Fanfic / Infinity Train: Wake Me Up

Infinity Train: Wake Me Up is a Pokémon: The Series and Infinity Train crossover fanfiction set in the Infinity Train: Blossomverse written by Exotos135.

In this story, Professor Fennel is given a message from Professor Juniper about something having gone wrong in Vermillion City. She discovers Colress has devised a plan involving corrupted Dream Mist, and while the Cerise Institute team deals with it, she goes to the Infinity Train to help Chloe finish her own trip.

Alongside the main story, there are also side stories:

• Apex Martyrdom: A prequel of the main story that has Amelia discuss with One-One what to do with The Apex.
• Language of Flowers: A sidestory that has Professor Fennel and Chloe enter a flower-based car.
• Hopes and Dreams: A non-canon crossover with Seeker of Crocus, dealing with Professors Fennel and Sycamore meeting and interacting with one another.

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Wake Me Up has examples of:

• 10-Minute Retirement: Trip has one that lasts until a few chapters into the story, brought on by an incident regarding a Zangoose and a Seviper with his Serperior, and eventually ending thanks to Rosa's encouragement.
• Adaptation Amalgamation: The story combines elements from the anime (the presence of Ash, Chloe, Goh, and the Cerise Institute), the Black and White games (Professor Fennel being the main character and Dream Mist playing a role), and the manga Pokemon Adventures (Amanita's presence is more connected to that story, as well as several plot points being taken directly from it).
• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: A good deal of angst from the original trilogy is removed or changed in this story. Case in point:
  • The bullying that Chloe went through didn't happen, leaving her as a cheerful girl who's closer to her canon counterpart than the Blossomverse version.
  • Ash doesn't fall into his Guilt Complex phase, nor does he beat himself up for failing to befriend Chloe.
  • The Cerise team in general don't fall into their angsty phase regarding Chloe going missing. In particular, Parker is implied to not have been Chloe's confidant in this universe, meaning he's more stable than his Blossomverse self.
  • Because, so far, the only Train Passengers-current and former-are Professor Fennel, Chloe, and Lillie, this means most of the characters who had enough baggage to get on the Train never did.
• Adaptational Context Change:
  • The reason why Chloe got on the Train. In the Blossomverse, she got trainnapped after blowing up at everybody's faces and running away from home. In this story, she got trainnapped while walking back home, and the reason primarily deals with her not knowing what to do with her life.
  • Amanita giving away an Eevee. In the games, it's a trade done after the player enters the Hall of Fame. In this story, she gives one to Parker in order to diverge his attention from her and convince him to leave her alone.
  • Normally in the Blossomverse, The Apex not being able to remember what Cars they've raided and which Denizens were wheeled is used as proof to show their Lack of Empathy and justify why the they would be detested so much. In here, as revealed during the Campfire Car, The Apex went through so many Cars both for raids and resources that they eventually lost track of which Car they went to already. They also did these raids more often than not to gather resources, while they generally did it for fun in the original trilogy.
• Adaptation Deviation: The Cage of Flauros was a cult-like group of passengers and denizens based on the Fog Car whose objective was to use a ritual in order to destroy the Apex. In here, they're a group of Chloes from the Vermillion Citadel under the command of Lady Destiny.
• Adaptation Distillation: Certain bits and pieces about the story are either simplified or Adapted Out in order to make a slighty more cohesive narrative. Of particular notice is Chloe's backstory; in the original Blossomverse trilogy, her friendship with Goh grew strained, suffered intense bullying at school, felt trapped in her own house, felt envious of Ash and Goh's emerging friendship, and had a fateful talk with a new schoolgirl that lead to her blowing up at home and running away, causing her to get snatched by the Train. This is simplified here to only have the talk cause her to question what she wants to do with her life and be snatched shortly after, with the feelings of being trapped in her home and bullying removed.
• Adaptation Expansion: The story includes elements from both the Black and White games and the Adventures manga, while the original trilogy was mostly focused on the anime, and Unova plays a much bigger role here.
  • On the Infinity Train side of things, Corginia is revealed to have a Scout-Out-like organization known as the Corginia Cuddle Cadets, meant to help young Corginians become better at Fuzz Therapy.
• Adaptational Explanation:
  • The Blossomverse trilogy's reason for why Amelia didn't get rid of The Apex before the events of Book 3 was that she was keeping them around to act as scapegoats so she could point fingers at them and claim the moral high ground. In Apex Martyrdom, One-One advises Amelia against it because, since The Apex could be representative of the non-powered Passengers of the Train who are lost as to what to do, getting rid of them could give these Passengers further reason to grow paranoid and potentially create a new Apex.
  • The reason why Chloe got on the Train in the original trilogy was because she broke down after a particularly bad day and argument with Goh, causing her to run away. In here, the reason's changed to her Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life after a talk with her mother.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication: While walking with Professor Fennel to meet with Baku, Chloe mentions her "Specter of the Black Forest" OC from the original story. However, since the original OC was inspired by Yu-Gi-Oh characters, who are Adapted Out from this verse, it's left unclear where the OC came from.
• Adaptational Late Appearance: A location example. In the Blossomverse, Corginia was one of the first cars visited by Chloe. In this story, it's encountered a few chapters down the line.
