Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Victory Fire
is a fan-made web comic by sulfurbunny.
The comic's story begins shortly after the events of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers games after Darkrai's defeat at the end of that game. However, even though Darkrai is still a major character, he is no longer the main villain. Victini takes over this role, having imprisoned the repentant Darkrai and is planning to use his abilities to further her own goals.
Meanwhile, a young girl named Jen wakes up to find herself an Audino, all alone in a strange world. She is hunted by a pack of Houndoom, but manages to escape them with the help of Gengar from the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team games. After Gengar successfully blocks one of Darkrai's nightmares, they both form an unlikely alliance and seek to find out why Jen became a Pokémon, with the help of Kecleon.
The comic features some exceptional artwork and writing, and successfully pulls together characters and plot threads from across the Pokémon continuity. It's a long runner comic since 2012 that has been regularly updated twice a week, until personal issues have put the comic on an indefinite hiatus in 2019. The original links don't work anymore but here is a link to the mirror site. The comic can also be seen on sulfurbunnys DeviantArt.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Victory Fire contains examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: This story expands on the world of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games: it's not a wholly separate world, merely a part of Earth that humans cannot visit under normal circumstances. It was created by Arceus as a precaution, giving Pokémon a place to escape if humans became irredeemable.
- Alpha and Beta Wolves: The Houndoom pack is portrayed in this manner. Several of the others question the leader's actions until one of them challenges him, wins, and becomes the new leader.
- Always Chaotic Evil: The ghost type has a reputation for being this by using trickery and deception in and out of battle. Both the Gengar twins of Mt. Dusk and the Litwick qualify.
- Anti-Hero:
- Wes. He doesn't hesitate using... creative ways to get what he wants.
- Gengar also gradually becomes this after being befriended by Jen. While Gengar might pull a prank on occasion, he is not quite as...mean...as he was before Jen befriended him.
- Anti-Villain: Darkrai and the Houndoom pack leader. Turns out being captured and having their offspring captured respectively will have them commit trouble in hopes of earning their respective freedoms.
- Apocalypse How: This is the result of Jen breaking the creation engine. This covered the ever expanding area around the ruins of Buried Relic in the "Bad Future" distortion Darkrai wanted back in the Explorers video games where perpetual darkness is norm and time doesn't flow as time crashed to a halt in the distortion.
- Arc Welding:
- Jen first runs into Gengar, who decided to live a secluded life after the events in PMD 1. In another part of the story, Mewtwo and N are trying to hunt XD002, which is later revealed to be Darkrai, the main villain from PMD 2. He is also hinted to be the same Darkrai used by Blake Hall.
- Several places like Treasure Town, Explorers Guild and Great Canyon are visited too, and have a location set as the Almia region.
- The Medicham from Team Charm is the same one from Team Meanies, Gengar's old team. And Team Charm's Gardevoir is the same one who Gengar originally betrayed as a human.
- Similarly, Arbok from Team AWD used to be the Ekans on Team Meanies.
- Kecleon of Purity Forest is the same Kecleon used by Harrison in the anime.
- Mewtwo has flashbacks to the events of Pokémon: The First Movie. N also reveals that Team Plasma bought Mewtwo's DNA from Team Rocket, potentially to create a second Mewtwo.
- Both Zekrom and Reshiram from Black and White make appearances, along with Wes from Pokémon Colosseum.
- In a subversion, Tyranitar from Team ACT turns out to not be the Tyranitar who confronted Jen and the Houndooms at the very beginning of the story.
- In a deliberate aversion, the author has said that the story was drafted before the release of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity and is not expected to use any elements from it. For instance, this Victini is female and does not in any way have a V-WHEEEEEEEL!
- The Atoner:
- Gengar, who felt that separating himself from society would make up for his past failures.
- Darkrai, who remains chained up because he's afraid of reverting back to his conditioned personality and hurting someone.
- Discussed by N and Mewtwo, due to their pasts. N was brainwashed by Ghetsis into trying to him help take over the world by separating Pokémon and humans and Mewtwo blew up the lab he was created in after finding out he was going to be used as nothing more as a weapon for world domination. The lab's destruction ended up causing a lot of casualties and collateral damage. There were casualties of innocent people and Pokémon who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
- Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Team Charm as in the Explorer games. Lopunny is a mix of beauty, brains, and brawn, Gardevoir is also beautiful and has the knowledge to carry herself on missions and in battles, and Medicham serves as the brawn of the group though she sometimes has her moments of brilliance.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Implied to have happened to Darkrai and Victini as a result of Lovrina's XD process. Darkrai would resist the XD process, but sometimes he's prone to losing control. Darkrai's body was genetically modified so that he will always turn into a shadow Pokémon after any form of purification.
