Infinity Train: Thorn Apart
: A story in which Akemi Tsutsuji heavily regretted how her actions lead to so much harassment on Chloe's part, and follows her onto the Infinity Train.
This fanfic contains examples of:
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
- Hitomi, who while having some problems was a normal girl, is a passenger on a train.
- There's also Akemi, of course, since she's now stuck on the Infinity Train alongside feeling sorry for causing things to unfold the way they did in canon.
- Zigzagged with Nagisa; she's on the Train, but she's also completely innocent about the idea that her mother is dead in her world.
- Adaptational Backstory Change:
- Akemi's implied to not have seen anybody before her first day of school. In here, they at least sent flowers to her, though some were nicer than others.
- In Blossoming Trail, Sara's father was killed in a car crash when Sara demanded a cuter doll, while in here, he spoke against the blatant Pokéism in their original hometown, and is all but stated to have died for it.
- Adaptational Context Change: In Blossoming Trail, Sara bullied Chloe because she was different and to vent for the death of her father. Here, she doesn't like her because she thinks she's a Pokéist girl, having been raised and driven paranoid by living in a city full of them prior to Vermillion City.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Kyubey is fully on the side of good; which even he lampshades.
- Sara's also this to a lesser extent, alongside Yeardley. They're both shameless bullies in Blossoming Trail, but here, Yeardley's Innocently Insensitive, and Sara's a bit less petty and vindictive, though she still can't put a filter on her mouth to save her life.
- Adaptational Species Change: Madoka Kaname was a human, then a magical girl, in her home series, while Kyubey was always an Incubator. Here, they're both Denizens. Same goes with King Kai and the rest of the Holy Quintet.
- Ambiguously Evil: Sure, Madoka wants to help Akemi grow strong to protect Chloe... It's just that she also tasked Homura to prevent Chloe from leaving Azada, making her unable to grow as a person...
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: Chapter 8 doesn't follow the Cerises or Akemi, instead focusing on a pair of therapist sessions between Akemi's father, Mr. Bradbury, and Sara.
- And the Adventure Continues: The end has Chloe and Akemi's groups joining together to see what the Train has in store for them.
- Ascended Extra: Akemi goes from a Small Role, Big Impact kinda character to the protagonist of this story.
- Aside Glance: Kyubey gives one to the reader when he says that he's truly on the side of good.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Subverted. Hitomi, Akemi, and Nagisa get attacked by a giant mermaid knight with an equally big sword, but anybody who knows Madoka Magica canon would know this is Oktavia Von Seckendorff, the witch form of Sayaka Miki, who's a member of the Holy Quintet, who only want to help Akemi progress.
- Bathtub Bonding: Lampshaded by Hitomi, who brings up this trope while taking a bath with Akemi over at King Kai's Planet Car.
- Brutal Honesty: Kyoko doesn't mince words about Chloe's problems and that no matter what she does, the bullies will keep attacking her. It's up to Chloe and Chloe alone to start moving forward.
- Children Are Innocent: Nagisa is on the train and thinks her mom, who was in the hospital, got a leave. She left, alright...
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Akemi, albeit not by her choice due to her being hospitalized. In fact, she got on the train via tripping when trying to chase after Chloe.
- Cuteness Proximity: Akemi squees over seeing Kyubey and apparently it's so loud that Atticus can hear it.
- A Day in the Limelight: Akemi, the student that set off the chain of events of the main story, is the main character of the story.
- Deconstruction Fic: The train is all about Character Development, but the thing is, in order for Akemi to have her role in saving Chloe, Madoka and Homura are preventing Chloe from leaving Azada so she can discover herself.
- Mistaken for Racist is also deconstructed: In the Pokémon World, a person who's racist against Pokémon, believing them to be inferior, is known as a Pokéist. Chloe sharing many of the same traits as one of them prompted Sara, whose family lived in a city full of them before coming to Vermillion City, to grow distrustful of her, bullying her as a result of her paranoia.
- Dramatic Irony: Akemi thinks that Chloe is in danger on the Train...only for the readers to know that she woke up in Corginia and is safe.
- Fantastic Racism: In this verse, there's "Pokéism", the idea that Pokémon and those who like them are inferior. And there's at least one city full of people who believe this, as Sara can attest.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: While Hitomi, Akemi, and Nagisa are being attacked by a giant mermaid knight, King Kai asks Madoka if they should go check on them. Madoka's confident reassurance she sent someone already is the only hint we get that the mermaid knight is Oktavia Von Seckendorff, Sayaka's witch form, who returns to her human form once the trio have left the Cheesecake Car.
