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Subjective
NightmareFuel: Pokémon
alt title(s): Pokemon
Nightmare Fuel in the most literal sense

We all know Pokemon, don't we? Or has it been so long that you've forgotten?

Remember Pikachu and all his adorable friends, fighting against each other eternally in a terrible world with soul-stealing monsters and horrifying ghosts, terrorists worshiping an Eldritch Abomination and NPC's that will stop at nothing to hunt you down and fight, where even the music itself is enough to give you nightmares...

On second thought, perhaps it's best to let them stay forgotten?

  • Let's not forget the third movie, where the little girl's Dad is sucked into some other dimension. Even though he is saved, her mother is still somewhere in that mess. Straight up creepy, if you ask me.
    • IIRC, a scene in the credits shows her coming back, too.
  • The Lavender Tower in the original Pokemon games, was a creepy tower full of ghosts that your own Pokémon were afraid to battle (even Mewtwo), scary music, and old channelers that shout creepy things at you when they engage you in a Pokémon match (because they're possessed).
    • This troper was personally scared the most by the line "Give me blood!"
      • Thank you!! This troper threw her Game Boy while playing that part late at night!
    • Not to mention the Lavender Town music in the original game was really creepy. It got toned down and sounded almost touching in some of the later games.
    • This troper was horrified to find out that in Gold/Silver they had apparently demolished the Lavender Tower and built the Radio tower on the exact same spot.
      • This Troper wondered why there were no haunted radio channels in Kanto, until he decided that the kind Mr. Fuji must have overseen the proper exhumation and transportation of the dead pokemon into a new, more final resting place. Nevertheless, it was a missed chance by Nintendo to add more nightmare fuel.
      • Actually yes, that's exactly what happened. But yeah, that would've been awesome.
      • I think there actually ARE a couple of haunted radio stations. There was one that sounded damn freaky, anyway, and just had the name "???" - shivers down the spine!
      • And you know these unmarked stations exist in real life, just look for number stations on google...
      • The creepy ??? channels are the Unown signal and the wireless transmission used by Team Rocket to force the evolution of the Magikarp in the Lake of Rage. Knowing what they are doesn't make them sound any less creepy.
    • "Do you believe in ghosts?" "No." "Then that white hand on your shoulder must be my imagination."
      • To this day, This troper can not talk to that person without having look over her sholder afterwards.
      • The Pokemon Channel ghost tower music was HORRIFYING! It was groups of people chanting in an opera like voice to the tune of something like a halloween tune. [[((Supermariofan)) This Troper]] couldn't go there for years when he was a kid, but had to to complete the game so he had to MUTE it to go on. Though much older, he still is VERY reluctant to go there without muting it.
  • This troper was deeply disturbed by the fact that the ghost version of Curse involved the user shoving a nail, slowly, into its own face, then doing the same thing to its opponent.
    • ...This troper never realized that's what the animation was supposed to represent. Thanks, I really didn't want to sleep tonight.
    • The animation in Gen IV has the nail pointing downwards instead, which really doesn't make it any better. Are we fighting the ghost of Phineas Gage here? (Probably they didn't mean it to be taken that literally but...)
    • This troper always thought it was a dagger. The nail somehow makes it scarier.
    • The nail is symbolic of a Japanese way of cursing someone that involves pounding five-inch nails into a straw doll whilst holding it against a tree... So Yeah...
    • On the topic of Pokémon attacks, this troper has a few she'd like to name off that scare her big time:
    • Mean Look, in Gen IV. Talk about Giant Eye Of Doom.
      • Oh it was worse in Gen II, when it was essentially 5 eyes blinking...erratically.
    • Screech, from the Gen II games also bother her because of what the attack does (drops defense two stages) and the noise oh dear gods the noise.
    • The one that gets me is Muddy Water. It's basically the Surf attack, only the water is disgusting, brown, and has twigs and leaves in it. Imagine that bearing down on you and you can't run from it (of course, this becomes a harsh reality for anyone who lives somewhere where floods and mudslides are a common occurrence).
    • Dark Void. A move that, supposedly, puts you to sleep For All Eternity when combined with Darkrai's ability. And Darkrai causes nightmares accidentally! So let's say that you're a trainer with insomnia, and you have your Darkrai help you fall asleep. Suddenly, you are sucked into a demonic hellscape that you can only wake up from if Darkrai leaves. Thing is, your Darkrai, EVER so loyal, stays by your side until you wake up, which is never. Seriously, Gamefreak, what the hell!?
    • Any one hit KO move. Being sliced in half (Guillotine), dieing from hypothermia (Sheer Cold), being drilled into (Horn Drill) and falling in a near endless abyss (Fissure).
      • Technically, Guillotine is described as a pincer attack, not that having your pokemon's windpipe crushed by an oversize crustacean or bug is any less disturbing.
    • This troper was frightened by the Crunch attack animation in Gen II when she first saw it. (For those who don't know: the screen turns dark, and a massive pair of jaws gnashes down on your Pokemon with tremendous force.)
  • Learning that Cubone's headgear is the skull of its dead mother is illogical but a very disturbing experience for a Pokémon player.
    • Given the events of the Tower, however, it seems likely that the implication is that that particular Cubone took up its mother's skull and femur IN THE NAME OF VENGEANCE, which immediately takes the situation from Nightmare Fuel to freaking awesome.
    • Actually, this troper believes that Cubone is actually a Kangaskhan baby whose mother has died. They look suspiciously similar...
    • So...if you had a male and a female Cubone, and you put them in a daycare, and you returned to the daycare to find a baby Cubone waiting for you, would the female Cubone still be alive? *shudders*
      • This troper thought that female Cubone/Marowak that lay eggs shed their skull masks to protect their children and grow new ones for themselves. Of course, that's just a different flavor of Nightmare Fuel.
      • Oddly sweet Nightmare Fuel.
      • Alternatively, young Cubone might visit the Secret Marowak Graveyard and dig up a skull for themselves.
    • The Preexisting Encounter with Marowak at the top of Lavender tower. As you step off the stairs onto an innocent-looking empty tile...
      "Be gone, intruders..." [CUE BATTLE FLASH]
  • This troper is very much scared of the music used in the Old Chateau (among other places) in the Diamond and Pearl games. Not to mention that the aforementioned location actually has non-Pokémon ghosts, as well as a painting that has red eyes if you turn away.
    • That painting scared this Troper shitless, who was playing at 1:47 AM, in her bed, not suspecting a painting of a skull with glowing red eyes, while innocently trying to obtain an item ball.
      • Heh. Did you notice that if you're in either of the adjacent rooms to the room with the eye-painting, the eyes move to 'look at you'?
    • this troper was also up late when she explored the horrors of the Old Chateau. You'd think she would have learned from her trip to the lavender tower ...
    • The Old Chateau really freaks this troper out; the old man and little girl (in the hallway, no less) ghosts hit far too close to The Shining to be comfortable.
    • Also, while it may not be intentional, the Old Chateau has a dining area which is split into an unreasonably large dining table and a chi. An item you can find at the kitchen in a trash can near the table is an Antidote. Stop for a moment to consider why the Antidote would be in the trash.
    • The fact that the only time you can catch Rotom is at night is not cool with this troper, as you are forced to go into the Old Chateau at night. Real time night.
      • And it comes out of a haunted television. The desctiption for it left afew people paranoid.
      • A television that's mysteriously turned on, in a long-abandoned mansion...
      • A wide screen plasma television.
      • Yeah, Gamefreak kind of blew it on that one. Then again, Rotom can move while possesing an appliance, which, in a way, makes this even freakier...
      • Yeah but COME ON GUYS!! The music while battling Rotom make up for it SO MUCH. Oh and BTW you can just catch Rotom at 8:00 during summer while the day is so sunny bright out.
    • There are all sorts of small, unsettling details. For example, furniture in odd, useless arrangements, bringing up the question of why it's like that and who put it there.
    • This troper ran around in the room with the painting with the eyes for about an hour, trying to get a Gengar, as they're available in that room only with a third-gen game in the GBA slot. Needless to say, he's not hugely fond of th concept of going back after that little ordeal. Guh.
  • Cacturne. It's a four-foot-tall-desert-crawling-cactus-turned-scarecrow that apparently stalks travelers (not Pokémon, not people, just "travelers") until they can no longer move. And they have sand for blood.
  • Banette, while creepy enough in appearance (a maliciously grinning, red-eyed, ghost-creature with a zipper for a mouth), are explained in the in-game Pokédex as being possessed dolls seeking revenge on the children that threw them away. If that's not scary, this troper doesn't know what is.
    • Also, you wouldn't be able to tell if it's the doll you threw away. So children, if you've thrown away a doll, and you find a Banette, don't risk it and hope it's someone else's problem, run away screaming and peeing your pants.
