Extinction Event: Spike Vs Ethan Blog
Third Thumbnail is by Cabbage; the rest are by me, Stars!~
Disclaimer: NFTs stink; it’s a Joke Thumbnail!
“Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”
- Philip Stanhope
Spike, Japan’s renowned Monkey Catcher who's always on time!
Ethan, Johto's Champion with a Heart of Gold!
Time is an ever-elusive concept that's always beyond our grasp; many people often wonder what one could achieve without such a restriction. In this case, it was found in a new generation of heroes who, alongside friends and rivals, grew into awe-inspiring legends of their regions. And while uncovering the mysteries laid out before them, why not catch every animal you can and stop a couple of evil organizations along the way? For Spike and Ethan, the vast new journeys ahead are always on their minds. So, when it comes down to it, will Ethan master the battle, or is Spike gonna GETCHU? Let's find out as we start a rival fight in this DEATH BATTLE!
Connections
Both are kids who are tasked by a Professor to catch all variants of a creature/animal species. (Pokémon and Monkeys) These creatures can also be summoned into battle in order to fight (Spike can literally fight using Monkeys).
Their journeys take them to various different regions across the planet, challenging some of the world's greatest warriors in tournaments, eventually, their journeys lead to various different points in time by taking the Celebi event into consideration.
Both take down a terrorist group that specializes in stealing the species in order to harness their power to take over the world.
Ethan and Spike while on their journey also started a rivalry with a boy who had ties to that organization albeit both were unwilling to be a part of it (Silver and Jake).
There's also the nifty connection of them exploring the region another protagonist (Jimmy and Red) did, if we consider the Ape Escape 2 and Heart Gold Post Game stuff.
Before We Start…
Before delving into canon, there's one major thing I want to cover for the purposes of this blog: We will be considering the Ape Escape 2 campaign as canon to Spike and be giving Spike Jimmy's gadgets. There are pretty understandable reasons for this: the manual hints at Spike being given a chance to be playable in Ape Escape 2 (which does happen in the Bonus mode where he gets all of Jimmy’s Gadgets), Spike shows up in the Ape Escape 2 Photo Album where he’s explicitly hinted as a playable character, PSASBR gives Spike Jimmy's gadgets in his portrayal, and, thirdly, all the gadgets are freely accessible anyways through the Professor, as he can warp in new gadgets to Spike at any time. There aren't really any good reasons not to give them, but I wanted to bring it up to avoid confusion. Though keep in mind this does not include stuff like the Morph Gear as it was created by Aki for the Ape Escape 3 Protagonists rather than by the Professor. Aside from that, we're going for a soft-comp approach for the blog; if something is not extremely different in comparison to the normal canon (for both sides) then it will be used and considered as synonymous/parallel universe canon to the games- the main intent is to make sure it doesn’t essentially destroy the base characters we're researching for, which is primarily the game canon… while also covering as much of both of their histories as possible. This means supplemental material like the anime and mangas (like Pokémon Adventures / Golden Boys & Ape Escape by CoroCoro Comics) for both fighters all of their APPLICABLE material will be referenced for gear and feats, but rest assured, these additions won't affect the overall outcome of the fight and will tend to just be used to clarify certain things & add on to both sides. Finally, we ask for your patience regarding the blog. We understand that Pokémon & Ape Escape scaling are a highly debated topic with lots of diverse opinions (even if we’re 100% right in the eyes of some, we will be dog piled by others due to how heated a verse like this can get and we sorta understood that taking on the duty of making this blog). So just know we’ll strive to take the most detailed and straightforward approach possible to ensure clarity and thoroughness in our analysis (but AGAIN- this might mean that we may differ from some approaches made by others). Thank you for your understanding and support.
Canon
Spike
Ape Escape is a HUGE franchise that has been expanded to anime and manga alike, different timelines, comics, cartoons, and has been rebooted, debatably, up to 2 times. There is a lot to consider when talking about what is and isn’t canon; though for the most part, it’s expressly clear that they all follow the OG timeline and premise for the majority of their runs, so as long as they don’t outright diverge or make a mess of the story, it’ll be used. This includes material that doesn’t expressly delve into story as long as it doesn’t contradict the plot of the games.
Anime/Manga
The anime is probably the most straightforward case when it comes to canon; Spike goes around catching monkeys like... yeah, that's Ape Escape alright... 99% of the game cast is here, including the Ape Escape 3 protagonists. Specter generally has the same backstory of being mistreated and hating humans, with the slight difference of Natalie being his original owner; game locations like the Virtual World are mentioned... nothing really blatantly contradicts it being usable as it’d fall into synonymous canon. The manga, on the other hand, is even easier to argue for as it straight-up adapts some of the original stories like the Ape Quest games... so yeah, pretty easy to call canon (aka parallel / synonymous canon in the sense of it not quite being different enough to NOT use).
