Fanfic / Pokémon Journeys: Hisui Legend

Pokémon Journeys: Hisui Legend is a Pokémon fanfic written by Crossoverpairinglover and Green_Phantom_Queen of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines and Infinity Train: Blossomverse fame respectively. The story can be read on Fanfiction.net here under the name Pokemon: Hisuian Journeys, and Archive of Our Own here.

The story deals with Ash and Chloe being sent back in time to Hisui by Arceus's hand, and the hijinks that come with their arrival.

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This story has examples of:

• 13 Is Unlucky: Chloe defeated at least thirteen Galaxy Exploration members — one on-screen, 12 off — before she was thrown into jail.
• Action Girl: Chloe is able to fight off against thirteen trainers with nothing more than an Eevee who was shown to know Tackle and Copycat.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Chloe is not a fighter in canon, at least early in the series, but here, not only does she fight a member of the Galaxy Exploration team, but she defeated twelve more before she got thrown in jail. She also has taken to following Goh's footsteps by capturing Pokémon and ends up catching her required three — Bidoof, Starly and Shinx — in two days plus a Wurmple and Burmy.
  • Eevee only knows Tackle and Copycat in the anime. In the fanfic, she also has Swift, Double Kick and Attract in her arsenal. A flashback in chapter 2 establishes that Chloe asked Ash for some training and assistance with moves following her first trip to Sinnoh.
  • Some of Ash's team also have upgrades to their movesets: Donphan has learned High Horsepower and Melmetal's Harden has become Iron Defense.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Chloe here has knowledge about Pokémon — like Drifloon kidnapping children — compared to her canon counterpart who mostly sat at the sidelines, and is willing to ask Professor Laventon for lessons like differentiating the gender of Pokémon. She's also more than capable of using craftier tactics to catch Pokémon, like dropping a pile of Oran Berries underneath a tree for Starly to appear and then sitting on a branch to plonk a Pokéball on its head
• Adaptation Expansion: A number of things in Legends are elaborated upon.
  • The Survey Corps isn't just interested in Pokémon, but has departments for surveying the history, plant life, and mineral deposits of Hisui.
  • The Galaxy Team gets funding from various groups in the wider world, several of which have special interests.
  • The events of Pokémon: Arceus and the Jewel of Life occurred during the age of the Celesticans, with Damos as a figure of myth and the 'future/other children' (such as Ash) being similarly mythical heroes to the Clans.
  • The status of the Diamond and Pearl clans as having traveled to Hisui is explored a bit, as some Galaxy Team Scientists think they are related to the Sea Folk of Alola. This is an active argument in universe however.
  • The reason Riolu knows Reversal is that Ash had been trying to teach it Power-up Punch, but they ended up stumbling on Reversal instead.
  • The Four Move Limit is a regulation, not a biological imperative. Ash just usually sticks to it for straightforwardness and his ability to use moves for a variety of purposes not initially intended.
  • Akari and her Pikachu's backstory is explained here, along with why she and Pikachu aren't really in sync.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Chloe is much more proactive and snarky in comparison to her canon counterpart, leaning into her Blossom characterization.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Chloe is shown to be much closer to her father in the fanfic, whereas in the Blossomverse and to an extent canon, their relationship is quite distant. Notably, when she tells Akari to just take the effort to fight alongside Pikachu instead of running away, she questions if her father would be proud if she used the very same advice he gave her. She's also more appreciative of her father's studies of human and Pokémon bonds.
• Age Lift: Ash and Chloe are lifted to age 15 to match the protagonists of Legends: Arceus and is also a common trait in many of Cross's stories.
• All Girls Like Ponies: Downplayed as Chloe doesn't outright love them, but she is capable of capturing a Shiny Ponyta and has fond memories of the Galarian Ponyta she met.
• Ambiguously Related: On top of the Hisuian lookalikes of modern characters a combination of Akari's own reminiscing of family gossip, Chloe's snark, and canon implies that Dawn and Princess Salvia are distantly related, as are Soleil and Illunas to Chloe, Parker, and Talia.
• Any Last Words?: Akari asks this in her battle with Chloe, as Eevee is paralyzed with Static and Pikachu is about to go in for the kill. Chloe then asks if Akari's Pikachu is a Male (which he is) before she uses Attract.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Chloe isn't a noble, but this trope and tendency, and the backstory of several of the Jubilife Villagers, mean they are prone to think of her as this. She also internally notes to double check if Soleil's ancestors might've contributed to this paradigm.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: Pikachu and Pidgeot's reaction to Ash asking if the Space-Time Rift might have something to do with how they ended up in Hisui.