    • Think Banette is creepy as-is, well take a look at a certain fanart with 2 of them.◊
    • This troper threw away a doll when she was about seven, because the doll was missing an eye. She had a nightmare about the doll coming back for revenge, but managed to forget about it until a few years later, when she got interested in the Pokemon games...
    • I'm having flashbacks to that one scene in Toy Story, where all the toys in Sid's yard successfully give him a phobia of toys.
  • Of a more subtle yet no less horrifying (to this troper) bent is Red's ultimate fate revealed in Gold/Silver. He has cut off all ties with humanity, even with his own mother; and when you face him in the Silver Cave, says nothing before or after battle. (Yeah, Silent Protagonist, but creepy) It's a good thing Ash never quite achieves that level of mastery.
    • This troper recalls that she cried after defeating him.
    • And after the battle he just disappears. He just disappears!
    • Cut off all ties with humanity? I thought he was only training given that Mt. Silver contained the strongest Pokemon in both countries. Maybe they also blended that Red was also healing there from his battles with the Elite Four, cause in the Manga he was severely injured after Lorelei froze him in ice.
    • Some fans say that Red you meet at Mt. Silver is an apparition (or ghost, in other words). Here are some of the back-up facts: 1. his speechlessness, though this could be also because he is a 'silent protagonist' 2. While the rest of Mt. Silver requires use of flash to light up the path, the final floor, where Red is, is already bright. Reminder: Red doesn't have a flasher in his team. 3. He simply disappears after you defeat him. Might as well have 'passed on to the other world' after finally meeting a stronger trainer than him...
      • If I recall the area you fought Red in was the summit of Mount Silver and you could fly from it, which would explain the light.
      • Or it's a reference to the practice of 'whiting out'—when you are defeated, the screen flashes white and you appear at the Pokemon center you last healed at. It's a nod to the fact that Red is a player character and follows player character rules.
  • Attempting to capture Kyogre in Pokémon Sapphire is surprisingly scary enough, but the analogous bonus stage in the Ruby/Sapphire pinball game is much worse. The stage is frightening because it's nearly as dark as the ocean floor would be in real life, and the player initially only sees Kyogre's eyes, leading to the feeling of being menaced by an invisible predator. The minimalist eerie music aggravates the uneasiness.
  • This troper just got startled by the discovery of books in the Diamond and Pearl games that discuss people killing and eating Pokémon (Canalave City Library, third floor).
    • Relax, they get resurrected. Provided the humans put them in a lake afterwards, of which there are three in the game. And there are few people that even seem like they would do it. And the Pokémon's souls are in their bones.
      • I've always assumed that was a local myth, and putting the bones in water just meant part of them would return to nature, maybe reincarnating eventually. Think about it. If putting the bones in the lakes lead to them coming back to life, why would there be a cemetery tower for Pokémon?
      • Because some people aren't comfortable with the idea of resurrecting the once-dead? Besides, if people do eat Pokémon, I'm assuming that they wouldn't be so happy with the humans once they returned. In this view, the Pokémon world (or at least the humans) are therefore strong proponents of Kill It With Fire.
      • So until you read those books you assumed everyone in the Pokémon universe was vegitarian? It's actually less Nightmare Fuel than normal meat, considering they revive the animals.
      • Well, the Ainu have special rituals for getting rid of fish bones and things like that, since they believe that animals are messengers for the gods, bringing humans meat (and possibly fur) as gifts. Rituals performed with the bodies are the Ainu's way of thanking the animals. This makes sense when you consider that Sinnoh is essentially Hokkaido, where the Ainu live.
      • You gotta realize... That's probably a superstition. While there is supernatural stuff going on, dead stuff stays dead. Think of wear the ghosts come from.
  • The music played during the fight with Arceus in Diamond and Pearl is a mess of dissonance and thunderous MIDI-timpani. If that isn't scary enough, keep in mind that you are fighting God.
    • I downloaded the song and played it for my sisters to hear. They were very creeped out by the build-up...and then, when the drums start, our front door freakin burst open. Of course, it was just mom coming home, and the door didn't really BURST open, but with the tensity if Arceus's battle theme, we all were very jumpy.
    • This is hilariously retarted by the fact that the drum beat matches chorus lyrics to the song "Break Up".
    • If you've grown up in Spain, you probably won't find the music scary, as it sounds similar to Holy Week processions.
  • Shedinja, which looks like a cicada skin, will steal your soul if you look in its back.
    • Within the world of the game the Shedinja thing is just an urban legend. However, that doesn't make it any less creepy that Shedinja is a ghostly insect skin with a giant hole in its back where the rest of the insect escaped.
    • I think you would shit bricks the first time you found one and tried to use it in combat, considering the whole you see all your Pokémon from the back thing...
    • Even without the soul-stealing mythos, Shedinja has rather worrying attributes. If you compare it to the Ninjask that crawled out of it, they'll have identical natures and the "Met at..." data will be the same between them for both time and level. Does it mean that it's truly one Pokémon ripped in two, or that the husk was a sentient skin just waiting to be shed? Additionally, because its "evolution" isn't announced, it's possible to have a Shedinja in your party and not realize it's there. This troper fought four battles before going to use an item and realizing it had been haunting her the entire time.
  • Drifloon, a cutesy balloon Pokémon, apparently tries to drag people to Hell.
    • Dusknoir is especially scary and not just its looks (a huge cycloptic ghost with no legs, weird markings, and a rather haunting body); it sends innocent people to Hell, or the spirit world. The markings on its chest are actually a second mouth.
    • The older fans can safely relate to the Sabrina mini-arc, though it's hard to tell which was worse.
      • Also, if the myth about Dusknoir is true, then because of its similarities to the Grim Reaper, it is probably supposed to only appear before those who are about to die.
      • Similarly, I actually said to myself," He's just the Grim Reaper, he only sends you toward the eternal judgment and won't come out of the game. He's just the Grim Reaper." When calling something the Grim Reaper is calming (he's already lost his scariness but that's just from cartoons), you know it's scary.
    • Dusknoir's Platinum version Pokedex entry says that it can hold lost souls in the "mouth" on its stomach. Diminished a little bit by the fact that the same entry says that it does this "to guide them home".
  • There's a Team Galactic guy in Diamond and Pearl who mutters to himself about "setting off" some "package" that'll "make an impact". Apparently the new evil team isn't just a Mafia analogue; it's a terrorist syndicate.
    • And at Celestic Town, another Galactic Grunt mentions a "package"- and he's open with it and going to destroy Celestic Town with it.
    • The package turns out to be a terrorist bomb designed to drain one of Sinnoh's sacred lakes.
      • Where does the water go, anyway?
      • In the manga, the bomb caused all the water to evaporate. Kinda works.
      • What freaked this troper out was all those poor Magikarp, just flopping around in the mud, and being unable to help any of them...
  • The Hall of Origin itself gave this troper the chills. Everything about it creeped me out, especially the eerie music, which in my opinion tops even Arceus's battle theme in terms of being scary.
  • Gengar who appears at every full moon and scares people by pretending to be their shadow.
    • Haunter, however, especially in Gold/Silver, is much more sinister looking. One Haunter in the manga adaptation of the show was, to this troper's horror, the size of a skyscraper.
      • This same Haunter also had the ability to use its Dream Eater attack to steal peoples' souls.
      • Even better, this issue of the manga was occasionally packaged with versions of Pokemon: The First Movie. And it's a major Mind Screw, especially if you're a kid at the time, though it gets a bit less freaky once you realize the manga and show have different continuities.
      • Actully in several of haunters pokedex entries (all of them) haunter pretty much DOES eat souls but the pokedex reffers to it a stealing their 'life force' and in the older games directly states it causes death.
  • Speaking of The Movie, the movie featuring Lucario confirms a terrifying fact - Pokemon go to war with their human trainers/soldiers, who use them instead of guns. Consider that we've been talking about ghosts, psychic abominations, and things with awesome, inexplicable power. Now picture them at war, a far cry from normal Trainer battles, where Pokemon can't kill their opponent or attack trainers. The best death you can hope for is a Fighting-type snapping your neck like a dry twig.
  • Darkrai. The Pokémon that locks a small child in a perpetual nightmare until you find a MacGuffin. That's right, its in-game ability is acting as literal Nightmare Fuel. It was a downright wall banger for this troper when he learned that he's a good guy in the 10th movie.
    • You forgot to mention what you have to do in order to capture Darkrai. You have to go into the previously locked Harbor Inn, where a creepy man from Hell hotel manager says that he has been waiting for you. You are then forced into a bed and fall asleep, where you are transported to Newmoon Island, where you'll have to defeat or capture Darkrai to escape. When you wake up, the man is no where to be seen. And when you walk out of the inn, a sailor will walk up to you, tell you that you were asleep for a long time, and mention that no one's lived in that inn for 50 years.
