Awesome / Ashes of the Past

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General

• Ash's Squirtle is a walking, talking, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann reference. Worse? He's memetic. Gary is initially angry that Ash's Squirtle turned his Squirtle into post-time-skip Simon (not literally).
• Just seeing Ash going mano-a-mano against Pokémon on his own is one.
• A slight one for the author by managing to get a pretty accurate guess on how Keldeo would be depicted well before his featured movie was released.
• Qualifying as Gym Leader or for the Elite 4. To be a gym leader, you must take your own team and/or rent-a-Pokémon and give a good showing against a member of the Elite 4. To get in the Elite 4, you must prove you can fight Legendaries evenly when at a disadvantage when it comes to type. Now you understand why a Gym Leader is so respected, and him going all-out is something everyone fears... Or how Misty, the youngest member of the Kanto-Johto Elite 4 in centuries, can casually send three opponents twinkling in the sky.
• Whenever a main character successfully Mega Evolves a Pokémon for the first time, which involves the trainer focusing on their bond with said Pokémon. Saphroneth always seems to capture what the Pokémon and Trainer mean to each other perfectly.

Kanto's Gym Challenge (Chapters 1-24)

• Chapter 2:
  • Ash is now capable of channeling his aura enough to use Pokémon moves. The first one he demonstrates is Protect. Which he manages to get working with Aura Sight assistance, and leads to wrecking Misty's bike.
  • This line. Not the line itself, actually, but who says it.
  Pikachu: Ash, you did remember to clean its cache once in a while, right?^note 'It' is Dexter, his Pokédex
• Chapter 3:
  • Butterfree and Pidgeot show off their BW levels, gained after 4 years of protecting their flocks.^note In Pidgeot's case, against a flock led by a certain Fearow
• Chapter 4:
  • The Gym Battle against Brock. Really shows how much Ash and Pikachu changed since then...
  • On the road to Cameran, Ash is attacked by a Lucario… and perfectly holds his own! Sure, he gets a broken arm, but he shows off the ability to use Counter to give her a broken rib!
    • Turns out it was a test to see if he was worthy of receiving a Riolu egg. For what come after, see CMOH.
• Chapter 5:
  • Ash finds Sir Aaron's outfit, and it does tons of cool stuff!
  • Ash accidentally awakens Aaron's Lucario. The latter, mistaking Ash for Aaron, goes in psychotic Roaring Rampage of Revenge mode. Ash is clearly outmatched, but manages to resist long enough for The Cavalry (Pikachu, Pidgeot, Riolu) to come.
    • Lucario accidentally presses Pidgeot's Berserk Button. She replies with an overpowered Sky Attack. How overpowered? She leaves a huge crater lined with molten glass!
• Chapter 6:
  • The team fights the Team Rocket. And it's damn obvious that they're their competent BW selves!
    • A highlight is Ash fighting directly Growlie, now an Arcanine, showing his first demonstration of Force Palm!
  • Giovanni demands that James abandons Growlie to him. James, though clearly scared, refuses.
    James: With all due respect, Boss, you'll never get Growlie.
    • Turns out it was a Secret Test of Character, and the trio passed it!
• Chapter 7:
  • It's revealed that to become Gym Leader, you must fight the Elite 4!
    Brock: You should see the qualifications for joining the Elite 4. They involve Legendaries…
  • Two words, that are always synonymous of CMOA in this fic, are pronounced here for the first time.
  Pikachu: Volt Crash!!
• Chapter 8:
  • Charizard is back!
• Chapter 9:
  • Ash delivers an epic Humiliation Conga to Damian. In the original version:
  Ash: Are you Damian?
  Damian: That’s me, why? Want a battle?
  Ash: (cold smile) Not me, no. I thought I’d make you aware of a few of the laws here in Kanto, that’s all.
  Damian: What do you mean?
  Ash: (reading from notes on his PokéDex) First up, an old law from well before the invention in Johto of the Poké ball. One that references the position of Pokémon that willingly follow a trainer, as – in fact – in a similar position as household members of a feudal lord, the initial intention being a comparison with hunting dogs and such but for more than just Houndour and Growlithe.
  Damian: So?
  Ash: I’m getting to that. Second is a UN resolution from the fifties, defining the legal status of a Pokémon as being dependant on the tested intelligence of that Pokémon. Since the intelligence of Pokémon varies wildly within a species, ahem, ‘In cases where the tested IQ and reasoning capacity of a Pokémon falls within the bounds of one standard deviation below the human average or higher, that Pokémon will be considered to be in an equal legal status as a human for all intents and purposes.
  Damian: Still not seeing the point.
  Ash: We’ll get there. But in the meantime… I heard from someone that you had a Charmander. Where is it?
  Damian: That weakling? I told him to wait for me on a rock out of town, a few days ago. He’s probably still waiting, heh. Fool, I’m not coming back for him.
  Ash: (to Brock and Misty) You two?
  Brock and Misty: Heard and witnessed.
  Damian: (now suspicious) What was that about?
  Ash: Finally, a law from the Tokugawa shogunate that states: In case of a loyal retainer being betrayed unto death by a lord through no fault of his own, and he survive, he may make one return strike if the plot is proven.
  Damian: (trying to stay defiant) And the point of all that is?
  Brock: (holds up a Boulder Badge) Gym leader of Pewter, fully accredited by the Kanto League.
  Misty: (holds up a Cascade Badge) Gym leader of Cerulean, same.
  Ash: Gym Leaders used to be the courts in their areas of jurisdiction; their testimony still holds up legally thanks to the rigorous character tests involved in assuming the position. Your abandoned Charmander is intelligent enough to count as human, and hence a retainer; you left him to die in the rain with malice intent; he gets a return strike; he’s behind you.
  (Damian turns around, expecting to face Charmander... and faces Charizard. Charizard seems to prepare a lethal Flamethrower... but just blows strong enough to knock Damian on the ground, who loses "control".)
  Ash: He’s a better person than you. How does that make you feel, that – if he hadn’t been willing to forgive you abandoning him to die – you’d be a smear of soot?
  Damian: (whimpers)
  Ash: Come on, guys, let’s head over to route 9. I think that’s where we have to go next.
  Narration: And they left him in the dirt, not bothering to spare him even a backward glance.
  • The rewrite changes this up somewhat, but remains still as epic:
  Ash: So, I did a lot of reading last night. I found what I was looking for.
  Damian: Like what? What are you on about, kid? It was kind of fun talking Pokémon training but what's this about?"
  Ash: There's this old law from hundreds of years ago. It's still a law, and it says that, um… to assume loyalty is false is no excuse. And, then there's lots of details, but basically, if you tell someone who works for you to do something and they get hurt, then it's your fault.
  (Damian has no idea what Ash was going on about)
  Ash: And there's an even older one from, um, about a thousand years ago, where a Pokémon retainer is counted as a human retainer for the purposes of damages. And retainer is, the same thing as having a Pokémon, when it's updated.
  Damian: So? Oh, is this about that Charmander? (Shrugs) Yeah, that wasn't my Pokémon any more. So, what do you care?
  Ash: Then there's a law that says that you're responsible for releasing Pokémon in a safe situation. It's newer, it's from about… three hundred years ago I think, means that if your Pokémon gets hurt not long after releasing them then it's as if they were still your Pokémon. So if it's something the Pokémon does when you're not there and you couldn't have known it would happen, it doesn't count, but if you knew about it it does count. Is that right, Misty?
  Misty: That's right, Ash. So if you released a Pokémon like my Goldeen on land, you'd be responsible because she couldn't get to the water in time.
  Damian: This is all nonsense. Who do you think anyone's going to believe, anyway? It's my word against yours, and Charmander isn't even registered as mine any more. I broke his Pokéball once I was out of sight and threw it away, so it's not like there's any proof.
  Ash: (With a glint in his eye) There… sort of is, actually. It's not really all that well known now, but Gym Leaders were supposed to keep order in the areas they lived and worked before we had a modern police system. And some of the laws around that never got changed either, so Gym Leaders' testimony counts extra.
  Misty: (Holding out a Cascade Badge) Misty Waterflower, Gym Leader of Cerulean City.
  Brock: (Holding out a Boulder Badge) Brock Slate, Gym Leader of Pewter City.
  Damian: (Realising he's being trapped in a way) You set me up, you little-! Fine, whatever. (He then reaches for some Pokéballs on his belt) I've got some tough Pokémon, I'll sort you all out! There's no way you'll be able to tell anyone what I did when my Pokémon have flattened you!
  Ash: (Reaching for a single Pokéball) Charizard, come on out!
  Narration: As it turned out, the kid had a really big Charizard. One who loomed over the Machoke and Electabuzz Damian had just sent out, and who cracked his knuckles with a smirk.
  The scene then cuts to an hour later, where Ash remarks how proud he is of Charizard for what he did - which included blowing Damien over with a snort before handing him in to the local police station.
  • The first demonstration of Blast Burn - melting the wall of the Rock Tunnel.
  • The Rocket Trio decides to try their luck at the Gym Challenge, and start with Koga's. Which allows the new recruits to show off:
    • Abra bypasses the pre-fight challenge with Teleport. Koga bans it in response.
    • Cubone reveals her Reality Marble and curb-stomps Koga's entire team. The rewrite tones down the reveal to become more natural, but she still manages to curb stomp them all.
  • Meanwhile, Meowth, thanks to the Gym's Meowth (who is actually Meowzie!) finally learns Pay Day, taking his first step on the road to badassitude.
• Chapter 14 - 15: Team Rocket vs Ash's Group, with them narrowly losing by the virtue of deciding to call it quits when Dexter evolved into Porygon.
• Chapter 17:
  • The confrontation with Hunter J.
    • Tapping into a spark of power left in his soul when they first arrived in Unova, Pikachu blows up all of J's stasis cages with Bolt Strike, Zekrom's signature move, undoing a year of J's efforts. Riolu then prevents J and her crew from recapturing them with help from Maurice's Altaria. In the rewrite, he does the same, but with just his own power instead, making it even more epic.
    • Pidgeot takes full advantage of her speed to set up an enormous tornado with some Razor Wind in a drill configuration to pierce the ship's armor, then slams into J's Salamence with a Brave Bird attack, blindsiding him and allowing Charizard to press the advantage and melt a hole through the damaged armor.
    • Ash fights J hand-to-hand, and she retreats once she notices he's an Aura Adept (and he cracks one of her ribs).
    • The Shaymin Ash befriended in the previous chapter shows up to help.
• Chapter 20:
  • More of an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, but when Ash and Co. enter Dark City, the city with the two feuding gyms, they decide to just march in and Thunder Wave everyone in the town, despite the two gym-loads of Poké-resistance. But really, was it ever going to go any other way?

Mewtwo versus Mew (Chapters 25-26)

• Ash giving Mewtwo a run for his money in one-on-one combat.
  • The way he does it is awesome too. Ash needs to use Ghost type moves to do any damage to the Psychic-type Mewtwo, and he figures out how to do that. How? His own blood. And by the end, he was almost out of it, and nearly died from blood loss. Ash was fully prepared to put his life on the damn line and die to knock some sense into Mewtwo, but the Sacred Ash brought him back. Doesn't diminish the awesome, though.
  • On that note, Team Rocket's Big Damn Heroes moment to save their lives.
• Pikachu boasted that if Ash died he'd break him out of the afterlife. But that's not the awesome part, the awesome part is that he had a viable plan.
  • And Riolu and Meowth agreed to go with!

The Indigo League (Chapters 27-36)

• During the opening ceremonies of the League, Moltres itself shows up and lights the torch.
• Ash and Ritchie pulling six Mirror Boss matches. Even with Ash's extra experience due to Time Travel, Ritchie manages to hold his own!
  • Tying in with that, due to Ash and Ritchie being Destiny Tangled, Ritchie, in this timeline, unlocks his Psychic Powers as Ash unlocks his Aura powers.
• Team Rockets manage to be semi-finalists in the league!
• Gary versus Ash as the grand finale battle.
• It has to be said. After 5 years of losing at the last hurdle, Ash finally, finally, WINS A POKÉMON LEAGUE.
• Even if he lost, Ash did put up a pretty good fight against Lorelei, who in canon beat him up, down and sideways without much effort. This time, Ash managed to bring Lorelei down to her last Pokémon, and only lost because Jynx's Focus Sash allowed her to barely endure Tauros' Fissure.
  • Also, some props to Lorelei herself for defeating Charizard by using the after effects of his own Blast Burn, that until then had practically been a One-Hit KO.

The Orange Islands part 1 (Chapters 37-38)

• Ash's gym challenge on Mikan Island involves a Pokémon race across water. The Leader Cissy says that the only restriction is to stay on your Pokémon. Ash's Pokémon? His supersonic-capable Pidgeot.

The Power of One (Chapters 39-42)

• In chapter 40, Team Rocket attacking Lawrence III's ship with a Suicune-37 multirole fighter.
  • In the same chapter, J has her Drapion use Toxic on Ash to try and kill him. Riolu shields him... And, for added humiliation to J, becomes a Lucario, thus No Selling the Poison-type attack thanks to becoming a part-Steel type Pokémon.
• Chapter 41, J shoots Lucario with a gun. J, ever heard of Bullet Catch?
  • Same chapter: thanks to the storm and the fight coming too close to the sea, J's Salamence manages to reverse the course of the fight and gain the upper hand on Charizard. Cue Squirtle stopping him. He then tricks the Salamence into the path of Articuno's Aurora Beam, making the poor dragon part of the collateral damage of the three-way battle battle between Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres.
    • Also, the fact Charizard was winning: Salamence not only is a Dragon type and thus has the advantage against a Fire type, but it's also a Pseudo-Legendary... And in spite of this, Charizard was winning.
  • Lugia versus the Legendary Birds. Three on one... And the one is winning.
  • Finally, the Legendary Birds get smart, and use the same combo that fell Lugia in the movie... And before they can defeat it, Ash, Pikachu, Pidgeot and Charizard force them to stop, and Pikachu actually hurt Moltres.
  • Still, it's three Olympus Mons we're talking about, they don't go down easy. So in the following chapter Charizard and Pidgeot start fighting Articuno and Moltres, and give them a desperate run for their money. And Charizard is already tired from the battle with Salamence. And yet, they hold long enough for Lugia to get the drop on them and give them the well-deserved thrashing he had wanted to give them and Zapdos for a long time.
  • After Zapdos too has been neutralized and Ash has all three Treasures, Lawrence III gets back in the fray and makes a last attempt at catching Lugia. Lugia is weakened by the long battle, could succumb... So, whose turn it is to save them? Togekiss. Who, after being mistaken for Ho-Oh, declares herself his understudy.
  • While all this was happening, Lucario has defeated J's Pokémon and captured her. Next we see him, he wrecks the controls for Lawrence's capture rings, finally neutralizing the idiot for good.
  • Also, the storm wasn't as bad as in the movie. Why? Mewtwo was toning it down.

The Orange Islands part 2 (Chapters 43-46)

• The fight between Ash and Drake. Because that Dragonite was hellishly strong.
  • Lucario first demonstrating his Smash move: Aura Storm.
  • And the last move of the fight? Charizard's Draco Meteor.

Johto's Gym Challenge part 1 (Chapters 47-54)

• Casey's Rattata defeating Ash's Charizard with the infamous FEAR tactic.
• In chapter 50, Pikachu using a boxing glove as a rocket to engage Falkner's Pidgeot in a dogfight and coming out on top.
• Brock's Stantler vs Blade, Shingo's Scizor. Blade is a powerful Pokémon, one that in canon gave Ash's Heracross a desperate run for his money, and Stantler is still a fawn. Stantler curbstomped Blade.
• The battle with Bugsy. By passing the Sturdy ability around his Pokémon, Bugsy managed to field a Shedinja invulnerable to anything, not just most attack types. Ash still defeated it.

Spell of the Unown (Chapters 55-58)

• Misty's Seadra evolving into Kingdra out of nowhere. In the words of the author, "Turns out a gigantic string of Dragon Dance and a load of Unown bending reality can substitute for a Dragon Scale".
• Squirtle versus Molly Hale's imaginary Vaporeon. Too awesome for words.
• Ash, Charizard, Pikachu and Lucario fighting against illusionary Raikou, Suicune and Entei. And when it looks like the illusionary Beasts have won, Pidgeot comes to the rescue. But that's not enough, so what happens next? Charizard starts spontaneously Mega-Evolving. Both types, and without stones.. At which point he starts beating up the three illusionary Legendaries at the same time.
• And how do you top the above? When Charizard gets too tired to continue fighting, the real Legendary Beasts show up. And, being used to working like a group, start dishing an even worse beating on their opponents.
• When the Unown are close to go critical like in the movie, Brock stops it with a swing of his crowbar.
  • Still, there are a lot of pissed-off Unown to fight. Enter Mewtwo, who defeats them unbelievably fast.
    Ash: What? That took ten seconds!
    Mewtwo: World's. Most. Powerful. Pokémon.
  • And, Mewtwo being Mewtwo, he also recovered Molly's parents and took the chance to make the illusory Beasts and Eevee real. And (accidentally) Shiny. Oh, and the Eevee can evolve and de-evolve at will.

Johto's Gym Challenge part 2 (Chapters 59-62)

• The battle with Whitney. Who confirms herself as That One Boss with: a Clefairy that nearly defeated Totodile before two unlucky Metronomes cured the Water-type and self-destructed the Normal-type; an idiotic Bidoof with Moody that proves himself much stronger than he's intelligent; and the goddamned Miltank from hell. Then Muk shows up and overpowers Miltank, and by overpowers we mean unleashes no less than 20 different attacks all at once.
  • Here is the list: Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, Shadow Ball, Rock Tomb, Shock Wave, Fire Blast, Focus Blast, Secret Power, Dark Pulse, Sludge Bomb, Giga Drain, Hyper Beam, Ice Punch, Hidden Power, Double Team, Round, Payback, Rain Dance, Sunny Day and Toxic.

Mewtwo Returns (Chapters 63-66)

• In chapter 64, Pidgeot too manages to Mega-Evolve. Again, without any stones.
• Chapter 65 features Keldeo showing why he's one of the Swords of Justice.

Johto's Gym Challenge part 3 (Chapters 67-71)

• In chapter 67, Misty receives a letter. It's a notice that she's being scouted as a possible member of the Elite Four.
• Houndour first gym battle against Morty's Gengar. He wins. Especially notable the Beat-Up attack (a move in which doubles of all of Ash's Pokemon on hand appear and beat up the opponent. The group now includes Keldeo).
• Volt Crash, Ash and Pikachu's self made electric Hyper-Beam variant impresses Raikou enough that when he fights Ash he plans to throw the match just to learn how to do it.
• Misty challenging Raikou as part of her Elite Four qualification. Raikou won, but Misty gave him a desperate run for his money. To a Legendary Pokémon, and one with a type advantage against her team to boot.