• Author Appeal:
  • Ash and Chloe are the favorite characters of the writers (Ash for Cross and Chloe for Queen). In fact, a comment has Cross reveal that Queen got on board because of Chloe getting to join in on the Hisui hijinks.
  • Cross lifts the characters up to 15, which is a common scenario in his storylines.
  • Chloe's personality and willingness to get her hands dirty comes from Green Phantom Queen, who is known to write Chloe as a more proactive character.
  • Cross and two characters engaging in Bathtub Bonding, which he lampshades at the start of the third chapter.
• Bathtub Bonding: Chloe and Akari start to really connect after skinny dipping together and talking about their pasts and stuff.
• Blood Knight: Most every Pokémon likes battling, and part of helping Akari and Pikachu sync better is Chloe getting Akari to battle more with Pikachu instead of avoiding combat.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Pokémon. While they and humans aren't so alien that they cannot understand each other, the two species have different views on several things. Pokémon are naturally interested in battle and strength and are so quick to follow Pokémon trainers because they respect the display of skills it takes for one, either by battle or by skill of wit, capture them, though there is a distinction between respect and trust or love. While they recognize other 'mons as alike and can just as easily sustain themselves entirely off berries and wild plants some choose to eat other Pokémon despite not needin to.
• Butterfly of Doom: Chloe quickly becomes terrified of this trope, while it is questionable if Ash knows what it is.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Irida is shown to have some level of super toughness on top of her cold resistance, not flinching when stray rocks from a shattered stone pepper her.
• Chekhov's Lecture: Chloe asked Professor Laventon to teach her gender differences in Pokémon. Come her battle with Akari, she uses what she's learned by pointing out that Akari's Pikachu is male and lets her female Eevee use Attract.
• Child Eater: Gengar gets accused of being one when he rescues a child from kidnappers. Gengar is very offended.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Chloe is a teen girl who only has an Eevee on her, one who only knows Tackle and Copycat to boot, while she's facing off against over a dozen Galaxy Exploration members. She manages to fend them off before being sent to jail.
• Culture Clash: A mutual one between Ash, Chloe, and the Hisuian people. The former two come from a world where Pokémon and people live together in peace, while the latter come from a world where the exact opposite is true. So the former as quite shocked to see Pokémon and people so separate from one another, while the latter are shocked to see somebody not only with Pokémon who listen to them, but as many as Ash's team. The residents of Jubilife Village and the Diamond and Pearl Clans have their own hiccups between each other.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: While Zisu lost to Ash, she did not go down lightly, tieing Sirfetch'd with Luxray and her Ambipom and Driftblim giving Donphan and Melmetal a hard time.
• Dare to Be Badass: Chloe tells Akari that she needs to stop running away and use smoke bombs for everything, and that she has to take that first step to be truly one with Pikachu.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • Akari both thinks that Dawn's clothing is scandalous and equivalent to a burlesque dancer, and is completely unhesitant to skinny dip, unlike Chloe who gets offended at the remarks about Dawn and completely mortified about skinny dipping.
  • Ash and Chloe come from a timeline where the death penalty is unheard of, so Chloe's thrown into a thunk seeing the Jubilife hanging yard. Meanwhile even Adaman and Irida, who are much nicer than Kamado, are fully on board with executing criminals.
• Didn't See That Coming: The criminals engaging in trafficking children definitely didn't expect Ash to interfere, must less plan for him.
• Disturbed Doves: Or Zubats in this case. Chloe's scream after learning just when she is causes the Zubat to flee in panic.
• The Dreaded: Certain species, like Shinx and Drifloon, are considered this by Hisuians for their aggression. Chloe herself is surprised to see how Hisuians are terrified of such things.
• Everyone Has Standards: Akari's Pikachu may want to battle a lot, but he has no problem fleeing when he and Chloe's Pokémon are in no shape to fight.
• Failed a Spot Check: Ash still doesn't know that Sammy was the young Professor Oak, despite seeing Sammy's journal at Oak's lab.
• Fatal Flaw: Cowardice for Akari. While she does admit that she wants to be in sync with Pikachu, her bad habit of going for smoke bombs means she loses a chance to actually bond with her Pikachu. Chloe has to stop her and tell her to just face a Pokémon head on or she'll never get anywhere.
• Female Feline, Male Mutt: Gender-flipped. Chloe's Shinx is a male (due to the coloration of the fur on his legs) whereas Eevee herself is female (Because of the heart shape markings on the tip of her tail)
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Ash and Chloe are this. The former is a bit more downplayed, as he's quite familiar with being taken to other worlds already and is more curious as to why and how to eventually return home, but the latter definitely plays it straight, being the first time she actually gets involved in such an adventure (Per Word of God placing it in the Journeys timeline, Chloe has been to another universe before, but time travel, or time and space travel, is new to her).