• Adaptational Location Change: In the Blossomverse, Chloe's first location upon arriving at the Train was the kingdom of Corginia. Here, she only reaches that location a few chapters down the line, and the first car she's seen is a Snow White-themed one. This actually becomes important later on, as The Vermillion Citadel operated under the idea this Chloe had the same start in Corginia as the rest of them, throwing them for a loop.
• Adaptational Mundanity: While the Train is about as fantastical as always, Chloe's role gets hit by this. In Blossoming Trail, she's appointed by One-One as The Chosen One of the Infinity Train, a girl of incredible strength who will bring an end to the reign of The Apex once and for all. Wake Me Up has Chloe instead be just like any other passenger, with her main goal being to work out her issues to go home. Not that the Vermillion Citadel intends to keep it that way...
• Adapted Out: A lot of things from the Blossomverse aren't present here. To be more specific:
  • As revealed in one of the author's notes, Elipzo doesn't exist in this story's verse.
  • The bullying that Chloe suffered is completely removed, leaving her and the Class 5-E students in a better place.
  • Due to the above being removed, Chloe and Ash don't have their climactic battle that would serve as the former's breaking point.
  • Professor Hale, while implied to exist, isn't the one to send the Unown box, nor are the Unown themselves even featured. As a result, the Unown incident never happens and Goh doesn't go through his nightmare therapy, and Vermillion City doesn't end up in shambles.
  • Because the Unown incident never happens, this means that the orchestrators of it, UnChloe and Zeno, never get created.
  • The Red Lotus Trio also don't get formed by the start of the story, as Chloe is alone and not accompanied by Atticus and Lexi.
  • Likewise, the White Gestalt is taken out, since Lillie is the one to enter the Train, rather than Gladion.
  • As another author note reveals, Yu-Gi-Oh characters are not going to appear in this story. This means Specter, who up to this point has been in most stories in some way shape or form, is missing, though his expy "Specter of the Black Forest" still exists for some reason.
• All Girls Like Ponies: Chloe most definitely does, given her high excitement for the Horsegirl Race Car.
• Alliterative Name: The "Corginia Cuddle Cadets", Corginia's counterpart to scout girls.
• All Just a Dream: The events of Blossoming Trail, and to an extent all of the Blossomverse, are turned into one big, horrible nightmare that is experienced by the Cerise Institute team. They eventually end up getting out of there thanks to Professor Fennel's interference.
• Alliance of Alternates: The Vermillion Citadel, which so far appears to be solely composed of alternate versions of Chloe Cerise, all with the main goal of having this story's Chloe Cerise become a hero.
• All the Other Reindeer: The Apex. I mean, are you that surprised? After the crap they pulled and one of their leaders sleeping with the fishes, nearly all the denizens slam the doors on their faces after the mayhem they did. Can't blame them though. When a group of lunatic kids with weapons raid your home and they become defunct, forgiving them isn't the first thing that comes to mind.
• All There in the Manual: Chapters begin with a little list of divergences to specify how different this story is compared to the Blossomverse as a whole.
• Alternate Universe Fic: There are several changes done to this fic's verses to separate from its inspiration, the Blossomverse. Among the notable changes:
  • Most of the characters who got on the Train didn't in this story, with Professor Fennel, Chloe, and Lillie being so far the only confirmed Passengers.
  • The events of Knight of the Orange Lily happened differently, as it is Lillie who got on the Train rather than Gladion.
• Anti-Climax: Weaponized in Akemi's dream; after helping their daughter feel better about herself and joining the Cerise Institute team against Cubeon, it seems like Renji, Chryssa, and Akemi and the others are about to face off against the final boss of the Puella Magi Danika Magica, Schadenfraude... only for the bad guy to never appear because Akemi didn't watch the end of the show. This allows the family to wipe out Cubeon once and for all, ending the trip to Akemi's dreamscape.
• Animate Inanimate Object: As is common on the Infinity Train, there are several Denizens who are sentient forms of non-living creatures. Of particular note is Titus; who goes from a humanoid figure to a giant book with a human face.
• Ascended Extra: Alongside being a Canon Foreigner, Professor Fennel was nowhere to be found in the Blossomverse, but is the main character here. To a lesser extent, Amanita, her younger sister, is also playing a significant role here.
• Badass Boast: Chapter 5. Ash gives one to Cubeon when he doesn't let any insecurities take over him.
  Ash: "Why are they all talking about Chloe?" I mean, I get her parents, and maybe Goh, but she's not the center of the world!"
  Cubeon: "Typical words of an outsider. If only you weren't so callously insensitive to a poor girl's problems, maybe you wouldn't be such a bad person. I mean, to meet a little girl like Chloe and not even try to befriend her?"
  Ash: "Let me make something clear to you. Yes, I'm an outsider. Yes, I barely even know what happened before I got her. And yes, Chloe and I didn't exactly become friends before she disappeared. But I traveled across entire Regions. Fought dozens if not hundreds of Gyms and earning their badges. I fought in many tournaments and came close to victory, sometimes inches away from winning it outright, only to fail. This happened to me multiple times: Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos. And only recently did I manage to become the Alola League Champion. My first league victory in what feels like years. And you think I'm going to throw it all away, fall into despair, shatter and become a shell of my former self, only because I didn't befriend one person?"
  Cubeon tilted their head as Ash finished:
  Ash: "I'm not some random chump who's going to take the word of someone else like the gospel. I'm Ash Ketchum! And one day, I will become a Pokemon Master!"
