Awesome / Pokémon: Harmony and Chaos

Pokémon: Harmony and Chaos

• The first chapter of the story, and series, has the first rival battle between Flash Sentry, using his Riolu "Springer", and Lightning Blitz, using his Chimplug, at the start of both of their journeys. The battle ends in a draw, but things are just getting started between them.
• When Celestia's Champagoon goes on a rampage across Canterlot, due to the control collar around her neck, Flash talks down Hard Case from attacking it and does not hesitate to try talking her down himself and getting Springer and Aquana to blast off the collar on her. Note, when Ash did something like this in canon he had 16 seasons worth of experience, but Flash did it when he was just a rookie.
• Time Turner here is a big Expy to The Doctor like many other fan works of him, but here even a reference to the TARDIS manages to get worked in. With it being an AI that serves as the referee for his Gym Battles.
• Flash catching his very first Pokémon on his journey, a Chickling. Then when he and the others realize it can't fly yet, he spends the rest of the chapter trying to teach it, with it learning how to just in time to defeat a Movine and save the flock of the other Chickling.
• Riptide, the same Aquana from Celestia's Lab, warning Flash and Twilight of a crack in the dam at Stratusburg Town, and helping save a Chopmunk when it nearly gets swept away in a flood.
  • Hard Case also gets an awesome moment when he has his Vaporeon use Ice Beam on the dam to stop the flood and save the town, allowing the dam to be repaired properly.
• When Big Score, Rickashay, and Boulder get the better of Flash in a Pokémon battle. Doc steps in and delivers the three criminals a Curb-Stomp Battle with just his Higear. Especially since from what we see later, Higear is essentially his weakest Pokémon.
• Flash having his first Gym Battle against Doc.
  • Riptide is quickly defeated by Higear, leaving Flash with just Springer. Flash surprises everyone by showing another thing that makes Springer special. Not only can he use Aura Sphere, when he uses Double Team, he channels his aura into his clones, allowing them to use Aura Sphere too, in a move he calls Aura Sphere Barrage. This takes Doc and everyone else by surprise, and defeats Higear.
  • Doc is unintimidated, saying he was expecting Flash to defeat Higear so he can learn of any tricks, and sends out his Tockwork. During the battle Tockwork uses the move Flash to blind Springer, and since Tockwork is a machine with no aura, Springer can't see anything and can't dodge its attacks. Instead, Flash has Springer see his aura and copy his movements to dodge Tockwork's attacks, with the two of them working together to defeat Tockwork and earn Flash his first badge.
    • Also, when Springer is blinded. Doc continually talks down to Flash for recklessly challenging him without making a proper plan and how it is going to cost him. Flash, tired of being told his way of battling is wrong, tells Doc that at least he doesn't battle like a soulless machine, and that for all his talk about using his inventions to improve Equestria he doesn't actually know anything about it. When Flash and Springer turn the tide against him, Doc visibly panics, shocked from seeing one of his plans fail, and doesn't know what to do afterwards, not giving any commands as Torckwork is struck again and again. A huge slice of Humble Pie for him.
• Flash helps Riptide overcome the disadvantages of his Adamant Nature by helping him focus on his Physical Attacks instead of Special Attacks, resulting in Riptide learning Rock Smash and defeating Hisscor, and Flash subsequently catching it.
• Peewee makes his debut, now a dragon type rather than a Phoenix, making him the perfect partner for Spike, and despite his small size helps everyone fight off a Rookaco.
• When Ankyload goes on a rampage after having evolved, Luna easily takes care of the situation. She has her Lallaby use Yawn on it, putting it to sleep and allowing her to easily capture it.
• Despite her poor battle record, Twilight challenges Trixie, who has two Gym Badges at the time, to a battle when her performance disturbs the Bales Town Library.
  • It looks for a moment like she is going to lose when Owlicious is forced to use Calm Mind, a move that is useless to it at the time, due to Wizentice using Power Trap on it. But once it has warn off, Owlicious learns Confusion, a super effective move that is even more powerful after using multiple Calm Minds.
• Despite Flash training with Skyler and helping him learn Steel Wing, they still lose to Rainbow Dash and Tank once again. Just shows that Lightning Blitz won't be the only tough rival Flash faces on his journey.
• Once Thorax returns to his Gym he and his Kingsect handle the situation with the Stariders easily.
• As bad as an experience it might have been, Flash suffering a Curb-Stomp Battle against Thorax in his first Gym Battle with him served as a major wake-up call for him. Showing that he needs to start putting in effort to train and strategize before battles instead of just going in blind and hoping for the best.
• It is revealed that when Chrysalis became corrupt in her role as the Gym Leader, Thorax defeated her and replaced her as Gym Leader.
• Flash helping Thorax and Pharynx fight against Chrysalis and her Queensect, with Viper starting to learn Flamethrower in the process. Chrysalis is quickly backed into a corner once her ace Pokémon is defeated and is forced to flee.
• Flash has his rematch with Thorax after training and making a plan against him. It shows a world of difference compared to their first battle. This includes Skyler and Viper both managing to defeat Movine and Kingsect after losing to them previously, and Viper learning Flamethrower just in time to defeat Kingsect.
• Skyler shows off his "Scrappy" ability for the first time against a Ghouwail, meaning his Normal-Type moves can hit Ghost-Type Pokémon, putting him at a major advantage against them.
  Spike: Awesome! Skyler's a literal ghost buster!
• Flash tells the story of how he first met Springer in "Evolutionary Block", and it has some pretty awesome moments.
  • Springer was originally with a pack of wild Riolu, but he demonstrated the ability to use Aura Sphere, something that should be impossible for Riolu. This got the attention of the pack leader, a Lucario, who lured him away from the rest of the pack before attacking him, exposing him to the energy of an Everstone to stop him from ever evolving. Flash, who was only 10 years old at the time, watched this from some nearby bushes, and immediately ran out to protect the Riolu he didn't know and stood up to the Lucario in the process.
  • Luckily for both of them, they were assisted by a young blue-haired trainer and his Squiron. They fought the Lucario off, leaving a scar over its left eye.
  • The trainer used a Premier Ball to catch Springer so he could transport him to a Pokémon Center better, but when he sees how Flash and Springer bond so quickly, Flash even telling him to come find him if his current trainer ever gives up on him so they can be partners, he is impressed so much he leaves Springer and his Premier Ball with Flash, giving him the responsibility of looking after him.
• In order to gain access to Ghastly Gorge, Flash needs to prove to Solid Stone that he and his friends are strong and responsible enough to survive traveling through there, he needs to beat Stone in a battle. Stone even lets Flash use his entire team while he only uses two.
  • Flash constantly swaps out his Pokémon against Stone's Excadrill, slowly weakening it until Springer finally beats it.
  • Stone's second Pokémon is a Machamp and it makes quick work of most of Flash's team with its variety of Elemental Punches and Drain Punch, all while taking little to no damage from any of the attacks against it. It all comes down to just Springer and Machamp. Machamp continues to attack fiercely, at one point using all four of his Punch moves at once in a move Stone calls "Quartet Punch Fury", but Springer continues to dodge and slowly wear out Machamp's energy. Then when it is exahusted, Springer uses his superior speed to go in for a quick barrage of attacks, until it feels like Machamp is being hit a hundred times a second, finally resulting in its defeat.
    Flash: Our attacks might be ten times weaker than yours, but if we can hit you ten times before you hit us once, it'll even out. And if we hit you twenty, thirty or forty times, then we can defeat you!
• In order for the group to get some water from a spring guarded by a group of vicious Scrapow, Springer needs to beat their leader, Scar, in two out of three contests.
  • The first challenge is for both of them to lift and stack rocks on top of each other and whoever makes the highest stack wins. For reference, there are several stacks in the area already, and the highest one of 25 rocks was made by Stone's Machamp, according to the Scrapow that mime it out. Scar ends up winning with a tower of 20 rocks to Springer only managing 19.
  • The second challenge is they must both climb a long wall and reach a tree at the top, with the first one to reach it winning. Springer manages to use his speed to beat Scar to the top.
  • The final challenge is a battle between Springer and Scar, with the two Fighting-Types duking it out. Scar fights dirty, fitting being part Dark-Type, with Springer fighting back fiercely. It eventually escalates to the two of them beating each other senseless for awhile, not using any actually attacks, but just punching and kicking and not caring how much damage they take. Then Springer gains an edge by learning Drain Punch in the middle of the battle. The battle ends with a Cross Counter, and both fighters collapsing in a tie. Though since they came to view each other as Worthy Opponents, Scar allows Springer and the others the water they wanted.
• Doc and Tockwork managing to defeat Steeledge by changing up their battle style a bit. Instead of fighting defensivly, Tockwork manages to increase its speed with Overclock. Then once Steeledge is beaten, Doc catches it.
• Holder's Boulder, the giant rock on the Pie's farm, is given a different backstory than from canon. Instead of being found in a dragon nest, it was forged from a clash between Regirock, Terrakion, and Diancie; Legendary Rock-Type Pokémon.
• Maud's reason why she likes Rock-Types so much and why she decided to become a Gym Leader are both pretty cool. She says that Rock-Types have been around since the start of the world, predating every other type. It may lose battles to a lot of other types, but it will ultimately win the most important contest. The contest of Survival. This is also why she decided to become a Gym Leader for Rock-Types, to show hotshot trainers that Rock-Types aren't as weak as most people think they are. She says she has definitely succeeded, since most trainer who have come expecting an easy win have left her Gym in tears.
• Maud for the most part is just as stoic as canon, but the moment she starts battling she gets deadly serious.
• Flash's Gym Battle with Maud has plenty of awesome moments.
  • Maud has a clearly worked to cover the various weaknesses Rock-Types have, like having a Torpeller, which is part Flying-Type and strong against Fighting, Grass, and Bug-Types, and teaching her Stegolate Flame Burst to deal with Grass and Steel-Types.
  • Flash is initially nervous about facing her Torpeller, remembering how he lost to Rainbow's twice. But he manages to chip away at it using Springer's Drain Punch, and uses his Double Team to have Torpeller attack a bunch of clones while the real Springer secretly hides between rocks on the battlefield to regain strength before attacking once it is exhausted, scoring the first win for Flash.
  • Despite Prongs having a disadvantage against Stegolate's Flame Burst, it manages to Draw against it by using Leech Seed to slowly drain its health.
  • Despite having struggled against Torpeller at the start of the match, Riptide manages to defeat Maud's Spikecorn after Flash comes up with another plan on the spot. Using Riptide's Water Gun to turn the entire battlefield into a muddy marsh, so Spikecorn can't get its footing and can't move around fast anymore, making it a sitting duck. This also makes one of the few Gym Battles where the main character has more than one Pokémon remaining in the end, with Flash having both Riptide and Springer left.
• Flash's grandmother Cloud Clipper finally makes an appearance in "Birds of a Feather", where it is revealed she is the former Gym Leader of Cloudsdale City, and the current reigning champion of The Sky Battle Tournament. Given her ace partner Pidgeot is about twice the size of a normal one, it is no surprise.
• The Sky Battle Tournament is a pretty cool competition. Any Pokémon that can fly or float can participate, even if they aren't Flying-Types, and the battles are mostly standard with one additional rule: any Pokémon that hits the ground is automatically disqualified. This means it is possible for someone can defeat a physically stronger opponent if they are smart thinkers and better fliers.
  • Flash, Doc, and Cloud easily make it through several rounds, with Flash making it to the finals and Cloud beating Doc in the semi-finals. Then, like in several flying based competitions in the anime, Skyler evolves in the finals, becoming a Wingust and managing to defeat Pidgeot. Not bad for a Pokémon who couldn't fly when he was first caught, and a great first tournament victory for Flash.
• In "The Equestrian Champion", the group meets Twilight's brother Shining Armor, the current Champion of Equestria. Shining ends up challenging Flash to a five-on-five battle to help show him what it means to be champion. As to be expected of a champion though, Shining makes quick work of Flash's entire team using just his ace, Galladin, with most of them going down in just one hit.
