Fanfic / Pokemon Wars Of The Dark

Pokemon: Wars of the Dark by The Merger Magikoopa is a Pokémon: The Series fic where Ash is sent back in time after the Legendary Pokemon learned that Ho-Oh, Dialga and Palkia toying with reality in an attempt to grant Ash a wish he made by accident gave Cyrus the power to destroy the entire universe and create a World of Silence.

Yes, it's one of those fics. Word of God even stated that his fic is an Alternate Universe Fic to Pokémon Reset Bloodlines. There are, however, multiple twists that distinguish the two fics, such as certain requirements needing to be fulfilled before Ash can remind someone, MissingNo being a friend of Ash's rather than an enemy and multiple references to various Pokemon creepypastas, including Pokémon Strangled Red.

Pokemon: Wars of the Dark contains examples of:

• Adaptational Badass:
  • All of Ash’s haremettes are Bloodliners this time around. So far, it was only seen with Giselle. The other two members of Ash’s harem that appeared so far, Misty and Serena, were already Bloodliners in Reset, but it still counts as such compared to canon.
  • The SS Anne Captain is a retired Elite Four member.
  • In the games, MissingNo had abysmal HP, Defense, Specials and Speed stats, preventing him from exploiting his huge Attack stat. Here, however, he's a powerful Magic Knight that only lost once, that being to Ash and because he wanted to make sure Ash's Pokemon are good enough at dodging to overcome the disadvantage they had against Brock. He also has greater control over his most iconic ability, the Item Duplication Glitch; in the games it always sets the number of items in the sixth spot to 128, here he's shown making copies of items to a smaller amount.
• Adaptational Dye-Job: According to Word of God, Violet and Lily are brunettes instead of respectively bluenette and rosehaired.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Serena joins Ash on his travels from the beginning. It helps that Ash has kept in touch with Serena, unlike in canon.
  • Ash receives a Charmander from Professor Oak. It's unknown if Damian has one in this fic, but it's confirmed by Word of God that the Charmander Ash received from Oak in the new timeline is the same Pokemon as Ash's Charizard in the old timeline.
  • Ash gets his Riolu in Rota (when he only got one in canon after Alola) and his Farfetch'd in Vermilion City (when he'd only get one in Galar. Apparently, the person who trades you a Farfetch'd for a Spearow wanted a bird, but got a Galarian Farfetch'd, and the guy was a racist guy who has never been to Galar on top of it, calling the Farfetch'd the N-word, which Surge calls him out on.).
  • Ash catches his Gengar in Pokemon Tower. To complete the fact this is a reference to the Haunter Ash used against Sabrina, Gengar is caught as a Haunter and then evolved via trading with Gary's Kadabra.
• Adaptational Explanation: The Great Offscreen War Surge participated in is given more context by the hidden logs. Apparently it started with Cipher manipulating the Draconids into declaring war to Hoenn, and it led to a large-scale war between the Trainer nations and the Ranger Union. The war ended in a truce when an Unovan spy found out that Cipher was pulling the strings behind the war and gave his life relaying this information to Surge.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • MissingNo is much more benevolent this time around. If anything, he’s closer to the games, where despite being a Glitch Entity that scrambles the Hall of Fame data, is entirely harmless. However, he becomes as monstrous as his various evil selves should his Berserk Button be pressed…
  • Lieutenant Surge is a better person compared to the anime… somewhat. He acts like a Drill Sergeant Nasty when training his Pokemon and trainees, but everyone who trained under him (except the hipster at the start of the training) knows Surge is A Father to His Men. This trope comes into effect when you consider his attitude towards Pikachu; while in the anime he hated Pikachu because it was not fully evolved, here Pikachu is his favorite Pokemon, even more than his eight Raichu. If anything, Surge is closer to his game portrayal. Staff Sergeant Raichu (Surge's Raichu in the anime), unfortunately, is still as much of a jerk as in the anime.
• Adaptational Jerkass: The person that trades you a Farfetch'd, unlike the little girl who just wants a Spearow, is racist. Not in the Fantastic Racism sense that is shown in Reset (Wars of the Dark is an Alternate Universe Fic to Reset), but in the same sense as real life racism towards black people, though that's mostly directed to Farfetch'd. He believes Galarian Farfetch'd are worse than Kantonian ones (when really, they're better than Kantonian ones as unlike Kantonian Farfetch'd, Galarian ones are capable of evolution), and calls them the N-word. Surge is apalled by this.
• Adaptational Late Appearance: Ash only got his Krabby after the SS Anne trip.