      • Under Darkrai's 'trivia' section on Bulbapedia, it talks about a boy that's presumably being watched by Darkrai, and that Darkrai knows the player helped the boy with Cresselia's Lunar Wing. It continued to mention how the hotel manager at Harbor Inn could be an illusion created and put there by Darkrai himself.
    • Being a trainer that fights Darkrai with no awakenings or Pokéflutes has to be really scary as well. Imagine standing there, screaming at your Pokémon to wake up and attack while they thrash around in pain. *shudder*
      • Which raises an rather interesting, if not creepy, question: If no one's lived there for 50 years, then how did the sailor know how long you were asleep?
      • Probably because he saw that you were the first person to go in in 50 years and didn't come out for a while. Still creepy though.
      • The item that gets you there mentions the 50 years thing...
      • The actual quote is "We've had a reservation for you. We've held it a long time...
    • And despite all of the above malice, Darkrai's Platinum Pokédex entry states that the whole nightmare-giving thing is simply a defense mechanism, and that he harbors no ill will. I'm sorry, what?.
      • That just makes it creepier. Think about what that'd be like from Darkrai's perspective, if it's the same as his Bad Dreams ability. He doesn't want to do this, but he can't control the power. He can't power it down, decide when it happens, cut it off, or redirect it. If he's anywhere near someone who's asleep, it happens, and there's nothing he can do about it. It's almost more scary than the thought of him as evil, isn't it?
      • So Darkrai is basically the Pokémon version of Zimmy?
      • Darkrai's ability doesn't affect your own pokemon, only 'foes'.
      • The Pokeball did it.
  • This troper doesn't ever want to surf up and down the eastern shores of Cinnabar Island or Seafoam Island in any version of Pokémon, due to the glitch "MissingNo.," from Pokémon Red and Blue, who on top of looking like a garbled tower of pixels has the potential to corrupt one's save file and graphics. Also terrifying to this troper is the Glitch City, a garbled mess of pixels which, if traveled into too far, will cause the screen to freak out and the game to freeze. These two glitches kept this troper terrified throughout Pokémon Red.
    • This troper also finds those two terrifying, albeit more on an existential/Cosmic Horror level than on an "oh sh** I just lost my save file" level. Imagine being a 10-year old Pokémon trainer and actually encountering a "glitch" like MissingNo. in real life. Now imagine finding yourself in Glitch City, and realizing as you stare at it more and more that the whole place simply should not be... and then realizing that you can't get out again.
    • In Pokemon Leaf Green, A trainer in Fuchsia city Gym said: "Light and Darkness, which one will you choose?", at that moment, my game glitched up. It was a traumatizing experience and I haven't played it since.
      • No sleep for me tonight. Although, the idea of Missingno and 'M as Cosmic Horrors does sound like excellent Fanfic Fuel...
      • Or excellent Wild Mass Guessing Fuel.
      • Never thought it that way before, but Missingno. can easily be considered a Pokémon analogy of Yog-Sototh. That glitched mess you see is but a mere fraction of a being so vast and incomprehensible it spans through the space-time continuum, simultaneously existing in every possible place and time at once. It's mere presence will cause the reality to twist and bend and mortals to lose their sanity.
      • This troper actually wrote a fanfiction where Missingno. and 'M were explained. They came from another dimension, summoned by mistake by an archeologist who read aloud a magic formula from a grimoire he had discovered. Their chief move is Disintegrate, an attack where they physically strike their target, which then simply ceases to exist. Later in the same fanfiction, Ash reads aloud the same formula, and more evil creatures pop into existence. One of them possesses Misty, who proceeds to EAT BROCK ALIVE. Ash manages to survive by DISMEMBERING Misty with a chainsaw. Then it gets worse.
      • Wait, Ash with a chainsaw?
      • Link, please. Oh, on an unrelated note, it's probably a good thing Missingno. has never apeared in the anime...
      • My interpretation of Missingno? Pokemon convert into energy or data to be stored in pokeballs or the PC system...but is that process really reliable? Aren't mistakes ever made? Isn't that data ever...scrambled? Virused? Glitched? I like to think of Missingno as a normal Pokemon that didn't come back out of a PC quite right.
      • Oh. My. God.
      • Can you imagine what it would be like if that were used as narrative material for a quest, even if the quest-giver didn't ... "elaborate" on the horrific occurrences that had led him/her to seek help from the player?
      • My take is that it's a Porygon gone wrong. Porygons are computer-generated, right? And computers can glitch...
    • This troper rendered herself incapable of sleep by considering what Missingno. would be from an in-game perspective.... A horrifying, formless, soul-less nothing leftover from when even the creators didn't know what they were doing. Something so completely wrong its very existence flies so hard in the face of reality that just encountering it would be the most horrifying experience possible. Heck, this troper has a hard time just thinking of words horrifying enough to convey how much this idea creeps her out. Talk about Nightmare Fuel.
    • Even more freaky was the fact that one could sometimes encounter not just Missingno. and Pokémon over level 100, but glitched trainers as well. This troper remembers fighting a Channeler outside Cinnabar island whose Pokémon were a mess of glitched names and graphics. The Pokémon also glitched the background music into a never-ending stream of horribly distorted, random sound effects. The glitched trainers neither said anything nor rewarded money when defeated.
      • Given what Missingno. is generally thought to be whose to say those glitched trainers aren't people that crossed paths with Missingno. and weren't lucky enough to defeat it or get away?
      • If the glitch Pokemon attacks actually connect, they have a chance of freezing the game and forcing a reset. In an in-game sense, Missingno.'s glitch spawn would be actually freezing reality itself.
    • This troper has literal nightmares about the glitch Pokémon, especially 'M/Missingno. and Glitch Nidorino, the game-freezing Pokémon used by the above trainers. Just imagine waking up in the middle of the night and seeing Missingno. Staring at you. Oh, and Missingno. sometimes takes the form of a skeleton or one of the ghosts from Lavender Town.
      • Missingno. takes on the form of the Pewter Museum fossils, you mean. It's always scared this troper on a Cosmic Horror level. Also, the twisted and tinny mess that the Hall of Fame network in your Pokémon Center computer becomes after encountering the Eldritch Abomination Pokémon puts me in mind of reality having been twisted badly by the encounter.
      • And then it tries to choose A Form You Are Comfortable With with its "Old man" sprite and evolving into a Rhydon/Kangaskhan.
    • This troper is so afraid of Glitch City that he won't go into it, period, for one reason: even though he always carries a Pokémon with Fly with him, saving in Glitch City without one means that you have to restart your save file. Just the thought of that experience for the trainer being stuck and (hence effectively dying) in Glitch City scares him so badly that he's afraid he'll accidentally save and somehow have his Pokémon forget Fly. (Yes, this troper is a pussy. What makes you ask?)
    • This Troper spent a great deal of time investigating the Missingno. phenomenon, and it's not Missingno. and 'M you should be scared of. It's Missingno.'s... darker cousins summonable only by the Mew Glitch, or a Game Shark.
    • Missingno. just wants to *play* with the *campers*, but the *campers* break too soon... Yes this troper is terrified of Yellow version's Missingno.
      • To the above troper: HOLY CRAP SOMEONE ELSEPLAYS Star Control II, Also, there is anouther glitch pokemon, that looks like another version of Haunter, so the glitch pokemon are really HAUNTER
    • You can learn more than you ever wanted to know about Missingno., 'M, and a ghastly array of other glitches here. Somehow, knowing exactly what causes some of the glitches does nothing to alleviate the horror.
    • Also, having Missingno. or any of his demented friends (like Pokémaniac or 4 4) in your party screws around with the battle music, causing it to slow down or drop tracks. The text also becomes screwed up because these Pokémon have moves whose names seem to go on forever. Missingno., I choose you! NO BLUE. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING [1]
    • You want a scary glitch, try this little bastard. Thank god it's near impossible to get without a Gameshark...
      • Charizard 'M seems - look, this was there in the link: "Charizard 'M can also change all of a player's party Pokémon into Charizard 'M, but the moves and type do not change, and putting these "transformed" Pokémon into a box makes the other Pokémon Charizard 'M also." It's The Virus.
      • Essentially it's the Pokémon equivalent of the Aparoids from Star Fox: Assault.
      • Should we just call it Agent Charizard then?
      • All of my Pokemon becoming Charizard, in any form, is awesome in my opinion.
      • Imagine going for two seasons without a single Pokemon that will listen to you.
      • Consider the fact that Charizard 'M causes its infectees to be transformed into copies of itself, no evolutionary cutscene, just a straight transformation. Stop and think about what this implies. And depending on what kind of trainer you are, you either get to observe this lovely process firsthand, or have your Pokemon endure it while completely isolated from the outside world in a Pokeball or a PC Box. And may Arceus help your (not so) little mutant freaks if they still remember what they were prior to their infections...