• Foil:
  • As the two protagonists, Ash and Chloe take a few distinct perspectives on the story. This is most prominent in the matter of the time (or space and time) travel itself. Ash, being experienced in being sent to other places, is surprised and interested in stuff about Hisui, but he approaches it with a certain air of familiarity. He needs to do 'X', then he can go home by 'Y'. Chloe, who doesn't, takes longer to realize something more serious is up and when she does she immediately freaks out and thinks of everything that could go wrong. Chloe in particular is dreading various possible timeline shattering events from even mentioning stuff from the future and starts to panic when Laventon ponders changing the timeline for the better. Ash meanwhile casually admits that he and Professor Oak travel back in time for experiments and, having changed the future before, isn't worried about something going wrong.
  • Chloe and Akari are different from each other: Chloe comes from an upper-middle class with a father, mother and little brother while Akari's family were mostly known as maids to a lord. Chloe's family were highly supportive of her figuring out what she wants to be even if it doesn't end up similar to their own paths, while Akari's more or less expected her to do the same thing and didn't support Akari's choice. Chloe comes from a time and place where Pokémon are mundane while Akari is from a time where they were mysterious and scary. Chloe has a female Eevee, Akari has a male Pikachu. Chloe is willing to take more of an effort to fight and capture Pokémon while Akari is ready to run off at a moment's notice with a smoke bomb.
• Friendless Background: While Sabi has her Pokémon friends, she has trouble befriending humans. Partially because she's a Diamond Clan member in the Pearl Clan territory, and partially because she wants her Pokémon to play tag as well (which mortifies the Pearl Clan children).
• The Ghost: Goh is frequently mentioned by Chloe but he only appears in flashbacks, presumably still at home in the present. The same with Professor Cerise.
• Ignored Expert:
  • Chloe admits that she missed a few things Ash said early on because she had written him off as a 'blithering idiot', though most of the important things Chloe does need came later and thus Chloe remembers them more clearly. Because of this dismissal she's not entirely sure on Dawn's exact age though.
  • Ash is aware of the basics on how humans and Pokémon together can get enough food for everyone without causing the other problems, but the exacts escape him because when Kiawe would talk about it, the Alolan would get so worked up about it he'd speak of it for half an hour at peak enthusiasm and passion Ash would tune him out.
• Killer Rabbit: Chloe treat Beautifly like this after she gets the Ruby/Sapphire entry that states that they drain body fluids and one of them forms a cut on her neck.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: According to Sabi at least, this will be the case with Palina and Iscan, who will go on to have seven children together.
• Mirror Character: Professor Laventon to Professor Cerise. While Professor Cerise is Chloe's father, particularly the Blossomverse one, he doesn't really interact with his daughter enough whereas Chloe and Laventon aren't related but Laventon is quick to give her some reassurance and is willing to teach her everything that he knows. Laventon is said to be from Galar while Cerise is from Kanto.
• My Own Grampa: Discussed. After Chloe realizes that she's trapped in the past, she's afraid that she'll become something akin to this.
• Mythology Gag: Naturally, frequently, and often.
  • Chloe decided to do more research on Pokémon after finding the book with the Galarian Ponyta and Rapidash.
  • Chloe's experience with a doppleganger liege comes up a bit, unfortunately in a Aristocrats Are Evil sort of way.
  • The events of Arceus and the Jewel of Life are referenced a few times.
  • Ash notes his lack of Professor Oak's special Pokéblock for Snorlax from the Hoenn episode The Garden of Eatin', which could present a problem in feeding him long term.
  • Remoradians from the Johto Episode The Light Fantastic, as well as Draconids, are mentioned as historic and modern tribal groups.
  • Chloe's flashback scene with Ash and training Eevee not only was given the reason of happening after Nightfall? Nightmare! and the Rhydon fight, but also calls back to several previous points in the anime, including the various Eevee has has met (such as Ilima's, May's, and Virgil's) and a few of his team's move learning history, such as Froakie learning Double Team in A Rush of Ninja Wisdom (Specifically, how Pokemon can be training to learn one move, but learns another instead).
    • Naturally Chloe remembers and brings up her interactions with Dawn when she is with Akari.
  • Ash recalls quite a few times he traveled back in time or to another world while going to meet Noble Liligant with Arezu, including Sam and Celebi in the fourth movie, the incident with two Tapu Koko, Dia and Zeraora, and Guzzlord in Alola, and the Lost Hotel incident in Rotom's Wish.