  Pikachu: "Pikachu!"
• Baku: A Denizen that's based on this creature is met by Professor Fennel and Chloe during the early chapters, and even becomes their first Denizen partner.
• Banishing Ritual: One happens, sort of, during the climax of the Horsegirl Race Car. With the living nightmares summoned by Night Mare not dissipating after she's turned back into Angie, Chloe takes the Fear Miraculous and, with help from Screech, uses a ritual to banish all of the remaining nightmares back into the Miraculous.
• Behind Every Great Man: As we find out during the Horsegirl Race Car, a younger Professor Fennel took pity on a younger Colress, who was on his breaking point regarding his research to have Pokemon reach their full power. Believing telling the man to "follow his dreams" wouldn't be enough, the younger woman offered to help him, and the man eventually accepted.
• Being Personal Isn't Professional: When Ash remarks that he never thought that Renji and Chryssa were married because they don't act like it at the institute, Renji answers that of course they wouldn't, because they're working at the moment.
• Big Damn Reunion: After spending a long time apart before the story started, Trip and his Serperior finally reunite when the former finally gets the latter out of his Poke Ball as the first step taken to go back into being a Trainer.
• Big Damn Heroes: Just before Chloe and Bakku are mauled by a nightmare dog demon, Haru Urara jumps ight in and dive kicks it out of the way.
• Bittersweet Ending: The introduction arc, which is what the story refers to chapters 1 to 17, ends this way. Professor Fennel and Chloe manage to repel the nightmare attacks and gain a new ally in Haru Urara, before Grand Master Nooroo teams them up with the remnants of the Apex in order to better their chances at getting out. However, their numbers are still not close to being zero, and they're now aware of the Vermillion Citadel and their machinations, meaning their trip is going to be much more problematic moving forward. Not only that, but Amelia joins forces with Lady Destiny in order to take out The Apex and her own team in one fell swoop, meaning they'll now have to deal with the Vermillion Citadel and former Conductor as well. And in the Pokemon World, people are recovering from the Nightmare Mist incident and Colress is still under arrest, but Team Plasma are still on the loose.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: As soon as Chloe wakes up, she claims to have been through a mediocre nightmare that perfectly summarizes Infinity Train: Boiling Point, another story by the same author.
• The Big Race: The basic plot of the Horsegirl Race Car involves one of these being the main challenge to allow passengers to leave the car. It's talked about a few times after Chloe and Fennel arrive in the car, before it finally takes place in chapter 16: Despite doing her best effort, Chloe throws away her chance to get first place to instead help Haru stand back up, as her leg gives up due to all the kicking she did during the nightmare attack, and cross the finish line alongside her.
• Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: As shown in the second chapter of the Horsegirl Race Car, the horsegirls themselves basically look like human girls with horse ears and tails. The Horse Police, and presumably horseguys, instead look like multicolored humanoid with horse heads.
• Breaking Old Trends:
  • Most Blossomverse stories tend to take place in a universe where the events of Blossoming Trail are either happening or have happened. Wake Me Up instead has the events of that story reworked into a nightmare shared by the Cerise Institute after Colress' attack.
  • Likewise, most Blossomverse stories that focus on Chloe tend to have her form the Red Lotus Trio with Atticus and Lexi, at least by the time the Unown incident happens. In here, the Red Lotus Trio is Adapted Out: Lexi's nowhere to be found, and Chloe's cinophobia means she can only see Atticus as a friendly face, with the canine monarch staying behind at Corginia.
  • Unova, as a Region, is given the least amount of attention in most Blossomverse stories, typically having only Trip show up and that's it. In here, Unova plays a much bigger role, given several main characters and even the regional team come from there.
  • Most Blossomverse stories will, one way or another, feature Yu-Gi-Oh characters. An author's note reveals that such characters are Adapted Out here.
  • Adults Are Useless is a very consistent trope in the Blossomverse, with even stories like Seeker of Crocus who try to show not all adults fit this trope, eventually falling back into it as part of an overall message. In here, while the adults aren't infallible, they get things done much more than in the original trilogy, or are given something to do instead.
  • The Unown Incident, when it does happen, is typically a very damaging event for all of Vermillion City. In here, the incident never happens because there are no Unown; the box they're supposedly held in is actually a trap devised by Colress.
  • No matter the story, Chloe is generally a Living Legend on the train, with the denizens and passengers knowing her as "Chloe of the Vermillion". In here, Chloe's a relative nobody, and in fact doesn't want to become a hero or celebrity and just wants to go home. This gets Played for Drama once the Vermillion Citadel shows up, as they want Chloe to become a hero, and are willing to go to some unsavory lengths to get this goal accomplished.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Justified. While walking down the Campfire Car, The Apx remnants explain to the Dreamwalkers that they've raided many Cars while they were still active in order to get resources and wheel a Denizen or two along the way, eventually doing it so much they lost count of which Cars they had visited and which they hadn't.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: Just like in canon, Kwamizen, as in Denizens turned into Kwami-like beings, can fuse with their passenger partners in order to turn into a superhero for a brief moment, and viceversa to call off the transformation. For example, Bakku can fuse with a passenger like Professor Fennel or Chloe by shouting "Bakku, Good Morning!" and "Good Night!" to deactivate.
• Crossover: Hopes and Dreams serves as one with Seeker of Crocus.
