Too Many Ashes is a Pokémon: The Series One-Shot Fic written by Crossoverpairinglover.
Ash visits Professor Oak's lab to find... himself and Pikachu. Lots of instances of himself and Pikachu, in fact. Turns out the Professor's been making clones of Ash and Pikachu to expedite filling the Pokedex. Now several of the clones know of each other's existence, and Oak may have lost track of a few clones along the way. Honestly, what's the worst they could've gotten up to?
It can be read here
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Too Many Ashes contains the following tropes:
- Adapted Out: Misty is completely absent, with her role as Cerulean City's Gym Leader being filled by an Ash clone. Given that other close acquaintances of Ash such as Brock and Gary are stated to have been CGI, she may have never existed in the first place.
- Alternate Self: Professor Oak gene-spliced a perfect trainer — Ash Ketchum — to collect Pokedex data for him and a perfect partner Pikachu to act as a starter, made several dozen copies of each of them, and turned them loose into the world with no knowledge of the existence of any other clones. By the time the clones figure out what's going on, several of their number have embarked on drastically different lives and career paths that aren't just "average Pokemon trainer".
- Artificial Human: Professor Oak created Ash Ketchum via gene-splicing in order to have a Trainer who could travel the world and collect data for the Pokedex.
- Broken Pedestal: Professor Oak's assistant Tracey is implied to have been completely unaware of the Ash clones his boss made until several of them came home at once, and he isn't very happy with the professor's actions. He forces Oak to explain himself to the clones instead of sneaking away, Oak's admission to making the clones is noted to have induced a look of disappointment from his assistant, and a "de-pedestaled" Tracey is last seen angrily chasing the professor away.
- Death by Adaptation: One of Ash's clones is implied to have drowned during the sinking of the S.S. Anne, as one of the cutaways showing what the clones are up to is merely the cruise ship's bubbling wreck.
- Decomposite Character: Different clones of Ash own the various teams of Pokemon he uses in each region.
- Duplicate Divergence: Many of the Ash clones have taken drastically different career paths than attempting to become a Pokemon Master. Some of the more notable Ashes include a rancher, two separate Contest Coordinators, a connoisseur, and a Gym Leader.
- Shout-Out: Clemont and an Ash clone working as his assistant recreate the "Pull the lever" sequence from The Emperor's New Groove.
- Super Mode: In addition to Ash-Greninja, one of the Ash clones has a Chesnaught that's also capable of assuming a powerful form that resembles its trainer.
- Wrong Turn at Albuquerque: One Ash clone ends up in a location that's strongly implied to be the Distortion World. The only explanation he can muster for how he got there is that somewhere along the line he took a wrong turn.