• Adaptational Name Change: The fic goes with Japanese names for the Pokedex Holders from Pokémon Adventures, so Green is the boy and Blue is the girl.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Misty's sisters in canon were merely irresponsible and uninterested in being Gym Leaders, and while they teased Misty, it was not out of malice. Here, however, Misty implies that her sisters were abusing her. It ends up subverted with Daisy, who while she did nearly kill Misty, she's closer to her canon portrayal, if more responsible, and seemingly only mistreated Misty because the fact she was the oldest sister gave her a superiority complex; and by the time Ash challenged the Cerulean Gym, she became The Atoner. Violet and Lily, on the other hand, are flat-out corrupt, keeping their Pokemon confined for months to end and tried to force Ash into a battle they're sure he'll lose, never mind that Ash wouldn't be able to challenge Gyms for a year if he loses. The two also hate Misty (they refer to her as "the thing" and Word of God is that they would have kicked her out if not for Daisy acknowledging her talent) and Daisy (they refer to her as "the traitor" ever since she became The Atoner).
  • Subverted with Mewtwo. He appears to be the same out-of-control Blood Knight he is in the games, but then he tells Giovanni something that implies that he's merely acting this way because he's vengeful towards Team Rocket for something they did to Ambertwo:
    "You took her away from me."
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • This series has its fair share of worldbuilding.
  • Among Surge’s trainees in the Gen I games, only Tucker has a connection to Surge, being one of his subordinates. Here, Dwayne is stated to be a sailor on the airship carrier that carried Surge’s airship, and Baley was Surge’s engineer.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • In canon, the Sensational Sisters were inseparable. Here, Violet and Lily hate Daisy (we don't know if the feeling is mutual, but Daisy does seem to care more about Misty than about Violet and Lily).
  • Ash, Red and Yellow's relationship was overhauled; because Merger ships Red and Yellow, Yellow is not related to Red. And Red and Yellow are stated to be much older than Ash (as they first met nine years before Ash was even born), so the nature of Ash and Red's relationship is more ambiguous. Chapter 11 heavily implies that Red and Yellow are Ash's parents by revealing that Delia is Yellow.
• Adapted Out: The fic puts a heavy emphasis on the official games' plot. For this reason, certain anime elements were removed. As a general consensus, if something from the anime doesn't appear in neither the official games nor Pokémon Fire-Ash, it doesn't appear in this fic either (for example, the party never meets Seymour while trekking Mt. Moon), and events from the official games have higher priority than events from Fire Ash (for example, in the SS Anne miniarc, the rival battle from the games happens, while the Team Rocket attack from the anime doesn't despite being in Fire Ash).
• All There in the Manual: There are several "entries" written by a mysterious entity, which Word of God refers to as "Mystery Man" and which are done in a similar fashion to Pokemon: Shadow of Time, that makes a lot of Worldbuilding. There are some things that aren’t noted in those notes, but rather in other notes; for instance:
  • While it’s not obvious, the Charmander that Ash received from Professor Oak is Ash’s Charizard from the old timeline.
  • The Charizard that appears when Daisy hallucinates a desolate Cerulean City while strangling Misty is Miki, from Pokémon Strangled Red.
  • Ash’s Dominion Bloodline is the Unresolved Sexual Tension he got with the many girls and Pokemon he met in the old timeline, given sentience by the timeline reset.
  • On his DeviantArt, Merger showed everyone who will be in Ash’s harem. In order of their intended appearance in the fic: Misty, Serena, Giselle, Erika, Anabel, Lillie, Melody, Casey, May, Jasmine, Latias (yes, that Latias), Flannery, Zinnia, Dawn, Angie, Zoey, Candice, Iris, Skyla, Miette, Korrina, Lana, Mallow and Bea. Word of God is that all of them will have a character arc.
• Alternate Universe Fic: Word of God is that his fic is this to Pokémon Reset Bloodlines.
• Ambiguously Human: Defied with Bloodliners. Unlike in Reset where nobody, not even Bloodliners themselves, can reach a consensus, and despite the fact Misty states she does not consider herself human (shortly afterwards it's revealed this mindset stems from a bad past with her sisters), here MissingNo makes it clear right off the bat that if you're not a Bloodliner, you have dormant Bloodliner genes that just wait to be activated, with the secret logs stating that the Viridian Forest is an activation factor, as it did that to Yellow and Lance.
• Ambiguously Related: Ash and Red. Ash has a feeling of familiarity towards Red for some reason. Delia’s statement that Ash and Serena’s relationship reminds her of her own relationship with Ash’s father making Ash think about Red’s first meeting with Yellow may or may not be evidence towards the answer. Of course, since Wars of the Dark is, per Word of God, an Alternate Universe Fic to Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Ash and Red most likely are related, the question is how. The Wham Shot at the end of Chapter 11 reveals that Delia is Yellow, so it's implied that Red is Ash's father.
• Angelic Abomination: MissingNo describes the Legendary Pokemon as such.
• Arc Villain: The series is structured in sagas as per Word of God, with nine of them: the Kanto Saga, the Orange Island Saga, the Johto Saga, the Hoenn Saga, the Sinnoh Saga, the Unova Saga, the Kalos Saga, the Alola Saga and the World Coronation Tournament Saga, much like the anime series. Most have different villains, albeit most are game antagonists and villainous organizations. The sagas are divided in multiple arcs, which usually last until the chapter Ash wins the town's Badge. Some of the arcs have their own villains, albeit their role is smaller than the saga-wide villains.