• Canon Foreigner: Professor Fennel, Amanita, and Colress were nowhere to be found in the original Blossomverse trilogy. It's especially notable with Amanita, who's more usually associated with a Pokemon manga than her sister and Colress, who were both featured in the games.
• Chirping Crickets: These are heard right after Chloe's attempt to make her lack of hopes and dreams for Baku to eat sound dramatic fails.
• Childish Pillow Fight: Moments after Amanita expresses worry that Parker is spending the night at Jinny's place, it cuts to the two of them having a pillow fight, with even Parker's Eevee and Jinny's Milotic joining in the fun.
• Cherry Blossoms: The Cherry Blossom Inn Car is a massive car with an inn that is surrounded by these petals, some of which hit Professor Fennel's team so they notice the building. These are also found floating around in Akemi's dreamscape, surrounding the Old School Building in the distance.
• Cliffhanger: The introduction arc ends with the Dreamwalkers and Apex remnants joining forces before Amelia joins forces with Lady Destiny in order to take them down once and for all.
• Denser and Wackier: The story is much more comedic than most works set into the Blossomverse, having more wackiness on the train and the characters not taking many things seriously, and even having a minor Breaking the Fourth Wall moment during the prologue for arc 2.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Well, not desperately, but this is the reason why Chloe got taken by the Train; the talk with her mother left her confused and lost as to what she wanted to do when she got older, which left her vulnerable to be taken by the Train. Once revealed this, Chloe decides to Try Everything the Train has to offer in order to figure out what to do and go back home.
• Diplomatic Impunity: How Titus compares Amelia's arrival at Azada; despite Sacred Hospitality being a thing in there, Amelia can just disregard it due to being the former Conductor, as well as the true Conductor's current helper.
• Dramedy: While the story still treats the drama seriously and the characters has genuine issues like Fennel being an Unwitting Pawn for Colress, the story replaces the Blame Game with over-the-top comedic moments, with not even Amanita, the most serious character, being safe from this.
• Dream Land: The story features locations known as "Dreamscapes", where the dreams of a specific character take place, and need to be visited by the heroes in order to help the dreamer break free.
• Dream People: Dreamscapes are populated by these; they consist of the "Avatar", which is what the dreamer themselves look like within the dream, and the rest are a nameless type that serve whatever purpose the dream is about.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first few chapters included author notes at the start of each other, detailing what divergences the story had compared to the rest of the Blossomverse. While the author notes remained to an extent, the list of divergences was eventually scrapped out for future chapters.
• Evasive Fight-Thread Episode:
  • In order to help Trip break out of his funk and help his Serperior regains his skills, Rosa challenges him to a Pokemon battle with her Serperior. However, we don't get to see the fight.
  • To get the right to own the Dream Miraculous, Grand Master Nooroo has Professor Fennel wield it and use it against an akumatized Chloe. However, while we get to see how the fight starts, Grand Master Nooroo stops it halfway through before a winner is decided.
• Electricity Knocks You Out: Inverted. When Professor Fennel finds the Cerise Institute team in shared nightmare, she has Musharna use Thunder Wave and send a lightning bolt at them, waking them up.
• Enemy Mine: Chloe joins forces with Screech, who at that point is still identified as an enemy, to use a Banishing Ritual in order to send all the nightmares remaining from Night Mare's creation back into the Fear Miraculous.
• Face Your Fears:
  • While visiting Corginia, Professor Fennel and Atticus have Chloe try to undergo Fuzz Therapy using one of the Corginia Cuddle Cadets, and Chloe does manage to at least spend a few seconds in their presence, but she quickly jumps to Professor Fennel's arms when the puppy startles her.
  • Later, during the Horsegirl Race Car saga, Night Mare summons a giant, demonic dog nightmare with the express purpose of having Chloe/Twilight Sleepover face it and develop the courage to become a hero. This one isn't as successful, partially because of there being proper danger this time, so Chloe instead opts to run.
• Fear Is the Appropriate Response: When Night Mare summons a dog demon nightmare to try get Chloe/Twilight Sleepover to defeat it and begin her journey into heroism, Chloe is instead terrified out of her mind and, upon Insomniac Flock failing to beat the monster, opts to run away instead.
• For Want Of A Nail: In this case, the nail is that instead of the real Professor Hale paying the Cerise Institute a visit, it's a disguised Colress whose Unown box is actually a box containing corrupted Dream Mist to begin his plan. From there, Professor Fennel gets involved, and the plot goes Off the Rails from there.
• Fusion Dance: The story features Kwamizens, the train's offshot of Kwamis, who serve much the same purpose: they inhabit a Miraculous, and through a certain phrase, their Passenger gets to merge with them into a superhero.
  • For a non-Kwamizen related example, Angie/Night Mare ends up merging a dog nightmare demon and an injured Galarian Ponyta into a two-headed, centaur-ish monstrosity.
• Fuzz Therapy: Attempted, at least; while staying in Corginia, Chloe. with some prodding and support of Professor Fennel and Atticus, tries to do this with a Corginia Cuddle Cadet in order to help get over her fear of dogs. She does fine until the cadet suddenly licks her, causing her to leap into Professor Fennel's arms.
• Gang of Bullies: Jinny mentions being harassed by one of these in her dreams after the Nightmare Mist happens, and sure enough, Amanita and Parker end up encountering them once they visit the dreamscape.
