YMMV / Infinity Train: Boiling Point

• Adorkable: While Chloe of the Vermillion was already this in her canon story, the focus on her cheerful nature makes her even dorky from asking Peacock to learn of the Skull Heart and gushing over being called "Legendary".
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • How much of Chloe's assumptions on her classmates is on her is vague this time around. While yes, Yeardley annoying Chloe with paper balls to the head is rude, it's not as bad as his misogynistic interpretation in Blossoming Trail^note The fact that the Boiling Point author even wrote a What If? version of Yeardley on the Train could contribute to this. Melancholy Afterlife has him realize he has been somewhat insensitive and thinks it's his fault that Chloe's gone missing.
  • One-One during the intermission. Is him not calling Hazel by name and casually revealing her non-human nature him dehumanizing her, or is he just going along with what would be general protocol?
  • Alador's passiveness regarding the situation with Skara and Persephone. Was it entirely out of his own volition, or did outside factors, particularly Odalia, forced him to stay put lest things get worse?
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: The Apex are a group of passengers who've been ransacking Cars for a long time now, and also believe themselves to be superior to the denizens, but some reviewers expressed sympathy for them when Boscha practically massacres them and leaves them in shambles. Even Green Phantom Queen, who herself is preparing an even more terrible fate for them (see below) also cringed at the details.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap she may be, Boscha wasn't exactly the nicest person around, so her hopeless fight with Lartsa could be seen as cathartic. Not so cathartic, however, is the moment in Chapter 8 where Amity beats the crap out of here, all while giving her "The Reason You Suck" Speech even after she collapsed.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Boscha being suspended near the end of Chapter 1 could be seen as this, since she's acted like such a smarmy jerkass that evaded karma for way too long.
  • Initially, Boscha beating up the Apex is this, as she's giving them a taste of their own medicine. Keyword being "initially", since it doesn't take long before it becomes clear that as bad as the Apex, Boscha is even worse...
  • ... Which makes her Hopeless Boss Fight against King Lartsa in Chapter 5 all the more satisfying, since she not only faces somebody she doesn't beat up in an instant, but is left begging and pleading for King Lartsa to teach her Astral Magic once it becomes clear this is a fight she can't win.
  • The deaths of Prometheus, Amirani and Odalia considering they're the reasons everything are so messed up with the Boscha-Skara-Amity drama.
• Crack Pairing:
  • Boscha/Mattholomule. Yes, really.
  • Chloe/Specter as confirmed by Green Phantom Queen and Exotos135. Yes, really.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Green Phantom Queen leaves a comment on Chapter 3 that compares the brutality of what Boscha does to the Apex to what she's doing to them in her story.
  Boscha: (Decides to use her fire powers to break bones, burn people and be sick about it.)
  Me: (Is currently on the arc where Silent Hill husbands unleash a ritual that will turn innocent Pokémon characters into predators that will hunt down the Apex until they surrender or their flesh fills the monsters' bellies)
  • Boscha ripping the arm off an Apex child is disturbing...then somehow becomes hilarious when she attacks him with it while stating, "Stop hitting yourself!"
• Friendly Fandoms: Readers of Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail are known to also be readers here, Exotos has written numerous What If? one-shots (and one official spin-off) of various Blossoming Trail characters entering the Train and Green Phantom Queen has written a prequel to Boiling Point about Chloe of the Vermillion's initial days on the Train. Helps that Boiling Point was inspired by the latter and Green Phantom Queen herself leaves comments on it with many readers wondering of a potential chapter where Boscha and Chloe encounter one another which is confirmed at the end of Chapter 7 when One-One requests Chloe to stop Boscha from destroying more cars.
• Genius Bonus: The weapon Chloe gets from Cyber Peacock is called the "Mahamayuri Train": The first references a bodhitsittava who's well known to hold a lotus flower in most depictions, while the second part references the place in the Peacock's body where the feathers are located.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The moment where Boscha rips off a Mandragora's heart and shows it to them before killing them is a shocking display of how far Boscha's cruelty can go. Then "The Boiling Underworld Car" reveals the Mandragora she killed was the exact same one Amelia and Jerbo were raising together, and the moment becomes a lot harder to watch.