  • The Kanto Saga has Giovanni, leading Team Rocket. In the saga itself:
    • Violet and Lily are the villains of the Cerulean Arc.
  • The Orange Island Saga will have Cipher.
  • The Johto Saga will have Rocket Admin Archer.
  • The Hoenn Saga will have a Big Bad Ensemble consisting of Archie and his Team Aqua and Maxie and his Team Magma.
  • The Sinnoh Saga will have Cyrus and his Team Galactic.
  • The Unova Saga will have Ghetsis and his Team Plasma.
  • The Kalos Saga will have Lysandre and his Team Flare.
  • The Alola Saga will have a Big Bad Ensemble consisting of Faba, the return of Cipher, and Team Rainbow Rocket.
  • The Galar Saga will have Chairman Rose.
• Ascended Extra: It’s confirmed that several oneshot characters in the anime will play greater roles in this fic. So far it’s shown to be the case with Giselle (who became one of Ash’s haremettes), Lieutenant Surge (who became Ash’s mentor) and the Pink Butterfree (who was caught by Serena).
• Author Avatar: Many of MissingNo's actions can be tied to one of the author notes, which makes him a space for the author to vent out his frustrations with the anime.
• Berserk Button: Team Rocket (especially the Team Rocket Trio), Team Galactic, Team Plasma, Team Flare and Cipher are this for MissingNo, to the point he believes the only way to deal with them is to kill them and everyone allied with them.
• Beware the Silly Ones: MissingNo is a walking meme machine. However, if you press his Berserk Button, he shows you how horrifying a Glitch Entity can be.
• Both Sides Have a Point: During the Butterfree mating ordeal, Ash and MissingNo get into one of these when the latter tries to kill Cassidy and Butch.
  • MissingNo’s point was that the Team Rocket Trio’s existence prevents Ash from being a Pokemon Master, and he’ll never be one as long as the three stalk him. Given how Ash’s loss in the Indigo League in the anime is entirely the Team Rocket Trio’s fault despite the fact the narrative tries to make it look like it’s Ash’s fault, and that Ash’s tenure in the anime ends with Ash still not a Pokemon Master despite being the strongest Trainer in the world and the Team Rocket Trio still stalking him with no Heel–Face Turn in sight, it’s safe to say that MissingNo is right. However, Ash is also right to say that the Team Rocket Trio are good persons deep down, given their Affably Evil personalities, their tragic backstories and the occasional Enemy Mine. As such, they don’t deserve to die because they stalk Ash, even if their stalking prevents him from being a Pokemon Master.
  • In general, MissingNo believes anyone allied with Team Rocket, Team Galactic, Team Plasma, Team Flare or Cipher has to die. While he’s entirely right about Cipher (except Wes and probably Eldes) and there are a lot of vile persons in the other teams that do deserve to die (Petrel, the Iron Masked Marauder, Cyrus, Ghetsis and Lysandre), there also are plenty of Tragic Villains that would be willing to take a second chance at being good persons if given (the aforementioned Team Rocket Trio, Ariana, Mars, N and even Giovanni), so such a mentality would make Missing No a He Who Fights Monsters.
• Butt-Monkey: Despite Team Rocket allegedly being stronger than in canon, they’re still curbstompted whenever they appear. There’s a TR Owned Count for a reason. Lampshaded by Meowth when the Team Rocket Trio does succeed with something (preventing Cassidy and Butch from wasting their time trying to get revenge on MissingNo), yet are still humiliated. It later ends up deconstructed: it turns out that MissingNo hates the Team Rocket Trio for being a hindrance for Ash. To wit, by stalking Ash, the three are effectively preventing Ash from being a Pokemon Master. As a result, he wants to kill everyone in Team Rocket (and Team Galactic, Team Plasma, Team Flare and Cipher, for good measure), only relenting because Ash doesn’t want his friends to be killers, and even then, he believes Murder Is the Best Solution.

  Meowth: "Even when we win, we’re still losers…"

• Canon Character All Along: Misty’s Blastoise is revealed to be The Big Guy of the Squirtle Squad.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • Ash’s Nidoking and Drowzee are from Pedro Araujo’s Pokemon Red series.
  • Misty’s Golduck (which is stated All There in the Manual to not be her Psyduck from the anime), Lapras and Quagsire are taken from the games. Specifically, they and Misty’s Starmie form Misty’s team in the Gen II games and their remakes.
  • Most of Gary’s team, as it’s inspired from the rival’s team in the Gen I games should you pick Charmander as your Starter. The exceptions are Wartortle, Alakazam and Growlithe, since in the anime Gary’s Starter was Squirtle and he also had an Alakazam (which he was never seen using) and an Arcanine.