• Gilligan Cut: Before going to interrogate Colress, Amanita shows sadness over learning that Parker is staying at Jinny's place for the night, even worry of how the girl is going to deal with him. Cut to the two at the house, having a pillow fight.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Amanita suggests Ash and she play this role in order to interrogate Colress, with Ash being the former and she the latter. It works, mostly because Colress fails to see the need to lie, though not without annoying Amanita for a moment.
• Happy Ending Override: The story does this to Hazel's plotline in Book 3. In there, she eventually decided to leave Grace's side, believing that she would be better off with an adult who wasn't out to kill her, like Amelia. As this story eventually shows, just because Amelia doesn't want to kill her doesn't mean she'll treat her well, either, leaving Hazel acting like a Beleaguered Assistant to her.
• Hard Truth Aesop: Be careful about motivating and/or helping someone since the person can have bad intentions. Fennel always motivated everyone to follow their dreams but the last person she motivated and helped was none other than Colress, resulting in him using the corrupted Dream Mist in Vermillion City for the sake of experimentation, this resulted in the woman ending up on the train after realizing that she was an Unwitting Pawn for Colress.
• The Heartless: Night Mare has the ability to bring a person's nightmares to life using one of her powers, which she eventually uses during the climax of the Horsegirl Race Car.
• Hellhound: Upon using one of her powers on Chloe/Twilight Sleepover, Angie/Night Mare creates a demonic dog from Chloe's fear of dogs to use as her drive to become a hero.
• Hybrid Monster: During the Horsegirl Race Car, in a moment of desperation, Angie/Night Mare merges an injured Galarian Ponyta with one of the dog demon nightmares she created into a two-headed, centauroid beast in order to take down Fast Traveler and force Chloe to become a hero.
• Icarus Allusion: One of the members of the Vermillion Citadel is known as The Icarus, who also serves as an overseer of sorts to Angie. When she appears sometime later, she turns out to be a Winged Humanoid version of Chloe.
• Indy Escape: Professor Fennel's team pull one in the car before they reach the Horsegirl Race Car, managing to narrowly outrun a boulder before slamming the door shut, with the crash of it into the door sending them flying forward.
• Is That Cute Kid Yours?: While registering to stay a night at the Cherry Blossom Inn Car, the counter lady initially mistakes Professor Fennel for Chloe's mother. The woman's quick to clarify, but the counter lady's implied to not buy it fully.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: The Cerise Institute team do this with Akemi Tsutsuji's mind, using a machine she created designed to allow this, in order to help her wake up from her nightmare.
• Kinder and Cleaner: While nobody swore 24/7 in the original trilogy, there were still several moments of people cursing out their enemies or slandering them, up to and including using actual swear words. Wake Me Up, for the most part, throws away most of the hostility and swearing is rarely used.
• Little Bit Beastly: The horsegirls of the Horsegirl Race Car look mostly human, but have horse ears and tails as well.
• Lighter and Softer: A good deal of angst and drama from the Blossomverse is removed here, making Wake Me Up come across as a calmer story compared to its original inspiration.
• Living Dream: One of the powers bestowed by the Dream Miraculous, Dreamcatcher, creates these by striking someone: Professor Fennel/Dreamland Shepherd uses it against Lady Sindooram, creating a Rapidash, while Chloe/Twilight Sleepover uses it on herself to create a winged Rapidash to break her fall after her cloud is destroyed.
• Magical Girl Genre Deconstruction: Akemi's dream, and Puella Magi Danika Magica as a whole, appear to be this by mixing it with the Superhero Paradox: Cubeon creates magical girls to fight Insecurities, but those same monsters come from the magical girls he creates, meaning that as long as he creates insecure little girls into warriors, there will always be Insecurities.
• Magical Girl Warrior: The Cerise Institute team turn into these in order to fight against Cubeon and Akemi's nightmare. This eventually leads to the trio of Renji, Chryssa, and Akemi themselves becoming this to beat Cubeon once and for all.
• Misery Builds Character: Hopes and Dreams defies this notion; while talking with Professor Sycamore regarding the trope itself, Professor Fennel argues that not only is misery not that effective, but that doing so can be detrimental if overdone. Rather, it's overcoming obstacles that builds character, with misery serving only to destroy it.
• Moby Schtick: The Apex once entered a car based on the tale of Moby Dick, with the whale themselves causing the harpoon incident that would result in Lucy losing an eye, and would also make Alex bow revenge for it.
• Mysterious Mist: As Professor Fennel and Chloe do the chanting to summon Baku, the cave and forest around them starts being surrounded by mist, signaling Baku's incoming arrival... before the mist itself turns into Baku.
• Mysterious Teacher's Lounge: While recounting how her first day at school went to her husband, one of the things Talia mentions is how she finally got to see the inside of a teacher's lounge, bringing up this trope as a reason as to why she was excited to see it. What she found inside, however, was disappointing.
• Never Shall The Selves Meet: Averted during the Horsegirl Race Car, where Lady Destiny makes a Big Entrance after the living nightmares are neutralized in order to meet with Chloe and offer her to join the Vermillion Citadel.
• Non-Human Head: The receptionist at the Cherry Blossom Inn Car is said to have a dog's head, which dog-fearing Chloe finds a little unsettling. Next chapter also implies the rest of the staff at the inn are the same, as Chloe mentions having been turned into a temporary maid by a cat-headed staff member.
