Poké Wars

""I think back on those peaceful days we took for granted. When our genocide wasn't even conceivable, when killing a Pokémon was crazy, when a simple Ember didn't end in 3rd degree burns, and when I didn't worry about whether I would live to see morning.""

- Intro blurb for The Subsistence

Poké Wars is a set of six Pokémon fan fictions written by Cornova and co-written by Jakayrta/Zarrelion.

The six stories in the series are Poké Wars: The Subsistence, Poké Wars: The Coalescence, Poké Wars: The Incipience, Poké Wars: The Exigence, Poké Wars: The Truculence, and Poké Wars: The Defervescence

Each of the six stories covers a specific arc, but they all tie together into one basic plot: Ho-oh has declared war on humans by removing Pokémon dampeners, making attacks obscenely powerful and ordering the Pokémon to go into a homicidal spree. In response to it, humanity bands together to fight and survive the deathtrap their world has become.

Tropes Used In the Series:
"Keep in mind that any of the characters in this fic can die. Even if they're main characters. I think I already proved that with."
 * A Million Is a Statistic: Uxie adopted this mindset to cope with the countless wars he's seen over the years. This is also shown to be why he isn't fazed in the slightest at the idea of.
 * Absurdly Sharp Blade - Samurai's katana is capable of slicing solid rock.
 * After the End - The Pokémon They Carried takes place a few years after the initial combats.
 * Exclusively Evil - Bug-Type Pokemon.
 * Especially the Ariados.
 * And I Must Scream -
 * Anyone Can Die - Said by Cornova in The Coalescence.
 * Anyone Can Die - Said by Cornova in The Coalescence.

"My pack is strong. You may have taken many of us, but not all of us are gone, and you will not take another! I will show you their strength, for I carry it on my back! I will defeat you for those that have fallen!"
 * Armor Is Useless - Averted. Samurai is the only armored character in the fic and his armor has saved him from the Beedrill attacks.
 * Asskicking Equals Authority - Blaziken is reluctantly promoted to leader of the group because of his battle prowess.
 * Author Appeal - The authors seem to like gore and intricate battle scenes.
 * Ascended Extra - Lt. Surge, Samurai, Kaiza, Sabrina, AJ, Whitney and her uncle, and several legendaries that only showed up once or twice in the show.
 * Special mention to Brendan, who only appears in three small cameos on the Pokémon movies and now he has a main role in the expanded universe.
 * Attack! Attack! Attack! - Some wild Pokémon are guilty of this. The most Egregious example is a Persian inhabiting Celadon with his pack of Meowth. He chucks his whole group at the Kanto survivors, and even after all of his underlings are slaughtered, he still tries using Thunderbolt. He doesn't live long enough to pull it off.
 * Ax Crazy - Lt. Surge seems to show signs of this.
 * Harley's Banette went down this path as well, but snapped him out of it. He's very afraid he will act just like he did next time, but  before he can do it again.
 * Rico could have went this way but
 * Badass - Pretty much everyone.
 * Badass Abnormal - Anyone whose . A good example is Samurai, who can generate blades of wind by swinging his katana, and Dawn, who seems to have a built-in accuracy check system installed in her brain.
 * Badass Normal - Tracy, who uses a lead pipe to fend off Pokémon attacks. Also Ash, whom doesn't have any skills in particular, but can pull off in any field of attack. And Lt. Surge, who held off a group of Electivire and Scyther with his knife.
 * Badass Boast - Alpha invokes this just before he delivers a Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner:
 * Badass Boast - Alpha invokes this just before he delivers a Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner:

"Darkrai: Humans are conquerors; whether it with is Pokémon or with each other."
 * Be Careful What You Wish For - Arceus warns Lugia of this when he entrusts him with the orbs of creation. He doesn't listen and creates a brother when he started to feel lonely. At the start it's happy but he still feels that something is amiss, then he learns that what he really wants is a mate. After dreaming with a perfect mate, he makes a wish with one of his orbs and he gets her. His brother leaves them after Lugia decided to use his last orb to give his mate the ability to procreate instead of giving him a mate too, damning him a life of solitude.