• Canon Foreigner: Since Ash and his haremettes will catch a lot of Pokemon, it’s a given.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Ash has his sex maniac attitude from The Electric Tale of Pikachu. His Dominion Bloodline (which, per Word of God, is the Unresolved Sexual Tension he got from the many girls and Pokemon that were attracted to him throughout canon) made him a Chick Magnet and made Ash lecherous. However, what Ash wants, above all, is for his girls to be happy. Word of God is that Ash doesn’t want a girl that’s over three years older or younger than him.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Misty and Serena were briefly this for Ash, as they didn’t want Ash to be with Giselle. This being a harem fic with its end goal being Marry Them All, they sorted it out after Giselle revealed she not only knew that Ash, Misty and Serena were Bloodliners, but she’s a Bloodliner herself.
• Close-Enough Timeline: Because Arceus lived so long He cannot remember how He made the Pokemon World down to the last detail when He resets it. As such, His best bet was to remember the key elements, namely Ash and all his Pokemon, friends and family, and make one of these in such a way so they’d all meet again in it.
• Composite Character: Several instances of this occurs in this fic. Noteworthy:
  • While Ash is mostly his anime self (as most of his character was made by the anime), he has his more perverted personality from The Electric Tale of Pikachu. Case in point, he spent most of the SS Anne trip groping Misty, Serena and Giselle.
  • The secret log on the Viridian Forest and the Word of God associated with it shows that while Lance is mostly his anime self he has his powers from Pokémon Adventures.
  • It's revealed that Delia and Yellow are the same person.
• Corrupt Cop: According to Officer Jenny, the cops from Viridian City, Celadon City and Saffron City are working for Team Rocket, with the sole exceptions being the towns' Officer Jennies.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Level Break, which is basically the Kaioken. It boosts the user's attributes (strength, speed and even senses) and can even be stacked, but it drains the user's life force and strains the user's body. Giratina warns Ash to not get his Pokemon to go beyond two until they feel ready. To prove how powerful Legendary Pokemon are, it's stated that the life force drain is less meaningful for them because they have way more life force than normal Pokemon, with Mewtwo even going to the fifth level to show Giovanni how outclassed his Nidoking is. Unique Legendaries, like Giratina, have infinite life force due to the fact they're immortal, so the life force drawback is gone. The body strain drawback, however, is still there, as Giratina states that even with the ability to use Level Break indefinitely, it still hurts as hell.
• Darker and Edgier: The fic starts up lighthearted despite the Unseen Evil that seems to threaten the Pokemon World. However, once Glitchy Red makes his debut, the fic takes a darker turn.
• Deconstruction Fic:
  • The fic deconstructs the trend of giving MissingNo Adaptational Villainy. A heart-to-heart between Ash and MissingNo explains that the glitch is Not Evil, Just Misunderstood, and is not happy with being seen as evil.
  • The fic takes the idea from two other fics that has Arceus find out Ho-Oh and Palkia removed a part of Ash’s soul and tried to make it its own being as a result of a wish Ash made by accident, putting that part back into Ash and then sending Ash in a Close-Enough Timeline… and takes into account how, in both instances, the fragment was unhappy with the Tomato in the Mirror reveal. The fragment gets in the denial and anger stages of grief and never seems to leave them, becoming Glitchy Red as a result.
  • Because Merger hates Cross’s treatment of Misty’s sister Daisy in Reset, he deconstructs the character by taking Daisy’s Reset portrayal and mixing it with her canon portrayal, creepypasta-style Mind Rape and a smidge of End of Evangelion. The result is a Daisy with a severe Guilt Complex and some suicidal tendencies caused by how Misty rejects her attempts at redemption and Violet and Lily mocking said attempts.
    • Speaking of, the same idea also deconstructs Steven’s already Disproportionate Retribution towards Mike for Miki’s death. Not only was disproportionate, Miki didn’t want that to happen; she knew it was an accident and forgave Mike, unlike Steven. As a result, she lost all of her friendship with her former Trainer, and became embittered and jaded. Not wanting what happened to Mike to happen to anyone else, she started Mind Raping any abusive siblings, which eventually led her to the Cerulean Gym.
    • In general, the fic deconstructs the way Reset deconstructs Status Quo Is God. According to Reset, while the status quo sucks, it prevents things from becoming too bleak. However, not only the status quo was not intended to be there in the first place (it was added in by Ho-Oh so Ash’s adventures will never end), the first confrontation between Ash and Glitchy Red shows that the idea that breaking the status quo would ruin the lives of the heroes is so over the top that it just doesn’t make any sense.
    • Misty's relationship with Daisy can also be seen as a general deconstruction of Big Sister Bully.
  • The fic takes a potshot at Betrayal Fics by making it seem as if Ash was the one who believed himself unworthy of being a Pokemon Master, but being in denial, and the "betrayal" was Ash misunderstanding an attempt of his friends to reach out to him because he saw it Through the Eyes of Madness.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Brock plays a more minor role in this fic than in the anime, as he doesn’t accompany Ash. However, Word of God is that he’ll be a Recurring Extra that will appear in all locations he can be encountered in Pokémon Fire-Ash, with him being with Lucy at all but his first appearance at the Gym (as he’s engaged to her).