• Noodle Incident:
  • One of the cars that The Apex went through was one based on Moby Dick, which also lead to the incident that made Lucy lose her eye.
  • On a more serious note, Trip and his Serperior got involved in some sort of Zangoose-Seviper feud, only for things to quickly spiral and for Serperior to be badly damaged. The incident was so bad that Trip took a 10-Minute Retirement from pokemon training.
• No Ontological Inertia:
  • When Cubeon gets defeated during the trip to Akemi's dreamscape, all the Insecurities created by them cease to exist as well, putting an end to the girl's nightmare once and for all.
  • Averted during the Horsegirl Race Car. All the living nightmares created by Night Mare remain existing even after she gets turned back into Angie, forcing Chloe to use the Fear Miraculous in order to deal with them.
• "No Peeking!" Request: While speaking with Bakku at the Campfire Car regarding her current number, Professor Fennel decides to check it, and tells the Kwamizen this exact phrase, with Bakku going along and even covering their eyes to make sure.
• Old School Building: Akemi's dreamscape takes place in one of these.
• Orphaned Punchline: While Professor Fennel and Chloe are heading to meet with Baku, the latter tells the former a story about how her classmates chided her for her "Specter of the Dark Forest OC" being in every story, but only the latter half is heard.
• "Open!" Says Me: While dashing to check where the first nightmare is taking place at, Renji and Chryssa kick the door to their house open to check on their daughter.
• Our Centaurs Are Different: During the climax of the Horsegirl Race Car, Angie/Night Mare merges an injured Galarian Ponyta with one of her dog demons in a desperate bid to defeat Fast Traveler and Chloe. The end result is a Hybrid Monster with the dog demon's lower half, but a humanoid upper half, with the Galarian Ponyta and dog demon's heads side by side.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: The Morphic Resonance in Jinny's dreamscape turns those who enter it into merpeople. In this case, they become half-human, half-fish-type Pokemon: Amanita becomes a Sharpedo mermaid, Parker turns into a Luvdisc mermaid, and Jinny is a Feebas mermaid until she gains a Prism Scale, allowing her to evolve into a Milotic mermaid.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: The climax of the Horsegirl Race Car has Angie snatch a Cloak of Marchosias and use it to turn into a fire breathing werewolf like in Seeker of Crocus. She becomes an example of Amazing Technicolor Wildlife, becoming a turquoise werewolf.
• Pets as a Present: Just like in the games, Amanita decides to gift someone an Eevee she happened to have on a Poke Ball with her. The difference is that she gifts to Parker and not the protagonists of the Black and White games, and she's doing it less as a reward and more as a way to get him to leave her alone.
• Pillar of Light: One of these appear during the climax of the Horsegirl Race Car, where Chloe uses the power of the Fear Miraculous in order to call back all the living nightmares that were summoned by Night Mare prior.
• Playing with Fire: Donning the Cloak of Marchosias allegedly gives one pyrokinetic abilities. Angie eventually proves this to be correct at the climax of the Horsegirl Race Car, where she snatches the cloak and uses it to become a fire breathing werewolf against Fast Traveler.
• Puppy Love: One-sided variant. Parker falls head over heels for Amanita when he first sees her, but Amanita herself has no interest in returning his affections.
• The Quest: When they learn about what happened at the Dream Forest Car, Professor Fennel and Chloe decide to look for the one responsible of the nightmares and put a stop to them. They eventually find the one responsible in Angie, aka Night Mare, during the Horsegirl Race Car.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: During "Alliances", after Lady Destiny offered an alliance with Amelia to destroy the Apex, Hazel snaps and calls her out on how her quest against the Apex is pointless. Unfortunately, this results in her being electrocuted by her.
  Amelia: I’m aware that this sounds suspicious, But the more I think about it, the more it seems like our best shot at getting rid of the Apex once and for all-
  Hazel: Are you kidding me!? First you cry and whine about your dead husband for thirty years while the train’s in chaos, then you decide to sit back and watch as a group you created causes ruckus for nearly a decade, and now you’re so desperate to get rid of them you’re gonna join forces with a fishy floating redhead to do it!?
  Amelia: Experiment, that’s enough.
  Hazel: What is it gonna take for you to understand that this chase is completely pointless!? Most of the Apex has already dispersed, if not left the train already! Those five members you see there are all that’s left! And they’re not even a threat! They don’t have weapons, they don’t have plans or schemes, they’re just ordinary passengers who are trying to get their numbers down to go home!
  Amelia: Lower your voice, child!
  Hazel: And for what?! What are you even going to gain from getting rid of what remains of the Apex, huh!? You think that just because you get rid of one of your mistakes that you’ll get to go home!? Open your eyes, Amelia! The world you once knew is long gone!
  Amelia: Do not go there, experiment.
  Hazel: It’s been thirty years, Amelia, you really think anybody from your time is still around? That your friends and family haven’t accepted the fact you’re pretty much gone?! To anyone who could’ve cared back then, you’re pretty much dead! Even if you get out of this train, they’d only see a ghost of a person they once knew! Not that that’s ever gonna happen, because guess what?!
  Amelia: What?!
  Hazel: Your number’s so big that you’re gonna die on the Infinity Train! You could spend the rest of your life trying to get it down to zero and it would never happen! Even if you get rid of the Apex, the Train has already decided your fate: you’re gonna be stuck here for whatever remains of your miserable little life, and all because you chose to be a pathetic excuse for a conductor for THIRTY DAMN YEARS!