  • That isn't t to say Flash doesn't put up a fight. When it is down to just Springer, he manages to momentarily overpower Galladin and push him back. Galaddin is basically forced to use its Armor Drop ability to beat Springer. Flash knew he didn't stand a chance going in, but this small moment is victory enough for him.
  • Shining Armor's abilities are briefly seen a bit before his battle with Flash too, when they watch a video of a previous battle of his in the Pokémon Center, with his Galladin defeating a Mega Gengar.
  • Also, Shining Armor confirms that he was the trainer who defeated Lucario, caught Springer, and left him with Flash, by reciting what he said previously about Springer being unable to evolve: "A Pokémon's true power isn't in its evolutionary form or the moves it knows. It isn't even just how psychically strong it is. It's true power is in the strength of its will to grow stronger." He also says it wasn't a mistake leaving Springer with Flash, which is high praise from someone like him.
• Fancy Pants shows to be a lot tougher than one might expect at first when he has his Persian use a Z-Move, Black Hole Eclipse.
• When the ship is damaged and unable to continue the voyage to the port, the Leviapent they befriended tugs the entire ship to port itself, with Flash riding on its head!
• Cedar gives Trixie a King's Rock, meaning her Slowpoke will eventually evolve into a Slowking!
• The Hoof Cup begins with Flash and Springer starting things off against Cold Forecast and her Snocicle. Not only does Springer surprise everyone with his ability to use Aura Sphere, Flash manages to outthink Cold by getting her to overuse Protect so it fails at the moment she really needs it.
• The rest of the first round has plenty of tough battles that show the competition everyone will be facing:
  • Applejack and Trixie face off in a physical vs magical battle, with Applejack taking the win after finding the real Magitual among the illusions.
  • Doc manages to overcome a Type Disadvantage to defeat Heath Burns.
  • Pinkie shows that despite her and Gummy being goofy, they are excellent battlers. When Gummy bites Grotle by the tail, it seems like a misplay due to Bite being ineffective due to Gummy's lack of teeth, but when Grotle tries to toss Gummy with its tail, Gummy doesn't even flinch. Then after Pinkie gives the command, Gummy swings Grotle in the air instead, sending it flying and landing on its back so it can be beaten with one more Ice Beam.
  • Twilight manages to finally think outside the box and adapt during her battle with Inky Rose. When her Gothorita uses Future Sight again, Twilight asks herself 'What would Flash do?' and immediately gets a crazy idea. She has Owlicious grab Gothorita with Sky Drop and throw it into its own Future Sight attack.
  • Rarity is the only one of the Mane characters participating to not make it through the first round, which is because she ended up battling Rainbow.
• Flash and Luna speak in Trixie's defense against her emotionally abusive dad when he gets on her case for losing.
• When Twilight prepares to battle Applejack in the second round, Peewee surprises everyone by flying to Twilight and wanting her to use him in the battle, wanting to compete himself after seeing so many matches. Despite struggling at first, he manages to pull out a win after learning Incinerate in the middle of the battle. It is even noted if Twilight's not careful then Spike will end up with the world's strongest starter Pokémon.
• Lightning Blitz finally gets some Laser-Guided Karma, after having gotten away with his bad attitude for the entire story.
  • He struggles a lot during the second round against Pinkie and her Bloxx. Despite managing to pull out a win in the end, the crowd still cheers for Pinkie and Bloxx instead of him and Chimplug, much to his confusion and anger.
  • He suffers his first on-screen loss in the semi-finals against Doc. Despite him seemingly having the advantage, facing Doc's Higear with its evolved form Guardroid, he focuses too much on pure strength alone and causes Guardroid to overheat too quickly while Higear still had some energy in reserve. It is the first time Lightning truly doesn't get his way and his cocky attitude comes back to bite him.
• Flash and Twilight have a aerial battle in their semi-final match, with Skyler vs Owlicious. Owlicious seemingly has the advantage for awhile, with its psychic powers giving Skyler a beating, but Skyler bounces back with his superior agility to take the win.

Pokémon the Movie: Total Eclixie of the Heart

• The Action Prologue scene has the debut of Sunset Shimmer, running away from three other trainers, Forest, Pyron, and Cecelia, through a forest. They eventually corner her with their full evolved Starter Pokémon, demanding she give back what she "stole", only for her to continue to refuse despite her situation. As the three of them close in on her, her bag suddenly starts glowing an intense light, and she unzips it causing the light to engulf them all, causing an explosion.
• The first scene with Flash and his friends. An arrogant trainer shows up to challenge Flash to a match. The whole scene also serves as a Mythology Gag to the opening theme scene from Pokémon: The First Movie.
  • The first battle has Prongs against a Golem. Prongs stops its Rollout in its tracks with Energy Ball, and then sends it flying with Double Kick.
  • The next battle is Riptide vs a Mienshao. Though Mienshao is the stronger of the two and briefly knocks Riptide back, Riptide uses Echoed Voice to stun Mienshao, leaving it vulnerable to be struck and defeated by Rock Smash.
  • Viper battles a Hawlucha next. Viper easily dodges its Hi-Jump Kick, causing Hawlucha major recoil damage, and then traps it with Fire Spin and defeats it with Flamethrower.
  • At this point, the trainer unleashes all three of his remaining Pokémon at once; Dusclops, Mothim and Houndoom. Springer easily defeats them all at once with one large Aura Sphere.
• The group protects Sunset from Forest, Pyron, and Cecelia when they attack her once again. When they all manage to make it on a train and temporarily give them the slip, the group interrogates Sunset on why they are chasing her and what she is hiding, demanding answers. They might be nice, but they they aren't soft or dumb.
• The three Legendary equine Pokémon come to the group's rescue when they are attacked by Mechano and his three goons, trapping them all in Barrier to allow everyone else to escape. They even did this without revealing themselves to anyone, showing this is just a demonstration of their power.
• After Mechano captures Eclixie, he manages to use her power as a battery to successfully capture Alicormony and Dischaos, pulling them from their dimensions.
• Spike, mostly just being a Tag Along Kid up to this point in the series, helps contribute in the final battle by commanding Peewee, Skyler, and Prongs against Forest. He even gives a Badass Boast, saying he is going to make him cry.
• Springer helps Sunset save Eclixie, slamming a giant Aura Sphere into the cage holding her.
• When Eclixie is freed, so are Alicormony and Dischaos, and they are rightfully pissed at Mechano and destroy his now powerless giant mech. Though he, and everyone else still inside were teleported out by Mysticorn, Mechano is captured in a Barrier by Mysticorn and soon joined by the other two Legendaries equines. The small "uh oh" Mechano gives shows he knows the three of them are going to give him what he deserves.
• When the eclipse ends, it initially seems like they lost their window of opportunity for Eclixie to go home. But luckily, Alicormony and Dischaos are able to give her some of their own power, since they have the ability to open portals to their own dimensions, so Eclixie can make one for her own home herself.

Pokémon: Equestrian Adventures

• Starting in this story, the Pokémon start to get scenes by themselves, with their language being translated for the reader. This allows a lot more of their personalities and goals to be shown.
• Riptide works to learn Aqua Tail so he can defeat Piercish and help the Kelpool get their home back. He eventually succeeds in learning the move, and during his battle he even evolves into a Spranitor. This all happens in the opening chapter of the story, helping to set up the kind of growth you can expect to see in the rest of it.
• Rarity and Opal battling Topaz and her Kadabra to defend three Diamalem. After having a not so great battle performance previously, she manages to come out on top here. Then afterwards, after she gives the Diamalem her three Power Gems so they can evolve into the forms they want to be, they all decide they want to stay with her, giving her team three new members and ones that fit her perfectly.
• Zecora makes a quick appearance in one chapter, helping the group through the Everfree Forest and protecting them from the Timbark, which is basically the Pokémon equivalent of Timber Wolves.
• The whole group battling the Pokémon Hunters that are after Hopper. The group handles the goons with very little trouble, admittedly in part due to how it seems the hunters have little actual knowledge and strategy on type matchups themselves. When Flash tries to save Hopper from the leader, Hopper ends up helping out Riptide against the Rhydon the leader owns, by using his Screech attack so Rhydon can't hear any commands and allowing Riptide to beat it easily.
  • Also, when the canyon they were battling in starts to cave in due to the Screech attack, Springer grabs Hopper and rushes out of the canyon to safety. But when Quick Attack isn't fast enough, Springer ends up learning Extreme Speed, saving them both. Everyone is especially impressed since Extreme Speed is another move like Aura Sphere that Riolu shouldn't be able to learn until they evolve.
• Celestia and Luna have a Pokémon Battle at Flash's suggestion in "A Sibling's Spat" to work out their Sibling Rivalry. Their Pokémon, Suncess and Primoon, have abilities that cancel each other out, meaning it comes down to the trainers and their commands. Both sisters even use secret weapons to activate Form Change, turning their Pokémon into Fighting-Types. In the end though, the match ultimately ends in a draw.
  • Flashbacks seen during the battle also reveal that Celestia and Luna entered the Equestria League in separate years, and placed 3rd and 2nd respectively.
• Applejack challenges Granny Smith to a one on one battle just to see how she stacks up to her now. This also gives us a sneak peek at Granny's best Pokémon, a Timbark. Applejack and Winona ultimately lose, despite their efforts, and show Flash what he is up against.
• Flash winning his Gym Battle with Granny Smith. Prongs manages to defeat her Pipple thanks to better agility, Viper easily defeats Chitaleaf, and Skyler wins the final battle against Timbark thanks to learning Aerial Ace in the middle of the battle.
• Prongs chooses to defeat Ferrothorn without evolving, to prove to himself he is strong enough as he is. Once he successfully defeats it, he evolves afterwards, to symbolize it as him earning it. There is a reason he is called the Prince of the Forest.
• Fluttershy stands up to Lightning Blitz when he demands she release Harry the Grizzor, after it lets itself be caught by Fluttershy, claiming a weakling like her doesn't deserve a strong Pokémon like it. Fluttershy tears into him with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, which actually gets a reaction out of him.
  Fluttershy: You're right, I probably don't know how to use Harry's power the best way right now. But...but I'll learn. I'll work hard until I can understand Harry's battling style and know exactly how he wants to fight, because a real trainer changes their style to match their Pokémon's way of fighting, not force their Pokémon to fight their way! That's what bullies do, like you!
• After being dismissed as a Lazy Bum by Timber, and doing nothing of interest all day, Clauncher leaps into action when the newly evolved Gyarados goes on a rampage across the lake, and delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle on it. Turns out a launcher was never lazy, it was actually the guardian of the lake and was just saving its strength for something important like that. This also gives Flash plenty of material for him to do his report on Clauncher.
• Lightning's Humiliation Conga at camp continues. After he kicks Magikarp away from him, this abuse turns out to be the last straw for it, and it evolves to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, blasting Lightning and knocking him out. Then when Gloriosa catches Gyarados to release it to a bigger area later, Lightning tries to demand she give it to him, saying he deserves it. Obviously he is refused, and for the trouble he caused by bulling it, he is put on dish duty for the rest of the day. Sweet Laser-Guided Karma at its finest.
• The evil Piedoom that attacks several of the campers was intimidating in an Evil Is Cool kinda way. It manages to injure Twilight, was immune to Springer's attacks due to being a Ghost-Type, and ultimately needed to be handled by the Professors and a sneak attack by Lightning. Ultimately it wasn't really defeated, just sealed again. But it ends up playing a big role in Shine's future development.
• The final activity at Camp Everfree is a Double Battle tournament, with cabins being split into two groups of two and battling together using a single Pokémon through the competition, with Gloriosa and Timber competing themselves. With a lot of cool moments.
  • Timber and Gloriosa manage to defeat Rainbow and Fluttershy in one of the opening matches. Even the two of them are impressed that they managed to defeat Harry, since he had always been so dangerous previously.
  • Despite Lightning and Trixie's lack of teamwork, they manage to make it to the semi-finals, defeating Spike and Doc, who were using Peewee and Steeledge, in the process. But when they end up losing to Timber and Gloriosa, Lightning tries to put all the blame on Trixie, even though his refusal to work together was what cost them the battle. Everyone else calls him out on this stating he is just being a Sore Loser, with him storming out of camp in anger.