- Foreshadowing: When Akemi first sees Kyubey, she squees so loudly that it can be heard all the way to Corginia. Naturally, she gets Make Me Wanna Shout powers when she becomes a magical girl.
- For Want Of A Nail: The story changes because of how Akemi followed Chloe on the Train.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Due to horrible experiences in her previous town, Sara is bullying Chloe for what she assumes Chloe being a Pokécist and not just Chloe being more neutral on her love/hate for Pokémon.
- Insistent Terminology: Zigzagged, Madoka calls the item Homura gets a Grief Egg whereas Hitomi calls it a Grief Seed. It turns out there's a constant debate between passengers calling them either an "Egg" or a "Seed" so it's just left to the passenger to call it what it is.
- I Will Find You: Akemi's goal on the train is to find Chloe, who is currently relaxing in Corginia. This gets deconstructed as Madoka and Homura are enforcing that Chloe stays in Azada and not leave so Akemi can become the knight in shining armor to save her, which is preventing Chloe from growing and making her able to confront her problems.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Mr. Bradbury never getting to be a parent was a fact only revealed near the end of Act 2 of Blossoming Trail. In here, Saito casually reveals this during his therapy session.
- Level Ate: Hitomi and Akemi meet Nagisa in the Cheesecake Car, which, as the name implies, has cheesecakes everywhere.
- Legendary Carp: One week after Akemi and Chloe go missing, Sara and Yeardley take their Pokémon for a swim, and Sara's Magikarp starts swimming up a river. Come next chapter, it's evolved into a Gyarados.
- Lower-Deck Episode: Chapter 8 doesn't follow any of the main characters, instead focusing on a therapy sessions between Akemi's father, Mr. Bradbury, and Sara.
- Magical Girl: The first car Akemi enters has Madoka Kaname (as her Magical Girl self) and she gains a contract with Kyubey to also become one.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: Akemi is able to unleash a supersonic scream with her contract.
- Must Make Amends: Akemi's goal is to apologize for causing Chloe to be pressured into fighting Ash and then running away.
- My Greatest Failure:
- Hitomi was once given a love confession from a girl... and she ran away because she was freaked out by the idea of "Girls loving girls". The next time she went to school, the girl transferred, and it was then that the Train snatched her.
- Akemi's is trying to open up to Chloe via Ash's battle against Kukui, getting her pressured by her classmates to fight Ash.
- Mythology Gag:
- Hitomi's reason she's on the train is based off of her famous "Girls can't love girls" proclamation from the anime.
- Two of the cars that got decommissioned were The Fog Car and the Bad Christmas Carols Car, which were found in Blossoming Trail.
- Noodle Incident: Chapter 7 starts the Train segment with Akemi, Hitomi, Madoka and King Kai in a car running for their lives for robbing a bank.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Chloe finds a book that records cars that were decommissioned via the Holy Quintet. The first one? The Fog Car, which is 1) Silent Hill on the Infinity Train and 2) the car Chloe had to enter in Blossoming Trail to stop the Apex.
- Personality Powers: Akemi felt bad for not speaking up more for Chloe and entered the train in order to protect her. She gets a super powerful voice — loud enough that an entire car of Corgis are howling in agony — and a pair of gauntlets with shields.
- Replacement Goldfish: Saito theorizes that at least part of Mr. Bradbury's close relationship with Chloe comes from the fact he sees her as the potential daughter he never could have, a theory that Mr. Bradbury has a hard time countering.
- Stripperiffic: Akemi is horrified at the magical girl outfit she's wearing (Sayaka Miki's outfit) at showing so much skin and would rather wear something to protect herself on the Train. Justified in this case, as Akemi is 10 compared to the teenage girls of the Madoka universe, alongside being a more frail girl, meaning she must prioritize defense above all else.
- Take That!: Akemi's initial Magical Girl outfit (Sayaka Miki's) is remarked at how the magical girl outfits were made to be "marketable than practical", and is also a jab at the fact that they sexualize the girls more often than not.
- There Are No Therapists: Subverted; turns out Akemi's father is a child psychologist, but Professor Cerise ignored the advice Mr. Bradbury gave him to send his daughter to a counselor.
- They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Because Pokéism is more of an idea than anything, anybody can hold this belief. Meaning that unlike Regional Teams, there's no obvious way to tell them apart: anybody you meet could be a Pokéist, and you wouldn't know until it's too late. Naturally, this does not help Sara's paranoia.
- What If?: What if Akemi saw Chloe run away from home on that fateful night, and was then picked up by the Train?
- You Cant Kill An Idea: One of the biggest reasons why Sara finds Pokéism so terrifying: unlike with Regional Teams, there's no leadership to topple to bring down the organization. It's entirely founded on people who believe themselves superior to Pokémon.