    • I remember being scared out of my wits when I encountered the ghosts in Lavender Tower. The literal ghosts, of course. So imagine my surprise when I find out about this awesome trick that gives you infinite Master Balls and Rare Candies, trying it out on my Blue version and finding that same ghost, with no warning beforehand. On hindsight, I probably should have read more about the glitch, but still.
    • You know what's scarier about Missingno.? The way you encounter it. You talk to a kind old man who just wants to show you how to catch a Weedle, you go to a tropical island and surf up the coasts a bit... AHKSLJDFO WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?.
      • And then it gets even worse if you look at why it appears. Basically, when you talk to the Old Man, the places where your name would be are replaced with OLD MAN. Obviously, this could be a bit of a problem if there was no where to store your name. So the game stores it as values on the "Pokemon you can encounter here at what frequency and levels" list in the coding, so to speak. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem as the list will get reset when you enter a place you can encounter Pokémon. However, on just this one stretch of land beside Cinnabar Island, there was a mistake and there was no list reset right there. So, basically, Missingno. appears based on what you named your character. A thing of note, if you don't want to encounter Missingno- name your character OLD MAN in all caps.
      • So the only way to make him go away, is to have everyone in the world refer to a ten-year-old as Benjamin Button. That's much better.
    • How about some of the glitch Pokemon being experiments gone wrong, who reflect and if you look at them you're memory will vanish, and you're Pokemon will be psychologically damaged?
    • This troper's take on Missingno. is that it's not a Pokemon at all. Rather, it's a malevolent extraplanar monstrocity who lures gullible trainers with tales of unlimited items and unnaturally strong Pokemon, until they finally Go Mad From The Revelation on both sides of the fourth wall. It's something that cannot and should not exist - as indicated by the fact that it is #000 in the Pokedex, has typing that doesn't exist, and has to shift to A Form You Are Comfortable With(a Kangaskhan or Rhydon) so that the trainer can even stand prolonged exposure to Missingno.
  • This troper was terrified of Parasect, because it was a cute little Paras becoming consumed and controlled by a fungus. A certain board's display of a comic that shows this take was horrible.
    • It really doesn't help that there are parasites in real life that do this.
    • This doesn't seem to be the case in the anime or even the manga. No trainer with any sort of compassion would let their Paras evolve into a Parasect if they knew that was going to happen. In all likelihood it's a mistaken observation that got left in the Pokédex. Unless somehow the Pokéball overrides the will of the mushroom and returns the insect to control, which would pretty much make it your best friend forever.
  • The dead static that serves as 'battle music' for the Yellow Missingno. is pure Nightmare Fuel right there.
    • This troper likes to think that Missingno. is actually a horrific experimentation discarded by the scientists in Cinnabar Mansion. Which is not going to make her sleep any easier.
  • The music from the Silph Co. building in the original Pokémon games used to make this troper want to run and hide under the bed.
    • This troper noticed that the Silph Co. music is exactly the same as the castle music in Super Mario Bros, just at a different speed and perhaps transposed to a different key.
  • This troper got freaked out from wandering around the Ruins of Alph in Gold and Silver. As if the faceless Unown popping up all over wasn't bad enough, there's also the extremely creepy radio signal that picks up when you're inside...
  • Mewtwo. This troper is a Mewtwo fan, and yet even she can't deny the fact that he's essentially a genetically mutated feline created for the sole purpose of fighting cute monsters. To be fair, all Mewtwo wants is to be left alone in peace. Though, making him angry is still never a good idea.
    • This troper cried in fear and sorrow when she was eight when she saw mewtwo getting painfully tourtured in Mewtwo Returns. It was Horrible seeing him cry out in pain, as Giovonni just CONTINUED ZAPPING HIM.
  • Shiny Wigglytuff. Those eyes.
  • Don't forget escalation of the villainy of the various teams. Team Rocket were generically nefarious, but mostly dim. Team Aqua wanted to expand the oceans (which would have drowned coastal cities), and Team Magma wanted to expand the landmass, mostly by causing a volcanic eruption. These two were bad enough. Team Galactic, on the other hand, wanted to SUMMON A MYTHICAL BEING TO DESTROY THE UNIVERSE. They wanted to end existence and create their own universe as rulers.
    • This troper always saw the Galactics as a thinly-disguised Cthulhu cult. It's still freaking scary.
      • Cyrus's plan is even worse in Platinum. The "perfect world" he wants to create is a "world without spirit". He wants to unmake the world, and purge it of all traces of individuality, emotion, knowledge, and thought. And even after defeating him and pacifying Giratina, he tells you that he has not abandoned his plans, and will continue. He leaves you with this ominous line: "One day, you will awake in my world. A world without spirit."
      • This Troper thought that idea was pretty creepy, but was too disappointed that it seemingly replaces Cyrus' A God Am I motives in order to be really scared of it.
      • Oh it didn't replace them, not by a long shot. It just expanded the idea of what a world will be like in his image, i.e. without emotions or spirit or any trait that made anything a functioning living being. He'll essentially lord over a universe of drones.
      • It gets better. We're talking about someone who, despite his excellent academic record, *never* managed to get his parents' unconditional approval, and disdained the company of humans and pokemon alike in favor of machines. Now remember what he tells you when you first see him in Mt. Coronet, that before the cosmos was "defiled" by spirit, only time flowed, and only space expanded. He's also disgusted at his own emotions of anger, perturbance, etc. Assemble all of this together, and what do his "perfect universe", and what he wants to make his soul into, look like? A field of living stasis. It's not just the world he wants to make into drones—he wants to purge his own soul too, and turn himself into a drone. He's the Pokemon world's equivalent of the NECRONS.
      • This troper on the other hand was terrifed of that statement for weeks. And she's 19 years old.
  • This troper has an interesting story. Once upon a time, he downloaded a ROM version of Pokémon Blue to glitch the hell out of, because like shit was he going to mess his real copy up. Now, it was pre-loaded to be a demonstration of the famous Mew Trick. Just because he couldn't be bothered to hunt down a Gameshark code for flying anywhere, he just taught a Pokémon surf, hacked the badges in, and personally walked back to Palette Town. Not so bad, until he crossed the threshold to officially be in Palette Town... and then the screen freaked the hell out. Everything screwed up, glitched for a few seconds, and then everything just turned into a pattern of white and black stripes. He screamed and closed the emulator. He doesn't know why it scared him, but it single-handedly made him downright afraid of going to Palette Town from the north in the Gen I games.
  • Perhaps the most frightening and disturbing example (how did you guys forget this?) is the Torn World, also known as the Distortion World, and the Reverse World in the 11th film. The idea of a world where gravity shifts under your feet may or may not be frightening to some people, but it starts to get disturbing when platforms hovering above an endless void disappear right as you try to step on them... and when sunflowers three times your height grow backwards into the ground when you approach them... and when people behave oddly and then suddenly disappear into thin air. That, the dark color scheme, the Eldritch Abomination that flies overhead every so often, and the creepy music add up to an overpowering feeling that this is a place man was not meant to see.
    • Speaking of Platinum, the new opening video and title screen got pretty... creepy. It ends with Giratina's wide red eyes and glowing red grin shining up from a swirling abyss. Then you press Start, and Giratina just screams in your face.
    • Don't forget his first appearance in Platinum. You know, when he rises out of the ground all shadowy and then lunges at the screen!
    • Dear god, Giratina in Platinum. What would he have done to Cyrus if we hadn't captured or defeated him? And Cyrus's self-chosen fate, to want to remain there. Platinum's Excuse Plot was very scary, full stop.
  • Is it just me, or are the Perish Song animations for the handheld games unnerving? I mean, it looks and sounds like pleasant music, then suddenly turns downright evil. The fact that it counts down towards your Pokémon's death-I mean, fainting, doesn't help, either.
    • You forgot about how, when the music turns evil, the ring of musical notes that were descending fairly innocently, suddenly turn upside-down and drop to the bottom as though they all died. The fact that they do a little shudder while on the ground doesn't help at all.
    • The Pokemon Stadium 2 version of Perish Song is just horrible banshee wailing.
    • What about Gold and Silver's Nightmare animation? That smiling winged demon scared this Troper when she was six, and NEVER taught it to her trusty Gengar, good attack or not.
    • Don't ever play Pokemon Stadium 2 then, cuz that guy shows up for not only Nightmare, but for Spite as well.
    • And Lovely Kiss.
  • I dunno about anyone else, but have you read the description for the Payapa Berry? "This Berry is said to sense human emotions for the way it swells roundly when a person approaches." Sentient fruit! A vegetarian's worst nightmare!
    • It's making itself look more appealing, though, so at least it wants to be eaten? Eeeh...
      • Well, yes. That's what fruits are for. It helps the plants spread seeds.
      • "Swells rou-" Eew!
