama in the Temporal Tower arc; Char gets seriously injured in the Tower (see An Arm And a Leg, above) and wants a Mercy Kill so a Reviver Seed can restore his body, but Scythe chews him out for it, as Reviver Seeds are incredibly rare and should only be used when there's absolutely no hope for survival otherwise. Char is forced to stay alive, weak and barely-conscious, as the team continues through Temporal Tower, constantly thinking about killing himself. He eventually dies anyway, restoring his body.
• We Are "Team Cannon Fodder": Ray and Saura but not actually Saura are this to Char, neither having the world-shaping Call.
• Wham Episode: Chapters 47-50 are a rapid-fire slew of reveals right after another, each topping the one right before it.
  • Chapters 76-80 blow them out of the water.
• Wham Line:
  • Have a good rest, Amadeus...
  • "Return trip. Return trip. Return trip..." Because Scythe isn't planning on returning with the rest of them, and doesn't want anyone to know.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Invoked by Eva in Chapter 76: the Master made himself and his original team all immortal as long as they stay in Ambera, but the mind simply isn't designed to cope with living that long, so they're all trapped in a cycle of going insane and recovering their minds.
• Xanatos Gambit: Scythe instructs the heroes about creating these at one point, explaining that sometimes you can cause your enemies to help you by trying to stop you. Both he and Adiel pit this trope against each other.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Eventually revealed to have been invoked on multiple occasions by Scythe, largely as a result of the protagonists' actions and (arguably) existence, which derailed many of his carefully laid plans. Unfortunately, this doesn't last long, for Adiel is also an extremely capable Chessmaster.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Time doesn't move inside the Spacial Rift, so anyone who enters can spend as long as they like in there, and once they leave, it'll be the same time that they left.
• Your Days Are Numbered: The fate for all those who are infected with Pokerus is to die twice as soon as they should have.

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