A Legend Awakened
is a Pokémon: The Series fanfic written by Inferno02.
After the events in Alamos Town, Darkrai decides to join Ash on his journey. Along with the Legendary Pokemon, Ash continues his quest to participate in The Lily of The Valley Conference, where he would be facing powerful foes. How will he face the challenges and rivals that await him in the Sinnoh League and beyond?
Spoilers will be marked.
A Legend Awakened provides examples of:
- Acceptable Breaks from Canon:
Word of God states that while the events of Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai happened 2 months prior to the Sinnoh League finale of the anime, everything else is still relatively the same with Ash and co. travels across the Sinnoh region. Furthermore, he states that Darkrai joining with Ash in the early parts of his travels through Sinnoh would make him too overpowered for the gym matches and would create more problems for Ash with Pokemon Poachers like Hunter J trying to catch Darkrai. - Adaptation Expansion: In the anime, Tobias' Pokemon are shown to only consist of Darkrai and Latios, while the rest of his elite lineup is never revealed. Furthermore, his backstory is never revealed as well, and likely, that his only purpose in the finale of the Diamond and Pearl series is to be a Hopeless Boss Fight for Ash in order to quickly jumpstart his journey to Unova. Here, he's revealed to be a native from the Unova region, a high-ranking member of Team Plasma, and his other Pokemon are revealed to be a Metagross, a Zapdos, a Hydreigon (his starter), and a Genesect.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Compare to the anime, Ash gets notable Ship Tease moments with both Dawn and Cynthia, along with many others to come as the author states of the multi-shipping in the fic.
- Adaptational Badass: Ash Ketchum and his Pokemon get this in the story.
- Adaptational Curves: After his Training from Hell in the Lily of The Valley island for two months, Ash is notably much taller and is a little buff up, making Dawn only reaching above his shoulders.
- Adaptational Intelligence: While Ash does show great insights and creativity in Pokemon battles in canon, his intelligence and competence vary throughout the franchise, and mostly on whoever the writers are in charge of at the time (*cough* Pokemon the Series: Black & White *cough*). In the fic, he's consistently much wiser in battles and could analyze his opponents' strengths and weaknesses to come up with good tactics and strategies to use against them. He also starts taking cues from real-life competitive players for the Pokemon games, such as the forethought to not rely on just the Pokemon he caught in Sinnoh for the league, consistently trains his previous Pokemon with his new ones, rotate his selected Pokemon in-between matches, utilized type-advantages when necessary, and most of all, doesn't use Pikachu in the final match against Tobias.
- Adaptational Late Appearance: Although the movies and TV series are of different continuities, the events of Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai would take place in the early parts of Ash's journey throughout the Sinnoh region. Here, it took place two months prior to the Lily of The Valley Conference, thus making Darkrai's first meeting with Ash and co. happens after he won the 8 gym badges to be eligible to compete in the Sinnoh League.
- Adaptational Skill: Aside from being able to battle and coming up with unorthodox strategies and tactics, Ash can also cook for himself and his Pokemon during their Training from Hell in the two-month timeskip. But in his own words, it was tough without Brock doing the cooking around.
- Age Lift: Compare to how ridiculous for the characters in the series to be forever young, all of the characters are realistically depicted to be older and are aging.
- Ash, Dawn, and Brock are 16, 15, and 20 years of age respectively in fic.
- Cynthia is 19-20 years old in the fic, whereas her age is never revealed in the anime or games.
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Continuity Lockout: As part of the Acceptable Breaks from Canon, the events of Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai are the only thing that happens in the fic, and the other three movies (Pokémon: Giratina and the Sky Warrior, Pokémon: Arceus and the Jewel of Life, and Pokémon: Zoroark: Master of Illusions) that follow afterward are Adapted Out. - Godzilla Threshold: The Legendary and Mythical Pokemon count as this, especially with Ash's Darkrai and Heatran, and Tobias' elite lineup.
- Took a Level in Badass: In the two-month timeskip prior to the Lily of The Valley Conference, Ash and his Pokemon had undergone this thanks to their Training from Hell in Lily of The Valley island.
- Put on a Bus: An In-Universe example; due to Ash training his Pokemon in solitude for two months prior to the Sinnoh League, he separates from Dawn and Brock during the timeskip.