  • Glitch Pokémon as seen on Bulbapedia scare the hell out of this troper.
  • My God, Hypno, who is either the Pedophile or Child('s Dream-)Eating Pokémon. I'm not sure what would be worse. It leads children away by hypnotizing them and they're never seen again. Either they're raped, killed, consumed, or all three. There is a shirt that played upon this, featuring a photorealistic Hypno leading away silhouettes of actual children◊. Totally fucking frightening.
    • Canon practically confirms this:
      • In FireRed and LeafGreen, The child Lostelle loses her way in the Berry Forest on the third Sevii Island. You'll find her in the deepest depths of the forest, crying about a scary Pokémon chasing her - no prizes for guessing the species of her pursuer since it will attack you too, as the player character is also a child.
      • Even before evolving, Drowzee is just as bad - one of them canonically abducted a baby Pokémon in the second Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. You get to teach him a lesson.
      • And then later in the game the same Drowzee sends you into the same Azurill's dream world. That the 'dungeon' is not only void of food items but populated by such disturbingly cute yet powerful Pokémon like Wigglytuff and Miltank is downright disturbing.
    • It's even inadvertently dangerous, as the anime shows us that if you innocently ask your Hypno to help cure your insomnia, the psychic waves will wash all over your town causing all your children to think they're Pokémon... and not in a cute temporary way, in a "run away and TRY TO LIVE UNDERWATER" way.
    • The worst thing? Pokédexes imply that you may sometimes wake up to find one of them standing over your bed, catching and eating you dreams. Brrrr.
    • That damn Pokemon's cry was enough to give this troper nightmares.
    Wah-woh-woh wah-woh-woh!
  • This troper played it up with her Hypno and taught him Attract along with Hypnosis and Dream Eater. Lets just say it was...effective.
    • It gets worse. A horrifying poem was written about it. Now, read the peom to the tune of "Hush Little Baby"... Good night.
    • Think you guys are being unfair to Hypno (yes, he is -still- one of my favorite Pokés). If you cite the FR/LG pokedex you'll notice it says "there was -once- an incident" But I'm pointing my finger at another Psychic for being real creepy: Kadabra and Alakazam.
      • These two are said to have incredible intelligence and psychic abilities (moreso with Alakazam), and what's stopping them from, ya know, doing whatever the hell they want? It would be easy to control the mind of something else, getting it to do whatever it wants. Or their psychokinesis/telekinesis? Remember that episode on the first season with Sabrina? Remember how it (Kadabra) beats the crap out of Pikachu by flinging him into the ceiling and floor until Ash has to call the match off? And that emotionless face it had when doing so, not moving? Also it seems almost all of Kababra's Pokédex entries refer to something bizarre to ominous happening? Shadows on T Vs and clocks running backwards?
      • And also the fact that they were so overpowered and unbalanced that they were often used to annihilate everything that met their eyes.
      • There's a Pokedex entry about Kadabra that seems a bit spooky to this troper. It happened one morning - a boy with extrasensory powers awoke in bed transformed into Kadabra. The question of exactly how intelligent Pokemon are hasn't ever really been addressed, but I'd imagine that his human life would be over even if he kept all his faculties. ...You know, this would make interesting fanfiction.
      • Someone wrote it.
      • Alakazam remember everything.
      • This is because they have an intelligence quotient of 5000. For comparison, 160 is often considered to be genius-level in our own world, and 100, if this troper is not mistaken, is average for a human, neither extraordinary nor ... "deficient," for lack of a better term.
      • Whenever a Kadabra is near, a shadow is said to appear on TV screens and seeing said shadow is said to bring bad luck. Good luck watching TV safely now! As if Rotom wasn't enough to deal with...
  • Jynx's "cry" when encountering her in the games is more than a bit unnerving. However, she's an awesome fighter.
    • While were still on the subject on humanoid pokemon, how about Hitmonlee: Karate King of Uncanny Valley? That thing has mutated, short arms, virtually no mouth, not even a nose, just eyes that stare into your soul.
    • Hitmonlee is based on a creature called a Blemmy, but those guys are creepy too.
  • The Voltorbs and Electrodes disguised as item balls in the first-gen games:
    This troper: "Okay, an item ball, let's see what's in this—"
    "Ball": "Bzzt!"
    This troper: "OH SHIT BALLS!"
    • It should also be noted that Voltorbs and Electrodes were only discovered after the creation of pokeballs. They just sort of....Appeared. Nobody knows from where.
    • Actually, their Pokedex entry for Ruby and Sapphire says they're Pokeballs that came to life. Think about that for a minute.
    • Fake Item Balls are their own kind of Paranoia Fuel if you don't see them coming. Cipher (listed below) has taken notice and trained their peons on how to optimally extract the stuff.
      Troper: The hallway looks clear. Just a little further to the healing machine...
      Cipher Peon: *drops from the ceiling*
      Troper: WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU COME FROM?!
  • Gorebyss. Sure, it looks beautiful and all, but get this; it consumes its prey by sucking out the victim's body fluids. Don't get it? IT LEAVES YOU A DRIED HUSK. Like a prune. On the subject of feeding habits, did you know that hungry Feraligatr are said to eat humans?
    • To quote the Gorebyss' Pokedex entry from Emerald, "Its light pink body color turns vivid when it finishes feeding."
    • Beautiful? Kinda clownish, really. Which plays on an entirely different phobia for some people...
  • Golbat. From the Pokédex, we learn the delightful fact that Golbat feasts upon the blood of both people and Pokémon and does not stop until it is full. Golbat is 1.6m tall and weighs 55 kilograms (That's 5 feet, 3 inches tall and 121 pounds for us Americans). Think about it for a moment and try not to at least wince. Takes Golbat out of the realm of goddamn bat and straight into pure, unadulterated horror.
  • The drought section in Pokémon Ruby, when Maxie disturbs Groudon and the sun's rays are magnified to a dangerous level. All the music that plays in outdoor areas (including the happy, upbeat surfing and bike riding sounds) is replaced with a morbid and minimalistic track. Coupled with the pulsating bright lighting, it looks really wrong and is absolutely terrifying.
    • Makes me happy I have Sapphire version then, because the music while Kyogre is creating a downpour of Biblical levels is more "you're on the clock, Trainer, time to go kick some tail" than "you're all going to die!".
    • I always found the downpour in Sapphire much more frightening — the music made me very panicky, so I thought I'd go fly to the nearest to calm down. Oh, no. IT WAS STILL RAINING IN THAT CITY. When you go to Sootopolis, everyone is inside their houses cowering, and when you think about how Sootopolis is pretty much a giant secluded basin, that thing is going to flood very quickly. I still find that moment where the Aqua leader is all 'what have I done!?' and the music starts one of the scariest thing in any video game...
      • Anyone else compare the world flooding in Sapphire and the world drying in Ruby to those two movies, "Water World" and "The Postman." They are both 4 hour long, Kevin Costner movies that came out within a few years of each other. Weeeeiiirrrd...
    • With Emerald, you get the best of both worlds because both teams wake up their mascots simultaneously : it goes back and forth between pulsing lightning and flooding. Personally, This Troper would have preferred either/or; it gets hard to look at the screen...
  • Frosslass may look like a somewhat pretty ice ghost, but it likes to...FREEZE ITS VICTIMS AND DISPLAY THEM! Imagine, spending the rest of your life as an ice statue. Glalie, its male counterpart, isn't much better. As if its design isn't creepy enough, Glalie like to freeze their prey and leisurely EAT THEM. Yes, leisurely.
    • This ACTUALLY HAPPENS in the second Mystery Dungeon game. When you find the missing explorer at the end of the dungeon, he's been frozen solid and on display as a warning by a Frosslass. Who you have to fight to rescue him. That they actually use these Pokédex entries as the basis for missions just make them -more- frightening.
    • Another case where the Pokédex entries sound much creepier is with Azelf, who is discussed more in detail in Taken For Granite. Upon seeing that, a few weaker-willed individuals lost some bowel control. They will lose more when they realize that this is exactly what happened at the end of the FireRed/LeafGreen arc of the manga, when Sird petrified Silver and the Kanto Dex Holders.
  • An episode with Mismagius had one totally messing with everyone's heads with tricks and illusions so real the heroes actually thought they were achieving their greatest dreams, only to have them turned into horrible nightmarish twists.
    • A similar episode happens with a Ninetales, giving it several of the abilities associated with the Japanese kitsune it is based upon. Including illusions so real they could be dangerous. But it wasn't trying to actually harm the kids like the Mismagius, just wanted to seduce Brock into staying with it forever.
      • In the first Mystery Dungeon game it was an extremely powerful Ninetales that turned Gengar into a pokemon. Which was a little creepy even before they added moves like Grudge, Captivate and Extrasensory to Vulpix's move pool to make it more kitsune like.