  • The finals come down to Flash and Twilight using Viper and Shine against Timber and Gloriosa using Breloom and Roserade. During the battle, when Timber starts trash-talking Flash, Twilight tells Timber that she used to think a lot like him, and that's why she forgot everything she learned on her journey, but Flash taught her the most important thing about being a trainer is fighting with your heart sometimes instead of your head, the same thing Timber needs to learn. Then after this moment, when Flash says regardless if it makes him a fool or an idiot in Timber's eyes, neither he or his Pokémon will ever quit, leading to Viper evolving in the battle into a Anahakka and learning Flame Wheel. Viper quickly defeats Roserade and he and Shine end up delivering the finishing blow against Breloom together, securing Flash and Twilight and their cabin as the winners.
• The Shoot Race in "Racing Towards Your True Potential". Pokémon race across a course with a laser strapped to their backs while their trainers give commands to them via a headset and control the laser to shoot at targets and gain points. Flash decides to enter the race with Hopper after they are insulted by a Jerk Jock named Track Starr. At first Hopper falls way behind, being smaller than the other racers and only able to travel by hopping instead of running. But he eventually manages to catch up and surpass most of the competition when they have trouble with the first obstacle, and then manages to pass Track's Manectric at the second obstacle thanks to his small size. In the climax of the race, it comes down to just Hopper and Manectric, when the other racers are blocked off by a cave-in from Forretress's explosion attack. Hopper, hearing Flash's encouragement of how he has made him proud, gets Hopper to keep pushing forward, evolving into Velocirush. His new body easily allows him to catch up to Manectric, thanks to Quick Attack, and barley beat Manectric in a photo finish.
• "The Last Roundup" shows us Sombra battle for the first time. His ace is a Tyrandark, a Pokémon known for being tough to control and essentially a dark version of Galladin. He easily defeats a Scrapound and demonstrates the Shadow Cloak ability to avoid any attacks.
• The "Team Shadow Strikes" three-parter is filled with these.
  • The group runs into Shining Armor again, and they team up with him to deal with Team Shadow activity.
  • After Doom Raizer and some Grunts threaten Twilight's friends and Owlicious to get her to open the Temple door for them, one of the Grunts tries to force Shining Armor back into the holding cell. Shining simply attacks him, slamming his elbow in his gut and tackling him, giving everyone else an opening to get their Pokémon and fight back.
  • It is revealed that Shining Armor was the trainer Luna sent Ankyload to, and it seems he has already tamed it when he uses it against Team Shadow.
  • When one of the Grunts tries to activate the soundwave machine to use it against everyone's Pokémon again, Flash tackles him and wrestles him over the remote. Eventually, Shining Armor releases Springer from his Premier Ball and tells him to help Flash, with him destroying the controller with a single Aura Sphere.
  • Owlicious evolves into a an Owlolar to defeat a Grunt's Skulerror.
  • The group chases after Doom into the temple, and fights three groups of fake Legendary trio Pokémon.
  • In the end Doom Raizer gets what he wants. He tricked the group into facing the various guardians for him, and secretly followed them into the main chamber so he could steal the artifact while they are all exhausted.
  • Once Sombra meets with Doom and Chrysalis, it is confirmed that the artifact they recovered is half of the Crystal Heart, which they call a Heart Fragment, and it is teased that The Crystal Empire will come into play soon.
• When Doc and Derpy are separated from Flash, Twilight, and Spike, they are attacked by a horde of Beedrill. When it seems like they are going to be overwhelmed, Steeledge evolves into Flitanium and works with Derpy's Swirlutz to defeat them all.
• In the final battle in Flash's Gym Battle with Braeburn, Prongs seems to be at a disadvantage against Stampalo continuously using Flame Charge, which not only completely protects it from all of Prongs's attacks, increases its speed with each use, and does super effective damage every time it hits Prongs. Flash pulls another winning Indy Ploy, remembering the barrels of sand he ran into on the way to his battle that are meant to put out fires around town, and has Prongs fire Energy Ball at the sand around the battlefield, creating a sand cloud to put out the Flame Charge, allowing Prongs to defeat it.
• Flash's and Twilight's Pokémon working together with Lightning and his Pokémon when they all end up separated due to an oversized Douburrow and all of them taking it on together after finally regrouping.
• The chapter "I Dream A Dream" has plenty of moments. Fitting since it is a Whole-Plot Reference to the episode "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" from canon.
  • The gang meet with Professor Luna, and learn that a Tantabagot is causing everyone in town to have nightmares, so Luna uses her Slumberam to enter everyone's dreams to try to stop its Evil Counterpart.
  • In Spike's dream, he has dragon wings and flies through the air. He is also one of the only ones to actively fight back against his nightmare, shooting green fire at a dark giant storm that was morphed into the shape of a dragon by Tantabgot.
  • Flash's ego and inaccurate type effectiveness aside, his dream is also pretty awesome where he and Springer manage to defeat several trainers using Legendary Pokémon. Including Groudon, Giratina, Mewtwo, Lugia, Zekrom, and others. One Aura Sphere takes them all down at once.
  • The stuff in the big shared dream battle is just as awesome as from the show.
    • Flash uses an Aura Sphere himself alongside Springer.
    • Peewee grows in size to be larger than a Charizard and lets Spike ride him into battle.
    • Doc uses a Sonic Screwdriver.
    • Many trainers join in with their own Pokémon morphing into different shapes like their evolved or Mega Evoled forms, with one Tyranitar turning into a mecha version of itself.
    • Riptide, Prongs and Viper do a Fusion Dance to become a centaur-like being.
    • Slumberam grows in size to become just as big as Tantabagot, and finally defeats it with the help of everyone else.
  • When Tantabagot is defeated in the dream world it is ejected into the real world. With it exhausted from being beaten, Luna easily catches it, ensuring it will never harms anyone else with nightmares again.
• In "Move Maker", Flash's grandmother sends him his grandfather's move jorunal. This not only finds a way to canonize TMs, it gives Flash and the others ways they can teach their Pokémon stronger moves like Ice Punch and Zap Cannon.
• "Grand Champion" introduces Lightning Blitz's grandfather Grand Hoof, the previous champion of Equestria before Shining Armor beat him six years ago. Lightning Blitz challenges him to a full battle to test how strong he has become so far, and it quickly becomes clear that despite not being the champ anymore Grand's Still Got It. In a parallel to Flash's battle with Shining Armor, Grand demolishes Lightning's entire team with just his Hariyama. Though unlike Flash, Lightning is clearly not satisfied with the outcome, since despite knowing he couldn't win he wanted to at least beat one of Grand's Pokémon and failed.
  • One other awesome thing is the very first command Grand gave Hariyama was Belly Drum, a move that cuts the user's health in half in exchange to increasing their Attack status to maximum. Meaning Lightning couldn't even reduce its health by half through the whole battle.
  • As Flash notes, this also shows how strong Shining Armor is, since he was able to beat Hariyama to become the champion, plus five other Pokémon Grand had trained. Plus it can be assumed Shining has only gotten stronger since then.
• At the start of "Climbing the Mountain", the group see Fluttershy having a Pokémon battle with another trainer. They see that Angel evolved into a Bunounce, and they easily defeat a Lickitung. Fluttershy is clearly on her way to getting stronger like she hoped to do back at camp.
• After Rainbow and Tank lose to Gilda and her Mandibuzz, they end up winning in a rematch thanks to Tank evolving into a Soartoise, and learning Hurricane.
• At first "Heavy Metal" seems like it is going to be a filler chapter while the group is climbing the mountain to reach Cloudsdale City. Doc tries to help a Lairon defeat a Stalorn to protect its Aron friends. But in a surprising turn, after Stalorn is defeated, all of the Aron evolve into Lairon themselves, allowing them to protect themselves, so Lairon can stay with Doc like they knew it wanted. Thus, Doc ends up catching a canon Pokémon.
• When the group is attacked by an angry Mama Bear Champagoon, Flash and Hopper are separated from the rest of the group and almost knocked off the mountain. When they end up running into the Champagoon again on their way back up, Champagoon sends Hopper flying and when Flash tries to catch him they are both knocked over the edge of the cliff. Hopper, determined to save his trainer, who has been like a father to him since he hatched, evolves into a Skeidran as they fall so he can grab Flash and fly them both back up safely. Then, Hopper easily defeats the Champagoon that was attacking them, thanks to learning Dragon Tail. Then to end the whole intense day, Hopper flies the two of them up to Cloudsdale, making an epic Big Entrance in front of everyone.
• Spitfire shows how tough of a Gym Leader she is when she faces Rainbow Dash, one of Flash's toughest rivals, and soundly defeats her. She starts off with her Wondor, her best Pokémon, and easily defeats Rainbow's Fletchinder and her own Wondor before finally being beaten by Tank. Then despite putting up a good fight, Tank is ultimately defeated by Spitfire's Tornavian, which also gives a sneak peek of what Skyler will be able to do once fully evolved.
  • Spitfire tells Rainbow to collect seven badges before challenging her again, because Rainbow impressed her so much she doesn't want to just be her sixth badge. She wants to see how much stronger she can get from now to then and then face her again as her last obstacle before she can enter the League. Pretty high praise.
• The opening to "Cloudsdale Sky-Racers" shows Flash training with his friends for his Gym Battle with Spitfire. While Cloud Chaser helps teach Hopper better flying techniques, Flash trains the rest of his Pokémon against various Flying-Types, even Springer and Prongs, who are weak against Flying-Types and he wouldn't bother using in his Gym Battle. This also includes Springer defeating Flitanium, in a change from how the Hoof Cup ended.
• When three bullies sneak explosives on the course to sabotage Rainbow Dash, both Rainbow and Soarin end up helping each other in the resulting rock slide by ordering Wondor and Staraptor to protect each other with Crunch Claw and Close Combat, saving each other from being hurt by the debris. Then once they are both safely out, they both make a final sprint for the finish line, resulting in a draw between them, which is a first time in the history of the race.
  • When Cloud Clipper and Springer realize the three bullies sabotaged the race, they both stand over them, glaring down at them and cracking their knuckles before giving them an off-screen beating. After Rainbow and Soarin are declared the winners, Cloud tells Springer to keep watch on the three of them while she goes to find the authorities and have them arrested.
• Flash finally has his Gym Battle with Spitfire:
  • Spitfire reveals her first Pokémon is a Flitanium of her own, one even stronger than Doc's. Flash uses Viper to battle it, and despite having the type advantage has difficulty keeping up with it in the air. Eventually, Flash tells Viper to use Flamethrower on the ground to propel himself into the air so it is at equal height with Flitanium, biting on its wing to send it falling to the ground, and then finishing it with a pointblank Flamethrower.
  • Spitfire's Tornavian manages to take down Viper, but not before getting poisoned by it. Then Skyler is sent out by Flash to battle his evolved form. The battle between them ultimately ends in a draw between them, with Tornavian managing to knock out Skyler before succumbing to the damage it was dealt itself and the poison.
  • The final battle comes down to Hopper and Wondor in an aerial battle. Ultimately, Hopper manages to overcome Spitfire's best Pokémon and send it crashing to the ground with Dragon Tail, winning Flash the battle and his sixth badge.
• The Hoffington Battle Tournament starts off exciting right away. The first round is four separate Battle Royals with four trainers battling against each other, and the winners of each round advancing.
• We finally get to see Sunset battle in the first round, using Ray, her Geckolar. After Applejack and Fluttershy are eliminated, the final clash comes down to Sunset and Twilight, with Shine narrowly managing to defeat Ray.
• The second Battle Royal is between Rainbow, Trixie, Cedar, and Heath Burns. Each of them are recurring characters, some appearing more frequently than others admittedly, and they all show how much they have improved. The final battle between Rainbow and Trixie ends with Rainbow's victory.
• The third Battle Royale is between Flash, Doc, Rarity, and Pinkie, and it perhaps has the most examples out of any of them.
  • Rarity has Pyruby use Wildfire to do some major damage early on. But she makes the mistake of using it too soon, causing everyone else to gang up on her until she is the first one eliminated, leaving everyone else with one opponent they are strong against and one they are weak against.