 * Because You Were Nice to Me: A lot of the Pokemon that the trainers helped in the past wind up joining them or committing a Heroic Sacrifice to help in the long run.
 * Blatant Lies - Banette saying that the the Thunder attack he used on the Golem was For Science!.
 * Blood Knight - Pikachu becomes one for a short time in The Coalescence.
 * AJ in The Subsistence made it clear that he'd kill any Pokémon that attacks humans.
 * Bloodstained-Glass Windows - The survivors in Hell In Sinnoh take refuge in a cathedral and one of them curses Arceus for allowing this war to happen. The last "shot" is that of the broken stained glass windows.
 * Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick - Chapter one of The Exigence is called "Lights! Camera! Apocalypse!"
 * Break the Cutie - Ash and Tracy in The Subsistence. Oh boy, do they ever get broken!
 * Don't forget May, Drew, Solidad, Harley and Whitney.
 * Bring My Brown Pants - Happens to Brock in The Subsistence when he is confronted by an Ariados.
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer - Dr. Kaminko from The Pokémon They Carried has a habit of naming his military hardware after Pokémon. Command lets him keep doing this because he's just that damn good at designing weapons.
 * Can't Hold Her Liquor - In a party at the end of The Coalescence, Dawn gets completely shitfaced on a very weak alcoholic drink. Justified by her young age.
 * The Captain - Alpha clearly serves this role for the Houndoom pack.
 * Chainsaw Good -  can transform into a chainsaw katana.
 * Character Development - Harley is a good example. At first he's a Jerkass who tells the police that May killed all the people in the contest hall on purpose for no reason other than to cause her problems. Until his own Pokémon start dying, that is. He mellows out even more afterwards, and even prays for May and Drew to die quickly and/or without pain when their situation looks particularly hopeless.
 * Chest Burster - Weedle reproduce by stinging their host and impregnating them with their offspring, which then proceed to eat their host alive.
 * Child Soldiers - If Dawn of a New Era is any indication, a decent portion of the soldiers are teenagers or possibly even younger.
 * And let's not forget the title character. She's fourteen at the time of the story.
 * Cluster F-Bomb - The Golem in chapter eight and nine of The Exigence swear far more than any other characters.
 * Cold Sniper - Dawn in the Expanded Universe.
 * Combat Breakdown - Present in practically every fight so far. The only exception was Pikachu vs. Sandslash, since (despite everything) it was just a spar.
 * Crapsack World - Pretty much everywhere, but Johto got the short end of the stick so far, as it was the epicenter of the war and the place Ho-Oh's crew bore down on humans the hardest. It becomes the Big Bad's base of operations later on.
 * Crazy Survivalist - Kaiza definitely counts. Lt. Surge has some shades of this.
 * Cruel and Unusual Death
 * Impregnated then eaten alive from the inside out by Weedle and Wurmple.
 * Liquified and then slurped up by an Ariados.
 * Being dissolved alive by a Muk's poisonous touch..
 * Being burned alive, from the inside out, by Will-O-Wisp.
 * Dark Fic
 * Dark Is Not Evil - Darkrai is allied with Lugia. The Houndoom near Goldenrod are the only wild Pokémon sympathetic to humans, and even betrayed their pact with Entei to protect May and her friends.
 * Subverted with.
 * Darker and Edgier
 * Darkest Hour - Humanity's seen better days, as it only took 10 days for over 6 million people to die. The only hope is Lugia releasing humanity's dampeners.
 * Death World - No place is truly safe anymore for either Pokémon or humans.
 * Deconstruction Fic - This series completely tears apart the sub-genre of Pokémon revolution fanfictions. It also highlights how lethal the Pokémon can be.