- Big Bad: Victini who was using Darkrai as a front for her scheming.
- Big Brother Instinct: Gengar is protective of Jen and acts as a brother figure to her of sorts. Any time there's danger, he always rushes to Jen's defense.
- Big Damn Heroes: This tropes used several times.
- Gengar saving Jen from the Houndoom pack. Kecleon from Purity Forest would also help them against the Houndoom and Darkrai.
- Later, the Wigglytuff Guild rescues both Jen and Gengar from the pack after being alerted by Kecleon.
- Another example would be Hoopa saving Mewtwo after Mewtwo's second battle with Victini.
- Gengar managed to save Darkrai right before Buried Relic's internal chamber collapsed.
- Big "NO!": Gengar as Jen slipped and fell off the cliff on Mt. Freeze. Gengar saves Jen via the Levitation skill.
- Brainwashed: Victini attempted to do this to Mewtwo by turning him into a shadow Pokémon. Fortunately for Mewtwo, he already overcame his own darkness, so it doesn't work.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Victini and Darkrai to an extent as a result of the XD process closing their hearts. Darkrai's body was genetically modified to always turn him into a Shadow Pokémon after any level of purification.
- Brought Down to Badass: When Jen goes into the Negative Space Wedgie and encounters Victini, neither of them have their Pokémon powers thanks to the weird space around them. Victini could level a mountain, but is quite reliant on the powers she doesn't have anymore. As a result, she loses quite handily to Jen, who still has her martial arts skills from when she was a human.
- Call-Back: Practically every character and plot point is a reference to and/or elaboration on something from a previous Pokémon game.
- Calling Your Attacks: Victini's V-create which turns opposing Pokémon into shadow Pokémon. Mewtwo also calls when he's using his Psytrike. This trope is parodied with Jen's "flying tackle attack" she learned from the Kecleon of Purity Forest.
- The Cameo: The S.S Anne and the Silph logo appear near the start of Book 6, when N is going to meet with Wes.
- Can't Catch Up: Kecleon is old and injured. He ended up to be Put on a Bus halfway through the story by remaining behind in Purity Forest.
- Character Development: Most notably Gengar, throughout the story. He started out preying on Jen, gradually caring for her, escaping to save himself but coming back to save her, and then he willingly stayed behind to save Darkrai.
- Collapsing Lair: Happened at the Buried Relic. Good thing Darkrai had Gengar around.
- Confusion Fu:
- Gengar doesn't actually know how to fight like a Pokémon, instead relying on dirty tricks or being clever like using Confuse Ray on the Houndoom pack leader.
- Jen also does some of this with her knowledge of Taekwondo. This doesn't quite work against Mewtwo though.
- Cruel to Be Kind:
- Gengar harshly told Jen that her mother would miss her if she doesn't return home. This was done to convince her to return to the human world since she felt guilty for what her sister did.
- Mewtwo also did this to Jen, to show her how a real fight would happen.
- Dark and Troubled Past: It happened to many characters.
- Both Darkrai and Victini went through experiments which turned them into shadow Pokémon.
- Gengar's action in the past led to Gardevoir being cursed for a thousand years, him being turned into a Pokémon, and a barrier being created between the human world and the PMD world.
- Kecleon from Purity Forest lost his trainer and would have died had Celebi (also of Purity Forest) not saved him.
- Mewtwo's background is the same as the first movie. This comes back as a flashback during his second fight with Victini.
- Deadpan Snarker: Darkrai during his conversations with Victini.Darkrai: (sarcastically) Oops. My bad.
- Deconstruction: The normal introduction to the Mystery Dungeon games is that the protagonist wakes up in the Pokémon world, and after some brief anxiety that they have been transformed into a Pokémon they find a partner and set out on an adventure; there's no real danger, since they generally wake up near civilization and friendly Pokémon. This webcomic shows how lucky the other protagonists are: Jen wakes up in the middle of the wilderness, dazed and confused to suddenly becoming an Audino, having no understanding of how her powers work, struggles against hostile Pokémon in her fight for survival, and her adventure (trekking the wilderness to get to civilization and safety) is shown as gruelling, with the long distance walked itself causing injuries. Once they get to Treasure Town, the story becomes more lighthearted and typically adventurous like the actual games, but the gruelling first chapters still stand out quite a bit.