Voice of the Forest (Chapters 72-75)

• The fourth movie, Celebi, Voice of the Forest, starts with Ash, after a long race and a six-on-one Pokémon battle, finally succeeding in capturing Suicune.
• Team Rocket's attack on Vicious, the Iron-Masked Marauder. Vicious is more formidable than in the original timeline, thanks to a failed attempt at stopping him executed by some Team Rocket Grunts ending up giving him more Pokémon... So Jessie, James and Meowth showed up with all their considerable firepower and the Pokémon world equivalent of a V-22 Osprey, starting a truly formidable battle.
  • First, Battle Couple Ninetales and Growlie tag-team a powered up Houndoom.
  • Cubone is faced with the war machine and steadily sets to smashing it up as best she can until she finds a weak point. While dodging Vicious's Girafarig.
  • Both Misty's and Team Rocket's Gyradoses go head to head on the Tyranitar. With support from Meowth and a good chunk of the rest of Misty's forces.
  • Weavile proves to be useless against Wobbuffet who No Sells everything he does.
• While the above is going on Stantler's illusions are good enough to hide Celebi and the rest, while making Vicious think that Celebi is still in the fight.
• Ash makes a dynamic entry.
• Muk vs Vicious' Weavile is described as "Muk opened his mouth, and then all Weavile knew was pain". And he saved it from Wobbufett's puns too.
• Ash bringing Pikachu back to normal after he got transformed into a Shadow Pokémon, with a Cooldown Hug.
• At the movie's climax, Ash not only engages Vicious with his bare hands, he does an Implacable Man-style Slow Walk towards him, smashing Dark Balls out of the air as he tries to capture his Pokémon again.
• After everything is said and done, two Celebi appear and explain that all the trippy time nonsense that just happened was because the gang broke time. That's not an easy thing to do.
  • They also created the Fairy type.
• Amongst the time displacements that occur when time breaks, there is a scene of someone performing a Heroic Sacrifice to save the floating town of Pacifidlog from a tidal wave. That someone is Ash's father, in an incident mentioned all the way back in Ash's first conversation with Ho-Oh.

Johto's Gym Challenge part 4 (Chapters 76-99)

• The Gym battle at Cianwood City:
  • Just the rules imposed by gym leader Chuck are awesome: five one-on-one matches, who wins the most wins the battle, he'll use five Fighting types, and Ash will use his four and a Pokémon of his choice. Done fully knowing that Keldeo is a Fighting type (he once fought a guy with a Moltres. It was a blast of a battle).
  • Hitmonlee vs. Lucario. At first it seemed Lucario would win with relative ease, what with the dodged Hi-Jump Kick and the Hi-Jump Kick that hit Protect... Then Hitmonlee broke. Through. Protect. With. One. Kick. Double KO.
  • Hitmontop vs. Primeape. Hitmontop is practically unassailable when spinning on his head, and kicks hard. Then Primeape starts running at the same speed of the spinning, and then some, and manages to grab Hitmontop's tail. They get both thrown into a wall. Primeape lands worse... And it activates his Anger Point, bringing his already powerful Attack at its maximum, and then uses Thrash.
  By the way, I think he's knocked out.
  • Hitmonchan vs. Keldeo. Hitmonchan holds his own, at least before Keldeo learns to use Secret Sword as a ranged attack...
  • Poliwrath vs. Heracross. Poliwrath is outmatched... So Chuck has him wreck the gym's floor to break the water pipes and flood the battlefield to give him a speed advantage and protection thanks to the water deep enough to swim under it. Ash replies by having Heracross use Hyper Beam on the wall, opening a hole through which the water drained out. But that wasn't enough to stop Poliwrath. Quilava teaching Heracross to use Aerial Ace, and him following up with Giga Impact and Submission were. Ash has won the badge... But, as Chuck said, where's the fun stopping now?
  • Machoke vs. Butterfree. Ash's Butterfree is powerful, has Type advantage and knows Psychic. This Machoke can use Rock Throw, something he can't do in the games, can punch out of the sky the stones Butterfree sends him back with Psychic, and replied to Butterfree's intended finishing move by evolving into Machamp and unleash a barrage of bowling ball-sized Rock Throws. In the end, Ash and Butterfree resort to cave in the roof onto Machamp's head to win...
  • And because Chuck is Chuck, he challenged Ash to a spar. Before they got interrupted by Chuck's wife, Ash was winning.
  • Added prize for the victory? A Mega Stone.
• Gary's Blastoise Mega Evolving for a gym battle in Kalos. Bonus point for the Mega Stone being held into his Simon-style orange glasses.
• The Pokémon Pinchers stepped on Team Rocket's turf by trying to capture the Moltres of Mount Ember. Giovanni sicked the Trio on them. The Pinchers failed to offer any meaningful resistance.
• Perhaps not in the "Explosions and Battle" sense, but Todd recently got the latest issue of a Photography magazine... and thanks to his photographs of the mating dance of the Articuno, pretty much the whole issue is about him. Bit of heartwarming in there, but it's cool to see characters we love so much get the recognition they deserve for doing awesome stuff.
• Chapter 81:
  • Misty vs. Entei. It started with Psyduck nullifying Entei's trump card (Sunny Day, that empowers Fire-type moves, weakens Water-type ones, and allows to fire Solar Beam without charging. Psyduck's ability is to prevent weather change), and it became only more awesome from that. In the end, Entei won... And was so tired he fell asleep immediately after finally defeating the newly-evolved Kabutops;
  • Ash vs. Raikou. Raikou was throwing the fight... And some of the things he did included shattering an Aura-made Bone Rush staff. Wonder what he would have done had he been fighting seriously...
• Orville, the High Flying Pidgey, actually manages to fly higher up than Pidgeot. How high was he? Well, we don't find out, but Pidgeot was in the Stratosphere when she had to stop because her wings were icing up. And Pidgey just kept on going.
• During the Whirl Cup, Misty manages to beat Ash. Who was using Suicune. Granted, he was only using Suicune and Misty had to use both Politoed and Kabutops, but it's still an impressive feat given that she lost to both of Suicune's brothers. Brock figures that this was because Misty knew exactly what Suicune was having trouble with beforehand from Ash's training, surprised Ash with Politoed's Water Absorb, and managed to use Ash's on-the-fly planning to her advantage by using Suicune's ice attacks to stymie her own agility.
  • The Elite Four were watching the match. Even them, the strongest trainers in Kanto and Johto found it awesome, to the point they had trouble commenting on it.
  • Also significant for its foreshadowing: The last significant opponent to turn Ash's preference for seat-of-his-pants tactics and overwhelming power against him was Lorelai of the Elite Four, whose position Misty would eventually fill.
• Pidgeot laying down the law to the three Legendary Birds as their temporary babysitter, while Lugia is traveling with Ash for a time.
  Pidgeot: Right. None of you is in charge. I am. And that's for two reasons. First, Lugia specifically recruited me to keep you three in line. Secondly, and more importantly, I know Aeroblast and I have a sustained speed in level flight three times greater than what any of you can achieve. I can reach out and touch you from miles off, and you can't stop me. Any questions?
  • And using it on Zapdos when he does try.
• In chapter 83, the gang and Ritchie have to deal with Cipher in addition to dr. Namba's group of Team Rocket. Cipher, of course, is using Shadow Pokémon, much stronger than normal Pokémon... And still gets trounced. In one case while having a Type advantage (a Shadow Tropius vs. Misty's Gyarados. One Ice Beam and Tropius was out). Then we have Lucario using the Hiryu Shotenha... And Ash punching out Nascour.
• Chapter 84:
  • Wes and Rui delivering a group of Cipher Peons such a complete Curb-Stomp Battle they dished it out while commenting the battle of Ash's gang, and getting surprised when they ran out of Peons.
  • Lugia vs. Shadow Lugia. It's just as awesome as it sounds.
    • And once Ash gets close enough to use Aura Purge, he manages to match Shadow Lugia despite not having any other Pokémon with him.
• The gym battle against Jasmine in chapters 85 and 86:
  • Jasmine being Crazy-Prepared enough to: make her gym out of face-hardened rolled steel plates (that is, battleship armour) for trainers of high-powered Pokémon (like Ash); having platforms for the trainers in case someone floods the field (as Kingler does); having powerful fans to pump out poison gas (this in spite of Jasmine using Steel-type Pokémon, immune to Poison-type moves. Then again, a surprisingly high number of challengers uses Poison-type moves against her...) and drain the water when the field is flooded (turns out useful when having Magnezone around in the flooded gym turns out being too dangerous), among other things;
  • Ivysaur vs. Aggron. Aggron wins by surviving Fissure and then hitting Ivysaur with a last Heavy Slam;
  • Kingler vs. Aggron. Ash and Kingler, who used Aggron having previously reduced his own weight to escape being trapped in Ivysaur's Fissure to neutralize his best move and manhandle him;
  • Kingler vs. Magnezone. It's rare seeing one of Ash's Pokémon at the receiving side of a Curb-Stomp Battle...;
  • Pikachu vs. Magnezone. The match is filled with it, what with Magnezone getting a Force Palm to the face and then swatting aside a Sonicboom, Magnezone hitting Pikachu with the strength of his own Force Palm, only twice as strong, and then escaping Lock-On. In the end, Jasmine retires Magnezone;
  • Keldeo vs. Bronzong. Poor, poor Bronzong... And poor battleship armour plates;
  • Keldeo vs. Steelix. It starts with Steelix Mega-Evolving, and it ends with Keldeo out cold;
  • Charizard vs. Steelix starts out in style, what with Charizard dealing with the Sandstorm by flapping down the sand and then fusing it... And it ends with Steelix knocked out and a wall (made of battleship armour) deformed when Charizard threw his victim into it;
  • Charizard vs. Empoleon. An Empoleon that flies by way of Aqua Jet. Charizard wins... But between the two of them, they destroy this gym too (or at least a wall of it). One made of battleship armour.
• In chapter 86, Mewtwo reveals he can talk with his psychic powers. Not telepathically, but by producing sound with psychic energy.
• In chapter 87, Ash catches Entei. It was just as awesome as the previous battles... And, for the first time, Houndour's Beat up was neutralized (everyone else got at the wrong end of a gang-up from multiple shadow clones).
• Chapter 88
  • During the Pokémon Extreme race, Entei decides to race against Ash. Ash is being pulled by Donphan. Entei, to give himself an handicap, decides to pull a railway push cart with Suicune and Meganium on it... And still outruns Donphan (the only reason he doesn't win outright is that he had not registered). Oh, and he has started running late, so he had to catch up too...
  • Casey takes part to the race with her Pidgeotto... And, thanks to her Pokémon evolving, it takes the photo finish to verify who won. She came up second, but had her Pidgeotto evolved one second earlier she would have won.
• In chapter 89, Brock's Pokémon solving the situation when the ghostly Ninetales kidnapped Brock again.
• Chapter 90 + 91 - Lake of Rage incident:
  • The first Mega vs. Mega fight in the whole story is Rocket Executive Tyson's Mega Tyranitar vs. Ash's Mega Heracross.
  • Also, during the last round of Misty vs. Red Gyarados, Lance shows up as in canon. But not to capture the Red Gyarados - he's here to test Misty's mettle by giving her a Keystone and telling her that there's Gyaradosite somewhere in the lake. Once Misty's own Gyarados does find it, this story gets a Shiny vs. Mega battle anime fans can only dream about.
  • And to cap it all off, once Misty does beat the Red Gyarados, Lance offers to let her keep the Keystone if she trades the Red Gyarados for it.
  • Not related to the Lake of Rage incident... But Rayquaza mentions that Arceus survived being hit by the dinosaur-killer meteorite.
• Chapters 92 - 94: Mahogany Gym match vs. Pryce:
  • The day before the match, Ash finds out (but knows already) that Pryce's prickliness is due to his starter Piloswine leaving and not coming back when he was hurt. Ash tells the local Nurse Joy that he'll go find Piloswine... and does.
  Nurse Joy: Did he-
  Pryce: Yes. He did.
  • Pryce's Glalie vs. Ash's Lucario should be a Curb-Stomp Battle in Lucario's favor, right? Well... That Glalie is a master at creating snow shields and keep the distance, and can create a dragon made of ice and make it fight. Took Lucario the friggin' Hiryu Shotenha to finally close range and punch the ice ball out...
  • Pryce's spell-casting Jynx vs. Mega Heracross, now equipped with machine-gun arms.
  • Ash's Poké-evolution aura comes back to bite him again, when Pryce's Piloswine evolves and takes out Snorlax.
  • Aurorus showing Entei exactly how you overpower Kyurem's Ice-type attacks (not that it helps her win in the end). Oh, and that's not even the worst a Pokémon with Refrigerate can do...
  • Quilava vs. Mamoswine. All of it.
• Todd gets another Legendary Bird photo op - with Team Rocket's newly acquired Moltres.
• In chapter 92, Raikou challenges Chuck in a gym match... And his Chesnaught No Sells his Electroball before hurting him by blocking. Granted, she has the Ability Bulletproof (that makes her immune to ball and bomb moves), and the move Spiky Shield has that interesting effect, but still...
  • Also for Chuck for preparing that Chesnaught specifically for Raikou.
• Chapter 96:
  • Pryce holding his own when Raikou comes to challenge him.
  • Norman decides to test May and Blaziken. She earns a Balance Badge while proving her Contest skills.
• Chapter 97 - 98: Blackthorn Gym match vs. Clair
  • Donphan has to contend with a floating, energy-throwing, long-haired Mega Ampharos, whose fighting style is based off of another floating, energy-throwing, long-haired franchise.
  • Suicune vs. Mega Sceptile. Who uses her red-tipped, missile-launching tail like living artillery.
  • How does Lapras deal with Clair's Flygon? After an anti-air-esque battle, he freezes the entire lake with Sheer Cold, then makes it explode.
  • Charizard vs. Noivern, and her signature Boomblast attack, which actually manages to neutralize his Blast Burn.
  • During his battle with Clair's Dragonair/Dragonite, Squirtle manages to Mega Evolve. As a Squirtle, not a Blastoise. Everyone around lampshades that it shouldn't be possible. After that, he defeats the Dragonite in a dogfight.
  • And as a finale, Keldeo vs. Mega Altaria. Pixilate supercharges almost all of Altaria's attacks, but Keldeo manages to win with the debut of Ice Blade, which Ash invented mid-battle.
    Clair: Did you just invent a move in the middle of a battle?
• Chapter 99:
  • Ash vs. Raikou. Raikou has taught himself a few new skills, and this time he's fighting seriously. Ash still wins and catches him... After knocking him out.
  • While Gary's challenging the Fairy-typed Laverre gym, his Umbreon decides to fight the gym leader's Sylveon. Who makes the mistake of accidentally insulting Umbreon's mother. Umbreon quickly dishes out a Curb-Stomp Battle in spite of the type disadvantage.

Heroes (Chapter 100)

• Things start heating up from Ash's first encounter with Annie and Oakley - whereupon he realizes they have a lot more Pokémon than last time.
  • And even though they got the drop on him with two full teams, he still manages to take out half of them before they escape.
• When Annie and Oakley manage to get their hands on the Soul Dew and - this time around - Latias, they proceed to power up the D.M.A. and unleash a virtual (as one reviewer mentioned) Fossil Pokémon Apocalypse on Altomare. This is Ash's response:
  Ash: Dexter, we need my entire team - everyone who's available.
  • The readers are then treated to trios of Ash's Pokémon, from Charizard, to Pidgeot, to the Legendary Beasts, going around Altomare and beating every Fossil Pokémon they come across.
• Squirtle's plan for getting to the museum on foot. Remember how he was trying to ride all five of Ash's Tauros at once? That, plus Outrage, plus Totodile and Ivysaur for fire support, equals a Foe-Tossing Charge/Crush Parade of epic proportions. It's called the Bull-Dozer.
  • And that one Tauros who was trying to walk on water? He can now!
• Plus, Psyduck finally evolving after saving everyone from a falling Archeops.
• Ash's final battle with Annie and Oakley. Highlights include:
  • Lucario vs. Kirlia, who can Teleport Spam. Very well.
  • Pikachu vs. Excadrill, both showing up his Aura training in full glory and bringing up his inconsistent overwhelming of the Ground-type.
  • Mega Heracross vs. Beedrill and Bisharp, whose Focus Punch is literally one take-off short of a Rocket Punch.
  • Mawile scolding Glaceon for attacking Meganium, who was trying to stay out of the fight. When Glaceon turns on her, Mawile one-shots her. With Iron Head. Justified because of all of Annie and Oakley's battles that had come before.
  • While trying to free his sister, Latios realizes that he D.M.A. contains both Latiosite and Latiasite. And Ash and his staff are right there.
  • And last but not least, Mewtwo, the master of the Offscreen Moment of Awesome, and his dissipating of the tidal wave.