 * Deus Ax Machina - In Dawn of a New Era, Ash finds a fire ax inside the Celedon City gym and uses to break down a locked door.
 * Do Not Do This Cool Thing - The effects of the war are depicted realistically and there is a fairly obvious War Is Hell message. Unfortunately, few of the reviewers notice this, instead choosing to focus on the elaborate fight scenes.
 * Doesn't Like Guns - Ash and Samurai refuse to use firearms.
 * Doorstopper - The shortest one of the completed books is 55,073 words long. If all the completed books are added up together, they total 340,186 words.
 * Disproportionate Retribution - Ho-Oh's genocide could be seen as this.
 * Drop Ship - The Pelipper class dropships featured in The Pokémon They Carried. It should be noted that these drop ships are designed for atmospheric use.
 * Dying as Yourself - gets consumed by bloodlust but when he does a Heroic Sacrifice, he reverts to  loved.
 * Earth Is a Battlefield - Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Orre, Fiore, Oblivia, Almia, and Unova have all become war torn hell holes.
 * Embarrassing Nickname - Dawn does not like her nickname of "Blue Death".
 * Emotions vs. Stoicism: On Lugia's side, we have Mesprit, the living incarnation of emotions that is clearly shown suffering after seeing the atrocities of the war-torn world. On Ho-oh's side, we have Uxie, who sees emotions as a distraction in the way of his experiments.
 * Even Evil Has Standards: Subverted. Ho-oh is at first horrified at the concept of . He only goes along with it after hearing Uxie's reasoning, justifying it to himself with the rationale of.
 * Everything's Worse with Bears - Ursaring can get angry if you kill many of their group.
 * Everything Trying to Kill You - All Pokémon (save for the ones originally owned by trainers and some of the Legendaries) are hostile to humans and will go to surprising lengths to kill them.
 * Going by, even the trained Pokémon may be hostile.
 * Tentacruel aren't willing to take sides on the war, but if you set foot on their territory, they won't hesitate to attack.
 * Averted with Azelf, who feels the fight isn't his to get involved, the Shaymin, who don't think they can make a difference, and Heatran, since they see it as Someone Elses Problem.
 * Also averted by the . They hold humans in high esteem ever since one of their group was treated completely for free when he was sick.
 * Expanded Universe
 * By Cornova: The Pokemon They Carried, a sneak peek on the military future of the series.
 * By Jakayrta/Zarrelion: Hell In Sinnoh, which tells the story of an unnamed coordinator with her small ragtag group of survivors in Sinnoh; Dawn of a New Era, which focuses on Dawn's position as a sniper and her inner thoughts on the events; Downfall of a Champion, which tells the story of Cynthia and how she copes with the new situation.
 * By Janus366: Poké Wars: El Deseo de Lugia (Poké Wars: Lugia's Wish) which tells the story of Lugia's family and resumes The Incipience with focus on Lugia's side of the story, Now available in English; Poké Wars: La Supervivencia (Poké Wars: The Survival) which tells the story of a group of survivors from Petalburg City who are trying to find a safe haven from wild Pokémon, introducing both known (Brendan and Max for example) and new characters to the story. Now available partialy in English
 * By JanTanner: Poke Wars: Start of Chaos tells the story of a Johto Pokémon trainer and a group of children.
 * By Senriyu: Poke Wars: The Divergence tells the tale of the Unova region after the Dampener Removal.
 * Expy: Uxie seems to be one of Mordin Solus from Mass Effect 2.
 * Fastball Special - A variant. Regigigas throws Regirock at Mewtwo but as a grenade, not as blunt projectile.
 * Feathered Fiend - The Fearow in Chapter 9 of The Subsistence were bloodthirsty as all hell. The pack leader is a particularly nasty example.
 * Fell Off the Back of a Truck - Alpha explains that the supplies that May's group uses were "borrowed" from a nearby settlement.
 * Five-Bad Band
 * Big Bad - Ho-oh: Leader of the genocide campaign.