  • Flash orders Springer to run straight at Lairon, and Doc counters by ordering Flash Cannon. This is exactly what Flash and Springer wanted though, since Flash has Springer dodge by sliding under the attack and hit Pinkie's Mellowmarsh instead, who was too distracted with Springer's clones to see the attack coming and gets knocked out. Doc and Lairon realize they got duped too late.
  • Things come down to just Flash and Doc, like back at the Hoof Cup but with different results this time. When Liaron uses Rock Slide again, Springer dodges the falling rubble and slides underneath Lairon to attack it from below. Then in their final clash, it is Aura Sphere vs Flash Cannon, with Springer physically pushing his Aura Sphere towards Lairon against the Flash Cannon, until the orb explodes and both are sent staggering back. Springer recovers first though and sends Lairon flying into the stadium wall with Drain Punch, with Lairon finally fainting as it tries to walk back into battle.
• The final Battle Royale has Lightning Blitz against Micro Chips, Sandalwood, and Spark Plug. The ladder two convince the former to work with them temporarily to take down Lightning, with all three of them attempting to gang up on him. But since they use vastly different Pokémon and don't strategize at all, their teamwork doesn't go so well and Lightning ends up taking the all out.
• Although Twilight ultimately loses to Lightning Blitz, she manages to put up a great fight against him. She defeats two of his three Pokémon and shows some smart thinking during the battle, such as when she used the mud from the battle field to weaken Guardroid's Zap Cannon.
• Flash and Rainbow's semi-final match.
  • Before any battles even start, when Flash calls out Hopper as his first Pokémon the scene transitions to another city in Equestria with the battle being shown on several megascreen billboards. One of the dragon riders previously seen notices Flash using Hopper and notices his birthmark, setting up the final arc of the story.
  • Flash uses the same strategy he used to defeat Braeburn, having Hopper use Dragon Tail on the ground to use the sand to put out Fletchinder's fire, allowing Hopper to beat it. Then Hopper manages to battle Rainbow's Gliscor to a draw, essentially defeating two thirds of Rainbow's team by himself.
  • The final battle comes down to Skyler and Tank, a rematch that has been in the making since Rainbow was first introduced. When it looks like Skyler is going to lose once again, he ends up evolving into a Tornavian. It's evolution gives him the strength to knock Tanks' Stone Edge attack back at him to plug his vents, which him finish Tank off with his new move Tornado Burst. Skyler and Flash finally claimed their victories!
• The female dragon rider, Kaida, finally tracks down Flash's group, and ends up attacking them with her Dragonair in a misguided attempt to "rescue" Hopper due to thinking they are the thieves who stole his egg. Luckily, Hopper immediately defends Flash from harm, and the two of them easily defeat her Dragonair.
• We finally learn Hopper's origins. He is not just any Skeidran. He's actually a prince, the son of the king of dragons and heir to the throne, identified by his birthmark, which apparently all members of the family have.
• Flash and Hopper's bond is really emphasized. First, Kaida is shocked when Hopper protects Flash from her, since she still mistakenly thought he was his "kidnapper". Later, when she agrees to take them to the Dragon Kingdom so they can see she is telling the truth, she is initially frantic when Anguis couldn't get enough seats for them all to ride on Salamence. To her shock though, Flash simply says he'll just ride on Hopper, and that Hopper lets him and Springer on his back without complaint.
• Ryu challenges Flash to a battle for the right to the prince of dragons, where if Ryu wins then Flash needs to give Hopper to him.
  • When all of Flash's Pokémon volunteer for the battle, Hopper pushes himself to the front of the group, wanting to participate in the battle for his fate. Ryu tries to complain he isn't allowed to do that, but Twilight points out that he can because by law Hopper is still his Pokémon and Hopper has every right to fight for his freedom, and Drayce confirms it, stating Flash is allowed to use Hopper in the battle.
  • The battle between Hopper and Ryu's Noivern eventually escalates to Flash and Ryu participating themselves, riding on their dragon's backs as they battle.
  • At one point, Flash says they need to separate Ryu and Noivern. He and Hopper fly right towards them, and when Noivern fires a Boomburst at them, Flash gives Hopper his signal, with Flash jumping off Hopper and Hopper flying under the Boomburst attack. Flash ends up landing on Noivern and tackles Ryu off Noivern's back, causing them both to fall off in midair and crash into the lake below while giving Hopper an opening to attack.
  • The battle finally comes to an end, with Noivern knocked to the ground and Hopper speeding in with Extreme Speed to finish it. Hopper cuts right through a Dragon Pulse attack without slowing down, and crashes into Noivern and pinning it to the ground. Flash gives Hopper the simple command "Do it," and Hopper takes a deep breath, seemingly about to use an attack. Instead, he just roars right in Noivern's face, causing it to flinch in terror, before getting off it, showing it mercy.
• After Ryu has been such a jerk to Flash and his friends, seeing him get called out by his dad on his shameful behavior after the battle is pretty satisfying. Not only calling him out for being a Sore Loser and how showing mercy like Flash and Hopper did is the sign of a true king, but how Ryu has been trying to force what he thinks is best on others without listening to reason, and how his Pokémon have suffered because of it now, saying he is acting no differently than Cadmus.
• The final battle of the story between Flash and Cadmus, with Cadmus holding Titan hostage and forcing Flash and Hopper to battle him and his Galvern, with him planning to take Hopper once he wins so he can claim his "rightful place" as leader of the draconids. During the battle, the cheers of everyone else and Flash's Rousing Speech give Hopper his Heroic Second Wind, causing him to learn Wyvern Wing, the strongest Dragon-Type move that Skeidran can learn. Not only does Hopper defeat Galvern with it, but Flash also punches out Cadmus, with both of them being knocked out at the same time.
• After Flash reluctantly decides to leave Hopper in the Dragon Kingdom so he can do his duties, Titan passes on the title of King of Dragons to Hopper, since Hopper has completed his Rite of Passage by learning Wyvern Wing. The resulting Awesome Moment of Crowning is met with everyone, human and Pokémon alike, even everyone in Flash's group, bowing to the new king as he lets out a loud roar. Long live the king!
  Drayce: ALL HAIL THE KING OF DRAGONS!

Pokémon the Movie: Voice of the Ocean

• The opening battle between Flash and Vinyl Scratch has some great moments.
  • Flash's Pokémon are seen in top form here. Riptide ends up winning the opening battle against Loudred, stopping its Hyper Voice with Water Gun before defeating it with his new move Ice Punch. Skyler manages to beat Chatot in an aerial battle, pulling off a quick V-shaped turn after a fast dive-bomb to uppercut the parrot. Hopper shows how much he has grown over the past few adventures by easily dodging Palpitoad's Bubblebeam and Mud Shot attacks, slamming into the armless toad with Quick Attack and Iron Tail. Finally, Springer wins the final battle against Boomax, where despite being kept at a distance by its Hyper Voice he manages to use the environment to launch himself into the air and beat it with Aura Sphere Barrage.
  • Credit where it is due though, Vinyl managed to put up a great fight. Her Chimecho and Noibat even managing to defeat Prongs and Viper.
• Flash and Springer saving Sonata from Black and White, with Springer using Aura Sphere Barrage to create a smokescreen so they could get away.
• Flash and Springer briefly battle against Sirenity, a Legendary Pokémon, even if Sonata ultimately needs to step in and call off Sirenity when she starts to overwhelm the two of them.
• Guile's true identity is revealed when his helmet gets knocked off while kidnapping Sonata. He is revealed to be none other than Archibald Kaito, better known as Archie, the former leader of Team Aqua. It can come as a big surprise to anyone unfamiliar with the manga.
  • What's really impressive is that attentive readers will realize that this reveal was actually set up previously in the main stories, back in the beginning of the chapter "In Pokémon We Give Thanks" a quick news report stated Archibald Kaito had previously escaped prison and was now active in Equestria.
• The entire town of Vocanctus uniting after they learn that Sirenity and Sonata have been captured, with Archie using Sonata to control Sirenity. Lead by Major Novo, they all attempt to storm the temple to rescue the two of them.
• Flash's entire team fights Archie's Gyrados while he goes ahead to try to save Sonata. Gyrados Mega Evolving doesn't even help it, since the type change it undergoes just makes it vulnerable to Fighting and Grass moves.
• Flash takes on Archie without his Pokémon, giving us a rare moment in the Pokémon series where two human characters fight each other physically instead of via a Pokémon battle. And it is not just a regular fight, Flash grabs a sword and engages Archie in a sword fight.
  • Flash also needs to fend off his Surskit during this fight, giving another rare moment where a human character fights a Pokémon themself.
  • Flash manages to destroy the machine that was playing Sonata's song, temporarily stopping Archie's control over Sirenity.
• Flash calls out to the knocked out Sonata while fighting Archie, telling her not to let him use her power for himself to destroy her home. He tells her that her powers belong to her and nobody else, and she needs to take them back, calm Sirenity, and save everyone. After Flash destroys the machine, Sonata takes his words to heart, and starts singing again, to calm Sirenity from its rage fueled state and get it to stop the tidal wave it created. Also, just like the old legend, her song also empowers the one she as the priestess trusted the most, Flash himself. With his boost, Flash is able to easily keep up with Archie, with Surskit getting knocked out when the two clash.
• At the end of the battle between Flash and Archie, Archie's sword is shattered to pieces, with Flash taking the opportunity to slash at Archie himself, destroying his Eternity armor.
• Archie is cornered by Flash's Pokémon and an angry Sirenity when he tries to crawl away after his defeat. Sirenity disposes of him, encasing him in a giant bubble, which eventually pops and has him fall into a whirlpool she created, leaving no signs of him.

Pokémon: Equestrian Champions

• The opening chapter has some good moments.
  • The group's Pokémon are all infected with a special disease called Pokérus, which temporarily makes it so that any growth a Pokémon infected with it experiences is doubled, or possibly tripled, from the usual small amounts.
  • Big Score, Rickashay, and Boulder return once again, but show to have become much more dangerous than before by having evolved all their Pokémon off-screen into Stalorn, Frostorge, and Piedoom. Piedoom easily defeats Shine due to the trauma she suffered from Piedoom at Camp Everfree, and the three of them even manage to defeat Doc's Flitanium; a major different outcome from their first battle with Doc.
  • After Twilight and Doc are defeated, Flash arrives with his team to save the day and demonstrate the results of their training. They completely curb-stomp the three criminals, while also demonstrating some new moves they learned from their training. Even Swift Knuckles, the guardian of the Pokérus, says he has never seen results of this degree before. Plus, this shows him after finally working through his Heroic BSoD, and is topped off with him having switched to his outfit from the digital series, giving him a much more mature and confident appearance the entire time. Safe to say, He's Back!.
• The group run into Sunset again, and she is doing research on how Geckolar like Ray evolve. Normally they evolve into Solamander with a Sun Stone, but Sunset discovers that if they are holding a special item she calls a Hyper Band before being exposed to a Sun Stone then they evolve into a different version of Solamander, an Alpha version.
• When a trio of Geckolar, lead by one nicknamed Streak, bully the other Geckolar and steal the Hyper Bands so that only Streak can evolve into an Alpha Solamander, Ray convinces one of the Geckolar to fight back against them, with the two of them fighting Streak together. Ray eventually manages to tackle Streak and steal back the Hyper Band he stole, returning it to the Geckolar to let it evolve into an Alpha Solamander, and he easily takes care of Streak and his flunkies and becoming the new leader for the Geckolar. Plus, after everything there turns out to be one Hyper Band left over, allowing Ray to evolve into an Alpha too.
• The egg that Flash received at the Dragon Kingdom finally hatches, revealing it to be a Starvern. But not just a regular one, a Shiny one.
• Flash shows his Papa Wolf instincts when Astro is poisoned by an Ariados. He orders all five of his other Pokémon to attack it at the same time with some of their strongest moves, sending it flying in an explosion. That poor spider messed with the wrong family.
• In "Flash in the Forest", Flash is separated from the group after they are attacked by an angry Trevenant, with only Riptide, Prongs, and Viper with him. He has a hard time moving because of a hurt ankle and is too heavy for Prongs to carry him, and they are soon attacked by an horde of Trevenant that live in the forest and are very territorial. When it seems like the three of them are being overwhelmed, hearing Flash's encouragement and their desire to protect him causes them all to evolve into their final stages at the same time!