The Silver Conference (Chapters 101-116)

• Chapter 104: Misty is now a member of the Elite Four.
• Chapter 105: It's one thing for Ash to have dedicated training plans for the Legendary Beasts and Keldeo, but you can really see his high-level planning and skill as a trainer when you see that he's given serious thought into training such powerhouses as his Legendary Big Three.
  • Remember Moltres at the Indigo League? Ho-Oh shows up at the Conference in a similar manner.
  • Once again Mawile one-shots an opponent, a Jumpluff who had defeated Ivysaur. Admittedly she used a double super-effective Ice-type move and he had already been poisoned. Still impressive.
• Chapter 107:
  • Ash and Wes have a full set of Legendary Beasts each. They fight with them.
  • In the meantime, the Legendary Birds of the Orange Islands are using their Lugia's absence to cause a mess. How does the Lugia from the Sevii Islands calm them down? With Shadow Blast. That she shouldn't have available anymore.
• Chapter 108:
  • Ash faces Jon Dickson. The one who won the tournament in the anime. And he proves it. Highlights of the match include:
    • His Vaporeon being extremely good at becoming intangible, giving an hard time to Meganium;
    • Seeing through Noctowl's illusions, allowing his Rapidash to give him a Burn and force his retreat;
    • Getting his Rapidash to give Lapras a hard time;
    • Taking down Lapras with a Rhyhorn;
    • His Jolteon makes short work of Meganium, and gives Quilava a good high speed battle;
    • When Pikachu proves his ability to electrocute Ground-types, he quickly figures how to fight effectively (helped by a mid-combat evolution). His now Rhydon still loses, but against that Pikachu...
    • Giving a good battle to Keldeo with an Exeggcute. The fact Exeggcute is actually six small Pokémon with a hive mind and the ability to regenerate damage helped.
• Chapter 109:
  • Remember that Samurai Bug trainer that Ash flattened all the way back in Viridian Forest? Well he's back, and his Bug team, which now includes Vespiquen, Armaldo, Volcarona and Vibrava->Flygon, has taken multiple levels in badass.
• Chapter 110:
  • Casey earns one just by being Ash's opponent in the quarter-finals at her first tournament.
  • Casey's Beedrill taking down a weakened Butterfree with one shot.
  • Casey's Riolu scoring a Double KO against Primeape.
  • Charizard fighting Casey's Pidgeot, Meganium and Raticate-that is, the very Pokémon he faced (and lost against) when Ash first fought Casey in this timeline, now fully evolved and trained to take him on: Pidgeot gives Charizard a good workout before the fire Pokémon starts using an incomplete Blast Burn as a proximity weapon; Meganium manages to give Charizard a thrashing, thanks to a quick Constrict blocking his ability to move or spit fire, a constant barrage of Ancientpower and a Frenzy Plant, before Charizard manages to score with a Fire Blast; and Raticate, formerly the FEAR Rattata, wins again.
  • Raticate fights Squirtle... and breaks his glasses.
    • This turns out to be a bad thing as Squirtle then gets mad enough to No-Sell electric attacks. One Giga Drill Breaker later, and Raticate is out... and so is Squirtle.
• Chapter 111 - 112: Ash's team is up against Steve, with a Pokémon team comprised of Expies of the Oogakari. Yes. Those Oogakari. Can this be anything less than awesome?
  • The whole insanity begins by Steve telling Ash that he wants the battle to be "cool", i.e. no restrictions on Megas or Legendaries whatsoever.
  • Lucario vs. Poliwrath!Waltz, with all the water/ice manipulation and Super-Strength of the original. Lucario has to pull off his Aura Storm Final Smash to do any serious damage, and it still ends in a Double KO.
  • Mega Latias vs. Mega Garchomp!Zuzushi, who believes she is the offspring of Groudon and Rayquaza. And has the Precipice Blades and Dragon Ascent to prove it. The battle goes supersonic very quickly, and the resulting Mach 4 collision begets another Double KO.
  • Mega Heracross vs. Hydreigon!Shadow, with a whole arsenal of Elemental-Powered Breath Weapons up her throats. Heracross's own arsenal manages to match up, especially with his Focus Blast and Aura Sphere attacks, but one clash between Head Smash and Focus Punch later, the result is, yes, another Double KO.
  • Raikou vs. Zoroark!Crypt, who combines Illusion and Sketch to become literally any Pokémon with any moveset in existence, and Word of God is that he'd managed to reverse his type-matchups, making him resistant to Fighting and weak to Ghost. Raikou finally manages to eek out a win... only to collapse a second later due to Perish Song.
  • Mega Charizard Y vs. Mega Blaziken!Ghost, whose Speed Boost results in Wall Running, jumping on air and kicking hard enough to attack with air pressure, and has a move to neutralize flyers. The battle ends with a double Blast Burn that blinds everyone watching... and Charizard barely managing to survive while Ghost is knocked out.
  • And finally, Pikachu vs. Mega Metagross!Scabbard, who has Shock and Awe down pat enough to replicate Zekrom's Fusion Bolt. This time, Pikachu more than holds his own in both electrical powers and Aura-boosted close combat, and a combination of a new variant of Volt Crash and hijacking the aforementioned Fusion Bolt allows him to win outright.
• Chapter 113 - Finals
  • Fred Farrell's Flareon Flambé being the first Pokémon in the story to survive the wrath of Hug-Shoggoth a.k.a. Muk's Multi-Move Massacre.
  • Fred in general. This is a guy who trained up Pokémon considered weak, such as Flareon and Farfetch'd, and made it to the finals of a tournament. He couldn't beat Ash, but the fact that he did so well up to there speaks volumes about his ability.
  • Gary managing to win the Kalos League.
• Chapter 114 - 115: Elite Four vs. Ash's Legendaries. Yeah.
  • Keldeo vs. Lorelei:
    • Best way for an Ice-type Dewgong to neutralize a ground-based opponent with high mobility? Flood-freeze the ground into an ice field. Keldeo's counter? Break the ice, then blast the entire floor into the air with raw water pressure. In other words, Flipping the Table with ice floes.
    • Even more awesome, Keldeo figured this out by himself, without Ash's instruction!
    • It took Lorelei Dewgong, Mamoswine and Jynx, but she did manage to beat Keldeo. Then Ash sends out Entei...
  • Ho-Oh vs. Bruno:
    • Ho-Oh's entrance, complete with smoke and fire seals, introduced by the Kimono Girls, and produced by May.
    • Ash's new tactic for Ho-Oh is shown: Instant thermal for instant height advantage!
    • When Bruno sends out his Onix with the Solarbeam-deflecting Iron Tail, Ho-Oh uses Rain Dance. This seems counterintuitive, until you see his follow-up: Weather Ball. The result? A raindrop the size of a truck shot out of a cannon.^note i.e. this on a much smaller scale.
  • Mewtwo vs. Agatha:
    • How does Mewtwo handle the rapid evasion of Ghost-types, even with Shadow Ball? Shadow Sweep a.k.a. Shadow Ball Bullet Hell.
    • There's a reason Agatha is one of the oldest E4 members in post, with a Shield Bash-ing Aegislash, Black-Hole Belly Dusknoir, and a Mega-Evolving Sableye.
    • And Agatha's strategy to take out the World's Strongest Pokêmon? Use her first four Pokémon's Grudge and King's Shield to wear out all of Mewtwo's major moves, send out Mega Sableye who can No-Sell everything he has left, and use her Magic Bounce ability to prevent him from changing the type matchups with Miracle Eye! It honestly would've worked too... if Ash hadn't taught Mewtwo how to channel Fire-type Aura mid-battle.
  • Lugia vs. Lance:
    • Lugia's entrance is almost as spectacular as his counterpart's, with splash seals to create his famous waterspout movie entrance, and Melody showing up with her ocarina!
    • Lance showing just why he's the Kanto/Johto Grand Champion. His Rock-Wrecking Aerodactyl (Aerodactyl can't learn Rock Wrecker, but Lance's did it anyway), Aerialated Mega Salamence, the Shiny Red Gyarados...
    • Lugia's new Ash-tactics: a boomerang-bending Twister, the omnidirectional Aeroburst, and even a Roboteching Aeroblast.
    • And then Lance brings out his Dragonite, his Barrier Warrior starter (note: only Lance's Dragonite has ever used Barrier), which can fly, maneuver, and fight at the speed of sound. What results in an aerial battle to be remembered, a final clash of Dragon Rush and Aeroblast, the famous dust cloud aftermath that Pokémon loves... and Lugia's strength finally giving out while Dragonite still stands.
    • Let's not forget the epic introduction Dragonite gets:
      Lance: Okay, Ash - you may be interested to know that this is my starter. He's been with me for decades, and he was there when I qualified for the Elite Four. (Beat) Against Palkia.
      (cue supersonic Dragonite)
• Chapter 116
  • After the Silver Conference ends and she is officially inaugurated, Misty returns to the Cerulean Gym to find the Invincible Pokémon Brothers trying to horn in on her family's turf. So, she challenges them to a battle where the winner gets the Gym. Right before the public battle, she corrects the brothers that in order to become Gym Leaders, they have to battle and impress a member of the Elite Four... and fortunately, she's qualified.
    • Then, when the brothers decide to be poor sports and gang up on her with three Tentacruels and three Hitmon evolutions, Misty sends out Gyarados - sorry, Mega Gyarados.
      One of the brothers: ...oh, hell...
    • Made doubly impressive by the fact that not only did Misty tell Mega Gyarados to go easy on them even though he was outnumbered, his Mega Evolution changed his typing from Water/Flying to Water/Dark, which actually gave the Fighting-type Hitmons a type advantage. And he still sent them all flying.

Hoenn's Gym Challenge part 1 (Chapters 117-126)

• The Rockets' encounter with Rico, the Poison-type poacher that forced them to release Arbok and Weezing previously, goes very differently this time around. There's a small amount of satisfaction to see an enemy that forced them to leave behind two of their companions have his ass handed to him.
• Larvitar evolving in his battle with Roxanne. Twice.
  • And then it turns out that this wasn't nearly as awesome since the second stage, which he spent all of a minute in, was sort of vital to learning how to move around as a Tyranitar, and Larvitar has to get lessons from his mom just to walk normally again, much less fight Gym battles. Still awesome on the part of the author for showing that chain evolutions aren't necessarily a good thing.
• When the Team Aqua member tries hacking into the Devon Corporation's mainframe, the three Porygons engage to stop his ArdentSharpedo virus. While Ethan manages the cameras and Kris reinforces the firewall, Dexter goes after the virus directly, which takes the form of Zap Cannons destroying digital Sharpedo.
• What does Pikachu call being outnumbered 10-to-1 by Team Aqua? Target practice.
• May's first Pokémon Contest appeal in this timeline, performed alongside Blaziken. From dancing and spinning lit torch batons, to May juggling said torches while Blaziken hoists her over his head, and extinguishing said torches with a precision explosion as a finale, May and her starter take Playing with Fire to a whole new, awesome spectacle that can only be dreamed about.
  • Her final battle with Robert and his Milotic is equally spectacular, culminating in Blaziken conducting his Solarbeam down Milotic's Water Gun like a fiber-optic cable to knock her out.

Wish Maker (Chapters 127-130)

• Entei managing to convince Butler of the folly of his Groudon-revival plan (using Aura Speak, no less!), after his sister failed to.
• After the reaction from the last Absol that Ash met, seeing the movie Absol managing to keep her head around said trainer is a small one.
• Houndoom, Cinder, Absol and Butler's Mightyena managing to hold off the entirety of the Aqua strike team after Jirachi's mass Teleport fails to teleport them.
  • Ash's supersonic Big Damn Heroes entrance to rescue them on Mega Latios also counts.
• The pseudo-Groudon has a lot more to contend with this time: Keldeo, the Legendary Beast Trio, Latios, Salamence and Swellow!
• Flygon's mid-air rescue of Brock after he was blown off a cliff.
• Raikou's reaction to getting swallowed by the newly-formed pseudo-Kyogre is essentially "No way I can miss now!"
• Team Rocket's Gunship Rescue of Ash and Co. from Team Magma.
  • Arbok and Seviper teaming up to take out Blaise's illusion-producing Slugma behind his back.
• Team Magma's jammer has prevented Ash and Dexter from calling in any of Ash's Pokémon. But there's one method of communication that it can't stop: the Latis' Sight Sharing. This is what alerts Latias and Bianca to the situation, and soon, the supersonic Mega Latias is on site.
• The entirety of The Plan to stop the rampaging Earth and Sea Kaiju: Use Pikachu's Volt Crash and Mega Latios's Luster Purge to stun both of them, use Dexter, Ethan and Kris's Reflect screens to open up a water tunnel in the flooded battlefield, use Flygon to fly Jirachi under Kyogre, blast it into the sky with Doom Desire, and while Groudon is still stunned, use Mega Latias's Healing Wish to instantly recharge Jirachi and blast it into the sky too.
• Mewtwo's movie accomplishment: Finding a way for Jirachi to stick around after Max wished for it. How? Learn enough orbital mechanics in the space of two days to put a chunk of the Millennium Comet into a closer orbit, enough that its energy can keep Jirachi awake and on earth!

Hoenn's Gym Challenge part 2 (Chapters 131-155)

• Wattson gets one in his challenge with Ash, using a combination of Plusle, Minun and Dedenne, the Plus and Minus abilities, and the move Helping Hand to recreate Pikachu's Volt Crash.
  • Totodile, Quilava and Meganium manage to pull off a Triple Finish, Johto version.
  • And how does Ash's team triumph in the end? Use Plusle and Minun's electricity to turn all of Totodile's water into a whole lot of hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis, and then get Quilava to ignite it all at once.
• Max's own Gym Battle, where Arc, Guy and Kris work together to take out one of Wattson's high-tier Eelektross.
  • And Guy both exhibiting Poison Heal and evolving to boot!
• Chapter 134 - 135: Mirage Kingdom
  • Both Team Rocket and Ash and Co. (plus Misty) get into the attempted coup by Colonel Hansen on two separate ends. While Ash and Co. take on the Colonel and his henchmen directly, Team Rocket take on his new partner and a whole contingent of military force: Jessebelle.
  • Ash and Co. vs. Colonel Hansen:
    • The whole incident starts by Ash punching the Colonel in the face.
    • Keldeo and Absol swordfighting against a bunch of Doublades, and Absol using Night Slash with her tail.
    • Stantler versus a very stupid Trevenant, who keeps using Grass-type attacks despite Stantler having Sap Sipper, which turns Grass attacks into stat boosts. This keeps on until the Trevenant uses a Ghost-type attack, whereupon Stantler, boosted by all the Grass moves, promptly turns it back on him with Me First.
    • Latias is pinned down by half a dozen Drifblim, until Pikachu comes to her rescue, first by having Lucario Fling him up there, and then executing a Thunder Total Party Kill.
    • Soon, Hansen brings out the big guns: Mega Gengar, which promptly Shadow Tags Sceptile into a battle before someone better equipped can intercept it. Against a Poison-type Mega-Evolved Pokémon with no escape, any Grass-type would be doomed - unless of course, that Pokémon is Ash Ketchum-trained. Even getting poisoned in the process, a combination of Night Slash and Frenzy Plant brings Sceptile out on top in the end.
    • But then Hansen brings out his true trump cards: Spiritomb and Shedinja, the former of which is given the latter's Wonder Guard via a Mimicked Entrainment. The result is a combination immune to virtually all attacks: Shedinja intercepts and No Sells all Fairy-type moves, while Spiritomb No Sells everything else. Almost every indirect method of circumventing it (Mega Gyarados's Mold Breaker, Lucario's Foresight) is neutralized by Spiritomb's Hypnosis, until the perfect fighter steps up: Misty's Togekiss. When Fairy Wind blows Spiritomb out of place, a blast of Sacred Fire finishes off the Bug-type One-Hit-Point Wonder, and a Dazzling Gleam at point-blank range takes care of Spiritomb.
    • And as a finale, when Hansen tries to flee via Pidgeot, he is stopped by Drake of the Hoenn Elite Four and his Dragonite.
  • Team Rocket vs. Jessebelle:
    • Moltres vs. an entire heat-seeking missile barrage. Guess who comes out on top.
    • Cubone whipcracking Arbok and Seviper at enemy targets.
    • But Jessebelle reveals her own trump card: Klefki, who manages to lock down all of Team Rocket's cell with Fairy Lock, Crafty Shield and Protect. This gives Jessebelle plenty of time to do what she came to do and escape, but not before deciding to take care of James permanently. But thanks to a Big Damn Heroes from Growlie, all Jessebelle manages to do is Graze The Dog.
    • So how does TR get out of this? Having met up with Princess Sara earlier, she is escorted by Growlie to the Togepi Paradise to try and stop Jessebelle, but all they manage to do is rescue a Togepi. So when they meet up with Jessebelle again, the rescued Togepi uses Metronome... and of all things, gets Shadow Force, which breaks through all of Klefki's defenses in one shot.
• Skitty in her first contest this time around. Among other things, she and Beautifly pull off a perfect Blizzard combo and Skitty's use of Assist results in Zap Cannon.
• In an inversion of her duties, Flannery asks Ash to help her prove to her grandfather that she can handle a big battle as a new Gym Leader. Ash obliges... with Ho-Oh.
• Sceptile's battle with the Valley of Steel's boss Steelix reveals his two skill breakthroughs: Leaf Blade projectiles and Sacred Sword.
• Stricken with boredom, Ash's Oak-ranch roster decides to hold a tournament of their own amongst each other to keep their skills sharp. And one of said battles is: Ho-Oh vs. Lugia.
  • It's so awesome that Roxy the Pokémon reporter is actually filming it on the news!
• Another Aura Purge dream-drop for their new Swablu friend, another Legendary battle - this time with Thundurus. But between Swellow's Boombursts, Mega Latias's Mist Balls and Mega Pidgeot's Aeroblasts, the one who lands the finishing blow is Swablu himself, when he literally Sings his fear into submission.
• Max vs. Norman:
  • In this archetypal father vs. son match, Max clearly shows off how he has taken his father's teachings and improved on them: Guy with his Poison Heal utilizes Norman's Toxic Orb better than his Façade combo can, Norman's Staravia's mid-battle evolution is countered by Arc's own into Manectric, and Max's powerful connection with his starter even allows him to Mega-Evolve and take out Slaking. Needless to say, Norman is as pleased as punch with the outcome.
• Ash vs. Norman, who shows just how good his A-game really is:
  • Sceptile goes against a Dunsparce with Serene Grace and the moveset to match, and only manages a draw.
  • Lucario faces off a Lopunny, who's just as good a Close-Range Combatant as he is. And via a sleight-of-handed Flame Orb, he even manages to hijack Lucario's Flying Dragon Uppercut.
  • Torkoal and his new steam-powered techniques goes up against a deaf Exploud, who Norman commands with sign language.
  • Finally, Keldeo goes against a Ditto, and engages in a fencing swordfight that takes them out of the gym, onto a roof, and into a playground. Against a Pokémon with all his considerable moves, Keldeo triumphs by using Air Slash, a move that Ditto did not copy...because he learnt it mid-battle. A fitting battle for Keldeo's send-off back to Unova.
• May gets an awesome moment of her own during her time with Professor Birch's Kanto and Hoenn starters. When a bunch of thieves manage to knock her and Max out and swipe them along with the Pokémon, she manages to pull off an escape with the junior starters and their assorted beginning moves, and when she's spotted, also hold off the attackers long enough for The Cavalry to arrive.
  • And who is said cavalry? Her Blaziken, who has just unlocked his Speed Boost ability. And after a Dynamic Entry, proceeds to lay out a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on the entire gang of thieves single-handedly.
    • Also remember Entei in the Pokémon Xtreme race? When he outran a supersonic Pidgeot, a Donphan, and a Tauros despite having a weight handicap and starting late? Blaziken just outran him.
• Chapter 148: After years and years of hunting, over six hundred attempts to ambush Ash, thousands of schemes, time travel, and the collection of a Legendary Pokémon, Team Rocket... has finally received a Pikachu. Granted, it's not Ash's, but even they are shocked.
• Chapter 149:
  • Cosplaychu's Aura Guardian Ash costume allows her to use Aura Sphere. And her costume of Ash's Pikachu allows her to use Volt Crash.
    • Just as impressive is Glaceon managing to erect enough of an ice shield for her to survive said Volt Crash - and then send it right back with Mirror Coat.
  • It might be due to a Super-Power Meltdown due to an influx overload of danger information, but it says something about Mega Absol when she can outmaneuver Lucario, Mega Heracoss, Blaziken and Ash all at once.
    • And what eventually stops her? Her chaotic Danger Sense finally clears up right when she attacks Ash, in that it delivers just one message: "Finish that attack and everything goes horribly wrong."
• Chapter 150: Ashes Nowhere To Be Seen
  • Pidgeot returning from her flight around the world.
  • Mega Charla practicing Ash and Charizard's improved Blast Burn.
  • Giovanni showcasing why he's the regular eight-badge Gym Leader.
• You have to give props to Team Magma and Aqua for managing to achieve their goals of robbing the Weather Institute even with Ash on the scene and managing to get away.
  • Aqua's plan of entrance by tunneling and exit by helicopter is helped by their Crazy-Prepared Pokémon choices: a Goldeen with Lightningrod and a Wacan Berry to defend against Pikachu, an Entrainment-capable Walrein to neutralize the Levitating flyers, and a basic strategy to do things as fast as possible.
  • Magma's master of disguise Brodie using smoke bombs and his Ditto using Latias's speed to escape.
• Ash's flyover for Fortree's Feather Carnival, involving Legendaries and Rocket Punch Pikachu.
• Ash vs. Winona:
  • Winona's Mega Pinsir managing to take out Mega Squirtle. By subverting Talking Is a Free Action.
  • Winona's Tropius can combine Harvest, Natural Gift, and his love of all kinds of Berries to be able to bombard opponents with a multi-element Beam Spam. It's enough to give a pseudo-legendary like Goodra a hard time.
  • Winona's Talonflame may be fast and agile, but she's no match for a Mega Mawile with Huge Power, the ability to fly via Flamethrower, and learning Thunderpunch mid-battle. Result: One-Hit KO.