  • The Team Rocket Trio appears less often than in the anime. They appear in locations they can be found in Pokémon Fire-Ash and where the Team Rocket Organization can be found in the canon games. They do encounter Cassidy and Butch at the Butterfree mating grounds, but that’s because Merger found the Rescue Romance trope between Ash's Butterfree and the Pink Butterfree too good to pass.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Humans seem to have a flaw in their "design"; whenever an Angel tries to make humans in a world, the humans distance themselves from the Angel and all its other creations. In the case of this fic, humans distanced themselves from Pokemon and many lost their powers as a result. Sounds a lot like the fall of man in the Book of Genesis, doesn’t it?
• Dye Hard: In-Universe, Violet and Lily do this.
• Everyone Is a Super: Played with. MissingNo reveals that everyone is a Bloodliner deep down, but plenty of Bloodlines are dormant.
• Fantastic Racism: The feat of there being humans with Pokemon powers that are at odds with humans without such powers is taken from Pokémon Reset Bloodlines but with a twist. Everyone was a Bloodliner initially, as per Arceus’s design, but most people lost their powers because of a flaw in the human design that was making them distance themselves from Angels.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Delia mentions her first meeting with Ash's father, Ash gets a memory of Red and Yellow's first meeting. Chapter 11 reveals Delia is Yellow.
  • Gary's Squirtle mentions that Ash grew up surrounded by Pikachus. Given the implications his parents are Red and Yellow, both known for their Pikachu...
  • Five-Second Foreshadowing: When confronting the girl that stole Bulbasaur, Delia says that the girl reminds her of Blue, who also initially stole her starter from Professor Oak. She also seems to know stuff about Yellow that the girl doesn't, namely that Yellow moved to Pallet Town to be with Red. She then states that Yellow did so icognito, only letting Red, Blue and Professor Oak know. How does a random woman like Delia personally know Blue and how does she know stuff about Yellow that Yellow only shared with Red, Blue and Professor Oak? It's because Delia is no random woman, but Yellow herself.
• Fix Fic: While the fic takes the plot of resetting the entire anime world so Ash won't be a dumbass, the fic does fix some other things, usually by expanding on characters that were done dirty.
  • While she's often Out of Focus, Roo was Pikachu's Kangaskhan sister in the old timeline, and she and her mother were considered wasted. The fact that she's there with her adoptive brother, even if she doesn't do much, is somewhat nice to see. As for her mother, she's one of Delia’s Pokemon.
  • Similarly, the fic fixes Tobias, who many believe existed just so Ash won't win the League. Here, he's given a more major role as a Buster hunting down undesirables in the League, such as criminal Gym Leaders.
  • The fanbase is divided on whether Ash catching a Gengar in Journeys fully fixes the fact he didn't catch Haunter all the way back in the original series; while most people don't mind, there are some who believe it was extremely late. Ash recatches Gengar early, and to top it off, Gengar is a Haunter when that happened. Noteworthy, though, it's that he evolves in the same chapter via a trade with Gary, showing that Merger believes that the general consensus is that not Haunter itself was wasted, but the Gastly line as a whole.
  • Giselle is considered one of the characters that was done the most dirty in the anime. Here, she becomes a main character.
• The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson: MissingNo is a walking reference machine, enough so Shout-Out already got its own page.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Joe accompanies Ash’s gang from Pokemon Tech to Vermilion City. They part ways after Joe gets the Thunder Badge.
• Hotter and Sexier: In a nod to The Electric Tale of Pikachu, most girls (including all girls in Ash’s harem) are incredibly buxom.
• Ironic Echo: Between Jessie and James: "I thought you didn’t like them?!" (They’re referring to Cassidy and Butch. And no, they don’t like them.)
• Knight Templar: MissingNo is this, mainly regarding villainous teams. He believes anyone allied with Team Rocket, Team Galactic, Team Plasma, Team Flare and Cipher has to die, even when he knows that Ash doesn’t like killing.
• Let's Wait a While: On the SS Anne, Ash’s current girlfriends ask him to take his virginity. Ash, not wanting a surprise pregnancy, convinces them to wait until after the Indigo League.
• Medium Awareness: MissingNo states that his most iconic ability, the Item Duplication Glitch, was dubbed that way by gamers, to Ash's confusion. This is justified by MissingNo's Glitch Entity status.