  • Remember this episode? No? When I first saw it, I thought Pikachu actually went evil. The glowing red eyes and the creepy faces didn't help, either. I literally hid underneath the table and was this close to crying before the Drowzee stopped its shenanigans. I still hold a very low opinion of Butch and Cassidy to this very day.
    • Glad to know This Troper isn't the only one who doesn't like that episode. He usually skips it when watching DVDs. This troper thinks it was apparently 4Kids' favorite episode of season 2, since so many clips from it were used in the opening. Or maybe its because there were so many different Pokemon in that episode alone? Who knows.
    • Evil with red eyes, eh? How about this episode then? At last, The Woobie is getting much needed revenge on his old, abusive trainer with some new ability that makes his flame a ton more powerful and... oh wait. Cue Ash having to bestow a Cooldown Hug on the poor creature while being bitten and possibly burned in the process. And to top it off, meanwhile, Brock is commenting on how this may be the true power of the character all along. The more you care about the Chimchar, the more creepy it is to watch.
    • "Battling The Enemy Within" in the Battle Frontier saga. Ash gets possessed by an ancient king, who is VERY evil, has Giovannis voice, and makes Ash's eyes go all thicks and mascara-y. The King then proceeds to have a battle against Pyramid King Brandon. He orders Sceptile to do things that Ash never would, and Sceptile obeys. Ash is floating in a featureless void and can only see blackness and what's happening outside. He has no idea what the King is making him do. And when Brandon calls Ash out to try and get him back, the void crackles with evil electricity. Creeped this troper out a lot.
      • How about the episode, "Address Unown!," in which a Larvitar screams in vain (and in English, since parts of the episode take place in an alternate dimension connected to the Unown for its tortured mother? This troper will NEVER understand how 4Kids let that episode through.
  • As a kid, this troper was already freaked out by Lavender Town in her copy of Pokemon Yellow. But then, inexplicably, after the troper's character talked to an NPC there, said NPC actually walked backwards! This troper has no idea how that happened or why it has never happened again, but that one incident still creeps this troper out to this day.
  • And how could we have forgotten Cipher already? The organization as a whole can be factored in as Complete Monsters (individual members like Miror B. can be excused).
    • It may sound hilarious that their scheme is to seal the hearts of Pokemon, but the real horror is what it implies - they inflict a variety of horrors, both natural and artificially-induced, to strip a Pokémon of all sense of compassion, emotion, and empathy, leaving nothing but a soulless, heartless killing machine behind. If any of the Pokemon species on this page caused you to freak out, imagine how much worse it would be if there was nothing stopping it from doing that to you.
    • You have to fix this by showing them kindness and trusting them. As the Pokémon gets better, it enters Hyper Mode, its Berserk Mode, more frequently, mirroring a pattern seen in some real-world mental problems stemming from abuse or trauma. Plus, myths of Pokemon like that exist from before science could even do such a thing. Celebi can undo the shadow completely via time travel. The only logical assumption is that the psychological/neurological aspect of a Shadow Pokémon comes from sustained, deliberate, explicitly objectifying abuse, and most Pokémon have the personalities of children.
      • I know that it's terrible for all the shadow pokemon, but somehow a shadow togepi is just incredibly awful. In the games its a carefree egg that brings happiness, and the animie it has the mentality and personality of two-year old. I just started XD, I reeally want to get the togepi now. :(
      • And I'm also very glad there isn't a shadow alakzam, in more of a story context than actual gameplay, you'd be screwed. (Yes, i'm the one who thinks spoon mage is a freakish creep.)
      • To add on to this, Hyper Mode causes an increase in critical probability with Shadow Rush, which back in Colosseum inflicted recoil damage on its user. In XD, it's replaced with Reverse Mode, which instead has the Pokemon sustain damage at the end of each round it's afflicted. Either way, the afflicted Pokemon are not likely to use any non-Shadow move while affected, and refuse to accept any items from the trainer, which can be a bit of a bitch when fighting other Shadow Pokemon. Oh, and to fix either state, you have to either call out its name, use a pack of cologne, or stuff it in Daycare for a while. That's right - not even the freakin' Pokemon Centers can snap them out of it, and given ordinary and improperly equipped people aren't even aware of what their Pokemon are doing freaking out and hurting themselves, they'll probably only notice something's horribly wrong when their Pokemon finally pass out from overexertion! Imagine your pet Pikachu going into seizures at random and passing out, and not only do you have no idea what the hell's going on, neither do the trained medics. That will scare the shit out of you.
    • And then there are many of the actual owners of Shadow Pokémon, who fall into four categories - people who want to set them right (Wes, Rui, and Michael), people who don't know the bum deal they got, people who want them for their power, and the members of Cipher. Your rank in the organization is typically indicated by how many Shadow Pokemon you possess - lowly grunts typically have one or two, with higher-ups having up to four. Greevil (bastard that he is) has a grand total of seven - four of which are legendaries, and one of which is so thoroughly corrupted that its physical appearance changed to reflect this! The translation to all that is that advancement through the ranks requires its members to be Complete Monsters to their own Pokemon (that may be why Miror B. is roaming freelance in XD; he quit!). Add in that Cipher is one of those Names To Run Away From Really Fast, and it's easy to see how the whole group beats out Cyrus in terms of sheer evil.
    • And there's one last detail. There are, in all of Orre, precisely two police officers the player can meet with! Even with the expected RPG visible-to-actual population issues, that's not enough police to deal with Team Snagem, let alone freakin' Cipher. And with all the other hooligan types in the region, particularly in the police department's turf in Pyrite City, the criminal underworld can be suspected to be much larger. How bad is it? In other regions, the police are incompetent; in Orre, the inmates are running the asylum! Combine that with the manga, and Orre must be worse than hell...
    • This Troper has always considered Orre itself to be a rather darker setting than the other Pokemon games. Most of it is a desert wasteland, save for that one little grove of trees that Celebi's power presumably keeps green. What made it a desert? A natural disaster of some sort? A chemical spill or something along those lines? A war? In XD Duking even says that the land is "finally beginning to recover" after wild Pokemon begin to appear. Something definitely happened in Orre's past, and it wasn't pretty.
  • Speaking of Cyrus, he's pretty nasty himself. Imagine a man who has become so emotionally detached from society the world that he wants to end it all and recreate it in his own twisted image. Now imagine him forming a criminal team to accomplish this, but never revealing his true intentions and indeed having no intention to let them live through his schemes. And then there's what he put Uxie, Azelf and Mespirit through.
    • Oh yeah, and his battle theme is immensly creepy and suspensful, basically spelling out that he's not screwing around like the previous Team Leaders where...
    • That's not even going into the creepy experiments that he seemed to have Team Galactic doing. Examine the green tubes in the hallway leading up to the three lake spirits and tell me your mind doesn't go horrible places regarding what, exactly, is floating in them...
    • And you know what's possibly the worst part? According to an old couple in Sunyshore City, he was always like this, even at a young age.
  • The fate of the Cinnabar Islands and Blaine in Gold/Silver. Basically, Cinnabar blew up, almost everyone who lived there is dead, and Blaine's become a recluse in the Seafoam Islands. Then the Fridge Logic kicks in... he's still a member of the League, because you still need to get the Volcano Badge from them. And the leader of Viridian's Gym knows, at the least — though really, how could people not know what happened to Cinnabar? Which raises the question of why isn't anybody helping him?! Yeah, he mentions planning to rebuild, but there's no sign of any contruction or anything — he's just an old man huddled in a barren cave waiting for trainers to track him down and beat him up for his badge.
    • In HeartGold and SoulSilver, he has actually renovated his cave in Seafoam into a fully fledged gym, lights, puzzle, and all.
      • Actually, if you talk to the guard behind the counter in the building between Fuchsia City and Route 19, he'll mention that nobody got injured in the eruption. It still seems a bit disheartening that they abandoned the island, though.
  • Do you mind losing your memory forever? Or being rendered an emotional zombie? Or stuck as a stone statue for all eternity? Go ahead and harm Uxie, Mesprit or Azelf; the three powers mentioned above are their specialty, one for each respectively. And here's the catch; THEY CANNOT BE REVERSED.
  • Grimer and Muk leak "horribly germ-infested fluid." What happens to the Pokemon they fight?
    • Has anyone thought of the possibility that Muk and Grimer origins are intended to subtly reference the Minamata pollution disaster?
  • Gulpin and Swalot, for all that they look innocent, play on the Primal Fear of getting eaten.
    • Especially when you realize that Gulpin's stomach acid can dissolve anything, from scrap iron to human bone and Swalot's mouth is so wide, a car tire can fit in it.
  • The Dark-type Absol isn't nightmarish in itself. It senses disasters and tries to warn people. The nightmarish part is that they don't listen, and in fact later ''blame'' it for the disasters. Yet it keeps trying. It must either be The Cape or incredibly sad and fatalistic. Might be Depressing Fuel.