Destiny Deoxys (Chapters 156-159)

• Tory overcoming his fear of Pokémon to help get to where they need to be to save the city.
• If there was any doubt about Pikachu's electrical potential, it's dispelled when he, with a little help from Mega Arc, Plusle and Minun, supplies power to an entire block of LaRousse City to help awaken Green Deoxys.
• May's Porygon Ethan gets his chance to shine in this movie; after back-hacking a security bot, he gets it to hack more of its fellows until they have a battalion of bots on their side. Then, when their initial plan of resetting the control robot falls through, Ethan does the full factory resetting of the bot army himself.
  • And through his rapid optimization of his processors trying to handle all the different tasks, he becomes the first Porygon2 in the world.

Hoenn's Gym Challenge part 3 (Chapters 160-162)

• Ash's first Contest appeal this timeline - using Ho-Oh. Said appeal embodies the phoenix's cycle of death and rebirth - and Ash having a flaming bird on his arm without being burned.
• Max helping a trainer with all three mid-level Kanto starters gain his confidence back by helping his Pokémon evolve. He doesn't remember which one was supposed to evolve in the original timeline though, so he decides on a Triple Battle. He ends up evolving all of them.
• Sceptile showcasing, not his speed, but his strength, when he lifts and throws a 150 kg Walrein.

Scuffle of Legends (Chapters 163-165)

• With Team Magma and Aqua's mutual double-cross, Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre are going at it a couple of days early. Ash and Co. are in for the fight of their lives.
  • Both Primal Legendaries portray their status as The Juggernauts, by taking Ash and Co.'s best shots and just hitting back twice as hard: from Raikou's Volt Crash, Charizard's Blast Burn, Latios's Luster Purge and Mega Absol's Sacred Sword to Ho-Oh's weather-mix Weather Ball, Pidgeot and Lugia's Aeroblasts, Lugia's tornado attack, Mewtwo's Psystrike and Pikachu's own Volt Crash, to say nothing of Lance's Pokémon's Hyper Beams.
• The Reveal that Misty has been in deep cover in Team Aqua for several months!
• Team Rocket's Gunship Rescue of the group when a volcano's ash fall and pyroclastic flow threaten their position.
• Suicune's Hydro Pump holding off the natural fury of said pyroclastic flow.
• Then, just when the teams trying to hold off the two forces of nature are thinning out, Rayquaza makes his Dynamic Entry with Dragon Ascent... only to realize too late that both of them had undergone Primal Reversion, something that hasn't happened for several centuries. Groudon gets a hold of him, and Rayquaza does not have a good day.
  • Then Ash, having fallen out of TR's plane, lands in front of him, just as Groudon goes for an AncientPower attack. A few moments later, Ash finds out that the ceremonial sword he got from the Togepi Kingdom isn't so ceremonial - when it's powered with Aura.
  • And then he does it again against Kyogre's Surf - with Secret Sword.
    • He actually uses enough Aura to kill him via Aura depletion... if he didn't have Sacred Ash.
  • And the capper: the Meteorite that Ash got at Mt. Chimney is the catalyst for Rayquaza to Mega Evolve! It's a whole new ball game now.
    • So how do we know that Mega Rayquaza is the real deal? When he can engage in a Hyper Beam-O-War with both Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre at the same time... and win.
    • And the one-two-knockout punches come from a horizontal Dragon Ascent... with the "one" being Pikachu's Volt Crash for Kyogre, and Keldeo's Hydro Pump + Ice Beam + Sacred Sword barrage for Groudon.
• A minor one compared to all this, but during the press conference Lance holds afterwards, he mentions there were fourteen Legendary Pokémon present. That's almost a fifth of all Legendary Pokémon. And we're only in Hoenn, folks. That number is going to increase sometime in the future.

Hoenn's Gym Challenge part 4 (Chapters 166-178)

• In a cut to Sinnoh, Cynthia talks about how they are witnessing a revolution in human-Pokémon communication: How Ash's rise to fame and his ability to Aura-talk with his Pokémon, along with Mewtwo's book and Director Schpielbunk's films, has got people talking how humans and Pokémon aren't so different. Spelled out like that, it's awesome to see how much an influence Ash has had on the world at large this time around.
• After their lousy first attempt, Cinder and Casper do a much better showing against Tate and Liza's Solrock and Lunatone. So much so that after Solrock is taken out and Lunatone is put on the ropes, the twins decide to concede rather than continue to knockout.
• Ash vs. Tate & Liza: Mega Sceptile & Meganium vs. Mega Gardevoir and Mega Gallade.
  • Just like Clair's, Ash's Mega Sceptile has a Leaf Storm rocket launcher for a tail.
  • And after taking out Mega Gardevoir despite the type disadvantage and a point-blank Pixilated Hyper Voice, Mega Sceptile ends up being taken out by Mega Gallade - who then makes the mistake of assuming that Meganium would surrender now that her muscle has been taken out. Meganium quickly reminds him that, as tough as Sceptile is, she is just as tough as him - and then proceeds to bury him in Frenzy Plant.
• Misty's Kabutops tossing her the phone. Even though he has blades for arms.
• Spoink's Contest debut: a psychically-manipulated flour bomb. May calls it "young star".
• Max teaching Jirachi how to turn his Future Sight into what approximates into the minefield version of Bullet Hell.
• Max vs. Juan:
  • Delta vs. Wailord: Against what approximates to The Giant, Delta puts up a good showing, even using Ice Beam to clog up Wailord's blowhole. Unfortunately, Wailord has more than enough power to clear that blockage.
  • Guy vs. Sealeo: With the water field not to his favor, Guy eventually finds out that water conducts Giga Drain, and uses it to get Sealeo right where a Sky Uppercut eventually finds its mark.
  • Jirachi vs. Crawdaunt: For Jirachi's first Gym Battle, his Future Sight minefield obviously isn't going to work... on Crawdaunt, at least. The water itself, on the other hand, is fair game, which allows Jirachi to use a new move learned mid-battle: Dazzling Gleam.
  • Mega Arc vs. Whiscash: This, above all else, is a battle that tests Max's ingenuity, and showcases Arc's strength as his starter. One aspect of Electrike and Manectric that is often overlooked is that they can not only use lightning as an elemental attack, but also to focus it back into their own bodies to make themselves move much faster and hit much harder, something that Ground-typing can't nullify. That, coupled with Whiscash's mud keeping the electricity in Arc's body, means that one supercharged Quick Attack ends up ramming Whiscash clean out of the pool.
• Ash vs. Wallace:
  • Corphish vs. Milotic: A Combat Pragmatist like Corphish would know to always keep his eyes on his opponent for any sign of trickery, and Milotic takes full advantage, slowly lulling Corphish into focusing completely on her, and then putting him out with Hypnosis, immobilizing him with Bind, and then knocking him out with a full-body Dragon Pulse.
  • Glalie vs. Magikarp a.k.a. Hyperkarp: Simple fight, right? Not when the Magikarp can smash through ice like no-one's business, and once it breaks into Glalie's ice sphere, it leaves the Face Pokémon mumbling Non Sequiturs. At least until Glalie catches it in a full-body freeze, one without microfractures for leverage.
  • Pikachu vs. Greninja: With a moveset taken straight out of Naruto and the ability Protean to make full use of it, Greninja gives the usually strong-showing Pikachu the complete runaround, evading Shock Wave and Aura Sphere, using Substitute clones, Role Playing Lightningrod and even Thieving Pikachu's Light Ball. Faced with an opponent he has no experience with and can barely hit, Pikachu almost loses his cool, until Greninja's Giga Impact gives Pikachu the perfect opportunity for a devastating Counter-Attack that Greninja can't avoid... until the dust settles, reveals Pikachu only knocked out a Substitute, and the real Greninja knocks out Pikachu.
    • And even with that overall loss, Wallace is impressed enough to give Ash the Rain Badge anyway.
• Team Rocket's whole escapade at getting their cargo plane back from a pair of thieves.
• May and Drew's contest appeals deserve mention: Drew's Masquerain uses ice bubbles that play different notes when they shatter, and May uses Ethan's Gravity to walk on his Hard Light planes in several different orientations.
  • And their battle is nothing to sneeze at, with Masquerain using his scale clouds as chaff to block Ethan's sniping, and Ethan using warped Gravity planes to stymie Masquerain's flying.
• We finally get to see Ritchie and his Psychic Powers he said he'd developed in practice: sparring with Gallade and hurling balls of psychic force.
  • And Sparky gets in on the action by using his own developing psychic skill to shape his electricity into electro-whips.
• May pulling Blaziken onto Altaria's back mid-flight.
• How does Charizard practice his water resistance? By swimming. With his exposed tail flame.

Hoenn Grand Festival (Chapters 179-182)

• The Grand Festival Appeals:
  • May uses Blaziken's Speed Boost and Blaze Kick to create a giant flaming maple leaf above her, to much applause.
  • Drew uses Grassy Terrain, Leech Seed and Razor leaf to create a topiary of the Legendary Golems, Rayquaza, Groundon and Kyogre.
  • For her second time on stage, May and Altaria do a performance involving Sing and May getting gradually closer to a seemingly wary Altaria, culminating in a Mega-Evolution.
  • Cosplaychu dressing as a wizard and using Mystic Fire to create a massive Charizard out of flame, which she then blows up with lightning.
• A look at Casey, who has finally managed to Mega-Evolve Beedrill!
• The Grand Festival Battles:
  • Venusaur using her seals to kaleidoscope her Solarbeam and make it harder to dodge, manually create a crater to change the effect of her Nature Power, and use the water of Rain Dance as a Water Pledge substitute to create the swamp effect combination with her Grass Pledge.
  • Against an Espeon/Vaporeon pair where the former psychically manipulates the Acid Armor liquid body of the latter, even using her as a flying platform, May's Glaceon and Skitty manage to capture them in a Helping-Hand-empowered birds-nest of ice tendrils.
  • May's Spoink vs. Jessie's Cubone:
    • Spoink's subtlety of his Telekinesis is so much that Cubone doesn't immediately notice that he is deflecting the majority of her bone projectiles.
    • After her epiphany all that time ago, Cubone has developed a new Soul Aria, which allows her to summon her bone weapons quicker, in greater quantities, and with greater precision.
    • Spoink using his pearl as a weapon to intercept and shatter other projectiles.
    • When Spoink uses a giant bomb of frozen water to attack, Cubone forms an enormous bone to shatter it... and the effort causes her to evolve into Marowak.
    • As the battle progresses, even after losing his pearl, Spoink becomes more and more confident at being able to fight without it, and is soon wondering why he ever needed it in the first place. As he grows more confident, his Psychic Powers get more focused and stronger, and when he manages to find his pearl again, the amplification it gives is enough to blast his opponent out of the fight... and cause him to evolve too.
    • Bonus points in Spoink using Energy Ball, a move that he can't learn, but which Grumpig can, before he evolved.
    • And the whole battle was so gripping, no-one, not even the judges, noticed the timer running out, meaning the battle continued for an extra two minutes until knock-out.
  • May's semi-final opponent, Perdita X, has a Shiftry that uses Mind Reader to anticipate and counter his opponent's moves. Pity his opponent is Munchlax, who has the Metronome needed to go full Confusion Fu.
    • Especially when two uses net Sacred Sword and Blue Flare.
  • The Finals: May's Blaziken and Ethan vs. Drew's Flygon and Roserade:
    • Blaziken's new tactic: use Ethan, his Morph Weapon body, and his force fields as Instant Armor!
    • Blaziken summoning Ethan's head into his hands (as if out of nowhere) and using him like a laser gun to fire Hyper Beam.
    • And in order to reach the hyper-agile Flygon and her Roserade artillery, Blaziken makes it a High-Altitude Battle by running on Ethan's manifested force-planes.
    • When Drew's team manage to knock Blaziken out of the air, he doesn't let Ethan catch him; instead he hits the ground... and uses Counter to basically Rocket Jump himself back into the air!
    • And their finisher: Blaziken using Speed Boost to ricochet around Ethan's floating force planes while using Flare Blitz, trapping Flygon and Roserade in the middle of a flaming kick barrage from all directions, taking the two out.
• Audino manipulating Abra's Laborious Laziness in order to get him to replace the now Marowak's equipment.
• Molly passing the test to be a junior Pokémon trainer and begin traveling with a mentor, like Max.
• Dawn reacts to getting her memories back with a "huh; slightly weirder than usual" attitude, with only Jirachi poofing Piplup into her arms and then saying hi ruffling her and then only briefly. Considering that everyone else had extremely confused reactions at first and some major hang-ups along the way (Brock trying to call on a Pokémon he hadn't met yet and Max failing that test come to mind), that makes her the most level-headed companion of Ash to date.
• Dawn and May discuss their weirdest misadventures with Ash to date. It's telling that even now, the winner is Dawn's adventure with the Jewel of Arceus, where they retroactively made themselves legends.

The Ever Grande Conference (Chapters 183-186)

• Guy's new tactic: Seed Bomb jump!
• Mr. Goodshow going three-for-three with League openings involving Legendaries: Getting Suicune and Raikou to usher in the trainers to light the torch, and then for Entei to burst out of the torch to join his siblings.
• The preliminary one-on-ones:
  • Ryan and his Rhyperior put up a good fight, especially with the tactic that combines Earth Power and Fire Blast to turn the ground into a lava field, but in the end, he's still facing Ash Ketchum and his crazy Pikachu.
  • Casey's newly evolved Electabuzz playing Electro-Baseball with a Skarmory.
  • Ritchie's Taillow Rose using Heat Wave on a Froslass... from the inside.
  • Against a Shiny Octillery and its usual complement of elemental artillery, Cinder has to do a whole lot of digging to get close enough, but when she does, one Foul Play turns Octillery's Seed Bomb back on himself.
  • Tyson's Meowth takes the Swashbuckler outfit to its logical conclusion: leaving an M-scar on his opponent.
• Seeing all the groundsPokémon in action, from the Psychic LinesPokémon that keep the audience shielded from stray attacks, to the Diglett and Grassy Terrain move that can restore an obliterated battleground in seconds.
• The second round Double Battles:
  • Anthony and his Pelipper show up again, and in a battle where more than one Pokémon is allowed, does very well by concealing a Pineco inside Pelipper's beak and using it as a reusable grenade shell, while using Protect to keep both Pokémon from harming each other. Still, once Swellow and Pidgeot get wise to the tactic, all they have to do is use the more agile Swellow to get Pineco out of the way, and then use Pidgeot's Razor Wind to pile-drive Pelipper into the ground.
  • Morrison and his Girafarig and Growlithe go up against Ushi, who has the unique combination of Machamp and Magikarp. Complete with piscine flail and the Returning Fish technique.
    • And then Magikarp is revealed to know Dragon Rage. Enabling Machamp to use it as a cannon.
    • Morrison comes out in the end, distracting Machamp by pulling away Magikarp with Girafarig's telekinesis, leaving the Fighting-type open to Growlithe's attack, and then finishing off the other Pokémon.
  • Max's Arc and Delta vs. Fisher's Onix and Sylveon: A whole lot of jumping around the flailing Rock Snake Pokémon, that ends with Max's team's saltwater-conducting Thunderstorm combo.
• Third round Double Battles:
  • The battle of brawn that is Tyson's Hariyama and Metagross against an Aggron and Snorlax.
  • Max's Roland and Guy vs. Hidachi's Hitmonchan and Golduck
    • Hidachi's team's main tactic of turning all of Golduck's water into a barrage of punch-powered elemental bullets.
    • For Roland's first battle ever, he does spectacularly well, and shows how many uses a move like Teleport can have in battle: initiation, escape, teammate setup, opponent disruption, and even attack misdirection.
    • That last one requires more explanation: Breloom launched a Seed Bomb straight up, and while Golduck was waiting for it to come down, Roland teleports it right at his feet.
    • And it also is a testament to Max's improvement as a trainer, given that he pulled all that off without telling Guy what he had planned.
• More of Casey's baseball tactics in action.
• The rematch of Pikachu and Sparky:
  • How much Sparky's Psychic Powers have improved: he can psychically shape his lightning into two floating lightning bolts that he can use as weapons, and can even siphon off Pikachu's electricity.
  • Which ultimately leads to Sparky's undoing: Pikachu uses a five-ringed Volt Crash to make his lightning bolt weapons too powerful to contain.