 * The Dragon - Raikou: Ho-oh's "lieutenant", who accompanies him at nearly all times.
 * Entei: Another one of Ho-Oh's dragons, sent on a mission to recruit wild Pokémon.
 * Kyogre: Has so far been commanding the majority of the underwater Pokémon to do Ho-oh's bidding, and has also discovered an "ace" that supposedly could guarantee Ho-oh's victory.
 * The Brute - Shadow Lugia: A corrupted Lugia clone who only desires to take the real Lugia's mate and cause as much destruction as possible.
 * Evil Genius - Uxie: The Being of Knowledge who sees the genocide and everything else as a chance to experiment. He's doing it For Science!, though, and only joined Ho-Oh because he won't complain about Uxie's lack of morality.
 * Dark Chick - Mewtwo: An artificial being who first fought against Ho-oh and lost, ending up as little more than a mind controlled puppet.
 * For Science! - Uxie's sole reason for joining up with Ho-oh; he wants to use the war and genocide as a chance to experiment.
 * Freudian Excuse - Shadow Lugia is pretty ticked off about the abuse he suffered under Cipher.
 * The other hostile Legendaries, save Kyogre, have pretty "legitimate" (in their eyes) reasons to hate humanity.
 * Genre Shift/Genre Roulette: The Subsistence, The Coalescence are mostly adventure stories with elements of Survival Horror. The next story, The Incipience, shifts in tone to something resembling a political intrigue thriller. The Exigence returns to the old formula. The Pokémon They Carried and Poke Wars: The Divergence are straight-up Military Science Fiction. Hell in Sinnoh is post apoc slice of life. Dawn of a New Era has a action-adventure and Survival Horror aspect in the first chapter. The next chapter is a Military Science Fiction slice of life story.
 * Gorn - The authors occasionally seem to take a little too much pleasure in describing the violence and brutality of the war and the effects of undampened Pokémon attacks on living beings.
 * Even moves that were originally non-damaging, like Gravity, can be used to do damage... usually with gory results.
 * Grievous Harm with a Body - Mewtwo beats the crap out of Registeel using the latter's own torn off arms.
 * Guns Akimbo - Dawn uses two handguns to fight off a horde of Cloyster. She doesn't miss.
 * Justified by her.
 * Guns Are Worthless - Averted. Firearms prove to be very effective on smaller Pokémon.
 * The Gunslinger - Dawn. She's a combination of Type A and a little of Type C.
 * Hellfire - Will-O-Wisp is a supernatural purple-blue fire that cannot be extinguished and can burn even rock.
 * Heroic BSOD - May, believing her Pokémon have killed an entire contest hall full of people.
 * Whitney after she finds her uncle's corpse.
 * Tracy, after losing all the Pokémon on the ranch because of the Muk, along with all the spare pokeglovs and everything else important to him. He even wished Ash would die.
 * Heroic Sacrifice -  to teleport everyone to safety after Pikachu ignites the volatile gas filled air surrounding a city overrun by Grimer and Muk, which becomes a massive fireball.
 * , but gets rid of his blinding bloodlust.
 * Improbable Species Compatibility - Andrew mention this, even using the example of the Skitty and Wailord to point of how weird were egg groups sometimes. Everyone is shocked from the revelation, but he quickly rectifies that it only have happened on in vitro fertilization experiments because in nature, it would be physically imposible to make them breed... Later, Jennifer comments how Arceus have created the world in such a strange way. Andrew responds to her telling that a popular theory is that Wailord and Wailmer where, a long time ago, Pokémon who lived on land.
 * Hover Tank - The Pokémon They Carried mentions one of these, the M009 Blastoise.
 * Humans Are Bastards - Ho-oh's excuse for his campaign. Even some of the good Legendaries admit they think this way.
 * Humans Are Special - Some of the Legendaries believe humans will earn their place in the post dampener removal Death World. Expanded Universe stories confirm this.