  • Skara and Amity's relationship was already hard to stomach, especially with their brutal fight in Chapter 14, but it becomes even more horrifying and depressing when Chapter 22 reveals they're half-sisters.
  • Before the Boiling Underworld Car starts, the author notes ask if the story is getting darker than Blossoming Trail, going through a list of stuff that happened before revealing that it hasn't. Then "The Ends Justify the Means" shows off and Green Phantom Queen commented that it just crossed a line not even she would go...
  • A plot point in this story is Odalia using a forbidden type of magic in order to control Amity and what she thinks. "Escaping Expulsion" makes this practically canon by revealing the true purpose of Amity's pendant: it's so that Odalia can talk to her telepathically.
  • "The Origin Story Car" takes any interaction between Boscha and Skara and shatters it to pieces by revealing Boscha was enslaved by Persephone's hand, on Azura's command, in order to ensure she wouldn't endanger Skara.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This story shows Alador being willing to put his foot down when Odalia goes too far, while Odalia's a shrewd businesswoman who'll cross many lines to get what she wants, no matter the consequences. "Escaping Expulsion" then reveals this to be pretty much canon.
  • An early plot point involves the Bat Queen being part of a Bard track exam, and ends with her gifting Skara a Palisman. The Bat Queen giving Palismen to Hexside students would eventually become canon in "Hunting Palismen", though the context there is fairly different.
  • While trapped in the Boiling Underworld, Amity, with some prodding from her sister, decides to dye her hair purple in order to further distance herself from her old self. The same thing pretty much happens in "Through The Looking Glass Ruins", the only difference being that the sister is Emira and not Skara and she keeps the brown roots instead of dyeing her hair completely purple.
  • Skara obtains a harpy form due to swallowing a healing potion. Then "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Hooty's Door" has Eda also gaining a harpy form by bonding with the Owlbeast.
  • During the Blight Ball, Amity and King join forces to make a hybrid glyph in order to stop Amirani for good. "Eclipse Lake" would later feature Amity and King teaming up for real to try stop the Golden Guard from snatching the Portal key.
  • The Luz doppleganger is depicted here as a Non-Malicious Monster long before "Yesterday's Lie" made it canon.
  • Also from "Through the Looking Glass Ruins", Warden Wrath is revealed to be a parent in that episode as he is here. The only difference is that Skara is not his daughter, but rather his son is Braxus.
  • Amity being possessed by Amirani due to consuming part of her abomination goo is made more hilarious due to Hunter being temporarily possessed by Belos after touching on his remains with his injured hand during "Thanks for Them".
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Boscha is a social darwinist who believes in only two ideals: strong versus weak. Chapters 5 and 6 show her vulnerable side in how she has pushed everyone who cared for her aside except Skara and that she can't see the Cursed Princess' kindness as genuine.
  • Chloe of the Vermillion, while not as angsty as her Blossoming Trail counterpart apparently has issues back at home and presumptions that her classmates really hate her, she refuses to take any counseling regarding a Spearow incident and she's just like Boscha; a Static Passenger whose number won't go down. Atticus and Lexi even comfort her over this. In "The Boiling Underworld Car", she doesn't like relying on others because she's afraid of getting "false help" (which is presumably based on the events of "The Spearow Incident" as shown in Melancholy Afterlife) and to finally prove that she's not going to be something that can be pushed around like others. It takes Boa telling her that the only way she'll get better if is she puts trust in other people who truly want her to grow and that no matter what she does, bullies will just find something else to pick on.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The story is broken up into two segments: Infinity Train segments with Boscha and Boiling Isles segments with Skara, Amity, and Luz. Those who are not interested in following Boscha read the later segments. A similar divide between Infinity Train (Chloe) and Pokemon World (Ash, Goh, and co) exists in Blossoming Trail.
• Love to Hate: Boscha is a nasty psychotic bully who caused so many chaos and mayhem on both Infinity Train and Boiling Isles, but you can't stop admiring the fact of how awesome her pyrokinesis is, along with her genuine care for Skara, and the sympathetic moments. All while without a pair of leather pants on her.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Alador and Odalia Blight were bad enough when they made a young Amity break up her friendship with Willow but what they, especially Odalia, did with Persephone Brae and how it connects to Skara makes them absolutely irredeemable.