The Delta Episode (Chapters 187-190)

• Just the premise is a CMOA: The Meteor of Doom from the ORAS Delta Episode is incoming with only a few hours of warning, and the Meteorite used to Mega Evolve Rayquaza in ORAS was used up in the Scuffle of Legends. Do people give up? Pray for a miracle? No, they call in every high-powered trainer and Legendary they can find and start manufacturing a miracle.
• The sheer scope of the entire project is awe-inspiring all on its own. Trainers and Champions, especially those capable of Mega-Evolutions, hundreds of Legendaries from all over the world, and all the strongest Pokémon they can get their hands on to push the asteroid, Mewtwo, the World's Most Powerful Pokémon, Rayquaza, a shuttle to house the trainers, a gigantic ice ball to protect against solar radiation (and the Water, Ice and Psychic-types needed to create it), a way to keep it stable and moving at the asteroid, Psychic Teleportation to get everyone in position, Grass-types to keep the oxygen levels steady; the logistics for this project are insane, and they've only got four hours until impact. And they somehow pull this all off not once, but four times.
• Preparing a space shuttle for launch takes a very long time. Jirachi can wish it done in a blink.
• And the entirety of the project on the Kalos end: having Hoopa, Gary and the Kalos Elite Four help with the assembly of a Moon Base as a last-ditch evacuation point.
  • And Clemont is present and helping with contained environment development!
• Mewtwo's full psychic capabilities are really given a workout, given he has to conduct multiple space-length teleports, keep the protective ice ball intact, suspend the shuttle and all the passengers inside it, and keep the ball moving alongside the asteroid for the passengers to get good shots at it.
• How would the entirety of the Charicific Valley get from Johto to Hoenn fast enough to be part of the operation? Have Ash's Pidgeot tow them all via her Tailwind slipstream at supersonic speeds. There's a very, very good reason she's Lugia's apprentice.
• Just the image of all the Reshiram and Zekrom they could find pushing the meteor with everything they have, with Victini to keep them topped up.
• And the endgame: having procured a Moon Stone charged with enough Infinity Energy to Mega-Evolve Rayquaza, the Sky High Pokémon shoots up straight from Earth to the meteoroid with one cataclysmic Dragon Ascent. But in order to maintain the Mega Evolution, Ash will have to go along, riding on Mega Latios, inside a bubble of atmosphere contained in Rayquaza's Delta Stream. Picture that.
  • Not to mention Team Rocket's Abra teleporting Rayquaza from the meteor back to Mossdeep to get the Moon Stone.
  • And when the Dragon Ascent is actually capable of smashing the mountain-sized meteorite, we then have all the Pokémon present pushing away the fragments so that they don't hit Earth.
  • And thanks to the efforts of the Lake Trio and Kyogre, Earth has enough rain and moisture to deflect the heat away so that the atmosphere doesn't burn up.
• Fridge Logic gives Mewtwo a personal one. Only "most" of his stuff is on Earth. Not all of it. At some point he went and set up an off-planet base of his own.

Battle Frontier part 1 (Chapters 191-193)

• Silver, child that he is, giving a whole Legendary Trio the runaround for a good long while with his mischief.
  • Also, his father preempting the trouble the Shamouti Birds would get into in his, his mate's and Pidgeot's absence... by having Silver being mischievous enough to exhaust them in keeping him out of trouble, thus keeping them out of trouble.
• Giovanni preparing his escape route in case Ash and Co. turn hostile: a hidden rocket-propelled Golurk evacuator.
• A blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but when Giovanni puts his attention on Ash, one spark from Pikachu makes him turn his attention away.
• Max vs. Giovanni:
  • Even for an 8-badge winner like Max, it's clear that Giovanni, when he gets serious, is not an opponent for inexperienced trainers. From communicating with his underground Pokémon via foot-tapping, to funneling Roland's teleport escapes into a single spot and forcing Max to make the snap decision he was expecting, to coordinating his Pokémon using clock numeral positions, his Rhyhorn, Kangaskhan, and Nidoqueen essentially lead Guy, Roland and Casper around by the nose until they see their opening to take them out.
  • Not to say that Max doesn't get some good licks in: thanks to Guy mining the field with Seed Bombs, one toss sends Kangaskhan right into the middle of a kaboom.
• And after the battle, Giovanni reconstructing his arena with his Dugtrio, into another iteration.

Mystery of Mew (Chapters 194-197)

• Upon Ash's arrival in Rota, Queen Ilene asks if, instead of competing normally, he could take part in an exhibition spar against Aaron's Lucario. No, not Ash's Pokémon; Ash himself.
• Brock and Max taking part in the Rota tourney, and Arc battling Steelix, which turns out to be Ninetales, which then turns out to be Stantler in a well-prepared layered illusion.
• Ash, Aura Adept, Knight of Aura, and scion of Sir Aaron's blood. Versus Lucario, Aura Master, companion of his ancestor, Pokémon of the past and war veteran. Begin!
  • Lucario Catch And Returning one of Ash's Aura Spheres by overwhelming it with his own Aura.
  • The entire showcase of just how amazing Ash has gotten fighting by himself, alternating between Kung-Fu Wizard bare-handed fighting and Magic Knight staffplay. And then he pulls out his sword.
    • Or should we say, Secret Sword?
  • When Ash manages to shoulder-throw Lucario, he quickly recovers with Aura-boosted jets from his feet.
  • And what's the final blow? Lucario using Bonemerangs to block off Ash from the back and sides, attacking from the front, and making sure all three directional attacks hit Ash at once. Yes, it took Lucario the Crane Wing Three Realm to beat Ash.
• The trek to the Tree of Beginning consisting of Ash, Pikachu, Casey, Riolu, and three Lucario.
  • When they first meet the Regirock sentry, it turns out that a lack of software updates has rendered them rather glitchy, and one look at the humans sends the rock golem into Kill mode. The group decides to fix it the best way they know how: Percussive Maintenance!
    • Or at least a very large Volt Crash blast.
  • Dealing with Regice is easier: its targeting software causes it to retarget the last enemy that attacked it, so they just keep it busy until it overloads or someone gets a good lick in.
  • Registeel however, is more durable, and a lot more glitchy, especially since they are now inside the Tree and can't use too-big attacks for fear of harming it. When it changes targets to Ash, Casey and Riolu, Riolu is fully prepared to defend her trainer... only for Ash to step in with Secret Sword.
    • And then the battle is kicked into high-gear when Ash's Lucario uses his loaned Lucarionite to Mega-Evolve. And takes out Registeel without damaging the Tree at all... due to being so fast as to juggle it mid-air.

Battle Frontier part 2 (Chapters 198-212)

• Mewtwo helping out the Mossdeep Space Center with a new space vehicle: the Psi Assisted Launch Vehicle. It really spells out just how much Pokémon can assist humanity with amazing new discoveries.
• Regigigas may take a while to get going. But when he gets going, he gets going fast. ^note Unhindered by Slow Start, Regigigas's base speed stat is 100, making it as fast as Lucario or Blaziken.
• Ash's Battle Factory challenge:
  • Articuno vs. Latias: This time, since Articuno is facing a flying Dragon/Psychic-type and not a Fire-type, he has a lot more tricks to bring to bear on her, like a Blizzard/Ice Beam-combo that turns Latias's Safeguard shield into a trap. But Latias has been practicing with a particular tactic of Ash's - the Counter Shield.
    • And when Articuno generates an artificial Aurora Borealis that is a floating mass of ice energy, Latias ends up smashing right through it - with Draco Meteor Counter Shield.
  • Typhlosion vs. Glalie: With Glalie just crafting a load of ice-construct Pokémon and Typhlosion melting through it all, the battle would seem to play out obviously... if Glalie wasn't smart enough to wall off the battlefield and keep all the melted ice in play, so he could suddenly turn it all into a giant ice Braviary with a core of water. So when Typhlosion blasts this one, things suddenly turn very wet.
    • And Glalie's final move of the match? Explosion.
• Manaphy's egg is found early, and of all people to find it, it's Silver!
• Rayquaza finally having enough of Groudon and Kyogre's antics, giving them a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, and forcing them to get off their butts and do their jobs like they were meant to.
• Another "The Reason You Suck" Speech, this time from a successfully-summoned Reshiram, who can clearly see that Ghestis's motives are hardly altruistic, but can also see the desire N has to find out the real truth.
  Reshiram: You are neither a hero of ideals, nor truth – you are the villain. You have built an order of knights upon knavish lies, twisted good men and women to evil, made a mockery of all you claim to support – and it is by a great good fortune that your heir, my worthy Hero of Truth, has not been influenced by your lies.
  • Quickly followed by the Swords of Justice charging in, fighting off the Seven Sages' teams, and then them, N and Reshiram taking off to understand the real truth.
• Wartortle's first contest appeal has her jumping off an ice tower and flying - not with water propulsion, but with wings crafted out of water.
• Max vs. Sabrina:
  • Jirachi battling Mew, and putting up a fair fight before being defeated.
  • Cinder playing her Dark-type to the hilt in her gym battle against Sabrina, from scaring Espeon out of his mind and playing really dirty against her Kadabra.
• Mega Lucario single-handedly trouncing the entire contingent of the Saffron Fighting Dojo.
  • And props to the Pokémon that finally trips him up: Onigiri the Goomy!
• Team Rocket finally getting involved in blasting someone off... on the delivering end!
• Ash's Battle Arena challenge:
  • Greta's Monferno pulling a Punch Catch on an Outraging Primeape. Granted, Primeape was burned at the time, so his attack power was lowered.
  • And the monkey successfully enduring Snorlax's Hyper Beam... even if it does blow him clean out of the arena.
• Max vs. Mavis, the new Fairy Type Gym Leader in Kanto. Max's team manages to work well together and win!
  • Mega Arc taking on both Juvia the Primarina and Grey the Alolan Ninetales, and pulling off a KO against Juvia.
  • Roland really showing off his new skills in this battle, including Synchronoise, Snatching Grey's Aurora Veil, and Teleporting Gajeel's Meteor Mash into his teammate instead.
  • And when Corona and her Flare Blitz join the battle against the tough Mawile, the final blow is one to behold: Corona using Flare Blitz towards the floor, Roland teleporting her back up to the top of the ceiling multiple times in order for her to build up momentum, and then teleporting her, Gajeel and himself into just the right place to trap Gajeel in between a Flare Blitz from above and a Synchronoise from below.
• Roland suppressing his evolution mid-battle, wanting to think it over more, and barely loosing a step.
• Manaphy's first contest.
• Philena and her Shinx convincing a Rockruff to join up with Brock. Or so they think.
• Mewtwo's orbit telekinetic lift test going smoothly.
• Ash's Battle Dome challenge:
  • Mawile, Tyranitar and Goodra get their first Triple Battle together, and with how close they are, they pull it off with aplomb. Especially important is how in-sync they are to intercept attacks that would be super effective against their teammates, but they themselves are resistant to.
  • Tucker's tactics show through when he mixes his orders; Ash is quick to catch on that some orders are for the Pokémon he looks at, not the Pokémon he says.
    • And even when the battlefield gets clouded with Goodra's Rain Dance, he can still direct his Pokémon through sound.
  • Mawile using Goodra to whip herself into the air, so she can Play Rough with Tucker's Salamence.
  • And when Mawile gets knocked out by Tucker's Arcanine, Tyranitar goes into Tranquil Fury mode, and states that now that the Ground-vulnerable Mawile is out of the way, there's nothing stopping him from Earthquaking Arcanine into submission. Multiple times. By jumping.
    • Especially poignant when you remember how much trouble he had walking only last arc.
• The gang stopping the Phantom Pirates' second attempt to grab Manaphy, including Zorua taking Manaphy's place and turning into a Tyrantrum to scare the last grunt, and Blaziken's Curb-Stomp Battle against the Pokémon they sent out against him.
  • To say nothing of Blaziken outrunning, intercepting, and disabling the getaway car with his bare hands.
• Max vs. Erika has Guy pulling off his Leaf Tornado combo against Victreebel.
• Molly beating Gardenia, who underestimated her despite Gary's warnings.
• Lucario managing to ride a bike, and not wreck it like Pikachu does.
• Character of the Day Ninja Instructor Angela managing to evade Ash's Aura Sight.
• Ash grabbing a Kecleon's tongue when it tries to surprise him.
• Max vs. Janine (though he doesn't know it):
  • An added challenge in that the battle takes place in the treetops, and touching the ground means you're eliminated.
  • After Janine's Ariados gives Jirachi the runaround through String Shot and Sticky Web, Max uses Roland to transmit instructions to him, and when Ariados pulls Jirachi directly at him, it gives Jirachi a trajectory to use a line of Future Sight on.
  • Another occurrence with Janine's Venomoth giving Roland the runaround, only this time it works: Roland ends up jumping through a cloud of Silver Wind to reach Venomoth, not realising that there's Poisonpowder mixed in with it.
  • Last battle is Janine's Weezing against Casper: with too many ways for Weezing to prevent Casper from getting close, Casper's only tactic is a prank. It works at getting Weezing eliminated, even if it doesn't work out like Casper intended.
• Ash's Battle Pike/Tent challenge:
  • Up until this point, Muk a.k.a. Hug-Shoggoth was almost an oozing sure-fire victory with his overwhelming Beam Spam strategies. Lucy's Shuckle, empowered with both Shell Smash and Power Trick, proves otherwise by taking advantage of Muk's deficiency in precision and hitting hard and moving fast enough that Muk can't even connect. At least until Muk simply hits everywhere at once with Explosion.
• A minor one, but May's contest appeal ends with Glaceon standing on her hind legs and successfully catching Munchlax. Now remember how heavy Munchlax are.
• The Phantom Pirates' attack in Chapter 212 has several on all sides:
  • The Phantom Pirates manage to disable the gang's Poké-Balls temporarily and grab Manaphy, sending him on ahead with a Pidgeot.
  • Manaphy managing to escape by himself by using Heart Swap on said Pidgeot and his trainer, causing a paralyzing "Freaky Friday" Flip which causes them to drop the cage, allowing him to Acid Armour his way out and create water wings to fly back to the group.
  • Ash, along with the Pokémon out at the time the Poké-Balls were disabled, going head to head with the Pokémon the Pirates brought. Including Ash vs. a Rhydon.
  • Some of the Pirates, when fleeing, stumble into Brock's cooksite, and with some illusions, the group is quickly captured. One gets away, but Sudowoodo catches her.
  • The Pidgeot rider calling his boss and quitting after the Heart Swap wears off.
• After Yas's Dance Battler Scrafty beats Guy, Cinder comes out and whips and slams him around like a rag doll by his tail, and he elects to pretend to faint rather than continue.
  • And then she shows her Dark-typing, by using Swagger.
• In the second half of the battle against Kaz, Roland goes up against Kaz's Krokorok, who is skilled enough in both short-and-long range that Roland can't get an opening. At least until he notices that Krokorok is spamming Sand Tomb a lot, meaning that there's a whole lot of leftover sand for Roland's Mind over Matter moves to turn against her.
• There's a success in how far the Yas and Kaz Gyms have come since Ash's first Kanto run, if they can put on such a good performance of rivalry that some trainers end up making it all the way to the Indigo League to find out that they only have 7-and-a-half badges.

Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon (213-215)

• Lucario punching out a Mirage Machoke in a One-Hit KO.
• The gang puts up a good fight against the Mirror Match Mirage Pokémon attack, even if they end up losing due to sheer longevity on the enemy's part, and several of the team's Pokémon manage to evade capture.
• Roland managing to Teleport all the way to Mewtwo for help.
  • And how does Mewtwo enter the scene? By tearing off the lab roof.
• The fight between Mewtwo and his Mirage counterpart. If his opponent had been flesh and blood, Mewtwo might have even won!
  • Pointed out in the chapter itself, Mirage Mewtwo is still the weaker of the two when it comes to pure power, his only advantages were speed and instant reconstitution via the Mirage system. There is no "might" if they were both flesh and blood; Ash's Mewtwo would win.
  • The Mirage Mewtwo is throwing around moves like Volt Crash and Judgement, and Mewtwo uses an unfocused Hyper beam attack.
• Zorua, with some help from Stantler, manages to get Dexter to a port, figure out why Yung didn't want to manifest a Riolu/Lucario, and get him to do so, thus giving Mirage Mewtwo a conscience and derailing Yung's plans entirely.
  • And Dexter evolves in the process!

Battle Frontier part 3 (216-227)

• Chikorita got Sacred Sword as an Egg Move.
• Iris and her Pokémon working together to climb a cliff.
• May effortlessly stymieing Harley's veiled insults.
• May's next contest appeal involves her sparring with Blaziken (with Altaria Double Teams giving the impression of an Animal Battle Aura) and culminates in her being thrown into the air and caught by Mega Altaria. It really showcases how much she and her Pokémon have grown since they first started learning, both with martial arts, and learning to fly and trusting her Pokémon to do so.
• Ho-Oh's next Ash-tactic? Generating a ramjet.
• The Phantom Pirates attack again in 218, attempting to freeze the group with a gang of Dunsparce. Too bad for them that Ho-Oh was there...
• Ash's Battle Palace challenge. Spenser does pretty well, his Mega Venusaur even managing to trip up Absol, but Mega Sceptile turns the tides and wins Ash the battle virtually single-handed!
• Ash's Battle Tower challenge:
  • Against a Mega-Alakazam who had just neutralised his Fire-moves by ways of Traced Flash Fire, Houndoom would be a little short-pawed, if his Beat Up copy roster didn't now include Ho-Oh.
  • Espeon using his telekinesis to augment his physical combat skill, as well as getting Houndoom to hurt himself by his own fire attacks by Skill Swapping away his ability.
  • Then, Espeon finds himself on the wrong end of the petard, when Kingler shows that he's picked up a few of Misty's anti-Electric tactics - particularly the Brine bath that grounds his Zap Cannon back into himself.
  • Anabel's Metagross making full use of all the water Kingler left behind, to defend against Torkoal's fire attacks.
    • Ash deliberately breaks a window to let all the steam out, so Metagross has nothing to shield it from Torkoal's attacks.
• Ash and Co.'s Poké-Balls aren't working, but they have some Pokémon out. Unfortunately for the Phantom Pirates that show up, the same isn't true for them, and the resulting battle is pretty one sided.
  • Special mention to Blaziken, when he yanks their getaway pilot clean out of his helicopter in mid-air.
• Max versus Misty's sisters. It's close, even when Daisy pulls out their Mega Slowbro, but Max still manages to pull through and win.
  • And Casper manages to Mega Evolve during the battle!
• Ash and Brock enter an open air Contest and out on some pretty impressive displays.
• May helps judge a contest! One that she helped conceptualize, no less!
• Flygon beats Pidgeot in the open air Contest. Pidgeot is one of Ash's strongest and most dazzling Pokémon so to beat her is pretty impressive.
  • Brock finally wins a contest after past failures.
• The PokéAtlantis King being tricked into possessing Zorua at the same time his Soul Jar is destroyed, which ends him.
• Guy and Corona facing off against a Mega Aggron.
• Roland finally evolves into a Gallade to fight against Ryhperior.
• Roland repeatedly teleporting Steelix into the air and dropping him before Forrest surrenders.
• Buizel's spar with Ho-Oh. It ends when the latter calls it a draw, neither side apparently ahead, and still goes on long enough that Ho-Oh misses his chance to fight Brandon.
• Ash's Battle Pyramid challenge:
  • Ivysaur, though taken out by Registeel, combines Grass and Fire Pledge to devastating effect.
  • How does Charizard use Rock Smash on Regirock? With headbutts.
  • Brandon's Heatran defeats Charizard by essentially burying him in lava.
  • Mega-Squirtle vs. Heatran. Squirtle uses physics, water pressure and a Megaton Punch. Heatran loses.
  • Regice freezing Mega Squirtle in ice.
  • Mega-Lucario surviving Regice's Explosion.
  • Dusclops using an Unrealistic Black Hole, which stymies Mega Lucario but Pikachu manages to overcharge it and ruin its physics.
  • Pikachu using a makeshift railgun to hurtle Registeel into a distant mountain at over the speed of sound.
• Pidgeot and Silver taking out a fighting Zapdos and Moltres.
• Kidd Summers is the first human on Mars!