  • After evolving they each demonstrate they have learned new powerful moves; Horn Leach, Pyro Coil, and Aqua Break. They use them to great effect against all the Trevenant, with their other moves being significantly stronger now too.
  • One Trevenant manages to grab Flash and tries to use him as a Human Shield against his Pokémon. When Riptide charges in with an Ice Punch, the Trevent puts Flash in front of the attack, only for Riptide to stop it inches away from his face. Riptide just smirks and reaches out past Flash, grabbing the Trevenant by its arms, holding it for Viper to strike with Flamethrower and drop Flash. Riptide then grabs Flash and tosses him straight up, so Prongs can leap up and catch him, now able to carry him like he wanted to thanks to his new body, and they all manage to escape from the forest together.
• Flash and Riptide end up participating in The Ocean Champion Tournament, a tournament held once every 5 years where Reptidals both wild and trained gather to compete for the title of "Ocean Champion".
  • Riptide initially seems to be at a major disadvantage due to having only been a Reptidal for two days, and thus having less experience than most other contestants and barley winning his match on the first day. Luckily though, Terramar helps Flash train Riptide between days in the tournament by having him copy how his own Reptidal's movements with his Aqua Break sword. By the end of the tournament, Riptide is now a Master Swordsman.
  • The final match of the tournament is Flash and Riptide against a jerkass Wingill and his Shiny Reptidal Fin. Fin has constantly been mocking Flash and Riptide ever since he met them for their loss against Lightning and how "weak" that makes them and acts like his victory in the tournament is guaranteed. Their match finally gets the chance to prove him wrong.
    • Wingill has won all his matches in the tournament using the same dirty trick of knocking the opponent into the water and then using Ice Beam to trap them so they can't get out in time. When he does this same trick to Riptide, Flash realizes Riptide can't hear him through the ice. So he signals what to do, telling him to use Rock Smash to break the ice by motioning a kick to him. When this works and Riptide break through the ice, Wingill tries to accuse them of cheating, only for Flash to shut him up immediately by pointing out how Wingill is the one trying to avoid a fair fight and take an easy win.
    • The ending of their battle. Riptide uses Ice Punch to freeze Fin's Aqua Break solid, causing the water sword to freeze solid and Fin to no longer be able to lift it due to its increased weight. With Fin defenseless, Riptide forms his own sword and charges in before he can make a new one, and slashes at Fin. After a moment of silence and Riptide's sword losing its form, Fin falls into the water below and resurfaces to show he's knocked out, securing Flash and Riptide the Ocean Champion title and leaving Wingill gobsmacked at his loss, slinking off without another word.
  • The ending ceremony where the elder Reptidal knights Riptide as the Ocean Champion and tells him to go show the world why he earned this title. After trying so hard to become stronger and not hold Flash and the others back, nobody can ever call Riptide weak again. Now the only thing left for him to do before his arc is truly complete is to help Flash defeat Lightning Blitz and Gorillamp.
• Tidal Wave, the Gym Leader of Manehatten City, makes his debut by easily defeating a rampaging Barbaracle with his Reefincer, demonstrating Guillotine. He realizes it was rampaging because a trafficking organization captured all of its friends, a group of Binacle, promising to get them back.
• The group encounter Applejack and Rarity again, with Applejack having already beaten Tidal Wave and earned her seventh badge before they arrived.
• Flash just has one moment after another in "A Pirates Strife For Me".
  • When a man approaches him, offering to buy Astro off him and then mentions he could possibly trade for him, Flash realizes he works for the trafficking organization when he mentions having plenty of Binacle, and tricks him into setting up a meeting with his boss.
  • Flash informs Tidal he made contact with one of the traffickers so they can make a plan.
  • When Dreadbeard tries to take Flash's Pokémon by force, it is revealed all of his Pokeballs are empty. Flash left his Pokémon with Tidal for safety. Only Springer was stubborn enough to stay with him. Also, him stealing back all the Binacle when he has an opening, thanks to Tidal attacking the base with his Leviapent.
  • Dreadbeard tries to battle Flash with his Thrashark, only for it to get beaten by Prongs easily.
• When Tidal Wave leaves to finish off Dreadbeard's Pokémon trafficking ring, he tells Flash to protect the city while he is gone. A very high honor.
• Equestria starts hosting its own Pokémon Contests, like the ones seen in the anime, with the first being held in Manehatten. Rarity is shown to be completely in her element throughout the contest, winning the whole thing and even beating Flash and Twilight in the semi-finals and finals respectively. After her below average performances at The Hoof Cup and Hoofington Battle Tournament, she finally has her chance to shine.
• Flash's Gym Battle with Tidal Wave:
  • Piercish seems like it is going to be a problem due to its high defense and healing. Skyler manages to beat it though by diving into the water of the field and using Tornado Burst inside, creating a giant whirlpool that pulls Piercish in and then explodes like an underwater bomb, letting Skyler finish it off with Giga Impact.
  • Reefincer manages to defeat Skyler with Guillotine, and neatly does the same to Prongs, but Flash manages to switch him out just in time. Then, due to the damage it suffered against Skyler and Prongs, Springer finishes him with a single Aura Sphere.
  • Lokelpie shows it has the move Sing, putting Springer to sleep. When Flash subs him out for Prongs, Prongs damages Lokelpie's throat with Horn Leach to stop it from singing. Prongs also avoids its Ice Beam and tackle Lokelpie, causing it to accidentally freeze the water so Prongs has more land to stand on. Prongs finally wins with an Energy Ball to Lokelpie's face.
  • Leviapent manages to defeat both Prongs and Springer, leaving only Riptide, who started off poorly against Piercish. Ultimately though, Riptide is pushed into activating his Torrent ability. While the two are battling underwater, Riptide uses his Ice Punch to create an Ice Shield to block Levipent's attacks, allowing him to get close enough to strike it with Aqua Break. In their final clash, he forms two swords. One to slash Levipent's Hydro Pump and the other to strike at Levipent, winning the match.
• Coco's Feebas Fee-Fee jumping out of her water tank to defend Coco when Suri tries to attack her with her Glameow. Then, after Fee-Fee evolves into a Milotic after being praised as beautiful by Coco and the entire audience, she easily blasts away Glameow and Suri with Water Pulse.
• Ultimately, Suri's business plummets with not a single customer showing up after Coco's fashion show to the point where it looks like she is going to need to sell her store to Coco. This wasn't because Suri lost to Coco in a battle, but because several civilians, including some of Suri's former customers, witnessed her try to attack Coco, with some ever recording the whole event.
• The ending of "Pokémon Fashion Fad" has Twilight receive a message from Cadance, giving a small tease of the next story arc.
• Cadance demonstrates her battling skills when she uses Crystardian, her new Pokémon from the Crystal Empire, to defeat Twilight and Shine in a battle.
  Cadance: Get ready Twilight. You're about to be the first person in a thousand years to battle against one of these.
• Cadance helps Flash decide where to go for his final badge, telling him that Dragonia City has the toughest Gym in Equestria, recalling it took Shining Armor three attempts to finally beat it himself. The idea of facing such a tough Gym Leader excites Flash enough to go there for his final Gym Battle.
• Shine faces her fear of Piedoom in order to protect Twilight from a poacher and rescue Crystardian, evolving into a Galarian Rapidash to defeat Piedoom.
• A few a minor moments during "Trapeze Trouble":
  • Flash surprises Cadance when he demonstrates he can understand what Springer's saying after Springer talks to a depressed Aipom and then tells the story back to him.
  • When trying to help Aipom evolve, Pinkie battles it with Bloxx, which results in Bloxx finally getting its first on-screen win after suffering from The Worf Effect for so long.
• Flash and Sugarcoat faceoff in a Technician Versus Performer battle with Astro and Morgrem. Sugarcoat see's Astro unable to properly use Shadow Ball and its ability Infiltrator and dismisses it as "worthless". After Flash and Astro lose a battle to Sugarcoat and her Morgrem, Sugarcoat says the massive level gap between them and type advantage means Astro will never beat Morgrem, but despite this they spend the whole day training and thinking of a new strategy for a rematch despite the massive disadvantage Astro seemingly has. They note the moves that Morgrem used in their battle and ways to get around them, such as how two of its moves, Sucker Punch and Fake Out, are useless unless the enemy attacks first. They utilize Astro's Leer attack to lower Morgrem's defense through the battle, allowing their other moves to do more damage even without being super effective, while also limiting Surgarcoat's own options. The battle ends with Astro grabbing Morgrem by its hair and tossing it into the air before hitting it with one more Shadow Ball. Sugarcoat, and even Cadance, thought it was impossible for Astro to ever beat Morgrem, but Flash proved them both wrong.
• After Double Cross tried to scam Sandbar out of his Sandscrew and swapped the Volthor he said he would trade him with a Weedle, he gets exactly what he deserves when Sandscrew destroys its Pokeball to go back to Sandbar, and Double Cross and his Pokémon are blasted away by seven different attacks at once, with even the Weedle he gave Sandbar joining in.
• The Balance Battle Tournament that takes place in "Balancing the Score":
  • The tournament is an interesting concept. It is essentially a Triple Battle, which is itself a fun battle format that is rarely seen, but with the added rule of battling atop tall poles to try to make the enemy fall into the "defeated zone". This means it is possible to win even if you aren't "stronger" than the opponent, but smarter and have better teamwork.
  • When Flash and Lightning make it to the finals of the tournament, Lightning runs into Cadance in the hallway. Lightning tells her to give Shining Armor a message for him; that he's going to crush everyone in his way until they face off in the League and then he'll dethrone him and make him pay for disgracing his family. Cadance just giggles at his arrogance while telling him off for his lack of respect to everyone, especially his Pokémon, and says as he is now he couldn't defeat a single one of Shining's Pokémon. In fact, she says out of all the hotshot trainers she has met who want to beat Shining, the one out of all of them that Flash has the best shot of taking him on. This is not only a scathing insult towards Lightning, but also a massive sign of respect for Flash and how much he has impressed her and earned her respect in the short time they have known each other.
  • The battle between Flash and Lightning in the finals.
    • Flash's Pokémon constantly show better teamwork through the whole battle, while Lightning's just get in each other's way.
    • One moment of notice is when Flash has Viper use Flamethrower on all the poles to heat them up so the Pokémon will lose their footing. While Skyler lets Springer ride on him to keep him safe, Frostoak eventually can't take the heat and leaps on Pitchawk's back to get to safety, causing it to fly off-balance and yell at it to get off.
    • It eventually comes down to just Springer and Gorillamp, with Springer seemingly at a disadvantage without any help from his teammates. But instead of fighting head on like Lightning tries to do, Flash battles his own way, declaring he will surpass him and Shining Armor in his own unique way, and has Springer use Extreme Speed to zoom around the battlefield. Springer turns into a blue blur jumping around the battlefield and striking at Gorillamp, who is too slow to counter. The battle finally ends with Springer performing a combination of Aura Spheres, Double Team, and Drain Punch, propelling himself right at Gorillamp. When it is over, Gorillamp is knocked into the defeat zone and Springer is barely holding on to the tip of a pole.
  • The very fact that Flash Sentry finally defeated Lightning Blitz! Even if it is acknowledged that this wasn't a "real battle", and Lightning tries to use that as an excuse, it is still a great achievement for Flash and his team, eliminating any lingering doubt he has of facing Lightning again and proving he can defeat him. It also settles Springer's rivalry with Gorillamp, leaving Riptide free to settle his own in their next battle.
• Flash and Grand Hoof working together against a pair of Team Shadow Grunts in "The Grand Mountain Mystery". Those poor mooks never stood a chance. Like an official team up between the past and (potential) future champions. All that was missing was Shining Armor to complete the set.
• Heath Burns and his Blazard going through the various tests to obtain the Dragonheart Orb, so Blazard can evolve into a Blazegon. They even manage to past the final test, which was actually a Secret Test of Character to see if they had the courage to concede defeat instead of continue fighting an impossible battle. Once Blazard evolves into Blazegon, it easily deals with Big Score and his goons. Flash is so impressed he asks Heath for a battle to see how he stacks up against Blazegon, but Heath decides it would be better to save their battle for the Equestria League so they can go all out with everything on the line.