  • It's a small thing, but in one game when you go to Lavender Town there's an NPC who asks you if you believe in ghosts. Say yes, and he muses that hmm, so some people do believe. If you say no, he says something along the lines of "Oh? What's that white hand on your shoulder, then?" No further explanation, not a "Made you look" or anything. Used to freak this troper right out.
  • How in Arceus's name has Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 not been mentioned? The plot was so much Darker And Edgier than the first game that several gamers were traumatized. Some highlights include:
  • Giratina. Not only do both his forms look immensely creepy, but if you believe certain fan theories, he's the god of death.
    • No, no, no. No. That isn't it at all. Giratina forms a trio with Dialga and Palkia that is led by Arceus, following the pattern from the previous games (Ho-Oh and the Legendary Beasts, Lugia and the Legendary Birds, Regigigas and the three Regis etcetera). Dialga and Palkia were created by Arceus to control/rule over time and space respectively, so what is left for Giratina? Nothing. Basically, Giratina is the god of non-existence, essentially a living monument to Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.
  • Should I mention the time in the anime with the Dragonite? Great Balls of Fire, Episode 83. That is not a pokemon, that thing is a demon.
  • Pokemon Snap freaked the daylights out of this trainer troper when I noticed a weird set of shiny things in the cave and took photos of them. And when they were developed...
    • We still don't know how he got himself a constellation so quickly...
      • How about the River stage, where you find Porygon towards the end of it? This troper still sees images in his mind of its nose poking through the cliffside, moving erratically.
      • Oh god, the Porygons. They're in every level. There's no escape. You'd be forgiven for thinking they're hunting you down...
  • Playing Chatots voice slow/backwards in the Diamond/Pearl games makes is sound like its saying Manaphy, in a creepy way.
    • To me, that sounded hilarious.
  • As mentioned before, Sabrina herself is Nightmare Fuel, especially in the anime, where she would turn people into dolls. Actually, on second thought, it might be even creepier in the game, where you have no explanation for who she really is or why she does it, and the creepy Emotionless Girl aspect doesn't help. Suffice to say, when dealing with her, Ominous Latin Chanting sounds perfectly fitting.
    • What I find scary (and a little heartbreaking) about Sabrina in the anime version is that she gave up her childhood to focus on honing her psychic powers and ended up splitting herself into two people: the power-hungry woman who uses her psychic abilities (and Pokemon) to hurt people and a lonely little girl in white who wants to play and have fun. And, no, it doesn't help that her parents (including her father, who was psychic himself) couldn't stop her.
  • Gligar looks like a cross between a scorpion and a bat, yet still manages to look cute. Then you read the pokedex entry and it is revealed that this thing swoops in silently, latches onto your face, and injects you full of poison. Yes, it's a facehugger Pokemon. That can fly.
  • Bug Pokemon. Think about it. While Misty's phobia of bug Pokemon is played for laughs in the anime, the fact of the matter is that in the world of Pokemon, bugs the size of car tires are the norm. For example, Ariados is a 3-foot tall spider. The Pokedex states that when it catches its prey, it attaches a strand of webbing to the victim, sets it free, and then tracks it so the prey and all its friends and families can be devoured. Another example is the Beedrill, which is a 3-foot tall hornet that weighs 60 pounds and has traffic cones for arms. It is highly aggressive and venomous. It also attacks in swarms. It's no wonder that the games repeatedly state that wandering out into the wilds (which apparently includes city parks, playgrounds, and power plants) without a Pokemon of your own is dangerous.
    • This troper is still waiting for a Bug-type legendary Pokémon, just for its own sake, and can just imagine what kinds of monstrosities — no pun intended — a Bug-type legend could appear as.
    • Scyther says hello... Shing...
      • Okay, we are not leaving scyther at just that. To begin with, we have a bug the size of a person which, from every appearance thus far, is basically pissed off ALL THE TIME. That has scythes instead of hands. Which, according to one of it's pokedex entries, get sharper as it cuts things, meaning it gets deadlier the more it kills. It's apparently one of the few first evolution pokemon that can learn hyper beam, so that's just lovely. It can learn frustration, which deals damage based on HATE. And on top of all this, it learns false swipe. So if it's so incined, in can keep cutting you and you'll never die (until you run out of PP and use struggle I guess, but it's still pretty chilling).
      • As does Scizor, a giant bug made of metal. At least it's doubly weak against fire... although that said, thanks to its typing, fire is its only weakness.
    • And Beautifly. Putting aside the fact it's a metre tall, it just looks like a big, cute swallowtail butterfly, right? Just a harmless flower feeder, right? Nope. Multiple Pokedex entries say it's actually quite savage, and has few qualms about stabbing things with its proboscis and - like Gorebyss from further up - draining all their fluids. So Yeah... piss off this cute butterfly, and prepare to be left as a shriveled husk. Sweet dreams.
  • In Pokemon Emerald, enemy trainers in the battle frontier talk gibberish in all-caps. Some choice examples are: "I SWALLOW SLUDGE TO TRANSFORM MYSELF," "POUND THE THICK FAT ON MY BELLY DRUM," "I HAVE A GROWTH OF SUCTION CUPS," and "I AM GOING TO BE A MOTHER." For some reason, this creeps the hell out of me, like the entire world has gone insane from the obsession with Pokemon battling. For all we know, the protagonist spouts nonsense like that every battle, and the only reason we can't tell is because he/she is a silent protagonist.
  • Deoxys is fucking scary in retrospect. Now, the following is bloody long, so prepare for a LONG read. You see, viruses cannot reproduce on their own. They have to infect a cell and make it produce more of the virus until it dies. Deoxys is a mutated space virus. That means that, even after the mutation, well, it is still a virus. And no, it couldn't have turned into a multicellular organism up there, as it lacks everything needed to make a cell, other than the DNA (if that virus even has DNA instead of RNA). As such, it would have had to come down and find a host. After infecting the host, well, the mutation may cause it to mutate the cells after infection instead of merely make them into virus factories. Now, that may not seem too scary, but this would mean that the host is slowly mutated into a Deoxys, its limbs panfully mutating into whips, bizarre legs, etc. It would scream in pain, confused as to what is going on, their last moments being nothing but pain as they slowly lose consciousness, devoured by the Deoxys virus. Now, that is scary by itself. But what if the virus is unable to infect the brain cells, or does not find them suitable? Well, then the person may be left conscious, watching as their body mutates and becomes a Pokemon, but unable to do anything. The newly mutated body might be able to access the hosts brain for information and bring itself to more prey, the host unable to do anything but watch the virus infect their loved ones, perhaps consuming some as food. If the virus stays dormant, then that's even worse. Imagine being infected and going home to your family, suddenly rapidly mutating into a horrific beast that infects and/or consumes your loved ones, maybe staying dormant in one member and releasing them to infect more people. Imagine the following scenario: A little girl comes from school and hugs her mommy, daddy, and big brother. Suddenly, she screams in pain. Her father rushes for the phone, but before he can reach it, the girl, with inhuman speed, jumps on him and tears out his jugular vein, devouring him. The mother and brother runs over to stop her, but she bites them as well. The mother screams in pain as she begins to rapidly mutate. Her last words to her son are for him to run away. She then turns to her husband, viciously tearing off chunks of flesh, devouring him to fuel her transformation. The boy runs to his aunts, and so begins the cycle anew.
    • Actually, seeing that Deoxys is not only an alien life form, but silicon-based life, it couldn't possably be biologicaly capable of infecting carbon based life (though it's worth mentioning that there are silicon based pokemon). The reason it's silicon based is because it's brain is the central crystal in it's chest, the rest of it's body is a psychic manifestation so it can manipulate things and move around, thus explaining it's regenerative ability and transformations. Whatmore, Deoxys lives in the vacuum of space (or the stratosphere) where life is very probably mostly consisted of bacteria and other microorganisms. Given that Deoxys is a sapient species (yes, it can think), it probably does this out of choice, if not instinct. Sorry, no zombie aliens today.
      • ...That doesn't stop the above post from being any less disturbing, though...(Whimpers)
  • What about Houndoom? It's basically a Hellhound, with a little skull pendant and a call that the ancients once imagined to be the call of Death Itself. Oh, and lets not forget the fact that if you're burned by the Hellfire it spits, it will burn forever...
    • Let's also not forget that one KILLED NORMAN in the Pokemon Special manga. To add on to this, PokeSpe Norman brutally overexerted himself reining in Rayquaza for the battle to suppress Groudon and Kyogre, and when the battle shifted to wrapping up Maxie and Archie, Maxie commanded his Houndoom to finish Norman off.
  • In the Gen II games, there is a dark cave you can enter before getting flash. Imagine that you wander around inside a bit. Now imagine you realizing it's too dark for you to find your way back out.