Kanto Grand Festival (228-231)

• Appeals:
  • May's first appeal in the Grand Festival: use Glaceon and some Splash Seals to pull off a Magical Girl Transformation Sequence!
  • Jessie using Wobbuffet's Counter as a Recoil Boost trampoline, and by the end of it, she's as high as the highest stands.
  • Drew's Masquerain crafting a whole pyramid out of bubbles.
• Battles:
  • May's first double battle is against a trainer named Vivio, whose Girafarig and Furret's fighting style is just as intricate as you'd expect. Add to that Ethan's own fighting style augmented by Venusaur's dexterity with her vines, and it's a shame this battle isn't animated.
  • Her second battle using Wartortle against a spellcasting Delphox is equally as spectacular, especially when you see how versatile her watercrafting is.
  • A little bit of awesome in just how easily Mega Audino dealt with Harley's Wigglytuff; it was less a contest battle and more a cooking appeal from Audino with an unusually big pink prop.
  • Gary and his Sandslash do a fine job of sandcrafting a giant Sandshrew that goes King Kong on Mega Altaria, until May figures out how to blow it apart from the inside.
  • Props go to Wu and his Monferno Kong, who can control his Heat Wave to such a degree that it affects his surroundings in a manner that makes it look like he's holding a giant invisible staff.
  • May vs. Solidad:
    • Props to May right off the bat; since she knows Solidad likes to study her opponent and choose the best Pokémon to counter her, she uses Joltik as one of her battlers, someone who not only synergizes well with Manaphy's waterbending, but is both someone who Solidad has never seen before and is too small for Solidad to see properly anyway.
    • Compared to a Pidgeot and a Lapras, both Manaphy and Joltik are disproportionately small, so the two use strands of web and water to essentially pull a Colossus Climb on Solidad's team and truss them both up!
    • And May's finisher: Manaphy creates a mass of water, breaks it up into droplets, Joltik chain-charges it all, and then Manaphy drops it on their foes like lightning rain. May calls it "Electrostorm".
  • Jessie vs. Drew is equally as impressive, especially considering Marowak's new capabilities: knowing Arbok's snake skeleton well enough that she can control him like a living whip (including making him fly), and assembling a full mobile Tyrantrum skeleton - a move so impressive that the judges make Jessie the victor from spectacle alone!
  • The third-place match between Solidad vs. Drew has a few cool moments, from Roserade acting like The Gunslinger with Bullet Seed and Solidad's team doing their level best to disrupt any big build-ups, but the awesome moment comes when a cryptic order from Drew leaves Solidad's Butterfree in exactly the wrong position to be blown up by a Sweet Scent powder bomb.
  • The final: May vs. Jessie:
    • Cosplaychu's got an entire Utility Belt of compressed costumes for this battle, and boy does she make use of them! From the generic like snowboarder (Avalanche) and chef (Scald), to the Shout-Out like Sith Lord (Psychic) and portal gun (Hyperspace Hole).
    • When Grumpig gets wise that Cosplaychu has to spin to change costumes, he suspends her in mid-air so she can't manage it. How does she get out? Get Seviper to spit Poison Stings at her Iron Tail and force a spin!
    • Each attack and counterattack is a spectacle in and of itself, from Blaziken kicking an entire fire tornado at his opponents, to Cosplaychu using the aforementioned portal gun to send it right back at him, to Grumpig using Blaziken's Speed Boost to barrage her with a Bullet Hell Beam Spam, to Seviper swarming Blaziken with a Doppelgänger Attack of a swarm of snakes!
    • And as for the finale, wow! Fairy Lock from a keyblade-costume shackles Blaziken and Grumpig together, Seviper keeps them airborne with a barrage of Launcher Moves, and just as May's team break loose and prepare a fire drill, Cosplaychu equips her Black Mage costume and unloads on them with Thundaga/Thunder, Blizzaga/Blizzard, Ultima/Hyper Beam and Comet/Draco Meteor! Final verdict: Jessie is now a Top Coordinator!
• For his appeal in the Oak Ranch contest tournament, Goodra break-Rain Dances!
• There's a little bit of awesome (though mostly funny) in that Mewtwo won the most write-in votes for the Oak Ranch Grand Festival, despite not participating in the first place.
• Casey playing baseball with a Zapdos.

Temple of the Sea (232-235)

• Ho-Oh's Badass Boast.
  Ho-Oh: I have decided that you qualify as a storm. I would suggest you land, or I will end you - as is my duty.
  • It's a damn shame it's an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, but we get to see Ho-Oh solo an entire military squad of helicopters, missiles, machine guns and all.
• Misty told Ash, way back in Chapter 115, to call her when this particular arc happened, because it's the one part of Ash's adventure she'd be perfect during. She arrives with enough rebreathers for everyone, and co-ordinates the entire thing.
  • What makes this more awesome is that Misty wasn't even featured in the series at this point in canon!
• Lucario manages to dismantle most of the traps in the Temple, even defying an Indy Escape.
• The final battle in the central chamber:
  • Jackie's Styler comes in handy even though there are no wild Pokémon to befriend: with all the illusions being thrown around, the Styler connecting Jackie's feelings to all Pokémon in range allow him to detect the Pokémon beneath the illusions and coordinate Ash and Co's team.
  • You gotta give props to the Phantom Pirates for having a Stantler on their side; its illusionary enemies and concealment of the pirates' Pokémon is the main reason the battle isn't as one-sided as the rest. However, Brock's Crobat, Zorua and Forretress are the perfect team to see through the illusions, infiltrate their ranks, and blow the illusions to kingdom come.
  • Ash saving Lizabeth and her family from a Crawdaunt with his bare hands.
  • May's Tranquil Fury as she, empowered by Samiya's enhance mode, delivers a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Captain Phantom and his mecha-suit.
  • And a minor one to the Captain for getting as far as he did, given the track record his pirates had in trying to capture and escape with Manaphy.

Battle Frontier wrap-up (236)

• With the advent of the Sinnoh region approaching, Ash's training is starting to edge into a higher gear, from him practicing with his aura-enhanced sword to Pikachu and his team practicing in more chaotic mob-battle conditions.
• Professor Oak proposes an experiment to see how many Pokémon Ash can Mega-Evolve with one Key Stone at once, using borrowed Mega Stones. Ash manages thirteen. ^note Charizard, Heracross, Houndoom, Tyranitar, Pidgeot, Mawile, Absol, Lucario, Sceptile, Glalie, Latias, Latios and Squirtle.
• Iris is certainly taking to Denae's hands-on teaching better than she would at Opelucid Academy; she's actually completing the lessons faster than Denae can come up with them!

Sinnoh's Gym Challenge part 1 (237-242)

• Ash finally runs into Paul, and as always, Paul wants to see how he stacks up against the best.
  • Magmar gives Lucario a good match, even managing to not get suckered into walking into Lucario's Flying Dragon Uppercut, but in the end, his Lava Plume is no match against Lucario's Aura Storm.
  • Elekid is plenty scrappy, using Electric Terrain to get field advantage and trying to build up power with Charge Beam to outmatch Keldeo, so the Sword of Justice has to use the ice-field explosion trick he used against Lorelei to regain field advantage, cratering the ground in the process.
  • Paul's Torterra is a literal mobile fortress, taking into account his typing, his defenses, and his use of Stone Edge as bulwarks, but against Ash's Pikachu, that's only a stopgap.
    • When Pikachu lands in biting range, Torterra does just that to try and hold him in place. Smart idea, right? Not when Pikachu is strong enough to lift a gigantic land-tortoise off the ground with his tail.
    • And how does Pikachu deal the final blow? With science! Carving out the crater Keldeo left behind with Iron Tail, then charging it and himself in just the right way allows him to coilgun Volt Tackle himself right into Torterra's face.
• Torterra's introductory battle against Goodra has Torterra implementing Ash's new tactics: making sure he's constantly charged up with Energy Balls and that even if he's not fast enough to hit targets, he can use attacks that are.
  • But Goodra has been working on his own tactics: gain altitude, Rain Dance for targeting, Dragon Pulse for steering, and finally Focus Punch for impact.
• Mewtwo's making a new Space Base... on Callisto! You know, the moon of Jupiter?
• Max vs. Blaine:
  • Mega-Casper finds out just how physically strong he is... by throwing Blaine's Rhydon clear out of the crater.
  • Max's strategy for taking out Blaine's Magmar: 1. Confirm that Magmar has Flame Body by dint of Kris, 2. Switch to Mega-Casper, 3. Get him burnt by Flame Body, 4. Use Façade ^note A move that gets stronger when the user is status-afflicted..
• It turns out that Zoey fought alongside Gary trying to stop Cyrus in the old timeline.
• Meganium gives a reminder to Pikachu and Corona that even as a female, a healer, and a mother, she can battle with the best of them: by using Power Whip and Petal Blizzard to flatten an entire herd of rampaging Rampardos.
  Meganium: What? It's almost like you expect me to be domestic or something.
  Pikachu: I did, you're right. My apologies.
• Ash bashing a Cranidos into a wall. Then convincing her to join Paul's team.
• Mawile, who no one is worried about, calming a Tyrunt down.
• Ash vs. Roark has a couple of moments:
  • Seeing a bruiser bird like Staraptor beat a Rampardos in close-combat.
  • Torterra's double-charged Energy Ball catching Tyranitar mid-jump and blowing her clean through a wall and giving the Continent Pokémon his first non Team Rocket victory.

Max's Indigo League (243-247)

• Suicune is the one giving the opening address at the Indigo League, speaking about how a Legendary like her can be asked to open the League without it sounding absurd, and how it showcases the growing equality between humans and Pokémon.
  • Of course, she forgot that the Aura Translation effect doesn't work over TV...
• Max's second round battle against Pete Pebbleman has a few moments:
  • When Cinder grounds Pete's Pidgeotto by Digging a hollow out of one of the battlefield's ice pillars, and then using Hyper Voice to blow it up right in the bird's path.
  • Corona achieves flight by combining Flare Blitz and Flame Charge to generate a flaming draconic battle aura, and using it to melt the Ice Field and sink Pete's Arcanine.
• The Wishiwashi's appearance.
• Roland psychically capturing a Dragonair's Dragon Pulse, but not to attack with - to feint with and open his opponent up for a Dazzling Gleam shotgun blast. Twice!
• In the face of a Mega Kangaskhan and her battling daughter, Max sends out Jirachi - and uses his Skill Swap to both neutralize the daughter and generate a clone of himself that eventually brackets his opponent with no way out.
• Max's Deoxys shows up for a round against a Mega Sharpedo, and given how fast both Pokémon can move, the last moment when Deoxys blows the shark and all the water out of the pool happens so quickly that everyone has to look at the replay to see what happened.
• A moment for one of Salvia's contest opponents: the Charmeleon lighting the Grovyle's Magical Leaves to essentially give him Technicolor Fire Hot Wings.
• Max vs. Iwalani:
  • Cinder throwing around the burly Hakamo-o with Play Rough.
  • Everything about Iwalani's Dartrix -> Decidueye (Ash's evolutionary aura strikes again!), from his Long Reach ability that turns his physical attacks into Trick Arrows, to his Shadow Pinning Spirit Shackle.
  • Roland parrying every arrow aimed at him.
    • And even when his shadow is shackled in place, Max manages to get him to jump in such a way that the pull on his shadow curves Roland's jump to intercept his airborne opponent with a devastating blade combo.
  • Max using a Batman Gambit to deal with Iwalani's Galvanized Alolan Graveler - by using Electric Terrain to bait Graveler into using an electric attack, that feeds right into Arc's Lightningrod ability.
  • The finale between Arc and Decidueye is truly spectacular:
    • Arc breaking out of Decidueye's Spirit Shackle - by Flashing so brightly he doesn't project a shadow to pin.
    • Iwalani getting wise to Max's wrong-naming tactic, and using it to poison Arc by aiming in the other direction.
    • And eventually, the one who makes the critical mistake is Max, when he tells Arc to use Façade, not realizing that Decidueye is now Grass/Ghost instead of Grass/Flying. This gives Iwalani and Decidueye the perfect opportunity to use their Z-move, and Arc is buried by a Bloom Doom - which then explodes, taking Max out of the League.

Sinnoh's Gym Challenge part 2 (248-249)

• Mawile and Tyrunt's Dark Horse Victory in the Eterna Pokémon Dress-up contest, avoiding a close call when everyone else got eliminated.
• A few moments from Ash and Gardenia's gym battle:
  • Buizel and his ice missiles from Ice Aqua Jet hemming Gardenia's Bellossom in an ice spike ring, preventing her from dodging the final blow.
  • Then all that ice comes back to bite Buizel, when Gardenia's Cherrim use the refracting and reflecting light to further boost her Solarbeam.
  • Houndoom's resulting fight with Cherrim is so intense it causes a mushroom cloud of ash.
  • Gardenia's recently-evolved Leafeon using that fact to his advantage - instead of fighting like a Leafeon, he fights like an Eevee, using Dig, Swift, and Trump Card to finally score the win over Houndoom.
  • Raining when facing a Fire-type is normally a good decision, but not when that Pokémon is Ash's Torkoal, who uses steam as his weapon.

The Rise of Darkrai (Chapter 250)

• When you have two gigantic Pokémon wreaking havoc inside a town and its inhabitants doing everything they can to defend it, there are bound to be some awesome moments:
  • Although Charizard was unable to bring his mate's Charizardite Y along for the transport, Baron Alberto proves he has something to contribute: he has Charizardite X in his collection!
  • Staraptor acting as Mega Sceptile's wings, enabling him to maneuver and Leaf Storm missile-blast away at them with impunity.
    • Mega Sceptile even pulls off a Climhazzard against Palkia's shield!
  • Mega Lucario manages to use Mirror Coat against both dragons' Hyper Beams at once! He faints from the strain right after, but the effort has to be applauded.
  • Mega Steelix and Geodude get everyone a reprieve by a supercharged Stone Edge combination that locks both dragons in stone prisons for a brief moment.
  • Mawile flying around on her homemade glider, using her Fairy-typing to No-Sell and neutralize any stray attacks, even those as devastating their Signature Moves! However, her glider doesn't have the same durability...
  • Against the combined might of both Roar of Time and Spatial Rend, Mega Latios and Pikachu manage to deflect the attacks, the former using Luster Purge, and the latter using an eight-ringed Volt Crash, but the effort knocks them both out of the fight.
  • Mega Charizard X's Blast Burn managing to break through Dialga's shield. And it's telling that he's the only front-liner still active at the end of the fight.
  • Finally, the dragons decide to target Ash, inside the control cubicle of the Time-Space Towers, and send a withering barrage of attacks his way... and just like in the Scuffle, Ash takes his Secret Sword, charges it up with Aura, and starts parrying the blasts one by one. However unlike the Scuffle, the human soul inside the sword awakens, adding its strength to Ash's to keep him from using his life force, and turns the ceremonial blade into a Honedge.
• Unfortunately, despite Ash and Co. knowing exactly what the solution is, a wrinkle comes in the form of a stray Roar of Time damaging the song-reading mechanism and preventing the Oracion song from being played and calming down the two Pokémon. So what's the solution? Get Dexter to interface with the instruments, project an instrument for Alice to play, and get her to play Oracion manually!