• Not long after finally arriving in the Crystal Empire, Flash's group, the professors, and Shining Armor all review the recent activity of Team Shadow and actually manage to start piecing together what their plan is, or at least what they need for it. Even better, they are doing this right in front of Sombra, Team Shadow's leader, who is trying to discreetly throw them off the trail without blowing his cover.
• The entire siege of the Crystal Empire by Team Shadow is impressive for heroes and villains alike:
  • Sombra managed to infect a virus into Androrg to mess with the security list in its system, causing it and the Guardroid to all begin attacking him and the others while Chrysalis and the grunts move in unopposed. The heroes are forced to fight there way through the seemingly never-ending machine army while also trying to stop Team Shadow.
  • Sombra continues to act as an ally to everyone while trying to sabotage them. He lies about not having any of his Pokémon to avoid aiding them, and when given one of the cases they are guarding he separates from everyone to secretly hand it off to one of his employees and make it seem like it was taken by force.
  • We see two more of Shining's Pokémon, Lokelpie and Oaking. He also pulls off a simple but impressive move to corner Chrysalis, returning Oaking to its ball and then immediately releasing it again so it appears in front of Chrysalis, blocking her and Queensect between it and Lokelpie.
  • We briefly see Galladin fighting all on its own without getting orders from Shining Armor. Shows what level a champion Pokémon is at.
  • The reveal that Shining and Cadance Out-Gambitted Team Shadow from the very beginning. The cases they were having everyone protect from them didn't have the artifacts in them at all. They hid the Heart Fragment and Shadow Spear away when the attack began, knowing they would target the cases. The entire fight was just to buy time for Cadance to remove the virus from Androrg so Team Shadow couldn't come back right away when they realized they were played for fools. The Big "NO!" Chrysalis lets out when she finds a taunting note from Shining in the case is well deserved, and she is cowering before Sombra later due to her failure, lacking her usual arrogance.
• The professors find a way to hack the Warp Tiles found in the Crystal Empire, and effectively make a teleport system out of them, teleporting Sunset Shimmer all the way from Canterlot City to the Crystal Empire.
• Shining briefly becomes The Mentor to Flash briefly in "Shrieking a Difficult Lesson". He points out the Crippling Overspecialization Springer has by only knowing Normal and Fighting moves, with him being unable to damage any Ghost-Type Pokémon, as demonstrated when he has Springer battle his Banshriek. During the battle, Springer manages to learn Bone Rush, and starts being able to fight back. Although he ultimately still loses, and had to forget Double Team to learn Bone Rush, thus cutting off his ability to use Aura Sphere Barrage, hopefully he and Flash will be able to make up for it in the future.
• Trixie makes a brief return in "Well Sled", showing she has earned seven badges just like Flash. Her Slowpoke also finally evolved into a Slowking, which she briefly uses to help Double Diamond and Frostoak stop an avalanche.
• Yona creates two Pokeballs by herself. One for her starter Fridglet, and one so she can catch a Swinub. The Swinub she battles is also very powerful, being able to use Ancient Power, but Yona and Fridglet ultimately win.
• When Flash and Springer encounter Springer's old pack, they also encounter the same Lucario that is responsible for him being unable to evolve; identified by the scar over his left eye from Squiron. Springer finally gets the chance to take his revenge on Lucario for what it did to him and save his former pack from his abuse, and when they battle, he battles Lucario all on his own without any commands from Flash. The most everyone else does is cheer him on.
• The battle between Springer and Lucario comes down to a Beam-O-War between their Aura Spheres, with Springer's growing until it is the same size as him and overpowering Lucario's!
• After Lucario is defeated, he tries to order the other Riolu to attack Springer and his friends, but none of them obey him because seeing him lose to Springer made them lose their fear of him and refuse to be pushed around by him anymore. When he tries to attack Springer again, charging right at him, Springer fires another Aura Sphere, which is supported by all the other Riolu firing Vacuum Waves at it to increase its speed, and send Lucario flying off the mountain, with him crashing below and bouncing a few times before coming to a stop. He was quite literally thrown out of the pack.
• Major props to the three heralds of Alicormony, Pegasoar, Mysticorn, and Horsearth, deciding to take matter in their own hands and stop Team Shadow from continuing their plans and attacking them in the Altar of Summons.
• Chrysalis realizes that she and Doom will never be able to defeat the three Legendary Pokémon in a straightforward fight, even with assistance from a few Grunts. So she uses the Energy Trap devices they had to capture all three of them!
• When the gang is attacked by a Heatran who was transported to Mount Tartarus by a portal from Team Shadow's experiments with the Altar of Summons, Lairon is determined to keep Doc and all of his friends safe and continually fights against the Legendary, despite being at a massive disadvantage. When Lairon is close to finally collapsing, he imagines how without him to protect everyone, all of Doc's other Pokémon would be easily overwhelmed by Heatran. This, and Doc's words of praise about him from earlier, push him into a Heroic Second Wind, causing him to evolve into Aggron to protect everyone. With his new power, he easily deflects another Magma Storm attack from Heatran, not showing any burns from it, despite it being a super effective move against him. Aggron is able to get everyone else to safety as the cave starts to collapse, and when he ends up being left behind due to the exit being sealed he has an Off Screen Moment Of Awesome where he fights Heatran to a standstill and eventually blasts his way out and reunites with Doc. Safe to say, Aggron has officially replaced Tockwork as The Ace of Doc's team.
• After seeing Aggron's massive power, and how the other Gym Leaders run their Gyms in Equestria, Doc decides he is going to make some changes to his Gym when he returns to avoid being seen as the weakest Gym Leader in Equestria. He decides if a challenger has two badges or less he'll use Higear and Tockwork, if they have between three and five he'll also use Flitanium, and if they have six or more he'll also use Aggron, reasoning a trainer with six or more badges will be worth Aggron's time. Spike even makes a mental note that when he goes on his own journey he should save Doc's Gym for last.
• Flash's Gym Battle with Ember to earn his final badge is filled with awesome moments.
  • Each of Flash's Pokémon that participates gets a chance to shine during the match by defeating one of Ember's Pokémon. But, as Twilight points out, even after they are beaten they are still helping even after being beaten, not just by dealing some damage before being beaten but by weakening the enemy for their teammates, like how Viper poisoned them or how Riptide lowered their defense with Aqua Break and Rock Smash.
  • The true MVP of the battle has to be Astro though. Not only was it his very first Gym Battle, he went up against Ember's ace Champagoon. Thanks to hearing Flash and all his other Pokémon cheering him on, he has a Heroic Second Wind where he evolves into Galvern, with even Torch being amazed due to never seeing a Pokémon evolve during a Gym Battle before. Astro proves to be an Instant Expert at flying despite just evolving, due to watching how Ember's own Galvern was flying earlier in the battle and copying what he saw it do. It ultimately comes down to a final clash of Astro's new Dragon Claw against Champagoon's Wyvern Wing. At first it seems like it is going to be a Double Knock Out, with both beginning to fall, but Astro manages to catch himself when he hears his teammates call out to him again. After Champagoon falls, Astro seems to stagger for a moment, before stomping his foot and letting out a mighty roar as a Victorious Roar, securing Flash the win.
  • Despite Ember losing the battle, all of her Pokémon were awesome and served great rolls in the battle. Her first Pokémon is a Terragon of her own, one that's regular sized unlike Peewee. Her second is a Blazegon, which makes for good practice for when he eventually faces Heath Burn's at the League. Her third is Galvern, and thanks to Astro watching it carefully, it ultimately gave him the skills needed to win once he evolved himself. Finally, her Champagoon proves to be just as tough as the others of its kind Flash has encountered, if not more so, providing a battle worthy of an ace Pokémon and pseudo-legendary.
• The heralds of Alicormony make contact with Flash, Twilight, and Doc in their dreams and reveal Sombra's identity as the leader of Team Shadow to them, showing them a memory of theirs where Sombra was gloating to them that once Alicormony is under his control they will need to obey him too. The three of them also help the heralds escape by willingly transferring some of their energy to them so they can escape from the traps Team Shadow had them in.
• The Warp Tiles in The Crystal Empire end up coming in handy. After the group contacts Shining and the professors to tell them about Sombra, they give them instructions on how to convert the transporter at the Pokémon Center to transport them all back to the Crystal Empire, saving them the need to backtrack for several days.
• Chrysalis launches a second, much more successful attack on the Crystal Empire to get the artifacts. Team Shadow hacks the Warp Tiles thanks to the specs Sombra was given and immobilizes everyone with special Stun Spore, allowing her to steal the Heart Fragment and Shadow Spear almost completely unopposed. Though the heroes still get one small moment, by telling her they know Sombra is the leader of Team Shadow, which clearly unnerves Chrysalis, especially when she needs to explain this to Sombra himself.
• Pegasoar, Mysticorn, and Horsearth arrive in the Crystal Empire, all so they can take their respective chosen ones to the Altar of Summons and take the fight to Team Shadow before they can complete their plan. Spike, despite not being a chosen one himself, insists on coming with them because he is just as much a member of the group as the rest of them.
• Although both of the "movie" side-stories already heavily implied that Team Shadow was involved with the Big Bads there, going into the climax of the Team Shadow storyline here outright confirms it. The Energy Trap devices Team Shadow uses were originally designed by Mechano, and the armor Sombra wears is a final version of the Eternity armor given to Archie to help him with his condition, which turns out to have just been a prototype. Thus, Team Shadow truly is the Greater-Scope Villain of the entire series.
• Upon arriving at the Altar of Summons, the entire gang fight alongside the heralds against Team Shadow, until Team Shadow uses the Soundwave device from the Grand Dessert to force them to stand down, showing it was powerful enough to even effect Legendary Pokémon.
• Since the Crystal Heart wasn't charged enough to open a portal due to not enough energy, Sombra forces for Flash to battle him, with all six of Flash's Pokémon battling Tyrandark at once, so the battle will power the Crystal Heart with the Infinity Energy Flash's Pokémon produce, threatening the lives of him and his friends if he refuses. Plus, the battle is broadcasted all over the Equestria Region thanks to Team Shadow broadcasting it.
• Even in a six on one battle, Tyrandark proves to be a difficult opponent, avoiding most of the attacks thrown at it thanks to its Shadow Cloak ability. Flash finds a way around this though by using Viper's Flamethrower to light up the area so it doesn't work, allowing attacks to strike it. When all of Flash's Pokémon land devastating blows on it and it seems close to defeat though, Sombra reveals that they have collected the last Infinity Energy they needed, and heals him with a Super Potion mist from his suit's gauntlet.
• After Team Shadow summons Alicormony and Dischaos, and it seems like Sombra is going to succeed in catching them, Shining Armor and the professors suddenly appear thanks to Celestia using several Pokémon that know Teleport to get the mall there, and they destroy the soundwave devices, allowing everyone to fight back again. This is followed by all the Gym Leaders arriving to help fight against Team Shadow too.
• During the massive battle, Flash reveals he finally has a reason to be strong, a question he has been searching for an answer to ever since he lost his first battle with Thorax.
  Sombra: Tell me, what's your reason for being strong? You talk a big game, but how can you be sure your strength isn't just as hollow?
  Flash: You know, if you had asked me that before now, I wouldn't have been able to answer. But seeing all this and thinking back to everything I've seen and learned on my journey, I know exactly what my reason to be strong is.
  Sombra: Oh?
  Flash: This world is full of so many kind people, all with dreams and ambitions they want to fulfil. Many of those dreams are great and will help Equestria when fulfilled." His eyes then turned hard, "But then there are dreams like yours. Ones that are selfish and will only harm this great region. And you know what?! I'M GONNA MAKE SURE IT NEVER COMES TRUE! That's my reason. I'll become strong so I can make sure only good dreams come true. And anyone who tries to harm Equestria in order to live out some kind of mad power fantasy, WILL HAVE TO ANSWER TO ME!