    • Generation 3 has a cave like this as well. You CAN see, but only a small circle around you, so if you get lost, it doesn't help much. And in Sapphire, you also have to deal with creepy as hell Sableye. God, those things creep me the hell out. Imagine coming home one day, and trying to turn on the lights, only to find that the power was cut. The door then slams shut behind you. You are looking in the mirror, and the only thing you can see are two, glowing eyes made out of jewels behind you. Eventually, the police investigate, and only find a bloody gem on the ground. Yeah, can you tell that Sableye scare me?
      • Not really, because the pokedex makes it clear they only eat gems are actually quite friendly; they're only feared because they show up in dark areas and have glowing eyes. The pokedex also makes it clear that all Sableye are incredibly lonely, pulling pranks in an attempt to find friends. But they don't know why it doesn't work as they've never had friends before. Sableye is this Troper's favorite Pokemon.
      • Except in Mystery Dungeon 2 anyway, where they're Elite Mooks that seem to border on Psycho For Hire.
  • Brock has those eyes!◊
  • Or how about Pokemon in general? They trust their masters so much they'll fight to the death if needed. Even baby Pokemon.
    • On that note, how about the announcer in the Stadium games saying "Oh! This one is ready to die!" if your Pokemon is of low HP? No wonder your Pokemon faints, it's loosing too much blood. They're still willing to fight and use HMs too...
    • Speaking of "Ready to die!", did any other tropers have a particular problem with the 1HKO move, "Guillotine"?
    • This trainer has trouble even wanting to FIGHT anymore in their HGSS game any more because of that. Lines saying that the pokemon is looking at you with eyes filled with trust and a cute heart emote just make you go D: when you realize what you're doing to them. I'M SORRY I EVER HURT YOU.
  • Ditto. They trust and love their master so much, they'll put up with them being put in a "Daycare" center for long periods of time with no interaction from them, being raped or being forced to breed.
    • Think about it. Ditto have the ability to mate with almost anything. It wouldn't surprise this troper if an organism with that trait also had a hyperactive libido. I don't think force would be necessary in most cases.
  • How do HMs and TMs work? They're disks, which you apparently stick to a Pokemon's head like they're data. Or do you put them into your Pokedex somehow and it teaches you how to teach them the move? Do you put the data into their head?
    • This Troper seems to recall reading a Pokemon comic in which Ash teaches an Evee a new move via TM. It just consisted of him opening a capsule and a thing of dust blew out onto the Pokemon and it knew the move (or something like that).
      • Electric Tale? But, anime/manga =/= games.
      • This troper remembers that, in FR/LG, the "learning T Ms" animation was the disk clashing into the Pokemon with a frightening sound effect. What, did you hit them in the head with it?
    • I think they might be more like instructional DV Ds.
  • The character Imakuni? in the Pokemon Trading Card Game for Gameboy is a pretty unnerving character who has scared quite a few kids. Not too many kids realized he's a cameo of a Japanese singer, and he is labeled as "Strange Lifeform Imakuni?" which indicates he is a some kind of space alien.
  • The Glitch Pokemon named h PO Ke. It is harmless by itself, but what is creepy is its height and weight. This mess of garbled pixels is over 80 feet tall and weighs 3 TONS. Just imagine running into THAT!
  • The original games had a lot of creepy music. Just listen to the Lavender Town theme in the first example. But there are more. Many more. Such as Viridian Forest, the Celadon Rocket Hideout, the Mahogany Rocket Hideout, Silph Co., the most dearest Pokémon Tower, Dark Cave, etc.
  • Latios and Latias are found in the game carrying the item Soul Dew, which increases their stats. In the movie Pokemon Heroes, it's discovered that the Soul Dew is actually made from the soul of a dead Lati. So the Lati you encounter in the game is carrying around a trapped soul to make it stronger.
    • You know, you only see one of the Lati per game...
      • Unless, of course, you get the Eon Ticket. And only the one found with the Eon Ticket has the Soul Dew.
    • What freaked this troper out the most was that a Pokedex entry confirms that the Lati’s are not one-member species: Latias are found in herds. Exclusively. Now, there was only one Latias in your game... and compared with the thing about the soul dew, this implies to me that my poor little Latias is the last of her species, carrying the soul of a dead member of her former herd. D8
  • Vileplume isn't too spooky in and of itself, it's got a pretty cute face, just happens to have an enormous flower atop its head that smells rather foul. Its cry, however...
Vileplume: EEE-EEE-EEE!
  • Cyrus has been mentioned a bunch of times and for good reason since he's a scary bastard, but in the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Adventure manga, he takes it to the next level.
    • In volume two, he explains his plan to Hareta. It starts off reasonably calmly as he talks about "a world where there is no fighting and where everyone can live smiling." Then all of a sudden he grips Hareta by the shoulders and blurts out that, for the sake of that new world, "The sacrifice of thousands, even tens of thousands of pokemon means nothing!" Add to that that a graveyard has suddenly appeared behind him, and that he's SMILING. And then he proceeds to ask Hareta to join him.
    • And it gets better. Volumes four and five have him reaching for ultimate MagnificentBastard-ship to go with that godhood he's after. He kidnaps Mitsumi's Eevee and threatens to kill it if she doesn't return to Team Galactic. Then he forces her to fight Hareta, while taunting her via intercom all the while about how she's alone in the world. After the battle, Mitsumi is so traumatized by the memory of the things she did as a Galactic agent that she pulls an ICannotSelfTerminate and basically asks Jupiter to kill her. Meanwhile, Cyrus goes off on a tirade for several pages where he rants at Hareta about how the only true emotions of humanity are "hatred, jealousy, and burning anger" and that's why he has to destroy it and create a new, obedient world, capping with "You must hate me even more now." That's right, the reason he did every single part of that was to get Hareta to hate him so that he could go off to kill everyone with a clear concience that nothing of value would be lost. And of course, it doesn't work. Hareta starts sobbing and says that he doesn't hate Cyrus. The mindfuck alone is nightmare fuel, but the whole thing, especially Cyrus's tirade, is puncutuated by some SUPREMELY fucked-up artwork.
  • Stunky and Skuntank can learn Explosion. EXPLOSION. Actually, Explosion in general is Nightmare Fuel as it is, but the thought of an exploding skunk turns it Up To Eleven.
    • More like Nausea Fuel, Concidering it's a fart pokemon. Guess what the Explosion is comming out of and what it is.Squick
  • There is one glitch in the generation 4 where when you use walk through walls with action replay and walk up through the elite 4 blackness, you'll eventually arive at Floarama meadows. Huh? Ah well lets go back, but when you try... THE GAME ACTS AS IF THERE WAS AN ELITE 4 DOOR THERE AND PUSHES YOU BACK UP!! YOU CAN NEVER ESCAPE! AND YOU CAN'T FLY BECAUSE IT ACTS AS IF YOU'RE INDOOR! My heart aches at anyone who saved there.
  • What, all this talk of creepy Pokémon and no mention of Spiritomb? It's a Ghost/Dark-type that was sealed away for 500 years as punishment for misdeeds, made from 108 souls and looks like the Pokémon incarnate of Giygas!
    • That was probably intentional on their part. Some of Pokemon staff(namely Creatures Inc. Formerly Ape Inc. used to work on Earthbound. You still can't help but wonder what other creepy-looking Expies they could've made..... (Carls493)
      • Probably Giegue and Mewtwo
  • Hm. No mention of the church in Hearthome City. You walk in, there is no music, and only a few people sitting and standing stock still who have only near-cultisms to say to you if you try to talk to them. I refuse to believe I'm the only one who was freaked out by that dissonance in an otherwise cheery, average-seeming city.
  • 50caliberchaos of Fanfiction.net has opened up a brand new can of Nightmare Fuel that needs mentioning for the Pokemon world: His story The Sun Soul, a rewriting merging the anime and Red/Blue together (quite well too) is pretty dark, since the Pokemon are shown much as one might expect them as wild animals to behave in a real setting. But what scared the shit out of this troper was Chapter Eight introducing us to two Team-Rocket-produced Pokemon mutations, including a surgically messed-with Machamp with rusty blades for hands and a Rhydon so screwed with that Misty could barely look at it without wanting to run for the nearest restroom.
  • Gyarados. The damn thing knocks down cities, and it's pissed most of the time - at least theoretically. It also has the Intimidate ability, meaning that even other Pokemon are scared of it. (Yes, it can cut the attack stat of a god by being scary enough).
  • It's a known fact that pokemon can breed with other pokemon outside their species. But if, like some WMG's postulate, that humans are also a form of pokemon... You know what? I'm not even gonna go there...
  • Scariest. Remix. Ever. http://pokeremixstudio.floatzel.net/Pokemon%20Remixes/Pokemon%20RBY%20Mansion%20Remix.mp3

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