 * Humans Are Warriors - Darkrai's quote says it all:
 * Humans Are Special - Some of the Legendaries believe humans will earn their place in the post dampener removal Death World. Expanded Universe stories confirm this.
 * Humans Are Warriors - Darkrai's quote says it all:

"Having Mewtwo under absolute control was starting to corrupt him with the sheer power at his disposal."
 * Hypercompetent Sidekick: Uxie to Ho-oh; Ho-oh even admits that the sprite is the only real reason that his plans haven't completely fallen apart.
 * The Hyena - Banette has a habit of bursting into laughter at random and usually inappropriate moments. Or when he's called out on it.
 * I Call It Vera - Kaiza's custom built revolver is called "Thunderbolt".
 * Improbable Aiming Skills - Dawn has more skill than any champion in shooting sports.
 * Ash manages to nail a grenade with a .50 caliber sniper rifle shot. In mid air.
 * Improvised Weapon - Pokémon or guns are preferred weapons but improvised weapons are sometimes used.
 * Dawn of a New Era - Ash uses his Pokéglov as a bludgeon against an attacking Meowth.
 * The Subsistence - Tracy fights uses a lead pipe, and doesn't feel comfortable with anything else.
 * The Survival - The men guarding the convoy leaving Petalburg wield everything from guns to improvised maces, spears and a variety of homemade weapons.
 * Interspecies Romance - Brendan's Aggron and Arthur's Tyranitar are on this. Bannette, while joking, implies this on Roserade and Cacturne.
 * Invulnerable Knuckles - averted with a vengeance in chapters 8 and 9 of The Exigence.
 * Just Between You and Me: Ho-oh reveals to Mewtwo during their battle that the dampener removal gave him the subtype of Dark and therefore made him immune to Mewtwo's psychic attacks. Mewtwo promptly uses Miracle Eye to negate that advantage and then uses Psychic to tear Ho-oh's head and limbs apart.
 * Katanas Are Just Better - Samurai uses a katana and can fire air blades from it.
 * Kill All Humans: Ho-oh's ultimate goal.
 * Kung Fu Sonic Boom - When Regigigas punches Ho-oh, the shockwave produced blows a crater in the ground.
 * Jerkass - Harley, at first.
 * La Résistance - Lugia's corps of Legendaries and Ash's band are the biggest examples.
 * Last Stand - Implied by Harley's Banette that it'll be their way to go when May's group gets surrounded by a pack of Houndoom.
 * Leave No Survivors: Ho-oh orders Raikou to do this when Raikou launches his attack on Goldenrod City; Raikou takes it so much to heart that he relentlessly blasts the nearby ranch where May, Whitney and Drew are taking cover after he's killed everything else in the city.
 * Lethal Harmless Powers - Thanks to the dampener removal, many "harmless" attacks and abilities can be used in lethal and gruesome ways. Some examples:
 * Banette can phase through solid matter (including living things) with ease. Combine that with Will-O-Wisp and he can start fires inside his victims.
 * Gravity originally immobilized its victims and forced flyers to land. Now it can also be used to crush a target to death or turn rain into dangerous projectiles.
 * String Shot originally bound and immobilized its victims. It can now be used as Razor Wire.
 * Carnevale Masquerade as used by Roserade and Masquerain consisted of a beautiful dance combined with a shower of petals and a sweet odor. It was intended to be used as a flashy non-damaging move in a Pokémon contest. Using against a horde of bug Pokémon resulted in Pink Mist.
 * Life or Limb Decision: A Golem in The Exigence smashes his frozen arm to keep the rest of his body from freezing over.
 * Light Is Not Good - At first, Ho-oh. The rainbow phoenix... And mass murderer.
 * Subverted. The Incipience explains that a Pokémon enduring negative feelings obtains the power of darkness, which makes Ho-oh a part Dark-type.