• Though it also doubles as a bit of Nightmare Fuel, right when it seems like Shining Armor and Flash have defeated Sombra, he has a massive Villainous Breakdown and grabs the Crystal Heart, declaring he can always start over again as long as he has it. But when he touches it, something happens that causes the heart to absorb Sombra, his Tyrandark, Alicormony, and Dischaos. The result is Sombra transforming into a gigantic monstrous titan, with visable characteristics of the Pokemon that were absorbed with him. It sends everyone else running.
• With Shining Armor injured from Sombra during the escape, he tells Flash it is up to him to lead everyone else now. Flash is nervous about this position, fearing what might happen if he messes up or how he is ever supposed to lead people like the Gym Leaders, the professors, and Grand. But after he gets some encouragement from Cadance, with her telling him how much Shining believes in him and thinks he would be worthy of succeeding him, he gains the confidence he needs, and when everyone else is too busy arguing over what to do and yelling over each other, Flash takes command and gets their attention with a loud "Everybody...STOP!"
• Flash figures out what Shining was trying to tell him before he passed out. Sombra can beat anyone, but he can't beat everyone. Using the same equipment from when Sombra broadcasted their battle earlier, Flash uses it to send his own message to the entire region. Explaining Sombra's transformation, Flash explains even if Sombra can beat everyone individually, he can't beat everyone if they work together. Instructions are sent to every Pokémon Center in the region on how to convert their transports into teleporters to bring them to the Crystal Empire, asking everyone to join together and battle Sombra with him.
  • After he delivers this message to everyone, we see a quick montage of several people preparing to head out and answer his call. This includes: Rainbow and Fluttershy, Applejack and Rarity, Pinkie, Trixie, Sonata and her sisters, Cloud Chaser, Timber Spruce, Soarin, Hopper and the citizens of the Dragon Kingdom, and even Lightning Blitz.
  • Everyone showing up during the battle when it seems like Sombra is about to overpower Flash, his friends, and the Gym Leaders. It is an entire army of trainers with their Pokémon already out and ready for battle. Many are friends they made on their journey, including Derpy and Heath, others are just characters they met once or twice like Micro Chips, Sandalwood, Spark Plug, Shady Forest, Fancy Pants, Fleur, Ceder, Zecora, Strongheart, and her father, and even more that they had never met before but answered the call anyway.
• How Sombra is ultimately defeated. His Healing Factor makes it so he recovers from any damage he receives. However, Cadance figures out that the Crystal Heart was originally broken by the Shadow Spear, so using it again to break the Crystal Heart will also return Sombra and the Pokémon back to normal from their transformation, which is why Sombra attacked Flash earlier, because he was holding the spear and he was afraid of it. While the army of trainers immobilize Sombra by destroying his limbs or restraining them, Pegasoar flies Flash and Springer up closer to him. When the titan tries to blast them, the Legendary buck Flash and Springer off him so they avoid the blast, and Flash tosses the spear at Sombra, then pushes Springer forward off his feet to give him an extra boost and slam the spear forward with an Aura Sphere. The spear strikes the heart and the titan crumbles, returning Sombra and the Pokémon to normal. At long last, Team Shadow is defeated!
• The preliminaries to the Equestria League, to dwindle the trainers that are registered down from 128 to the required 16.
  • The competitors must race through a mountain and make their way to the stadium on the fourth level. But only half of them can pass through each level, via a special door that can only be opened once by defeating another competitor in a battle, and each competitor can only bring one Pokémon with them to battle with. So each competitor will need to quickly navigate through a maze of tunnels, find one of the doors, and wait for another competitor to show up for a chance to battle and hopefully continue. Anyone who loses can either give up or continue trying to find another door for the level before they are all taken. It requires speed for finding an unused door, the skill to win a battle against another trainer, and a bit of luck
  • On the third level, Flash and Springer are having trouble finding an unused door. They finally manage to find one and wait for another trainer to show up. It turns out to be none other than Timber Spruce, who expresses delight at getting to eliminate Flash before the tournament. Once Timber confirms himself as the second trainer for the door, an announcement reveals they battening for the last position in the tournament and Timber laughs at his apparent good luck. His luck quickly runs out though, because Flash and Springer dominate almost the entire battle.
  • Springer easily outclasses Breloom, dodging all of his attacks with his speed, landing several strong blows on him, and having the advantage of seeing his aura through the smoke their battle causes. The only time Breloom gains an advantage is when Springer falls asleep due to Breloom's Effect Spore, and therefore can't defend himself, and everyone watching either sees it as a cheap shot by Timber, or no fun anymore. It doesn't take long for Springer to wake back up though. Springer proceeds to easily counter everything Breloom tires, and even his "Mach Punch Tornado" is easily countered with a single Aura Sphere, and just makes himself dizzy. The battle ends with a clash between Aura Sphere and Energy Ball that destroys the camera in the chamber, leaving the audience in suspense on who won. But once Flash and Springer arrive, revealing themselves as the winners, the stadium erupts in cheers, showing that nearly everyone had been hoping for him to be the winner. Flash makes one of the best starts to the Equestria League possible, defeating one of his most hated rivals in a pretty one-sided battle, after Timber previously boasted in over-confidence how he was going to win the whole thing.
• Flash and his friends encounter Lightning at a cafe after the preliminaries. Flash doesn't let any of Lightning's usual insults get to him, and when Flash declares that he hopes Trixie gives him a tough match to make things more fun, he gets under Lightning's skin for daring to have fun at a "serious" competiton. It is clear from how Lightning storms off that Flash was the "winner" of their verbal match.
• Trixie telling off her father during their phone call, when he suggests she forfit her match with Flash to save herself the "humiliation" of losing to him. She makes it clear she no longer cares about his opinion of her, because she has already proven him wrong by making it into the League, and regardless of the outcome of her match, whther she win or lose, she already knows she is great and won't mope about it, and hangs up on her father before he can say anything else.
• After most of the first round of the League is shown via a montage, the last battle of the round, Flash vs Trixie, is shown in all of its glory, with both trainers getting epic moments in all the battles.
  • Astro vs Slowking: The first battle opens with Flash using his "best weapon" against Trixie's team of Psychics, since Astro has a type advantage due to being part Dark-Type. But Slowking immediately shows that it won't go down without a fight by using Psychic to change the trajectory of Astro's Dragon Pulse and send it right back at him. The battle goes on with Astro trying to get in close to Slowking to do damage and make it hard to know where he is coming from so it can't reflect his attacks, while Slowking manages to protect itself with the tress and branches as a Forest Field, even using Psychic on some branches to surf through the air. Ultimately, Astro manages to break through Slowking's defenses, but right before it can be beaten Trixie has it use Trick Room, to set up her strategy for the rest of the match.
  • Astro vs Hatterene: For the second battle, Trixie sends out her Hatterene, revealing that her Hattrem evolved, and giving her the type advantage for the battle. Normally Hatterene are one of the slowest Pokémon, but because of Trick Room it is now one of the fastest, easily out speeding Astro. Though Astro still tries to fight back, getting a lucky hit with a Shadow Ball before using Crunch on her waist and throwing her into the air, it is still an uphill battle. After a brief aerial battle, Hatterene manages to get behind Astro and uses her hair to wrap around his body and restrain him, holding him in place. Astro tries to free himself by firing a Shadow Ball behind him at her, only for Hatterene's hair to clamp his mouth shut too, effectively leaving him Bound and Gagged and completly defenseless. Hatterene ends the battle by planting a Draining Kiss on Astro's head. This not only elimiates Flash's best weapon, but the Draining Kiss completly restores whatever damage Astro managed to inflict on Hatterene previously, essentially meaning Flash and Trixie are basically starting off fresh with a two on two match.
  • Viper vs Hatterene: Flash manages to get around Hatterene's speed by having Viper set the whole Forest Field ablaze with his fire attacks and making the battle a Battle Amongst the Flames. This limits Hatterene's movements since getting too close to the fire singes her, and Viper manages to inflict a Burn status on her with Pyro Coil, which interrupts her several times throughout the battle, giving Viper time to counter-attack. Hatterene manages to get a few powerful hits of her own in though, including draining Viper's health and restoring her own with a few Draining Kisses. Ultimately, right as the flames on the field die down, the battle ends in a draw, leaving both trainers with only one Pokémon each.
  • Prongs vs Sagic: Prongs starts out at a disadvantage due to the effects of Trick Room still in effect and increasing Sagic's speed. But Flash gets another one of his brilliant crazy ideas, having Prongs directly attack the Trick Room itself, and sucessfully destroys it! Trixie realizes that now it is only a matter of time before Prongs defeats Sagic, but resolves to not give up and keep fighting anyway, even if she knows Flash's Pokémon are stronger than hers. The Prince of the Forest ultimately overpowers Sagic and wins with Horn Leech, giving Flash the victory of the match. But Trixie is still cheered by everyone for her amazing performance, and even Flash thanks her for the intense battle.
• Most of Flash's battle with Heath happens off-screen, but we see the ending with him battling Blazegon.
  • Astro puts up a good fight against Blazegon before Flash recalls him and calls out Riptide to finish it.
  • As soon as Riptide comes out he uses Aqua Break on the field to cool all of the melted metal Blazegon caused against Astro.
  • The final Aqua Break Riptide uses to win the match, with him disappearing via a Flash Step and Blazegon suddenly has several blue streams shoot around his body before Riptide reappears behind him. After Riptide takes a moment to move his sword that looks like a samurai sheaving it, he turns back to Blazegon and watches it collapse to the ground defeated.
  • Riptide also gets an Off Screen Moment Of Awesome for the whole match as well. Cadance notes that he was the one to defeat Magmortar and Darmanitan earlier. Though it is unclear the extent that Skyler and Astro helped throughout these battles, besides that Skyler was knocked out and eliminated, this essentially means that Riptide is responsible for defeating Heath's entire team.
• Grand Hoof confronts Lightning once again, and sees him putting his team through Training from Hell. When Lightning continues to ignore everything Grand tries to tell him, even for the sake of his team, seeing Lightning act in a borderline abusive way is the final straw for Grand. He finally acknowledges that he can't change Lightning, and he is done torturing himself by extending his help only to be refused. He tells Lightning that if he ever wants to move on from the past and change for the better he is welcome to come find him, but until then he is washing his hands of Lightning. Though this also counts as a Tearjerker due to Grand effectively telling his grandson he has given up hope for him and is disowning him until he can change himself, it is still awesome that Grand says he is finally through putting up with Lightning's attitude and is no longer going to extend the Oliver branch to him and is freeing himself of the guilt from anyone Lightning hurts from now on. This confrontation also noticeably has an effect on Lightning, leaving his whole body shaking.
• Although Rainbow ultimately loses to Lightning by a large margin, she at least manages to put up a great fight against him. The one thing in the battle that didn't go as Lightning planned was the battle between Tank and Gorillamp, with Tank emerging as the victor. Rainbow might have lost shortly afterwards, but she showed that in the battle of partners, she and Tank beat Lightning and Gorillamp.
• Flash and Applejack's full battle is filled with these.
  • Applejack's Clobberoo proves to be pretty vicious, despite batteling on an ice battelfield, by easily defeating Astro and tying with Springer.
  • Prongs and Winona have their long awaited rematch after they tied back in Harmony and Chaos, with Prongs taking the win this time.
  • When Viper is struggeling to land a hit on Bloomberg, Flash has him fire his Flamethrower into one of the holes from when Winona used Dig earlier, causing huge columns of fire shooting out of all the holes around the field. This lets Viper get in close and finish Bloomberg off with a Pyro Coil. So Flash wins the match with two Pokémon remaining.
• Granny Smith officially makes Applejack the new Applewood City Gym Leader after her battle with Flash.
• Hopper rejoins Flash's team to help with Flash's battle against Lightning in the finals!
• You could pretty much list everything from Flash and Lightning's battle in the finals!
  • Viper and Androrg facing each other once again, which is a common matchup ever since they were just a Hisscor and Higear respectively. They both have one win and one loss against each other, with this battle ending in Viper's favor once again.