- Demoted to Extra: Downplayed with Jen in the later books, but applicable. She is still a main charecter who affects the plot but charecters like Mewtwo, Team Charm, and [[Darkrai, Wes, and N]] start receiving more overall focus and affect the plot more than she does. Special mention goes to Mewtwo, who directly drives much of the main conflict, handles the moajrioty of the fighting including against Victini and is the one most proactive in investigating Cihper and Lorvina.
- Somewhat adverted in the climax where Jen gets the final fight against Victini and saves repairs the Creation Engine with Hoopa's aid.
- Disney Villain Death: [[spoiler:Victini after Jen was forced to knock her out. Jen was attacked by Victini after she was trying to rescue Victini off a floating
- Doomsday Device: The creation engine. Given its name, it's likely existed for a better purpose. However, Victini misused it for her own purpose.
- Double Meaning: Mewtwo paraphrased his words exactly to make him sounded confident against Victini. However, Jen caught on and knew he's only buying them time due to Mewtwo exhausting himself rescuing his party from the collapsing Buried Relic.
- Driven to Suicide:
- It wasn't intentional, but Kecleon that would later relocate to Purity Forest had wanted to die anyway before Celebi (also from Purity Forest) saved him.
- Darkrai is also implied to be this due to so much abuse he suffered since the end of the Explorers games.
- Everybody Knew Already: Gengar was a human. In universe, both Jen and Kecleon figured this out quickly. Even readers who were unfamiliar with PMD could guess it correctly.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Victini doesn't understand why Darkrai is trying not to revert back to his programmed personality, because of her status as a Shadow Pokémon.
- Evil Tower of Ominousness: The cover for the Book 6 shows Destiny Tower standing tall into the ominous sky.
- Fights Like a Normal: Ex-humans like Jen and Gengar are noted to be very human-like even as Pokémon, since they generally rely on human tactics (ie. commanding others, using guile and tools, not using their powers).
- Fish out of Water: As Kecleon from Purity Forest pointed out, Jen and Gengar don't act or fight like Pokémon.
- Forced Transformation: Jen, an eleven year old girl, is transformed into an Audino at the start of the story. Then later on N, Wes, and Lovrina also transformed into Pokémon.
- Ghibli Hills: Several places, as the background is drawn in exquisite detail.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Cipher is responsible for creating Shadow Pokémon in the first place especially Lovrina. This is why Jen was summoned to the PMD world.
- Heel–Face Turn: The Houndoom pack leader. Subverted in that he was never evil in the first place due to his pup being kidnapped.
- Hidden Depths: Some characters qualified.
- Graveler, who initially seems cold-hearted. It turns out he just really wants to protect the other Pokémon who live in his cave.
- Similarly, the Houndoom pack leader was trying to capture Jen just to ensure his pup's safety.
- Wigglytuff, as par as on the games. He quickly deduced that Jen must be a human.
- Hope Spot:
- Mewtwo managed to show immunity against Victini's 'V-create' effect. For a moment, it seemed that he would win until Victini got a critical hit in when Mewtwo was trying to recover from purging the shadow.
- Used again with Mewtwo's Mega Evolution. It didn't last long because two souls are needed to control that power. The power just overloads him causing a revert to his normal form and psychic burnout.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Both Gengar and Jen didn't quite know how to use their powers. Gengar just refuses to master his ghost abilities due to the ghost-type's poor reputation and Jen needed to be taught her capabilities.
- I Choose to Stay: After Gengar was kidnapped on Mt. Freeze, Jen decided to save Gengar instead of trying to go home surprising the Ninetales of Mt. Freeze.
- This is actually a plot point in Jen's character arc. Before MT.Freeze Jen insists that she stay in the world out of guilt for what her sister did in Cipher. Gengar brings up the family left behind ( namely Jen's mother) and attempts to convince her to return home, reasoning her mother will miss her and staying in the pokemon world is not as pleasant as Jen will think. Later on, Jen still seems to consider staying but Darkrai tries to convince her to go home, reflecting Gengar's earlier point of life in the Mystery Dungeon world may not prove as pleasant as Jen thinks, her family will miss her, and Lorvina's actions in Cipher are not her fault. Jen's response to this is not shown, however.