 * Like a God to Me: The giant Alakazam Ho-oh and Uxie meet in The Defervescence immediately pledges its service to Uxie, given that its species constantly seek knowledge and Uxie is revered as the creator of knowledge. Uxie - who prefers to be seen as the creator of intelligence and the capacity to learn - sees it as blind loyalty, comparing it to the manufacturer of a chisel and hammer being worshiped because of a great sculpture.
 * Literal Genie: Wishes made on an Orb of Creation must be worded very specifically; Lugia finds this out the hard way when he realizes that although he wished for a mate, his wish did not mention anything about the mate being able to procreate. He ended up using his final Orb to give her that ability, which in turn leads to his brother's Face Heel Turn.
 * Loophole Abuse - In The Incipience, Lugia exploits the fact that humans have dampeners to give an edge to humanity. He also notes that Ho-Oh carefully worded his wish to prevent his own from being undone. We don't get to see the actual wording, though.
 * Love Triangle - between Ash, Dawn, and Misty.
 * Ludicrous Gibs - Not surprisingly, most Pokémon attacks now result in this. Shotgun shells on smaller Pokémon have about the same effect.
 * Mad Scientist - Uxie sees the entire genocide/war as nothing more than a science experiment. And there are implications that he wants to.
 * Mass "Oh Crap": Ash and co. in The Subsistence when they realize that not only does Bill's Dragonite Call still work, the giant Dragonite that was called is pissed off.
 * Mass Super-Empowering Event - Aside from the one affecting the Pokémon, Lugia uses his own orb of creation to.
 * Mercy Kill: Ash to the unfortunate survivors in the sea of murderous Pokémon and Kaiza, and Samurai to his Pinsir.
 * Mighty Glacier - M1-12 Rhydon cargo carriers mount one 105 mm smoothbore cannon, several 30 mm autocannons and are heavily armored enough to shrug off anything short of a Hyper Beam or Legendary Pokémon attack. Their top speed is twenty five miles per hour.
 * Military Fiction - The Pokémon They Carried, Dawn of a New Era and The Divergence have elements of this genre.
 * Military Mashup Machine - The M1-12 Rhydon cargo carriers mentioned in The Pokemon They Carried are "small" land battleships. They weigh 136 tons, stand 14 meters (46 feet) tall and are armed with 105mm smoothbore cannon on a mount that can rotate 360 degrees along with a bunch of turrets bearing 30 mm autocannons. Oh yeah, they can also carry supplies and troops. And they have armor that is impervious to anything short of a Hyper Beam or Legendary Pokémon attack.
 * Mind Over Manners: Sabrina forgets this being so happy to meet Ash again, Lt. Surge and Samurai attempted to kill her. Not to mention the way she embarrassed Misty and Dawn...
 * Mon Popsicle - Kyogre freezes Manaphy in a pyramid of ice.
 * Mon Puppets - Ho-oh takes control of body with an orb of creation.
 * Never Got to Say Goodbye -
 * Nothing Is the Same Anymore - Forget most of what you would find in the Pokémon series - there is no Pokémon capturing, badge collecting, contests, rivals, nothing. After the removal of the dampeners, the characters' lives become more similar to Prisoner 849's time in Na Pali than anything else. The Pokémon They Carried has a general atmosphere closely resembling the Command & Conquer series.
 * Not Quite Dead - Heroic example. gets smashed into a tree by a rampaging Golem and "dies" in Clefable's hands. He comes back to life when.
 * Obliviously Evil - Muk only wish to expand their territory, and any sort of ecological damage they may cause is completely unintentional on their part.
 * Pin-Pulling Teeth - Ash pulls the pins of some grenades he stole from Kaiza and then blows up a bridge to keep the Cloyster from attacking him and Dawn in The Coalescence.
 * Plot Armor - Judging by the Expanded Universe stories, which show the future of the series' world, survive and stay sane enough to occupy important posts at the new human coalition.