Sinnoh's Gym Challenge part 3 (251-263)

• Shame it's an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, but Casey finally captured Zapdos!
• Thanks to Kari, Ash finally has a proper swordsmanship teacher! And, as Lucario points out when he gets Dexter taping, she's very likely the only one in the modern world who knows that sword-style!
• The Striaton Triplets' Gym Café seems to have turned out better than they'd ever dreamed - on account of them getting patronage from Legendary Birds.
• In Chapter 252, Gary's a little miffed about missing the Alamos event, so he teleports to Sinnoh and challenges Ash for the obligatory out-of-nowhere Rival Battle!
  • Pikachu vs. Mega Alakazam:
    • Mega Alakazam quickly sets himself up as a Man of Kryptonite to Pikachu, in that he can Trace his Lightningrod and nullify all his electricity, teleport away from his close-in attacks, and shield himself from all his non-electric long-range moves, while bombarding away from range with beam attacks and his Attack Drone spoons.
    • But of course, there are a few minute holes in M!Alakazam's defence - the shield itself isn't immune to electricity, it becomes opaque if absorbing too many hits at once, and if Pikachu does get close enough to get his paws on him, he can't teleport away.
    • And finally, even M!Alakazam's Traced Lightningrod comes back to bite him - absorbing all that electricity leaves him very positively charged, and with Pikachu manipulating everything just right, the Psychic-type ends up piledriven into the ground by sheer electrical repulsion. Pikachu's Pre-KO One Liner says it all:
      Pikachu: You're awfully negative today. Think positive!
  • Mega Lucario vs. Umbreon:
    • Remember all that item research Gary was doing at Ash's suggestion? Umbreon makes full use of it, combining Synchronize with a Flame Orb to burn M!Lucario, and carrying a Life Orb to boost both her attack strength and reach. Oh, and she also has been training her Light Screen and Reflect shields.
    • Umbreon almost manages to pull off Deadly Dodging on M!Lucario with his own seeker spheres.
    • In the end M!Lucario has to resort to the Flying Dragon Uppercut to finally catch her and break through her shields, and the result is so exhausting he faints a mere beat after he's declared the winner.
  • Mega Charizard X vs. Mega Blastoise:
    • As expected by someone obsessed with TTGL, M!Blastoise can shoot drill missiles. Cluster drill missiles. Homing cluster drill missiles.
    • And just like his debut, he can pull off Siebold's Dragon Pulse draconic construct. And when combined with Aura Sphere and Water Pulse, it turns into a spinning drill dragon construct made out of water, which practically engulfs M!Charizard X with no way out.
  • All in all, this exhibition battle is a reaffirmation that yes, Gary Oak is Ash Ketchum's Rival for a damn good reason.
• Max is doing very well so far in the Johto circuit, with Roland pulling off a perfect Omnislash combination against Chuck's Chesnaught.
• Clemont discussing workable space travel solutions with Mewtwo.
• Ash using Aura Purge on the Spiritomb, and Kari showing off her stuff.
• Just the fact that Maylene, someone with no overt Aura powers, is capable of doing crazy stuff like punch through brick walls, block Aura Spheres and fight metal-boned Lucario, all with her bare hands. And all from the fact that her Lucario thought anyone could do it with enough training.
  • Not to mention fighting an Aura Adept like Ash in hand-to-hand.
• Kellyn runs into Ash and Co, to tell them about the kidnapping of a Riolu, and Ash instantly sets off to assist.
  • Let's just say the initial kidnapping team does not fare very well when Ash catches up with them.
    • Special mention goes to Lucario No Selling a Skuntank's stench by virtue of Aura airslip around his nose, and then using said Skuntank as a weapon.
  • After the rest of the group catch up, the gang called the Eeveelution Rangers decide to bring out the big guns: 8 Eevee Humongous Mecha that transform into 8 Eeveelution mecha!
    • Mega Steelix suplexing a giant robot Umbreon. Yes, you read that right.
    • Kellyn using a pair of Aron to eat his way inside one of the 'bots and then doing some internal damage.
    • Just when things are starting to look dicey, The Cavalry arrives, in the form of an Aeroblasting Pidgeot (who was sent to inform said cavalry) and literal cavalry of Lucario on Rapidash-back! With Bone Rush charging lances!
• Moments from the Wallace Cup:
  • Appeals:
    • Manaphy sculpting an entire full-scale castle made of water. Not ice, water.
    • Mamoswine ice-skating. While drawing actual art, no less.
    • Ho-Oh's weather demonstration is a true spectacle, from fog, lightning and rain to tornadoes, hail and rainbows. It's a shame that first part ended up covering the audience and prevented them from seeing it.
    • Victreebel making a laser-light demonstration with Magical Leaf, Solarbeam, and Jessie's mirror-ball dress.
  • Battles:
    • On Ursula's end, her Plusle and Minun have some excellent teamwork with their electric tethers slingshotting each other all over the place and bombarding their opponents with Signal Beams. On Jessie's end... she once again has Marowak sculpt a giant Zombie Tyrantrum. Which, thanks to a Mirror-Coated Wobbuffet in its mouth, breathes laser beams.
    • Skitty first sculpts a Delcatty ice statue, then promptly forgoes it to tail-fence with Zoey's Glameow. After a long battle, Skitty ends up sculpting a winged cat statue and sends it sliding down an ice roller-coaster, which promptly smooshes Glameow in between it and the first statue.
    • Piplup and Quilava using their arguments to trick Drew's Butterfree and Masquerain into moving first, allowing Piplup to both neutralise their attack and get Quilava into the right position to counter in one move.
    • And then Quilava gets flying with a frozen platform and a lot of steam.
    • And the kicker? A giant sculpted rose made out of water, steam and fire - and very deadly sculpted leaves.
    • A high-speed battle ensues between Blaziken and Cosplaychu, who's wearing a sprinter outfit. It's so fast, only the Porygon assistant Jeeves can see what's going on!
    • Until Blaziken uses Mirror Move to replicate Cosplaychu's Extremespeed - making him even faster. And even though both of them are fast enough to turn the water beneath them into waterspouts, he's the only one with the Fire-type to turn it all into very violent steam explosions.
    • And how long did the whole battle take? 33 seconds.
    • May vs. Dawn in the final:
    • Once again, Ethan shows Sharpen's Shapeshifter Weapon capabilities, by spending the whole battle in different dogfighting, dive-bombing airplane configurations, from biplanes to fighter jets!
    • We get to see just what Buneary's training with Pikachu has come up with: elemental attack-sculpted giant limbs! The strongest example is when she was knocked under the water, and Bounced out to punch Ethan. With the water.
    • And you'd think that catching a fighter jet in melee would be an exercise in futility, right? Buneary is more than up to the task, ice-skating, fire-boosting, and just plain old Bouncing until she gets enough speed to punch spacefighter!Ethan in the nose. Oh, if only these battles were animated...
• Team Galactic showing their chops when they manage to outmanoeuvre Team Rocket (forcing them into a retreat) and get past Ash and Co. - it takes them Mega-Evolutions, Shadow Pokémon, and Hunter J's petrification weaponry, but they manage to abduct the Lake Trio.
  • We get a first look at Team Rocket's blast-off escape method.

Giratina and the Sky Warrior (264-267)

• Giratina thinking his way around Palkia's (who trapped him in this timeline) spatial distortion barrier that is keeping him from leaving the Reverse World.
• Okay, yeah, Mewtwo solved one half of the movie's problems by just mass Teleporting everyone all the way to Gracidea Vale. Surely the other half can't be that hard to solve, right? Wrong.
  • For one thing, as soon as they arrive, the Reverse World struggles cause the glacier to start collapsing immediately. Mewtwo can hold it back without strain, but then there's the mountain avalanches...
  • Ash's response is to start calling everyone in. And by "everyone", we're talking not only his Legendaries, but Max, May, Misty and all four regions' worth of Elite Fours.
• As soon as Ash and Mewtwo go into the Reverse World to find Giratina, the only thing now keeping the real world safe from all the mirrored damage caused by the inevitable brawl are Brock, Dawn and all the helpers they've managed to call in. And boy, do they rise to the occasion.
  • Absol is playing Mission Control once again, using her Sword Beams as signals and their fastest fliers to direct everyone around the valley to where they're needed.
  • Lugia, Sceptile and Entei halting a collapsing mountain avalanche in its tracks.
  • Houndoom, Gliscor and Staraptor evacuating Pokémon stranded on a collapsing cliff ledge.
  • Falling debris hits the lake and causes what amounts to a megatsunami. Who stops it? Manaphy!
  • Suicune, Goodra and Keldeo playing firefighter. With Keldeo doubling as air evacuation.
  • Bruno and the Kanto-Johto E4 halting another avalanche.
  • Dawn finding Regigigas and coordinating efforts to stop the glacier.
  • Deoxys-Orange flying in to stop a mountain peak that had literally been blown off.
  • And then they have to deal with an entire rogue weather system forming out of thin air. Good thing they had the emergency reserve - Squirtle and Muk.
    • And how do they get rid of the system? Remember that "giant Vaporeon made of water" mentioned all the way back in Johto? Yeah, they use that.
• Inside the Reverse World, Ash unfortunately arrives too late to stop Zero from draining Giratina dry of his powers. But he gets a break, and it's a big one: in the moments before his capture, Azelf managed to transmit something into Ash's memory - the memories needed to Remind Giratina!
• By now, the ship has split into two, with Zero piloting the Mecha Giratina and his Artificial Intelligence ally Infi piloting the rest of the Megarig, forcing Ash to split his forces.
  • The battle against the Megarig:
    • Most of Ash's heavy hitters, Mewtwo, Ho-Oh and Charizard, are trying to blast through the ship's Deflector Shields, but they have to deal not only with that, but with the ability to Ghost-phase away from attacks. Luckily, they too have a Ghost-type on their side: Kari.
    • Finally, they manage to create an opening, and Latias manages to get Pikachu, Lucario, Kari and Dexter on board the Megarig, where the only defenses left are Infi's programming and a host of Magnemite-family security. Though, the latter are fairly easily dealt with by chucking them off the ship.
    • Lucario using Kari to chop through every bulkhead that gets in their way.
    • With Dexter now interfacing with the Megarig, they need another way to get the Magnets off their back. What's the solution? Pikachu wields Kari with his tail, charges into the security forces, and wreaks havoc.
    • Ho-Oh manages to break through the Megarig's Deflector Shields himself - by simply ram-jetting his way through and letting his phoenix healing deal with the damage.
    • And Dexter manages to finally outmaneuver Infi - by hijacking one of the Megarig's dimensional phase modules, projecting his avatar through dimensions, and attacking Infi's code from a direction she never saw coming.
    • And the cherry on top: how do Porygon2 evolve into Porygon-Z? By installing software that allows it to interact with alien dimensions, that's how!
  • The Chase Fight with the Mecha Giratina:
    • The fact that the chase is going back and forth between both the real world and the Reverse World, with Giratina and Shaymin taking care of the warps. Couple that with Luster Purge and Aeroblast barrages from Mega Latios and Pidgeot, and Zero has his work cut out for him.
    • Pidgeot using her Tailwind to pull Giratina along so they can catch up to Zero.
    • When Zero uses Crown City as his backdrop, he soon gains the upper hand as not only does Ash need to avoid collateral damage, Giratina is stuck in his Altered Form in the real world and thus cannot fly. At least until Latias delivers Giratina's Griseous Orb to him.
    • With the orb giving Giratina enough power to keep more than one interdimensional portal active, Ash comes up with a plan to blast right past the Mecha Giratina's defenses: Retreat into the Reverse World, let Zero think he has time for a breather, use the Eon twins' sight-sharing to coordinate their position with Zero's, and when they're in the right place, Giratina creates a portal behind the mech's shields, through which Pidgeot uses Aeroblast to deliver a calculated, critical strike. Result? One-Hit KO!
    • And the cherry on top? Mewtwo neatly dismantling the disabled Mecha Giratina into its component parts before it hits the ground and causes damage.

Sinnoh's Gym Challenge part 4 (268-283)

• Professor Rowan's Summer Academy:
  • Dawn helps a timid Raichu put on a great performance by using foil strips and electrical current to make music. And even ends it with a bang!
  • During the third task, a rogue spirit in the Summit Ruins is causing trouble:
    • When it successfully lures Angie into walking off a cliff, Mawile doesn't hesitate in diving off to catch her, even if she wrecks her flying wing in the process.
    • When it confronts Ash, he sees right through her disguise, and she attacks him in fury. Unfortunately, between his powers, Kari and Lucario, she picked a fight with the wrong trainer.
• Dawn's fourth contest:
  • Ambipom and Pachirisu playing electric ping-pong.
  • During the Contest Battle between Dawn's Buneary and her mother's rival's Delcatty, Buneary turns her Fire and Thunderpunches into full-on battle auras and goes Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs on her opponent. Shame the clock ran out before she could pull out a Focus Blast.
• Barry's battle with Ash:
  • Gliscor showing up her new sand-based techniques.
  • Both Barry's Staravia and Prinplup evolving during the battle.
  • Barry's new Empoleon tanking Gible's Draco Meteor barrage and managing to freeze his opponent solid.
  • Smeargle deserves some credit for taking on a lot of Ash's Pokémon in succession, switching them out with Whirlwind, and Sketching their moves to use. Of particular note is when he copies Staraptor's Fly... by drawing wings for himself.
    • However, it soon proves to have limits, as trying to copy Lucario's seeker sphere storm only results in a single Aura Sphere.
• The TRio's assault on a Team Galactic facility has several good moments:
  • For starters, the Rockets go back to their roots and break out the Humongous Mecha! Mega Charizard, Blastoise and Venusaur mecha!
    • And in addition to all the onboard weapons, they also have their other Pokémon popping out of hatches and using their own attacks!
  • The fact that Team Rocket are being as loud, eccentric and argumentative amongst themselves as possible, immediately pings Cyrus to the idea that the entire attack is retribution for their recent defeat at Lake Valor, perfectly in line with their status as a Yakuza public front. Little does he know, that Team Rocket is deliberately putting on this act, to create the perfect distraction for Meowth and his assistants to infiltrate the facility!
  • So if Meowth is infiltrating, who's piloting the third giant robot? Dustox and Yanmega. But how do they make sure they think Meowth is onboard? Pre-recorded Meowth voice clips!
  • The infiltration team and distraction team coordinating their attacks on the facility, so that Meowth sabotaging the camera feeds via electrical surge happens at exactly the same time as an external attack that stresses the building's shields.
  • Once Meowth has completed the objective and exfiltrated, Jessie and James blast off with a few parting gifts: an underground gas explosion big enough to collapse the underground parking garage, and the mechs self-destructing!
• Ash's battle with Fantina taking place in Mewtwo's underground sports arena ON THE MOON!
  • Also, Corphish's mid-battle evolution into Crawdaunt, complete with Vader Breath.
  • Glalie ice-crafting a giant Ice Lucario - with himself as the fist.
  • Kari using Drifblim's attacks to spin her around her centre of mass, increasing her speed for the retaliatory Sword Beam.
  • Mega Absol faces an Alolan Marowak with Cursed Body, which shuts down a majority of her effective attacks - so she takes a page out of Keldeo's book and creates new attacks on the fly.
• While on the Moon, Ash gets a chance to try out Mewtwo's new project - personal man-powered wings!
• Misty has a spar with Will, and has some new tricks to get past his Pokémon's telekinesis.
• Byron wants to get rid of his old gym to make room for a new one, so when Ash shows up, he gives him his advanced challenge: use his three oldest Pokémon (by age). Ash has to make sure he's alright with facing Giratina, Ho-Oh, and Raikou.
  • Byron's Mega Aggron pulling an electrolysis trick on Raikou, using Surf to generate a lot of water, get Raikou to turn it all into hydrogen and oxygen, then using Flamethrower to blow it all up.
  • Ho-Oh melting Bastiodon clean through the floor.
  • Byron's Mega Mawile has enough strength to throw Giratina around.
    • And finally Giratina fulfilling Byron's request by portaling the entire gym into the Reverse World.
• Lugia sparring with Cynthia's Garchomp. Highlights include Garchomp using Stepping Stones in the Sky to reach Lugia, and Lugia combining Aeroblast, Hydro Pump and Blizzard to increase the range of cold.
• The Iron Island battle with Team Galactic:
  • Even though Absol is subject to the Perception Filter just like all the other non-Reminded members, her Danger Sense is still on point enough to Sacred Sword-parry a bullet aimed at her trainer.
  • The fact that Team Galactic has created a Shadow Lucario, and it is a dangerous battler, able to match both Pikachu and Mega Lucario in hand-to-hand and utilise Fire, Ice, Lightning Shadow elements.
    • Not that the two give as good as they get, even using a lightning-charged Bone Rush javelin to deal a powerful hit, and eventually end up in a draw.
  • The Shadow Zoroark showing the depths of its power, able to swarm the battle with Shadow-illusions that cause real damage (bordering on Reality Warper) and make it effectively Made of Air, such that even Mewtwo finds it hard to get a grip on it and defend the group at the same time.
  • Charon is trying to scan Mt. Coronet for the Spear Pillar, but he doesn't get far before Giratina covertly blows his scanner up, with him none the wiser.
• As the Froslass is trying to trick Ash and Co. into a trap, Infernape brings out the pre-prepared Entei and Ho-Oh and stops her scheme cold. Heck, he prepared so well that Absol's Danger Sense doesn't even register!
  • And later, when they confront the poacher that was after the Froslass's son, Flygon and Forretress pull a Death from Above bombing run, that distracts him in time for Infernape to pulverise the poacher's Glalie.
• Ash and Co. encounter the Shiny Metagross, who believe in Asskicking Leads to Leadership and will not have a trainer that is not strong by themselves. Lately though, they have heard of one that is: Ash Ketchum, the Gym Destroyer.
  • Despite facing a Pseudo-Legendary with only his Aura powers and his Honedge, Ash actually holds his own and matches Metagross blow for blow; the fight only ends when their battlefield gives way and Mewtwo intervenes for their safety. The Shiny Metagross is so impressed that they decide to join Ash's team.
• After Ursula heckled Dawn for losing her last contest by means of a stupid mistake (using Ambipom's Normal move against Zoey's Mismagius), Dawn is prepared to beat her for her fifth ribbon. And she does so by using Pachirisu and Luxio against Ursula's Gabite and Sand Cloak Wormadam. So how does she win? By using Pachirisu's newly-practiced electric control to slingshot herself and Luxio all over the place, using Follow Me to keep their attention on her, and leave Luxio open to Ice Fang them when they least expect it!
• A few moments from Ash vs. Candice:
  • Two High Speed Battles in a row: one with Quilava and an Alolan Sandslash rolling all over the ice fields, and another with the steam-floating Torkoal and the ice-skating Weavile dashing around throwing Embers and Ice Shards at each other.
  • Iorek, Candice's Beartic, has the bulk, the endurance, and the armor to take all of Primeape's blows until the Pig Monkey Pokémon is too cold to move. But Primeape uses the ice against him, by using Ice Punch to freeze Iorek in place long enough to build up a Master Blow.

Arceus and the Jewel of Life (284-287)

• Arceus's descent from the sky, complete with heavenly light, an Unown chorus, and His rotating plates, has all the majesty worthy of a God.
• Ash and Co.'s battles against Marcus's forces.
  • Mewtwo disarming all the human guards and burying their weapons underground.
  • Infernape, Charizard and Keldeo triple-teaming Marcus's Heatran. Highlights include the three of them blasting through Heatran's Magma Storm, and Charizard going Death from Above by chucking a twelve-ton boulder right at the Lava Dome Pokémon.
  • Absol dealing with multiple other Absol at once while they are all paralysed by Ash's very presence.
  • Lucario dealing with Marcus's Bronzong while the Lati-twins run interference, until Flygon hits it with Rock Tomb - and said rock? His teammate Steelix.
  • Another instance of Death from Above from Goodra, dropping down on his opponents breathing Dragon Pulses, swinging Dragon Tails, and a Quilava fireball in his hand.
  • Dawn's team pulling a surprise attack out of the Reverse World.
• It's a small bit of awesome that out of all of Ash and Co.'s world-saving experiences, the one who figures out the solution to their dilemma is the pacifistic newcomer Tyrantrum - who asks the right question for everyone to realize that the solution is not to force Marcus to surrender, but to convince him.
  • Brock's team luring Marcus's Heatran out into the open, using Geodude to stall him and Mega Steelix to tank all his moves, and use the rest and even Heatran's own Magma Storm to disorient and blind him, until Ninetales can get close enough to tear off his armor.
  • Damos and Sheena combining their powers to convince a large percentage of Marcus's army to disarm themselves.
  • Pikachu, Lucario and Houndoom trying to divest Bronzong of its armor, with each of them wielding Kari at different points in the fight.
  • And when said brawl actually causes the cave they, Marcus and Ash are in to start collapsing, Pikachu uses all his power and blows out the side of the mountain to create a path for Ash to drag Marcus to safety. Guess how the Legend of the Thunder Beast gets written this time?
    • And Ash's heroic act is what finally convinces Marcus to give up the Jewel of Life willingly.
• The implication that Charizard is the one who taught Charific Valley how to use Blast Burn in the first place, due to time travel.