  • Hazel essentially crushed it when she uses an illusion to look like Chloe to grab Specter's broach — as he's a tsukumogami and if his item is destroyed so is he — and shatters it all while mocking that he will never return home, his personality destroyed and he's not the first youkai to have died on the Train. Green Phantom Queen summed up her thoughts with this:
  Chloe: (with a donut holer) She'll pay for this.
  • Azura skipped it before the story even started when she had Boscha, a newborn at the moment, enslaved by Skara's mother out of paranoia that she might hurt her descendant.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Chapter 3 goes into loving details on how Boscha's fire magic leaves massive injuries on the Apex children.
  • Chapter 6 has Skara eaten by a Dire Mandragora and sees what happens to the victims. She ends up being a screaming wreck once Willow frees her.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Chapter 7 reveals an alternate Chloe Cerise being tasked by One-One to fight Boscha and stop her from destryoing more cars.
  • Chapter 13, and the end of Act 1 has Boscha being disintegrated by Chloe before it's revealed that she's in the Heartyard car and her soul was separated so it can be transformed into different denizens in an attempt to heal her.
  • The penultimate chapter of Act 2 drops the biggest bombshell. The Master of Masters is actually Amelia's fiance, Alrick.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The end of Chapter 5, after Boscha is utterly humiliated against Larsta in battle has her begging to learn Astral magic so she can go protect Skara, knowing that she's going to be all alone from everyone else while Boscha is stuck on the train.
  Boscha: Nobody likes me back home. Everybody hates me. Fears me. A-And those who hang around me... e-even if they're nothing like me, they're harassed and socially tortured j-just because they keep me company. When I learned this, I-I drove them away, I got them to leave before it was too late...
  Larsta: But Skara didn't?
  Boscha: I tried! I really tried! But no matter what I said, what I did, she stood by my side no matter what! And the only reason she didn't get socially bullied like my other former friends was because I was there to burn alive anybody who tried!
  Larsta: And that's why you wanna learn Astral Magic. So you can keep an eye on your friend?
  Boscha: Skara's Strong, but even an Apex succumbs to bullying. And if I'm not there to protect her, to support her, who knows what sort of horrors she'll be made to suffer, all because she didn't leave me like everybody else!
  • Chapter 6 has Boscha freak out at what she assumes is fake kindness from the Cursed Princesses, deciding to set fire to the entire care because she can't comprehend how genuine their kindness is.
  • Chapter 8 expands on the famous tea party memory from "Understanding Willow" that has Amity unleash a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Boscha. And when Amity apologizes to Prometheus and Amirani, do they get mad? No, they, or at least Amirani, applaud Amity for being so brutal on their daughter.
  • Amelia revealing her backstory to the Zenith Fantasy and Red Lotus Trio and then being mocked for it by Boscha. Yes, Amelia did plenty wrong on the Train but Boscha didn't have to be mean about it.
• Unexpected Character:
  • An alternate version of Chloe Cerise appears at the end of Chapter 7, after it was assumed that the story would just have subtle references to her.
  • Even more shocking is the Master of Masters, confirming this story is also a crossover with Kingdom Hearts.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Alador may have a lot of baggage on him like Odalia, but it is easy for the narrative to forget, and it often does, that he is a victim of Odalia's actions same as Persephone. He was put under mind control to rape Persephone by his wife, meaning he was also raped. The narrative seems to forget this, though some fans have not.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Skara can be hard to root for at times. While she's a legitimate Woobie, most of the pain and suffering she gets only happens because she stubbornly stayed by the side of a well known psychopath like Boscha, who's gained quite a lot of enemies. Couple that with a tendency to not assume her fault in the fallout and you get a character that can be hard to root for.
• The Woobie:
  • As said above, Skara; just by being associated with Boscha, she's been isolated, bullied and is scapegoated with the Mandragora scehem. In fact, what got Boscha onto the train was when she accidentally burned her! Then the end of Act 1 and Act 2's reveal makes it even worse.
  • Hazel, because of course. In the Intermission, she ends upon the Engine, with purple arms and Tuba dead from protecting her via an Apex kid attack. And then she learns from One-One, the true Conductor, she's not even human. Oh and her name? It's actually the numbers of her tube (Subject 8-1-26-5-12). And remember, in canon, the girl was only six and a half!

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