  • Chloe walked in in the middle of Ash and Goh talking about their two-parter in Galar with Allister, specifically on how Ash was possessed by part of a Spiritomb and tried to kill Goh.
  • When Chloe is wondering how people figured out Pokemon genders without modern technology, Chloe has a flashback to Ash talking about the events of Snivy Plays Hard To Get as her answer: trial and error.
  • Akari's backstory skirts the topic of Dawn of a Royal Day as part of her backstory and possibly explaining Salvia and Dawn's near identical appearance.
  • When talking about the world to Irida, Ash references a ton of locations from the series including Fortree City, Seafolk Village, Alto Mare, the Tree of Beginning, the Amber Castle from An Angry Combeenation, the desert from Sleight of Sand, the mirror world from The Cave of Mirrors,
  • When Chloe fights with Akari, she calls out "Let's go, Eevee!" Bonus points is that her Eevee is female, just like the one in that game.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Ash's Dracovish and Irida's Glaceon both force Alolan Pokemon, a Crabrawler and Dartrix, respectively, out of the Space-Time Distortion. As a result both are left behind in the coldest part of the frigid Hisui when the distortion fades.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Apparently Goh's Pokémon are prone to pranking the members of the Cerise Institute: Chloe doesn't realize she is lost for a bit because she assumes that they just teleported her to some larp event and that she'll be found soon enough like a time it happened to Chryssa. It takes a bit for her to realize that isn't what's going on.
  • Not only did Ash tell Goh about the time a Rotom took him and his Kalosian friends back in time by possessing an elevator (which Goh doesn't believe), Ash and Professor Oak apparently recreated the experience with another Rotom, presumably Professor Oak's, at some point prior.
• "No. Just… No" Reaction: Chloe is quick to tell Akari that no, her father is not some sort of warlord.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Chloe defeated a dozen Galactic Exploration guards before she got arrested.
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • Ash isn't just weird by Hisuian standards, but scary. Because he landed in Hisui with his entire team (including several of his released team including Greninja, Goodra, and Pidgeot), he has more Pokémon able to listen to him than pretty much anyone, and all of them are trained in battling. Being used to a world where Pokémon and People live together in more or less harmony, he is as confused about how it is not that here as people are by his own. He's a world traveler, but has seen so much of the world and started to train at a surprisingly young age. He uses Pokeballs but his bonds are more akin to what the Diamond and Pearl clans have than most Galaxy Team members. For the Galaxy Team it only gets more confusing when Adaman and Irida identify Ash as being a figure of legend.
  • Chloe is a downplayed version of this trope. She's nowhere near Ash's level, but she's got enough skill to mow at least a dozen security members with just an Eevee alone.
• Patchwork Fic: The fic combines the events of Legends Arceus with the Anime, notably with the linking the Sinnoh film trilogy into the backstory of Hisui.
• Puzzle Boss: Chloe has to approach some captures like this, including Starly and the Shiny Ponyta.
• Pyrrhic Victory:
  • The Galaxy Team could wipe out the Clans if they went to war, but the price would leave Jubilife so depleted of manpower and strength that the Pokémon would finish them off.
  • There's also Chloe's fight against over a dozen Galaxy Exploration scouts: she manages to fend them off using only her Eevee, but still gets captured and sent to jail anyway.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • While the story makes no gripes that Kamado is a military leader in a borderine Death World (he has banished people and seen them die as a result and has no gripes about sending Beni to kill people he deems as a threat), he is still shown to be quite reasonable and hinged. He doesn't trust Ash and sees him as dangerous, but he does recognize Ash won't be a problem if he doesn't provoke Ash.
  • Captain Cyllene specifically gives Chloe a task that is difficult, not impossible. It would be a waste of all their times to give anyone a task that is utterly impossible. Chloe only got one that was seen as particularly challenging because she had shown pretty serious skill beforehand.
• Reformed Criminal: Several of the Construction and Security Corps are criminals who came to Hisui to make a better life. Because they need to lie to immigrate to Jubilife, Kamado doesn't trust them, but Zisu and Sanqua do have several success stories under them.
• Role Swap AU: Instead of the protagonists of Legends: Arceus being sent to the past, it's Ash Ketchum and Chloe Cerise.
• Running Gag: Chloe being called a "princess", something that constantly happens in the Blossomverse.
• Scars Are Forever: Chloe sees Akari's scar from the Shinx attack while the two are skinny dipping.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: The child traffickers attempted to escape with as many of kidnapped clan children from Ash and his Pokémon. Emphasize on attempt.
• Shout-Out:
  • When the Galarian Professor Laventon talks about time travel, Chloe immediately starts dreading the wibbly wobbly timey whimey. She later references Time Reapers.