• Moral Myopia: As pointed out by MissingNo and Word of God, ownership of Legendaries is this; if you're a bad guy, everyone turns against you, but if you're not, nobody bats an eye at it.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: MissingNo thinks this regarding Team Rocket, Team Galactic, Team Plasma, Team Flare and Cipher. Ash points out that the Team Rocket Trio are good persons deep down, and that they don’t deserve to be killed simply because they stalk Ash, despite the fact this prevents Ash from becoming a Pokemon Master. Word of God adds that this same mentality will also save Giovanni, Ariana, Silver, Mars and N, all who will have Heel Face Turns. On Cipher, though, MissingNo has the pass of killing everyone in it and anyone allied to it; as noted above, Both Sides Have a Point is in effect on Ash and MissingNo’s argument.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Delia’s Kangaskhan Kanga is the Kangaskhan that raised Pikachu in the old timeline.
    • She’s not the only Kangaskhan named that way.
  • Violet and Lily being black-haired according to Word of God is a nod to one of Takeshi Shudo's ideas, where the Cerulean sisters are all black-haired and the three older ones wear wigs. Here, however, Misty and Daisy's hair colors from the anime are their actual hair colors (in Misty's case, it's helped by the fact she always was a redhead in official artwork for the games), and Violet and Lily dye their hair instead of wearing wigs.
  • With the exception of Heavy the Blastoise, Misty’s main team is her team in Pokémon Gold and Silver.
  • Gary had a Raticate which was killed by Ash’s Nidoking on the SS Anne, which is a reference to the dead Raticate theory.
  • Brock is engaged to Lucy in this continuity. As revealed by Brock’s Pokemon, one of the reasons Lucy likes Brock is his squinty eyes, much like in the anime.
  • A few references to The Electric Tale of Pikachu:
    • Ash is more of a Chivalrous Pervert in this fic, in reference to how he was constantly drooling over girls in that manga. He doesn’t, however, want ‘’every’’ girl in the world to fall for him.
    • On the SS Anne, Misty, Serena and Giselle buy various colored versions of Misty’s slingshot bikini from this manga, specifically to seduce Ash with it.
  • Dwayne, Baley and Tucker, Lt. Surge’s war buddies that help him around the Gym, are the Trainers that can be found in the Vermilion Gym in the Gen I games and their remakes (though they only are named in the remakes). Their debut chapter even has a "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer.
  • Private Volty, who acts as Pikachu's mentor during Ash's training under Surge, is both the Pikachu in Surge's Pokemon team in the Gen 1 games and a reference to a trade in Pokemon Heart Gold And Soul Silver.
  • Bond Phenomenon Pikachu resembles Ashachu, which is Ash when he was transformed into a Pokemon.
  • MissingNo and Giselle reference several in-game stats; HP is stamina, Attack is physical strength, Defense is physical endurance, Special Attack is elemental strength, Special Defense is elemental endurance, Speed is agility, and EXP is Power Level.
  • When dragged in the Distortion World, Ash finds an Origin Ball. Once Giratina stated it was designed specifically to catch Legendaries and that, to prevent it from being abused, Arceus stole the design and made it so one can only receive it if a Legendary deems them worthy, and even then they can only use the Origin Ball to catch that particular Legendary, Ash, at Giratina's request, uses the Origin Ball on Giratina.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: While he has a whole team Pokemon that could become Champion-tier with proper training under his belt (namely, the pre-evolutions of the Signature Mons of six champions, those champions being Lance, Steven Stone, Cynthia, Alder, Diantha and Leon), MissingNo prefers to fight villainous organizations himself. It makes sense, as Team Rocket, Team Plasma and especially Cipher are notorious for stealing Pokemon, and MissingNo is on his own an extremely powerful Magic Knight; as implied in Chapter 8, he utterly obliterated the Team Rocket group that was supposed to attack the SS Anne, with the Team Rocket Trio only surviving because they weren't with the group.
• Noodle Incident: While Ash was in Alola learning under Professor Kukui, Ash's parents got in an incident with Lusamine. All Ash knows about it is that Lusamine was high during that incident. While Giselle questions why would Lusamine do drugs, it's obvious if you think about it that it was not drugs that Lusamine was high on, but Nihilego's poison. Apparently it ended with Ash's parents saving Lusamine from Nihilego's poison, and that made Ash a VIP in the Aether Foundation. The Reveal that Delia is Yellow implies how Ash's parents saved Lusamine; Yellow's healing powers apparently can counteract Nihilego's poison.
• Olympus Mons: As stated by Word of God, Ash will catch several Legendaries, but release most of them, with four exceptions: Latias, Giratina, Zekrom and Melmetal, all who want to just stay with Ash (and Latias is set to be part of Ash's harem).
  • Giratina was caught in Chapter 11.
• Our Angels Are Different: The narration and MissingNo refer to Legendary Pokemon as "Angels".
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • As pointed out by a commenter, MissingNo is this for Team Rocket and that's why he can curbstomp Team Rocket at every corner they appear.
  • The Dark figure that approaches Arceus to inform him of what's wrong with Ash, refered as "Mystery Man", is a straighter example. He's an enigmatic intergalactic traveler that desires to bring balance between light and darkness. In case of Power Levels, he has eight Rings Of Power that, according to Arceus, are as powerful as a Creation Trio member each. Which is turned up a notch by Word of God: those rings are the Divine Rings from Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent. Meaning that Aelfric the Flamebringer is on par with either Dialga, Palkia or Giratina, and Mystery Man is stronger than all three of them combined. And then Arceus gives all of Mystery Man's power to MissingNo...