Sinnoh's Gym Challenge part 5 (288-291)

• Ash's scheduled rematch with Paul:
  • When you consider that Buizel, during this canon match, didn't manage to knock out any of Paul's Pokémon, his battle with Paul's Torterra is incredible. Between deflecting a Giga Drain with his Ice Aqua Jet and rebounding through a Stone Edge, Buizel makes amazing use of his superior agility and Torterra's relative immobility to douse his opponent with supercooled Rime attacks until his opponent is frozen in place.
    • Props to Torterra to still manage to deal a Frenzy Plant hit to Buizel after that, even if it costs him the last of his strength.
  • Gabite showing off his mastered Draco Meteor against Paul's brutish Ursaring, firing them off into the distance while defending himself until he's fully set up - and promptly gets out of the way as the meteors all home in and bombard Ursaring from all directions at the same time.
  • Latios has his work cut out facing two speedy fighters in a row.
    • Paul's Ninja-esque Weavile is fast enough to skip across Lake Acuity with ice platforms and sling Swift stars at Latios, using them to pinpoint Latios's position and dump an "Eight Dragons Avalanche" on his head. Still, when Latios finally gets his wings on him, one Meteor Move loop-the-loop takes care of his opponent.
    • Ninjask is equally as fast and even more agile, able to keep up the pressure with Fury Cutter and Bug Buzz Hit-and-Run Tactics, leaving Latios with no room to retaliate and no space to escape. It takes some advice from Ash for Latios to finally lose him, by blowing up the lake's surface with Luster Purge and creating a water screen large enough for Ninjask to finally lose track of him - whereupon Latios retaliates with a Dragon Pulse to the face.
  • Finally, it's Ash's turn for the Hit-and-Run Tactics - by sending up the speedy Swellow against Paul's Magmortar and all his firepower. The battle goes hammer-and-tongs until Paul uses Magmortar's secret weapon - Thunderbolt. However, against the unusually electric-resistant Swellow, all it does is afflict her with paralysis and not slow her down a whit, enabling her to smash him clear into the lake with a charged-up Façade.
• Dawn's Togekiss battling with Khoury's Octillery, shielding herself from Octillery's firepower until she can line up a charged Sky Attack.
• It says a lot that Lugia and Ho-Oh's exhibition battle (where they take turns to attack and defend) is still literally sky-shaking. It's so sky-shaking that Cynthia has to call to the police that reassures them that it's not a Ketchum Incident.
• Some incidents during the Lilypad Contest (where Dawn isn't attending since she already has 5 ribbons):
  • Brock and Heatran constructing the entirety of Stonehenge using cooling lava.
  • Ash and Lapras having a mock ice race.
  • The finale of the contest battle between Butterfree and Flygon - the former trapping the latter inside a ball of powder and lighting it up disco-style with a Solarbeam.

The Battle Finale of Legend (chapters 292-295)

This is it. The event the entire fic is building up to, the final clash with Team Galactic to prevent the unraveling of existence for a second time. We can just say the whole thing is a moment of awesome. But as for specifics...

• Ash finally takes out the Aura battery crystals that've been charging for several years now and shatters them, flooding him with aura and practically putting him in a Super Mode.
• Charizard facing down another Legendary Trio - this time three Shadow-fied Legendary Birds.
• That singing Jigglypuff proving her chops in the battle, especially when comboed with Snorlax, Mega Heracross and May's Munchlax, three Pokémon who can fight just as easily asleep as awake.
• Tracey's three Pokémon leading a strike against the Poison-using Galactic Pokémon that Scizor can easily take out, with Venonat guiding them with his radar.
• Glalie leading a pair of ice-crafted Dragonair around the battle - and Mega Sceptile rail-grinding on them, while shooting Leaf Blades and Leaf Storm missiles everywhere.
• Blaziken handling three Fighting-type Pokémon at once.
• Misty's Terrain - the technique where she generates a massive water bubble with her team, lets Golduck psychically control it, and let her Pokémon swim around inside it and fire attacks out, using it like a huge mobile aqua-fortress!
  • And later, with a little help from Buizel and Pidgeot, Staraptor drops the Shadow Moltres right into the bubble of water, allowing Mega Gyarados to restrain it.
• Ambipom wielding iron ping-pong balls against her opponents.
• Ash and Metagross battling against a Shadow Hydreigon and a Shadow Kommo-O.
• Vs. the Shadow Lucario:
  • A full-on weapon brawl ensuing between the Galactic Shadow Pokémon who can craft weapons out of bones, elements and dark Aura, and Mega Lucario and Roland fighting alongside each other, with the latter Teleport-Blade Spamming for all he's worth.
  • And finally Ash is the one who takes the Black Knight-esque Pokémon out - by throwing a Secret Sword-imbued Kari that slices through his Protect shield, and clouts him square in the head.
• Vs. the Shadow Zoroark:
  • Mega Casper being the front runner for the battle against this deadly opponent. Even more awesome when you consider that Casper is a Ghost type, facing down a super-powered opponent who also happens to have the type advantage.
  • A moment for it when it sends out a huge mass of shadow clones to attack all of Ash's team. Some manage to defend themselves, but some don't come out unscathed.
  • In particular, Cinder protecting Max from a shadow clone, but is injured enough to be withdrawn from the fight.
  • Kingler and Manaphy dissolving Zoroark's shadow illusions with sheer water pressure.
  • And Cynthia finally taking the thing out by ordering Tyranitar to use Hyper Beam. Which goes right through Casper, but blasts Zoroark right into the wall.
• Team Rocket's entrance into the Spear Pillar fight - with eight, count 'em, eight Legendary-styled Humongous Mecha! Jessie's intro line says it all:
  Jessie: This time I don't want to hear anyone complaining about the motto! Because, no matter how you look at it, we are definitely protecting the world from devastation this time!
• Croagunk's solo attack on the Team Galactic leadership, spitting out a Sludge Bomb that actually conceals Poké-balls belonging to his teammates.
• Beautifly, Butterfree and Jessie's Dustox creating a giant powder dust cloud, for one of the PoryDozen to ignite and blow up a bunch of the executives' Pokémon.
• Glaceon chucking Skitty into the air for her to use Assist - only for her to get a literal meteor shower that decimates a good chunk of the battlefield. What was it? Judgement. Which is a nice bit of Foreshadowing...
• Geodude putting the kibosh on Charon's instruments by trapping his console in solid crystal.
• Swellow sending out Torkoal to bombard Galactic with a bouncing steam-shooting pinball.
• The Battle Couple of Pikachu and Buneary bouncing through the Galactic ranks, electrocuting foes, flattening targets with elemental punch constructs, and culminating in a struggle of raw electrical power against Shadow Zapdos.
• Giratina drops off a strike team to free Dialga, Palkia and the Lake Trio - led by Squirtle. Who breaks through a shield made of warped space through sheer Hot-Blooded-ness.
• With the fall of Team Galactic's last Pokémon, everyone thinks that the battle is over... only for the portal that was created to stabilise and then the original timeline's Team Galactic steps through, along with three Primal Creation Dragons and a mind-controlled Lake Trio. And the first thing they do? Vaporize Ash with Primal Dialga's Roar of Time. If things weren't in top gear before, they're in overdrive now...
  • Molly spending the entire battle building up a spell with some Unown allies, and then using them to banish the Perception Filter created by [Original Team Galactic.
  • Lucario taking up Kari after Ash throws her away to spare her from being disintegrated. And wields her with frightening, Tranquil Fury-infused tenacity.
  • Team Rocket's contribution at this point, in addition to all their active Pokémon? Combine their Mecha Kyurem and Mecha Zekrom into Mecha Black Kyurem and attack Primal Palkia.
  • Pikachu getting on Charizard's back, telling him to use Blast Burn all he likes, and then attacks. Their first salvo is Pikachu engaging in a Beam-O-War with Primal Dialga's Roar of Time, and then Charizard breaks the tie with Blast Burn.
    • And then Primal Giratina drops them into the Reverse World. What do they do? Blast their way back out.
  • Mawile, near-overcome with rage and grief at the death of her father, flies in on her Flamethrower rocket and No Sells Primal Palkia's Spacial Rend. Leaving Original Cyrus, who had never seen a Fairy-type before, completely speechless.
    • And then she punches it in the face.
  • Finally, the Sacred Ash kicks in, and Ash returns to life in a blaze of phoenix fire, and proceeds to deflect every attack Primal Dialga and Palkia send at him with a new sword and a somehow Nigh-Invulnerable G.S. Ball, until the Primals have to stop in exhaustion. Cyrus cannot believe his inevitable victory is disintegrating before his eyes.
    • And it all culminates in Ash opening the G.S. Ball, sending out the youngest Creation Trio, a Riolu-form Aaron, and Arceus Himself. A literal Deus ex Machina at its absolute finest.
    • After Arceus's entrance in glorious aurora, He offers one last chance of surrender to Cyrus, who interrupts by violently blasting Him with everything he's got. And PokéGod simply brushes it all off. With Flash. And His response?
      Arceus: Well, so much for the merciful approach. (Unleashes divine Judgement)
    • Arceus demonstrates how to invoke Judgement right. No indiscriminate meteor shelling - this is a precision-guided Death from Above Beam Spam that annihilates all of Cyrus's forces once and for all, without causing more injury than is needed. Then he unleashes a second round with just as much power behind it, but wholly directed at the red chains, obliterating them.
    • Arceus invoking Be Careful What You Wish For in His Cruel Mercy to Cyrus and his willing followers, sending them to a new "world without spirit" like he always wanted, specifically, a world without civilization, Pokémon, other humans or wildlife, and their only future is one where they have to work and struggle to survive.

Sinnoh's Gym Challenge part 6 (296-298)

• Using an Infinity Energy generator, Mewtwo manages to TELEPORT A JOVIAN MOON

Sinnoh Grand Festival (299)

• Ursula's team pulls out a neat trick in her battle with Dawn by solidifying a Sandstorm into molten glass balls to barrage her opponent, but as soon as she drops her guard, the high-mobility Pachirisu and Quilava blitz the team with a barrage of Wild Charges, while using Pachirisu's lightning tethers to slingshot them back into the enemy over and over again.
• Dawn vs. Zoey:
  • There's definitely some spectacle watching Mamoswine skate and drift circles around the enemy team.
  • And at the very end, the timer runs out with both teams exactly equal in points. The tiebreaker is a first-to-hit Tiebreaker Round... and Zoey's Sylveon takes the point.
• Zoey vs. Jessie(Jesselina):
  • Between Meowth's stealth, Wyvern's technology, Glameow's swiftness and Mismagius's prestidigitation, what we end up with is a battle between a ninja and a sci-fi drone against a magician and her cat familiar.
  • And when the battle ends with a Double Knockout and an exact point draw again, the judges decide that with both coordinators so evenly matched, both of them deserve to be Top Coordinators!

Sinnoh's Gym Challenge part 7 (300)

• Volkner was apparently so inspired by Ash and Pikachu and their electric tactics that he's fully willing to battle them instead of just giving them the badge.
  • Volkner's Luxray is one ace battler, considering he can produce enough electrical interference to stymie Raikou's electrical senses, and then finally blasting Raikou clean out the roof, winning by Ring Out. It's somewhat spoiled by Raikou coming back down and knocking Luxray out on the landing.
  • Galvantula, aided by electromagnetic leverage, is capable of wrestling with Metagross claw to claw, and then flipping them with a burst of magnetic force, and even when the battle transitions to long-range, is agile enough to dodge his opponent's psychic firepower. At least until Metagross counters magnetism with gravity.
  • The star player is definitely Volkner's Raichu, who not only can match Pikachu in speed, but as soon as Pikachu pulls out Volt Crash, Raichu produces an effect that disrupts it, causing Pikachu to suffer gimbal lock and blow himself up!
    • But it takes more than a blow like that to put Pikachu down, and once Pikachu recovers, he dashes in and lets Raichu experience the feeling of being in a center of electrical disruption.
• Not only have Ash and Pikachu's adventures inspired Volkner, it's implied that Volkner never fell into his canon slump as a result of hearing them! He even has his own Porygon helping him regulate city energy functions now!
  • Apparently Volkner has invented vechiles that only rely on electrical power and can navigate themselves, going by his introduction.

Lily of the Valley Conference (Chapters 301-???)

• Quarter-finals, Ash vs. Paul:
  • The battle between the two trainers' Torterra is pretty evenly matched... until Ash gets Torterra to climb a Frenzy Plant tree for extra height... and then Heavy Slam right onto Paul's Torterra.
  • Infernape's new Blaze Blast Burn technique - which involves blowing up the entire arena from underground!
• Semi-finals, Ash vs. Molly:
  • Even with her absurdly powerful Legendary Beasts and her exceptional Eevee, Molly reaching the semi-finals on her very first League Tournament is certainly nothing to sneeze at.
  • Compared to the last time she lost a match because she lost her footing - Ash's Suicune has learned from that experience and taught herself the aura grip technique.
  • Molly's Dunsparce taking out Kari and matching Mega Houndoom with a moveset comprised of all four classical elements: Ancientpower, Water Pulse, Eruption, Twister...
  • Goodra using Rain Dance and Recoil Boosting himself above the clouds so that Molly's Entei can't see him, while using his rain sense to aim and bombard Entei from above. Until Goodra decides to Recoil Boost himself back down for a powerful Ground Punch.
  • Even beyond her Legendary Beasts, Molly's Eevee definitely proves herself to be her star, with the power to become immune to a multitude of attacks through typing or ability and hit back with special attacks straight out of Let's Go, Eevee. She is able to knock out a tired Suicune and force Metagross back with that versatility alone.
    • Even Latios finds himself having some trouble making any headway... until he starts busting out combination moves. His final move is to trap Eevee in between a Luster Purge and a Draco Meteor which no one form can save her from.
• Finals, Ash vs. Tobias:
  • Ash has thought really long about how to deal with Darkrai's Dark Void, and his team has worked out a lot of ways to deal with it: Electric Terrain from Pikachu, Worry Seed and Sleep Talk from Sceptile...
  • Mega Sceptile has taken a page out of his mate's book by adding Petal Blizzard to his repertoire, which does wonders in intercepting Darkrai's moves.
  • And like before, Sceptile is the one to take out Darkrai from the start, by feigning sleep to catch Darkrai off guard and using his Leaf Storm tail missile to trick Darkrai into expending his shadow melting skill... and then blitzing Darkrai with Sacred Sword as soon as he comes out.
  • Sceptile replacing his Lightningrod ability with Worry Seed does come at a disadvantage, however, as Tobias's Cresselia uses Thunder Wave to stun him and then Aurora Beam + Moonblast him into submission.
  • With the referee allowing the ring-out rule to be temporarily waived for flyers, Pidgeot can really stretch her wings. Even with Cresselia trying to hide herself with Mist, all Pidgeot has to do is generate a tornado out of thin air to catch the Legendary and then take her out with Aeroblast.
  • After Tobias's Latios manages to KO Pidgeot by spearing her with a Luster Purge as she comes in for an attack run, Ash sends out Charizard. Once Charizard gets his claws on Latios's shield, he pulls out his OTL Signature Move and Seismic Tosses Latios at full speed.
    Then Charizard hit Latios with the entire planet.
  • Tobias then brings out his Mega Alakazam, whose barriers can even block Blast Burn and hit back with Future Sight and Attack Drone spoons. However, it's not quite enough to stop Charizard from dive-bombing him with a blue-hot Flare Blitz. And he didn't even need to Mega-Evolve to do it!
  • Tobias's Zeraora vs. Lucario turns the battle into a full-on round of Pokkén Tournament/Super Smash Bros., with fists, claws and Energy Balls flying everywhere. It even ends like a Smash Bros round with Lucario tanking an Aura Sphere (Smash Ball), countering Zeraora's Meteor Move combo, and hammering him with a full-power Aura Storm.
  • Then Tobias brings out his starter, Delphox. And her magic is a lot more than just Mystical Fire; it's literally forging constructs out of solid Technicolor Fire, and pulling out spells from all sorts of media, from the air-thickening Aerora to the Flaming Sword of Rhuin.
    • After Lucario withdraws after being set on fire, Pikachu takes his place and proves to be even more tenacious. So much so that Delphox loses her patience and blows up the whole field with Ourania Phlogosis, right out of Negima! Magister Negi Magi
  • A little more awesome for Cresselia - in the moment before her defeat, she used Lunar Dance to restore Darkrai to full fighting power.
  • Pikachu breaks out his more complex electrical shield to face Darkrai for the second time, so tightly wound that no attack can get through, hoping to wear Darkrai down through attrition. However, Darkrai figures out that his own Shock Wave attacks expand the gaps in the shield and when they're big enough, throws a Dark Void through the gap... which is exactly what Pikachu is expecting. As soon as he falls asleep, his control over all the tightly-wound, highly-charged electrical currents unravels and all the electricity is released, not only heavily damaging Darkrai but also knocking out Pikachu himself so that his health can't be drained with Dream Eater.
  • Despite what Tobias initially thinks, Ash's last Pokémon Butterfree is absolutely not to be underestimated. With Solarbeams able to shatter rock and Bug Buzzes loud enough to stagger Darkrai, the Pitch-Black Pokémon is hard-pressed to keep up after his past rounds with Pikachu.
    • Tobias eventually figures out that Butterfree is staving off sleep by Poisoning himself, and decides to stall to finish him off eventually, using Dark Void to instead block out the sun and weaken his Solarbeams. However, Butterfree reveals that he's not just a fast flyer, he's also knows Teleport.
    • Finally, just as the poison is about to finish off Butterfree, he teleports away, breaks apart the Dark Void to let the sun back in, and uses Morning Sun to restore all his strength... and reveals what he'd been scattering under Darkrai's own darkness: a whole lot of powder. Darkrai tries to dodge but is stunned by the Stun Spores in the powder, and Butterfree lights the spark with Solarbeam. One explosion later, Darkrai is out again, Tobias is out of Pokémon, and Ash has won the Lily of the Valley Conference.