- I Have Your Wife: The threat is used against the Houndoom pack leader's daughter to manipulate the Houndoom to capture Jen.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Gengar once again, with more heavy emphasis on the heart of gold part. At first he was mean to others especially when throwing rocks at the Flying-type Pokémon or trying to attack Jen only to save her from Darkrai. Jen would later befriend Gengar leading him to stop being a jerk over time.
- Kiai: Used a lot, mostly by Jen and Gengar when attacking during battles.
- Kid Hero: Jen, who is only eleven, deconstructs this trope, in that she never asked to become a Pokémon.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Gardevoir, as in canon. It didn't last long thanks to Mewtwo mentioning Gengar was human.
- Literal Genie: Hoopa.Weavile: Get us down off this mountain.
Hoopa: Hee hee... Just "down"?
Weavile: Safely!- Later, N asks Hoopa to help him, Wes, and an unconscious Lovrina to reach Mewtwo. As a result, Hoopa just drops them in the middle of a random forest, transformed into Pokémon, with no idea where they are or what happened to the Pokémon they were carrying.
- Love Martyr: Despite everything she's done to him, Darkrai still thinks of Lovrina as his "partner."
- Make a Wish:
- Jen used this in desperation facing the Gengar twins on Mt. Dusk. She managed to heal her friend, Gengar.
- Apparently, a wish from a legendary is required to summon a human to the PMD world.
- Manipulative Bastard:
- Victini's original plan was to portray herself as the hero protecting the scared and alone Jen from Darkrai. Unfortunately for her, Jen didn't stay alone for long enough.
- Gengar references his past as one of these, noting that the differences between Pokémon and human thought patterns make them easily led.
- Meanwhile, Back at the…: The story shifts between Jen and Gengar in the Pokémon world, to N, Wes, and Lovrina in the human world (they would later be sent to the Pokémon world), and to the 'villain' side (Victini, Darkrai and Houndoom for a while). Mewtwo is the only one who goes freely between the human and PMD worlds until the collapse of Buried Relic stops that.
- Mega Crossover: This fic has taken plot points, characters, and elements from PMD: Rescue Team and Explorers, Colosseum and XD, Pokémon Ranger (with the mention of Blake Hall), Pokémon Black and White (with N's appearance and places like Johto and Hoenn being mentioned), and the anime.
- My Master, Right or Wrong:
- Pokémon often act like this in regards to their trainer, as shown by Lovrina's Misdreavus. Misdreavus didn't like what Lovrina did, but stuck by and guarded her until they were found by N and Wes.
- Zig-zagged with Gengar and Team Charm's Gardevoir. In the Rescue Team games, Gardevoir protected Gengar in the past and came to not hate him for what he did. After her revival at the end of Rescue Team and her loss of memory, she would come to hate Gengar after Mewtwo restored her memory by accident (until Mewtwo pleaded for her to give Gengar a second chance).
- Non-Action Guy: Jen because she is still a kid transformed into an Audino, Audino aren't terribly strong, and her only move was Healing Wish which rendered her unable to do much in battles until she was taught Tackle, Disarming Voice, and Heal Pulse. Even then, she mainly plays a supporting role to the other pokemon in her group during battle, and is rarely on the front lines of it.
- No-Sell: Victini's ability to corrupt hearts doesn't work on Mewtwo since he purged his heart of darkness long ago.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Purity Forest's Kecleon claimed Gengar is the most stubbornly corporeal ghost he ever met. Justified since Gengar was originally a human, but he didn't know how to use the full extent of his ghost abilities and he refuses to try mastering them due to the ghost-type's bad reputation.
- Out of Focus: Jen gets this gradually after Mewtwo after shows up in the comic, even morso after joins her group at Celebi's forest. Mewtwo starts driving the plot at tone more than Jen does, such as his investigations , fighting Victini and doing a ton of the heavy lifting when it comes ot combat and leading the group on the adventure. Adtioantly, other characters such as Team Charm's members and Darkrai] join the group and receive much more focus and plot revlance than Jen herself does at times. She does not even speak to her [[spoiler: sister Lorvina, the *Greater-Scope Villain of the series onscreen when in her vicinity, despite being related. Jen does at least get the final fight against Victini and gets to be the one who fixes the Cretaion Engine, with Hoopa's help though.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Jen knows martial arts from her past life as a human, but these skills are overshadowed in the presence of Pokémon that are able to breathe fire, levitate, launch psychic blasts, etc.