• Pet the Dog: Word of God is that Daisy kept Misty around because her skill as a battler would do good to the Gym. Keep in mind that this was while she was a Big Sister Bully who only cared about performances and her looks.
• Polyamory: Ash, Misty and Serena start a polyamorous relationship when they leave Cerulean City. Giselle soon joins in, and Word of God is that more will join in the future.
• Promoted to Love Interest: Half of the girls in Ash’s confirmed harem, if not more, are girls Ash had some Ship Tease with. So far, it’s only seen with Misty, Serena and Giselle.
• Reconstruction: Of Giselle’s character. Yes, what she learned from Pokemon Tech is insufficient. However, this doesn’t stop her from being The Smart Girl of the group.
• Revenge: After MissingNo humiliates them, Cassidy and Butch become hellbent on getting revenge on him. The Team Rocket Trio doesn’t like it, as they see it as counterproductive. They give up when MissingNo tries to kill them.
• Running Gag: The TR Owned Count.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Status Quo Is God: Deconstructed for the old timeline. The status quo wasn’t in Arceus’ original design for the Pokemon World. It was added by Ho-Oh when Ash wished for his adventures to never end. This, however, caused space-time distortions that, if left unchecked, would have allowed Cyrus to destroy the universe. Even if Arceus noticed, He couldn’t correct the distortions without causing a Reality-Breaking Paradox, so the world had to be reset-this time without the status quo. Averted in the fic itself.
• Super Mode:
  • Like in canon, Team Rocket’s Meowth can Gigantamax.
  • Pikachu obtains one in a similar vein to Ash’s Greninja, becoming Ashachu.
• Take That!:
  • MissingNo’s portrayal in this timeline is seemingly this to the many fics that portray him as a villain.
  • Glitchy Red’s portrayal is one to his pasta. Because Red canonically has no animosity towards the other Pokemon protagonists, Merger sees Glitchy Red as a massive insult to Red’s character. As such, Glitchy Red is portrayed as an Entitled Bastard that wants to ruin the lives of anyone who believes would replace him and everyone who supports the replacements. Which, if you think about it, includes Ash and all of his friends.
  • When he faces Ash for the first time, Glitchy Red states that the timeline reset should have made Ash and his friends pay horrible prices for breaking the status quo, in a nod to how this happened in Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, but MissingNo stopped the prices from being paid. Ash states that this is so over the top that it can’t be just the timeline resetting, and accuses Glitchy Red of trying to make them pay those prices.
  • The death of Gary’s Raticate, while expectedly Played for Drama, takes a potshot at Betrayal Fics. What happens in them? Ash’s friends betray him because he’s unworthy of being a Pokemon Trainer after one too many losses. What this fic shows it actually happens in Betrayal Fics? Ash himself is the one who sees himself as unworthy of being a Trainer, and he sees his friends attempting to cheer him up the opposite way out of self-loathing.
  • At the Butterfree mating grounds, one of the Butterfree brags that his power level is over 9'000. Ash's Butterfree and the Pink Butterfree are not impressed; the latter has a power level of 12'000, while the former has a power level of 15'000.
  • MissingNo’s hatred of the Team Rocket Trio is this to those who give the Draco in Leather Pants treatment to the three, as Ash losing the Indigo League is entirely the Team Rocket Trio’s fault, and, per Word of God, no Heel–Face Turn can sugarcoat it.
  • Tobias being a Buster (one of the highest authorities in the Pokemon League, being above Gym Leaders and even Elite Four and Masters) is seemilgy this to the fans' dislike of him. Merger even points out the Moral Myopia of them being angry at him for costing Ash his Sinnoh League win only because he had Legendaries, when they themselves are perfectly able of using Legendaries to win the Pokemon League in the games
  • The author's notes for Chapter 10/Kanto 9 take a potshot at Alain and his trust of Lysandre, as it states his defeat of Ash at the League was at Lysandre's orders, and that Alain's victory made Amourshippers (the ones who hate Alain the most because of it) believe Lysandre also wants Alain to cockblock Ash from Serena.
  • The fact Ash is extremely receptive and accepting of the girls' advancements is one to Pokemon: Shadow of Time, where he constantly rejects the girls' advances to Wangst levels.
• Training Montage: Chapter 10 is dedicated to Ash training under Lt. Surge and obtaining the Thunder Badge.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 6, with the reveal of Glitchy Red.
  • Chapter 7 reveals that Glitchy Red's claims that he tried to make Ash's friends pay for supporting Ash over Glitchy Red wasn't a bluff, as it shows that Violet and Lily underwent Adaptational Villainy.
  • In Chapter 9, Gary's Raticate dies.