 * Powered Armor - the I305 "Lairon" Mobile Infantry Self-Contained Pressurized Environmental Combat Survival Exoskeleton mentioned in The Divergence provide protection against extreme environments and battle damage in addition to substantially increasing the wearer's strength.
 * Power Incontinence - A lot of trainer Pokémon accidentally kill their allies when the dampeners are removed, including Lt.Surge's Raichu and AJ's Sandslash. The Psychics in Saffron killed everyone, including themselves with the exception of Sabrina.
 * Power Limiter - the aforementioned dampeners.
 * Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner - Done by Alpha. "THIS IS THE STRENGTH OF MY PACK!" Cue him opening a can of whoopass on the lead Golem with the move Beat Up.
 * Pretty Little Headshots - Averted. When  kills Kaiza with his own handgun, the end result is quite messy. The trend goes on to whoever gets hit in the head with a bullet.
 * Psychic Powers - Sabrina possesses extremely deadly psychic powers. In the Expanded Universe, Will and Lucian also possess psychic powers but aren't as powerful as Sabrina.
 * Psycho Electro - Raikou is... rather unbalanced. He does have a moment of sympathy towards humans at first, but decides to have blind faith in Ho-Oh and follow his orders regardless.
 * Pikachu, after destroying a cluster of Muk. The temporary energy gain alters his behavior from "eager to fight" to "bloodthirsty".
 * Rated "M" for Manly - Intense battle sequences fueled by Rule of Cool and badasses all around pretty much add up to this.
 * Razor Floss - Ariados silk can take this form.
 * Razor Wind - Aside from the standard Razor Wind and Air Cutter attacks from the Pokémon canon, Samurai eventually gains the ability to swing his katana with such force that he can generate a blade of air.
 * Red Baron - In Dawn of a New Era Dawn, get the nickname "Blue Death" for her skill with a .50 caliber sniper rifle. She doesn't like it.
 * Hiiro Mizutani from The Pokémon They Carried bears the nickname of "Black Blade".
 * Mimoru from The Pokémon They Carried is known by the soldiers as "The Marionette".
 * The Resenter: Shadow Lugia is very much this towards the original, and Ho-oh goads Kyogre into being this towards Manaphy.
 * Resurrective Immortality: Ho-oh has been thrown into a mountain and had his limbs and head torn apart, and come back none the worse for wear. According to Uxie, only a legendary is able to have this ability - if a normal Pokémon had it, they'd fall under Born-Again Immortality.
 * The Rival - Sandslash and Pikachu had this going on in The Coalescence.
 * Rule of Cool - The battle sequences practically run on high-test Rule Of Cool.
 * The Scapegoat - both May and Harley become this. To put it more clearly, after May's Blaziken destroys the Pokémon contest in a fit caused by his undampening, Harley goes to the police and accuses May of doing so intentionally. The government forces, trying to quench the populace's hunger for any sort of action, gladly goes after her. Why Harley became wanted is unknown, though.
 * Scenery Gorn - Any description of the attacks will go into detail about how much the surrounding environment has been ravaged. The aftermath of Pikachu and Sandslash's "sparring match" in The Coalescence is a particularly detailed example.
 * Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right - The Houndoom pack agreed with Entei to attack humans in Ho-Oh's favor. They're not inclined at all on doing so, though - they just agreed to get rid of his overwhelming presence.
 * Seppuku - In Chapter 19 of The Subsistence
 * Serial Escalation- Each battle is more destructive than than the last, and frequently has more casualties.
 * Shape Shifter - Duplica's Ditto can transform into Pokémon, clothes and even humans and will look and act exactly like the real article. Mini-Dit can transform into any weapon it touches, including firearms.
 * Shell-Shock Silence - Solidad gets nearly deafened by an explosion.
 * Shell-Shocked Veteran - Lt. Surge.
 * It's implied that  went crazy when he had to kill the Safari Zone's Pokémon to ensure his own safety.