- The Power of Friendship: As in the canon, Mewtwo figured out a bond between human and Pokémon is required to activate the full capabilities of Mega Evolution.
- Pronoun Trouble: All legendaries are genderless, however they are called using he/she pronouns.
- Mewtwo and Darkrai use he.
- Victini and Celebi from Purity Forest use she.
- Hoopa is the exception so far as it hasn't specified any preference.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: N and Wes are regularly shown together. N is an All-Loving Hero with an honest heart of gold, while Wes is an Anti-Hero who isn't afraid to stoop to any level of underhanded tactics to do what must be done. This is reflected when the two take the portal to the Pokémon world: N becomes a Zoroark, a Dark-type Pokémon that is generally seen as valiant and kind-hearted to its Zorua pups, while Wes becomes a Krokorok, whose line are more conventional mean, underhanded Dark-types.
- Retired Badass: Kecleon who was literally in retirement until Celebi asked for him to help Jen.
- The Reveal:
- Darkrai and Victini are XD002 and XD003, respectively.
- N and Mewtwo have teamed up to track Darkrai.
- The Houndoom pack leader just wants to get his pup back, and is being manipulated by Darkrai into hunting Jen.
- It is later revealed that Jen is Lovrina's sister.
- Darkrai was genetically modified to always revert into a shadow Pokémon after any type of purification.
- Secret Test of Character: There are several requirements necessary to open the door leading to the creation engine. Unfortunately, Victini figured out a way to trick the door.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism:
- Victory Fire leans heavily on the idealism side. Kecleon from Purity Forest, for instance, believes there is no evil Pokémon — only humans are capable being evil.
- Redemption and getting a second chance is a major theme in Victory Fire.
- Spanner in the Works: Jen successfully derailed Victini's plan by destroying the Creation Engine.
- Superpowered Evil Side: When Mewtwo Mega Evolves during the fight with Victini, he nearly Curb Stomp Battles her, his internal dialogue becoming terse and sterile to reflect his sudden visciousness. At the last second, when Victini is knocked to the floor and Mewtwo is about to crush her beneath a massive boulder, her crying reminds him of that time he took pity on Ash's Pikachu, snapping him out of it for long enough for his transformation to end.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Unlike most Mystery Dungeon protagonists, Jen is not immediately skilled in combat and is unadapted to her new body, and is overall stressed and terrified by her experience in the Mystery Dungeon world. . She is terrified and completely out of her element, and cannot do much of anything in a fight for the majority of the comic.
- The usual mystery dungeon concept of competent *Kid Hero is adverted here. Jen, being only a child during the story, is terrified at being stranded alone in a new world and her adventure often proves too much for her to handle. She is completely terrified of the various dangers and threats she has to do with to the point she has a breakdown at several points out of fear and stress. Any child put in Jen's position would have realistically acted the same.
- Taking You with Me: Attempted by Victini on Jen. Thanks to the quick use of a rock to the skull, it didn't work out.
- Tempting Fate: N claimed he was never wrong to trust a Pokémon before. N, Wes, and Lovrina are immediately teleported into the Pokémon world which humans aren't allowed unless transformed into Pokémon first. All their items and carried Pokémon go missing.
- Third-Person Person: This is how Hoopa prefers how to reference itself.
- Translation Convention: As in the games, Pokémon are perfectly understandable to Jen from the get go since she was tranformed into an Audino. This doesn't mean that she and Gengar can understand other human languages though since Jen only knows English and Gengar only knows Japanese.
- Villainous Valor: The Houndoom leader rushes into battle against a freshly awakened Tyranitar to protect the others. It doesn't go well for him.
- Would Hurt a Child: Victini. She kidnapped the Houndoom child and then tortured her to make Gengar open the door to the Creation Engine at Buried Relic.
- Wild Card: For some reason, Hoopa is shown to be interested in Mewtwo, enough to interfere and save him from Victini. Also, Hoopa is responsible for bringing N, Wes, and Lovrina to the PMD world.