  • Chapter 11 has the Team Rocket Trio learning about Giovanni's backstory. Specifically, Giovanni was Always Second Best to Professor Oak, and he wanted to prove his worth by catching Mew, who he thought was the Ultimate Life Form. However, his attempts to outright catch Mew always turned fruitless, so when he got a strand of Mew's fur, he decided to resort to cloning. He was also shunned by everyone except Ariana, Archer and Proton, so he succeeded his mother, Madame Boss, as the leader of Team Rocket to be able to fund his research. Things went From Bad to Worse shortly after Mewtwo's awakening, as Mewtwo instantly turns on Giovanni and causes a chaos in which Giovanni's daughter is lost. Noteworthy, though, is that Mewtwo's motive for his betrayal seems to be caused by the fact Team Rocket did something to Ambertwo. (According to Word of God, Archer brainwashed and kidnapped her.) And then there's the Wham Shot at the end...
• Wham Line:
  • Slightly downplayed for MissingNo's last line in Chapter 5. Ash suffering of depression? Shocking. The reason he does? Tragic, but in-character for him. Glitchy Red exploiting Ash's depression? Somewhat expected given how well-established his Irrational Hatred of Ash is. Ash being a Dominion Bloodliner? That's not really a surprise if you read Pokémon Reset Bloodlines first.
  • Chapter 11 has two:
    • First, Mewtwo drops the act that he's the uncontrollable Blood Knight he's in the games, and reveals that he desires revenge for Ambertwo with this line, addressed to Giovanni:
      "You took her away from me."
    • At the end, we get this dialogue between Delia and a girl who stole a Bulbasaur from Professor Oak:
      Delia: "I’m impressed you managed to get this far. You remind me a lot of Blue. I’m afraid, unfortunately, that this is as far as you will go!"
      The mysterious girl: "Really? Because last time I checked, Masters Red, Green and Blue aren’t here. And this isn’t the Viridian Forest, so Master Yellow isn’t here either!"
      Delia: "I’m afraid that you misunderstood something. Yellow loves Red so much, that she moved to Pallet Town to be with him."
      The mysterious girl: "So? Like I said, I checked, and Yellow isn’t here. Even if Professor Oak would inform her, or the other three Masters, it’s going to take a while for them to come here."
      Delia: "Oh, you’re again mistaken; Yellow is right under your nose, and only Red, Blue and Oak know this. Go, Chuchu!"
• Wham Shot: Chapter 11 ends with Delia sending out Chuchu, Yellow's Pikachu.
• What You Are in the Dark: AJ in his debut appearance. Yes, he does put his Pokemon through Training from Hell. However, as Giselle later points out after being told about him, he only does so because he knows what he’s doing. When he stumbles across an Alolan Sandshrew, AJ didn’t know what to do… so he didn’t put the Alolan Sandshrew under any training. He also doesn’t hate Bloodliners… because he sees them as Worthy Opponents.
• Why Didn't I Think of That?: Said almost word-for-word by Ash’s Butterfree when MissingNo points out Ash or Serena could catch the Pink Butterfree, and the two Butterfree could mate at Professor Oak’s ranch.
• Willfully Weak: In the games and the anime, early Gyms suffer of Improbable Power Discrepancy, namely being weaker than mid-game basic trainers and late-game wild Pokemon. Here, however, following a common piece of fanon (and in concordance to Pokémon Origins), the Gym Leaders do in fact adjust their challenges to suit the challenger. As a result, they can enter the Pokemon League whenever they wish.
  • Outside of his Geodude and Onix, Brock also has an Omastar and a Kabutops, as revealed in the SS Anne Interlude. Since the two are part Rock-Type, are part of Brock’s rematch team in Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! and unlike Brock’s non-Rock-Type Pokemon don’t have a Mundane Utility (Croagunk doesn’t either, but he’s treated more like The Thing That Would Not Leave by Brock’s other Pokemon), it’s safe to say they’re used for stronger challengers.
  • Misty, Violet and Lily all have much stronger Pokemon than the ones Misty has in the games when she’s fought. This is hinted at on Mt. Moon, as one of the reason Misty believed she, Ash and Serena couldn’t stop Team Rocket’s mining operation was that she didn’t have her main team. And the next chapter reveals Violet has a Cloyster, Lily has a Seaking, and Misty’s aforementioned main team, aside from her ever-faithful Starmie, consists of Golduck, Lapras, Blastoise and Quagsire. The SS Anne interlude also states that Daisy has a Poliwrath.
  • Lt. Surge scales the strength of trainers with eight different Raichu.
• Worf Had the Flu: Misty's sisters lost to Ash easily despite the fact he relied solely on Nidoking for various reasons. As Daisy pointed out, Violet and Lily's Pokemon had their strength atrophied by underuse, so they were in no condition of stomping a rampaging Nidoking. And while Daisy was taking being a Gym Leader seriously (after all, she had a perfect win streak until Gary broke it), her Guilt Complex was rendering her unable to fight anyone who knows Misty.