  • Skyler facing off against Thrashark, the Pokémon that won Lightning his spot in the finals. It is a tough match since Thrashark's Rough Skin ability causes damage every time a Physical Damage attack hits it, which is difficult since all of Skyler's attacks are Physical attacks. Despite this seemingly massive disadvantage though, Skyler still manages to win, even dispersing Thrasher's Tsunami Surge attack with Tornado Burst!
  • Lightning seems to make a strong comeback when Venomega manages to defeat Skyler, Viper, and Prongs back to back to back.
  • After once again dismissing Riptide as worthless, Flash and Riptide get one over on Lightning when Riptide manages to defeat Pitchawk, freezing it halfway with Ice Punch and trapping it in the frozen stream before sending it flying with Rock Smash. This also marks the first time Riptide finally manages to defeat one of Lightning's Pokèmon.
  • Springer manages to defeat Roglacier once again. Even better is Flash manages to out-think and counter everything Lightning tries in the battle, even throwing his words back in his face by saying he is "planning ahead by focusing on the here and now". Springer's ability to see aura makes Roglacier's Ice Cloak ability practically useless, and even when Lightning catches Springer off-guard and has Roglacier freeze him with Blizzard, Flash manages to get Springer to breakout almost immediately by giving him commands via their aura connection.
  • Hopper's battle with Venomega. He previously lost to it when it was just a Frillace, but this time he manages to get a Heroic Second Wind, with the two clashing with Wyvern Wing and Cross Potion. When the dust clears, the King of the Dragons stands victorious.
  • Lightning's final Pokémon is none other than his Gorillamp, who manages to make quick work of Hopper and Springer. It all comes down to just Riptide and Gorillamp, with Riptide at a type disadvantage and having lost to Gorillamp twice previously. But no matter how much damage he takes, or how many times he gets knocked down, Riptide refuses to lose again and gets back up everything. His persistence is so much it drives Lightning to demanding to be declared the winner when he can't stand the fact that Riptide isn't down yet like he feels it's "supposed to". When Flash finally tells Lightning to just shut up already, and continues to taunt him by saying how he is starting to bore him since he keeps using the exact same Breaking Speech over and over again. This, and the entire stadium cheering for Flash, drives Lightning to a Villainous Breakdown, with him saying he is sick of Flash always getting in his way and that he will destroy him for good, while Flash is just having the most fun he has ever had. After one final clash with an Aqua Break against a Thunder Punch, Gorillamp finally collapses, and Flash is declared winner of the Equestria League!
• The championship between Flash and Shining is filled with awesome moments in every single battle! Fitting, given it is the true final battle of the series. Every match highlighted the best of both trainer's teams.
  • The opening battle, Skyler vs Banshriek. Skyler has the type advantage, due to being immune to Banshriek's best moves thanks to being a Normal-type. but Shining has plenty of experience with that. Both trainers show impressive strategy, including Shining having Banshriek use a Ghost-type attack, knowing Skyler is immune to it, so that it will strike the pool under Skyler and catch him in the resulting wave, and later Flash tricking Shining into striking the pool with Dark Pulse so it would wash the dirt out of Skyler's eyes. Eventually, Flash pulls an epic Batman Gambit to win the battle. He has Skyler use Giga Impact on Banshriek, knowing that nobody outside of his traveling group of friends knows about Skyler's Scrappy ability, so nearly the whole stadium thinks he made a big mistake using an attack that normally doesn't work on Ghost-types. Even Shining is completly fooled, thinking Flash made a rookie mistake, only figuring out the trap once it becomes too late to dodge.
  • Shining's second Pokémon, Ankyload shows to be a Lightning Bruiser to everyone's surprise. It manages tank everything Springer and Astro throw at it and shows off its speed and agility by leaping into the air and nearly crushing Astro with a Belly Flop Crushing. Flash realizes the best way to beat it is to take out its legs so it loses its mobility and can't throw its weight around, then Viper surprises everyone by biting on to Ankyload's tail and flinging the dinosaur into the air and blasting it with Flamethower as it falls back. Ankyload might have lost without getting any official wins, but it did manage to inflict critical damage to half of Flash's team.
  • Shining's Lokelpie makes quick work of Viper, but Viper manages to poison it before that. Then Flash sends out Prongs, which Tidal Wave notes is a similar matchup to when Prongs battled his own Lokelpie. Lokelpie uses Ice Beam to freeze the battlefield, making it harder for Prongs to move and allowing it to battle outside of the pools. Eventually, the battle comes down to a Beam-O-War of Ice Beam against Energy Ball, resulting in a Double Knockout. Though it is noted that this is the first time that Shining has been the first one to lose three Pokémon first instead of the challenger, meaning Flash will be put in the record books regardless of the final outcome now.
  • Astro, despite already being injured, manages to take on Shining's Oaking, no-selling a Wood Hammer attack with his his star-gauntlets and managing to stay standing after being struck by a Solarbeam. Astro ultimately manages to slice through everything Oaking throws at him and takes him down.
  • For Shining's fifth Pokémon, he reveals he kept the Douburrow he caught in the Garnd Desert, and in the short time that he has owned it, it has already evolved into a Hydraworm. Its three heads manages to give Riptide a tough time, such as one holding him in place while the other two attack, or managing to trap him inside a Tri-Attack. During Riptide's Heroic Second Wind though, he uses his Rock Smash attack to strike all three heads, round housing the first, uppercutting the second with a kick, and then stomping both feet on the third to push the two apart. In their final clash he dodges a Dragon Pulse attack from Hydraworm and lets the force from the explosion catapult him forward and strike the area all three heads merge with a super effective Ice Punch, freezing the giant worm in second before it quickly breaks apart to reveal Hydraworm defeated.
  • Shining's final Pokémon is none other than his ace and partner Galladin, and it once again demosntrates why. He makes quick work of Riptide, Skyler, and Astro while seemingly taking little to no damage himself. It ultimately comes down to just Sprinegr for Flash, making it a clash of partners. Galladin's Armor Drop ability makes Galladin's speed and attack so high he seems unbeatable, and Springer, as well as Flash due to their bond, end up taking so much damage they both end up on their knees. But to the surprise of everyone, not only do the two of them get back up, Springer is envloped in a glowing light, and after it fades reveals a Lucario! Springer actually managed to evolve! Apparently, Flash and Springer bond became so powerful it overcame the Everstone energy Springer absorbed years ago, letting the two once again accomplish the impossible. After an epic battle between the two Fighting Steel-types, Springer once again surprises everyone with the return of an old signature move of his. He ends up above the stadium and forms a gigantic Aura Sphere, with it breaking apart into a thousand regualr Aura Spheres, marking the return of Aura Sphere Barrage! Galladin is quickly overwhelmed by the raining Aura Spheres, and uses up all his energy trying to defend himself and using Sacred Sword to get rid of the rest that were still falling, that he is left defenseless as Springger flies through the smokescreen and hits him with one more pointblank Aura Sphere! When the dust clears both Pokémon look battered and bruised, but after a moment of staring each other down Galladin collapses to the floor and is declared unable to battle! Thus, Flash Sentry is declared the new Champion of Equestria!

Pokémon the Movie: Rival and Darkness

• When we first see Flash and his friends here, they say they have been traveling for three weeks since they defeated Sombra and Team Shadow, and during that time Flash has battled many strong trainers and defeated them all. They end up running into a large group of people who all turn out to be fans of Flash and wanted to meet and battle him. What follows is a gigantic battle where Flash uses his entire team to battle the trainers, with even his friends getting ripped in, and by the end of it all they are the only ones left standing.
• Starlight and Sunburst demonstrate a secret project they are working on; The Poké-Arms System. It is a system that combines a human and Pokémon, in the form of granting the human a suit of armor based on the Pokémon of their choice that grants them all the abilities of the Pokémon. Even if they are still working out a few glitches in it, it is still awesome. They later say that this was inspired by an ancient form of Pokémon lost to time called Burst Evolution, the fusion of person and Pokémon, which was used to defeat Centirek in the past since he couldn't steal a Burst Pokémon's power. Timber laughs at his apparent good fortune and the two hated rivals battle once again.
• Twilight confronts Lightning Blitz on why he seems so much angrier at Flash than usual, and he says he doesn't understand why everyone is suddenly going "gaga" over Flash, considering him unworthy of such praise. He stubbornly believes that Flash couldn't beat Sombra on his own so he asked for help, a sign of weakness, and boasts he could have beaten Sombra all by himself, and believes Flash's 15 Minutes of Fame will come to an end once he beats him effortlessly in the League. Twilight just shoots down everyone of his arguments with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, similar to when Cadance spoke down to Lightning back at the Balance Battle Tournament.
  Lightning: I am better than that loser! He's a nobody, a weakling that had to ask for help! A true trainer would have stood their ground and beat Sombra and that giant monster he became.
  Twilight: (shaking her head at him) You know that's not true. That's why you didn't finish Sombra. All you care about is winning, and that's all you focus on. But Flash doesn't care about winning, and is willing to put other things he sees as more important ahead of what he wants. If he was given a choice between beating someone and helping them grow stronger, then he'll pick helping them. That's why people gravitate toward him. It's why Shining trusted him with ending Sombra.
  Lightning: Right... Keep telling yourself that. It'll mean nothing when the Equestria League comes around. I'll crush him again without trying and then your brother will be next. So tell your friend to enjoy his fifteen minutes of fame. Because when I'm done wiping him out, no one will ever remember his name again... well, except for the nobody that challenged and lost again to the strongest trainer that ever existed: Me.
  Twilight: Maybe. Or maybe he'll be remembered better than you ever will. After all, this isn't the first time he's saved the day. He's Flash Sentry, the boy chosen by Pegasoar who saved the Legendaries Eclixie and Sirenity from psychopaths that wanted to use their powers for themselves, and who led the charge against Team Shadow in the final battle. (turning her back on him) Honestly, Flash has done so much for the region that it doesn't even matter if you beat him in the Equestria League. He'll always be a real hero.
  Lightning: Him?! A real hero?!
  Twilight: Why not? Real heroes aren't always the ones who land the finishing blow or get the flashiest victories. They're the ones that put everything on the line so that the final blow can be landed. That's what it takes to really be a true hero.
• In order for Cozy Glow to get the last of the Infinity Energy she needs to revive Centirek, she ambushes Lightning Blitz after he has another victory in the tournament, zapping his last three Pokémon, Gorillamp, Androrg and Roglacier, with her energy gun to drain them of their power. True, it is bad since it brings her closer to her goal and putting everyone in danger, but Lightning totally deserved it.
• Cozy Glow succeeds in managing to revive Centirek, and immediately tries to capture him in the Master Ball she had. The Master Ball successfully pulls the Legendary Pokémon in, which normally would mean a guaranteed capture. But to everyone's shock, Centirek actually manages to break out of the Master Ball!
• Centirek goes on a rampage through Horizon City, destroying several buildings and draining helpless Pokémon of their energy to power itself up. Flash and his friends work with several other trainers in the city to fight back against the Legendary and slowly seem to push it back, but then Centirek slowly begins draining their Pokémon of energy too.
• Alicormony and Dischaos arrive to help stop Centirek like they did long ago. Though they work together and mange to deal some damage in a pretty cool Legendary vs Legendary fight, they are ultimately at a disadvantage due to still not fully recovered from the incident with Sombra, and eventually are drained by Centirek as well.
• Both Flash and Lightning manage to successfully use the Poké-Arms System, combining with Springer and Goriilamp respectively so they can fight Centirek together. The result is a huge battle on scale like something from Kamen Rider.
  • Flash and Lightning discover that while they are using the Poké-Arms System, they can communicate with Springer and Gorillamp, as well as other Pokémon too, even Centirek himself.
  • The two rivals fighting together to defeat the evil Legendary, with Lightning willingly creating the opening Flash needs to deliver the final blow.
  • Centirek doesn't go down without a fight though, even demonstrating that after synchronizing with the energy he stole, he can use all of the attacks that belong to the other Pokémon. This not only breaks the 4-moves limit of Pokémon, but it even makes Centirek stronger than his canon counterpart, since Tirek never showed this ability himself.
• After Centirek is defeated and all the energy he stole is returned, reducing him to his true weak form, Alicormony and Dischaos reseal him once again. Then before leaving Alicormony easily repairs the destroyed city in a matter of moments.

---