  • Chloe does not want to be like Boonchoy and sleep in a cave.
  • There's a PokéTuber named Emile who documents his adventures and has a Shiny Koffing (which Chuggaa got in his Pokémon Crystal Let's Play)
  • Chloe gets annoyed about being a called a princess and questions if others were going to ask if she ruled over a kingdom of Foongus and Amoongus people and loved baking cakes, riding go-karts or whacking people across the head with a frying pan.
• Ship Tease: With Chloe's Eevee and Shinx as Eevee hopes that she impressed Shinx with her battle against Akari's Pikachu.
• Shrouded in Myth: Ress's own trio of Bidoof, Starly and Shinx are said to be god-tier to the Survey Corps.
• Smoke Out: Akari is prone to use her smoke bombs to get out of any situation. Her quickness to resort to it is the source of her issues with her Pikachu.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Not quite 'fluent'', but like in the main series Ash can understand what Pokémon, especially his own, are saying, but only generally. Specifics elude him. According to the Clan Children, this is a skill unique to only a few, such as Wardens.
• Starter Villain: The Child Kidnappers that appear and are taken down in the first chapter by Ash to establish elements of the setting and to give Ash a good introduction to the cast of Hisui. They aren't even named, and by the the events of the third chapter have been executed.
• Sucky School: Not Chloe's like the Blossomverse — in which the suckiness comes from the cruel students and apathetic teachers having a severe case of Bystander Syndrome — but Ash's. Ash notes that his textbooks are much worse than the ones Goh and Chloe have at their school, and his geography books were so bad they drove Lillie into a fit upon seeing them. Thus he doesn't know off the top of his head if Sinnoh/Hisui is an island or a continent (it's a island according to Cyllene), among other hiccups.
• Take That!:
  • Ren and Professor Cerise note that Goh has to teach Grookey how to behave — after the incident with the ghost train that had Ash possessed — referencing the fans' annoyance with Grookey causing more trouble than good and the fact that Goh doesn't actually train them to be better.
  • Chloe admits that she did not like those blue obsessed Pokémon hunters whose episode was either really hilarious, or really disturbing, depending on whom one asks.
• Tempting Fate: Chloe thinks that the fear of Pokemon in Hisui was being overblown a bit after she catches a Wurmple and Bidoof without issue. Then she runs into two Buizel who make it clear that no, it isn't who blast Eevee away Team Rocket style and send her running after her partner in a panic as Water Gun and Sonic Boom attacks follow her.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Discussed in Chapter 3. Chloe notes that she knows the difference between a Male Pikachu and a Female Pikachu by noting that the latter would have a heart-shape dent on her tail before noting her Eevee has heart-shape markings on her tail too. Then Chloe also points out that Akari's Pikachu doesn't have that heart-dent, meaning that he's susceptible to her Eevee's Attract.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Ash believes in this and apparently it is a quirk of his time, where villains only die by experiencing death at the hands of their own mistakes. This doesn't seem to be the case in Hisui.
• To Be a Master: As always, being a Pokémon Master is Ash's goal. The Hisuians cannot comprehend what that means (with Kamado briefly worrying that it means Ash wants to take over the world).
• Working-Class Hero: Compared to the upper middle class Chloe, who is seen by many to be noble-class.
  • Ash doesn't make a big deal about it, but Kamado pegs him as having come from a lower strata of society than Chloe and risen up with sheer hard work.
  • Akari's a bit more explicit, having come from a family of servants and gotten a break via some fortune, a chance encounter with Professor Laventon, and may have even only recently learned to read and write.
• The Unreveal:
  • We don't know what year it is but it's far enough back that Chloe ends up screaming in panic when she gets told the exact yeardate. We also aren't told what year Chloe and Ash are from either.
  • We aren't told how Goh is able to circumvent the "six mons at a time rule" as Chloe didn't pay any attention to that conversation.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Chloe's implied to have hidden Eevee's Pokeball there to keep it from being confiscated like her Rotom Phone.
• Wham Shot: In Chapter 2 Noble Liligant gives Ash and Arezu two Shiny Stones, the very same sorts of stones that Lana found to make her Z-Ring.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Downplayed but Chloe tells Akari that she has to stop running away from a fight or she and her Pikachu will never be in sync.
• What Year Is This?: Chloe is confused about the strange things that she sees. It's only when she learns what year it is, does she react appropriately.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Chloe starts comparing her captures (Shinx, Bidoof, and Starly) to how Goh single-handedly captured 12 Kanto bugs in a single day, Professor Laventon reassures her that she shouldn't be bringing in these differences because her captures and his captures were take in different context.

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