Ash is training to keep his mind off of Chloe gone and Goh on a vacation in Azalea Town. But he's surprised when two people arrive in the Cerise Lab: his mother Delia and his rival from Unova, Trip.
Meanwhile, Chloe is having fun in a car where penguins serve ice cream in a potluck.
This arc contains examples of:
- All of the Other Reindeer: The theme of this car.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Ash questions why Trip would be so cruel to make everyone keep the Infinity Train a secret. Trip counters as to why Ash, the Alola League Champion and such a friendly person, did nothing to help Chloe when she needed it even though he's willing to extend that kindness to everyone else. Let's just say he comes to regret this a long time later...
- Bait-and-Switch: By how it's shown, it looked like Cara got wheeled by the Apex. Turns out she survived, hid for a year or so, aided Trip and then made the long trek home.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Two penguins ask Chloe to sing something with the alphabet — as she is reciting lyrics from "The Art of Poisoning" that talks about different ways for people dying of poisons — and so she complies...with an even more horrifying song about how people who died one by one from A to Z. They react accordingly.
- Bystander Syndrome:
- Trip accuses Ash for this; after all, why is this sweet and kind boy just leaving Chloe alone and not even attempting to know her if he willingly does so for anyone else? He gets his answer ''and then some'' in the next acts.
- Professor Cerise chews Renji out for this upon learning that Renji knew what Chloe was going through but said nothing. And Chryssa also keeps silent as to not get herself blamed for her inaction.
- Exact Words: Chloe recites the lines of Creature Feature's "Art of Poisoning" to calm herself down. The two penguins she's with ask her to do something with the alphabet. She then switches to "A Gorey Demise", a song that has the alphabet where it talks about people who have died in gruesome ways.
- Flashback:
- Part 2 starts with Trip's first encounter with the Apex and ends with Chloe recalling the time she tried to talk about her book report only to be met with insults and jeers.
- Part 3 reveals the time the Apex assaulted Nico.
- Foreshadowing:
- When Trip escapes into the Charcoal Car, someone gives him an ice cream cone. That someone turns out to be Cara.
- In Chloe's flashback, Mr. Bradbury warns her class to be careful of what they say and do, as these actions will bite them in the future. He's correct as shown in "The Canals of Fondue" Car. In the very same flashback, we see Chloe slamming the podium down on the floor to shut everyone up, hinting at her barely contained anger at everyone mocking her.
- Lexi wishes that he could get a map that would let him see the locations of passengers. He'll be getting one from Olmec in "The Hidden Temple Car".
- Hero of Another Story: Trip was on the Train for about a year and he encountered the Apex and teamed up with Nico's friend Cara.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Discussed; Trip wants everyone to make sure that Goh is this about the Train or else there's a big chance the Train will pick him up.
- Kids Are Cruel: Both on and off the train.
- The Apex attacked a peaceful class of swans in the Calligraphy Car for nothing more than their amusement.
- Chloe's class insulted her love of the macabre and saddled her with the name "Monster Lover".
- Performance Anxiety: Chloe suffers through this due to how her peers always insulted her for her tastes. and she fears that from the Sorbet Sharks. Thankfully that doesn't come to pass.
- Waxing Lyrical: As Lexi rants on how he wants Grace and Simon to pay, Chloe suggests a type of torture from "The Mariner's Song"Chloe: Find them, bind them, tie them to a pole and break their fingers to splinters, throw them to a hole until they wake up naked crawling at the ceiling of their graves?
Lexi: ...was any of that sarcastic? - Wham Line: The end of Part 1 has Trip reveal that he met up with a bunch of monsters. We assume it's the denizens, but...Trip: And they call themselves The Apex.