 * If Dawn Of A New Era counts as canon, the eponymous girl also counts. She has an obvious case of PTSD, constantly remembers her times as a Coordinator before the events of the series, and is very bitter about only being recognized by the abilities that gave her the nickname "Blue Death".
 * Ship Tease - In the The Exigence, Drew and May end up sharing a room and May hints that something may be up between the two.
 * In The Coalescence there is a scene where Misty kisses Ash.
 * Shout-Out - "James surveyed his remaining collection of bottle caps that he had brought with him. He had dreamed a few days ago that bottle caps would be the new currency for the struggling survivors of the world."
 * Banette's "Awww, why so serious?" taunt to the Golem.
 * Shown Their Work - Cornova really knows the ins and outs of nearly every detail about the Pokémon anime universe.
 * Smug Snake - Ho-oh can be this at times.
 * Start of Darkness - Lugia's Wish explains why Lugia's brother is so pissed with him.
 * The Spock: Uxie, who sees emotions as useless and in the way of his "progress." He thanks Ho-oh for the dampener removal during their first meeting, as the event all but took away his ability to feel emotion.
 * Taking You with Me:
 * Terse Talker. Uxie prefers to speak in short clipped sentences, since he thinks talking wastes time when you could advance progress instead.
 * Token Evil Teammate - Groudon only joined Lugia's coalition because Kyogre's joined Ho-oh. Not to mention, he's one of the ruder members.
 * Take A Level In Badass: A necessity for survival.
 * Too Powerful to Live: was too powerful to be introduced so soon. There was no way she was going to survive.
 * Tele Frag - Sabrina's justification for not teleporting from city to city.
 * Translation Convention - Pokémon-Speak is rendered in English, though never in any section with human speech, so they don't overlap.
 * Underestimating Badassery: Sort of; Uxie speculates in The Defervescence that Ho-oh has been utilizing only ten percent of Mewtwo's full potential, and the only reason Mewtwo didn't go all out during his battle against Ho-oh was that he himself didn't realize how much power he was actually capable of utilizing.
 * Undying Loyalty: The Legendary Dogs (especially Raikou) pledged this to Ho-oh, while the giant Alakazam swears this to Uxie.
 * Unsuspectingly Soused - During the party at the end of The Coalescence, Dawn drinks "soda" that gets her completely drunk. It should be noted that the "soda" was actually a very weak wine cooler or mixed drink.
 * Villain Episode: The Defervescence appears to be one of these.
 * Warrior Monk - Arthur and his master are the asian type mixed the Aura Guardians from the pokémon lore.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist - Ho-oh. He wants Pokémon-kind to live in a utopia... and he does so by engaging in a genocide against humanity.
 * At least until he Jumps Off the Slippery Slope by doing things like ordering wanton killing of Pokémon contrary to his ideals, utterly ruining the environment and not giving a damn about it, and generally being a filthy hypocrite.
 * War Is Hell - The effects of the supercharged Pokemon attacks are described in graphic detail, as well as the feelings of the victim if it's still alive after the hit. The characters' reactions to the more trauma-inducing happenings are just as vividly written.
 * War Fic - It's in the name!
 * Wave Motion Gun: Hyper Beam's been turned into this.
 * What the Hell, Hero? - Tracy gets yelled at by the entire cast after he tries to assault Jessie, James and Meowth after their Heel Face Turn.
 * With Great Power Comes Great Insanity - Hinted at in The Incipience.


 * Judging by Pikachu's actions after igniting a cluster of Muk in The Coalescence, gaining too many levels at once results in a power overload that causes a barely controllable berserk frenzy.
 * You Always Hear the Bullet - Averted in Dawn of a New Era. Dawn kills three Fearow with long range shots. It is explicitly stated that the sonic booms came after the fatal shots.
 * You Monster! - How Lugia reacts to what Ho-Oh did to Mewtwo.
 * You Shall Not Pass: Cacturne accepts that this could be his way to go when he faces off against the pack of Ursaring.