• Real Dreams are Weirder: Amanita brings up this trope right after using Shadow Ball against the Gang of Bullies that have been harassing Jinny, something that Parker brings into question. Parker throws this right back at her after he one-ups her by using a Fire type move in the middle of the ocean.
• Role Swap AU: Not in the main story, but according to the author's notes, the events of Orange Lily have Lillie taking over Gladion's role.
• Rubber Face: Professor Fennel does this to Chloe after the latter proudly boasts equine knowledge the former seemingly lacks.
• Rule of Seven:
  • Discussed by N, who brings up the Seven Sages as an example of this trope, and how they're technically incorrect now since one of said sages, Ghetsis, kicked the bucket in his sleep.
  • Later at Jinny's dreamscape, the final obstacle before dealing with Jinny's nightmare are the Seven Wise Fishermen, a group of seven fishermen who have a Prism Scale, the very object needed for Jinny's evolution.
• Sailor Fuku: Being transported into Akemi's dreamscape causes the Cerise Institute team to get dressed in these. They change for more magical girl-themed clothing when they make contracts with Cubeon.
• Sacred Hospitality: This applies in the library of Azada, which proves useful for Grace and the remnants of the Apex when they stumble upon him while looking for a place to stay at. Of course, this hospitality only goes so far, and somebody with higher authority like The Conductor or Amelia can waltz around and pay it no mind.
• Scout-Out: A dog equivalent; According to Atticus, Corginia has something called the "Corginia Cuddle Cadets", which is an organization similar to girl scouts that helps young Corginians train to become better at giving Fuzz Therapy to Passengers.
• Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: Inverted with the Train's Miraculous. Those who transform into superheroes with them have their clothes transform alongside them.
• Sleep Cute: During their stay at the Cherry Blossom Inn Car, Professor Fennel and Chloe decide to sleep together; partially because the former's more used to sleeping with someone by her side, and partially because There Is Only One Bed. Bakku technically joins them, but he's inside the Dream Miraculous the entire time.
• Slumber Party: Parker and Jinny have one of these, Childish Pillow Fight included, during the night where Amanita and Ash interrogate Colress. Likewise, Chloe's ideas for her superhero name are almost all based on this idea, with the final name being picked as Twilight Sleepover.
• Sounding It Out: Chryssa finds a note next to the helmets that would help the team enter Akemi's dreamscape, and decides to read them out loud so the team knows what they're doing there and how to use them.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Because the Unown aren't featured here, and Parker is not in the emotionally unstable state he was before, he never gets to wield them in a fit of rage, which never leads to the Unown incident, and thus neither Goh nor Vermillion City ends up suffering their original fates.
  • Likewise, Chloe ends up being spared from the brutal bullying she suffered at school, as her relationship with her classmates is nowhere near as bad here as in the original trilogy.
• Speak of the Devil: Just like the myth they're based on, Baku gets summoned by Professor Fennel and Chloe by saying "Baku-san, come eat my dream" three times in a row.
• Spiritual Antithesis: Could be considered one to Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus. Outside of the obvious fact that one story's about dreams and the other is about hope:
  • The main divergence point differs: Professor Sycamore enters the Train in what would be Act 1, and his main goal is to find Alain before he meets Chloe. Professor Fennel enters the Train in what would be before Act 1, and getting her number down and getting Chloe out becomes her main objective.
  • Professor Sycamore suffers a Break the Scientist moment when he first arrives on the Train. Professor Fennel, so far, doesn't seem to question anything about the Train and just goes along with the flow.
  • Professor Sycamore takes a while to meet with Chloe and her group at the Ninjala Car, while Professor Fennel meets Chloe as soon as she enters the Train.
  • The Chloes are pretty much opposites. Crocus!Chloe is a different inspection of the Blossomverse!Chloe, meaning the love of demons, writing, and pipe power are present. Wake!Chloe, meanwhile, is a Truer to the Text version of Chloe, being based on the Chloe from canon, so none of the traits shown by Crocus!Chloe or Blossomverse!Chloe are present.
  • In Crocus, the Red Lotus Trio had become an established name by the time Professor Sycamore entered the Train. Here, the group doesn't exist at all, as Professor Fennel first meets Chloe on her lonesome.
  • The Unown situation is different between stories. In Crocus, it's the same as the original trilogy, except that Sara is the user and not Parker. Here, the incident never gets to happen because the one who would cause it to happen, Professor Hale, is in fact a disguised Colress, who has entirely different plans in mind.
  • Crocus takes place in a universe where the events of Blossoming Trail, or at least parallels to them, are happening. In Wake Me Up, those events turn out to be a bad dream the Cerise Institute is suffering from.
• Shared Dream: Professor Fennel finds the Cerise Institute team trapped in one of these, courtesy of Colress.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: Jinny's dreamscape is underwater, but neither Amanita nor Parker show any issues breathing there when they pay a visit. This is justified, however, since not only is it a dream, but they both transform into mermaids in the process of entering the dreamscape.
• Superhero Paradox: Akemi's dreamscape, and by extension the Puella Magi Danika Magica story it is based on, seems to operate on this: Cubeon creates Magical Girls to fight against Insecurities... Which get created every time a Magical Girl is made, based on their own insecurities. And the number isn't fixed either; while the Cerise Team only makes a few Insecurities, and Ash makes none, Akemi herself is so insecure she creates enough Insecurities to take over the school on her dream.
  • This is actually the crux of the Vermillion Citadel’s motives; for whatever reason, they are very insistent on how important it is that Chloe become a hero, so they’re willing to torment various Cars simply to give her threats to overcome to build her reputation.
• Superheroes Wear Capes: One of the items the main trio holds is the Dream Miraculous, a Miraculous inhabitted by Bakku that when worn by Professor Fennel or Chloe allows her to transform into an Exhaustion-themed superhero. The catch? The cape is the charged/transformed version, its normal/uncharged version is a blanket.
• Talking Animal: Some of the Denizens in the story are this; from canonical ones like Atticus to original ones like Apedemak, the king of the Dream Forest Car.
• Talking in Your Sleep: When Professor Fennel first arrives at the Cerise Institute, she finds the team (Professor Cerise, Talia, Ash, Goh, and Renji at least) mumbling something in their sleep, which reveals how they're all sharing the same nightmare. This seems to be a common thing among those inflicted with Nightmare Mist, as Akemi also talks in her sleep while her mother tries to wake her up.
• Take That!:
  • Chryssa pretty much mocks Puella Magi Danika Magica from the stupid outfits to the over-the-top violence, a common complaint about the Magical Girl Genre Deconstruction.
  • Chloe's remark about her mistake regarding making her "Specter of the Dark Forest" OC the hero of her story, and how she tends to put him in every story she writes, is a thinly-vailed one regarding how often Specter tends to appear in Blossomverse stories and be portrayed as a hero.
  • During the prologue to the second arc, while talking about Sara, Akemi tries to make an argument that someone with that reputation must've earned it and that there's no way people would slander her without reason, causing Goh to look at the side. This Is a jab at how Goh was often called out by other characters regarding his role in his and Chloe's strained friendship, without either hearing his side of the story or assuming there was more to it than what they were told.
• Theory Tunnel Vision: There’s something of a running theme of characters coming to a conclusion about how other people are or “should be,” and treating them accordingly no matter the evidence.
  • Amanita was not impressed when Parker began flirting with her shortly after they met. She promptly handed him an Eevee as a blatant bribe to go away and doesn’t bother hiding her disdain going forward. At one point, she expresses sincere sympathy for Jinny when she learns that the other girl was having a sleepover with Parker. In actuality, Parker is a perfectly friendly five-year-old and hasn’t been shown flirting with anyone except Amantina.
  • Blake and Whitley actually have something of a mutual example going. Blake is absolutely determined to arrest Whitley based on her past as a Team Plasma member, with no regard for what she’s done to try to atone in the intervening years. In the process, he makes himself look like such a jerk that Whitley holds him in contempt, and Trip chose to interfere with his ambush five minutes after meeting Blake, without considering that the Interpol agent might have decent reasons to arrest Whitley.
  • Eventually, this becomes a major plot point: the Vermillion Citadel’s motive is born out of the belief that Chloe Cerise must be one of the Train’s greatest heroes. Being composed of “Chloes” from across the multiverse, they (ironically enough) have a checklist of traits that they believe “Chloe of the Vermillion” must possess. They are willing to resort to kidnapping, blackmail, and tormenting innocent people just to push Chloe into becoming a famed hero- only for most of their plans to fail because this Chloe is a lot closer to her anime incarnation. She is not a Nightmare Fetishist, being Properly Paranoid at someone handing her a “demonic artifact,” is actually afraid of dogs, and hence never traveled with Atticus, and while she was eager to transform with a Miraculous, she does about as well against a rampaging monster as you might expect from a ten-year-old with no combat training.
• Try Everything: This becomes Chloe's goal once her and Fennel's trip gets going; since she's stuck on the Train because she doesn't know what she wants to do in life, she might as well take the opportunity to give everything a try to see if anything catches her eye, right?
• Truer to the Text: Due to the story taking more cues from canon, certain bits are more accurate to the anime than the Blossomverse. Chloe is a particular example, her personality resembling her canonical one rather than the O.C. Stand-in that her Blossomverse counterpart became as a result of not having enough information to go off of at the time Blossoming Trail started.^note Blossoming Trail had been uploaded before Episode 29, the second Chloe episode whereas Wake Me Up was uploaded around the time of the 90s - 100s
• The Unmasking: Twice for the climax of the Horsegirl Race Car.
  • First, Angie/Night Mare turns back to their original form after Fast Traveler takes away the Fear Miraculous from them.
  • A few moments later, after the nightmares have been dealt with and Lady Destiny has been driven away, Fast Traveler herself detransforms to reveal herself as Professor Fennel to Chloe and Haru.
• Unicorns Are Sacred: During the Horsegirl Race Car saga, Angie/Night Mare is given an injured Galarian Ponyta from Lady Destiny as part of a final test to accomplish their mission. The former's shocked horror at seeing the creature so heavily injured, and the latter's nonchalant mockery of both of them, serves to highlight Lady Destiny as a truly evil character.
• Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: This is the way the evil Malamar describes the match up between the current Essentia, who's the protector of Lumiose City, and their companion, which is a woman wearing an Expansion Suit with a rainbow glowing visor.
• What If?: Professor Hale, who in the original fic visited the Cerise Institute before Blossoming Trail's Unown arc, wasn't the real Professor Hale, but Colress in disguise?

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