PS Move Timeline
I fuggin hate this game I mean what? Uhh!!!! Ape Escape Move for the Playstation 3 is a LOT of things but it’s certainly not applicable for this discussion. It takes place in a completely disconnected universe where none of the OG cast appears, Specter has a COMPLETELY different backstory that isn’t even CLOSE to the original, and all the cool new applicable hax are attached to a NEW professor & special Playstation Move Controller Spike wouldn’t even have access to. The less I have to talk about this piece of junk, the better!!! (This has literally been our only new Ape Escape game for like 10 years in the US, Sony please let the Apes Escape…)
Cartoon
The cartoon is pretty easy to label; it’s not really trying to be CANON or NON-canon; it’s just a simple comedy show that follows the story of the 2nd protagonist, Jimmy, as he goes through some zany adventures. If anything, it covers the Monkeys and Specter a LOT more than Jimmy. Though, given it's harmless and doesn't contradict canon, has a bunch of characters from the main timeline, and Monkey Catching equipment at the very least does show up... we’ll at least mention and use it a bit. Nothing super interesting happens in this one besides some feats we’ll bring up when it comes to scaling chains.
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale
Okay HEAR ME OUT… this one is HONESTLY probably fair game (PARTIALLY, let me explain); it follows the Smash Bros Syndrome where the characters’ movesets are heavily based on their games… so the Moveset in this game should be perfectly reasonable to give to Spike (plus this franchise treats them as the same characters/parallel universes even mentioning their home series game and lore from their media). Though interestingly on top of that, it plays INTO Spike’s Million Monkeys story… it’s very likely that it’s a prequel to the game in some way. The Professor mentions when he gets back from the PSASBR tournament that there’s going to be an invasion with ‘alien’ warships going all around the world (like in Million Monkeys airships target areas around the world & alien-like creatures are involved; to be clear this is a dub of the game). Spike is wearing his clothes from Million Monkeys (PSASBR also has references to MM and P&P as costumes), he has his dual stun clubs from Million Monkeys, and all the gear from the past two Ape Escape games. This seems to line up with the timeframe we’re given as Spike has just captured Specter’s monkeys once more… which could only really have happened sometime between Ape Escape 2 to a little beyond Pumped and Primed where Specter is free again. So yeah… pretty compelling case to consider it canon… but despite this we’ll only really be using this as a case to give Spike all the Professor’s gear & items within the game. Obviously, there won’t be any CROSS scaling as we’d have to prove it’s canon to ALL franchises involved; there’s just a more compelling case to be made for Ape Escape that I thought we should mention... meaning to avoid cross scaling we’ll only be taking his PSASBR moveset (as it’s literally based on something that should be in the realm of possibility for the mainline character, there’s stuff in Ape Escape itself to support him getting all gadgets anyway, & PSASBR references his home series franchise) ontop of that we’ll be taking items that appear in the game that Spike should have reasonable access to (mostly because there’s nothing contradicting his appearance in the game).
Mesal Metal Gear Solid
This one is a bit strange, but it’s definitely canon to both sides. "Ape Escape 3" and "Metal Gear Solid 3" both have side story modes that are FULL ON CAMPAIGNS that reference each other. Characters from each other's stories appear: Snake appears in AE3, Pipo Monkeys in Metal Gear 3, etc. The franchise creators are friends, literal homies, so having a crossover like this was inevitable. It doesn’t interfere directly with any of the story events that can take place, so it slots in pretty handily into both stories. (plus nothing infers that it’s a drastically different variant of Snake and the Pipo Monkeys if this IS a parallel universe situation)
Bomberman R
It's clear that Pipo Monkeys appearing in Super Bomberman isn't canon [or at least very loose canon], so we won't be using any scaling chains from that. However, we will reference one aspect from the game that helps clarify an ability that Pipo Monkeys possess. While it is from a separate canon, it reflects what Pipo Monkeys should be able to do in the main canon, as they have already SHOWCASED the ability in main canon (this just makes it more blatant and easy to bring up, making this supplemental material basically).
Ethan
Anime
(Origins + Movies)
The anime, in general, follows a gameish sort of timeline; a lot of the same characters still exist, levels and game fundamentals are still around, some similar events happen… it’s just ASH is shoved in there too lol. On top of that, it gives a bunch of feats and scaling chains. Red’s Adventure is literally just a recap of Pokémon Red so no issues there… and Journeys is basically the Anime equivalent of Masters with a LOT of people getting more solid scaling chains. It also makes sense to use as via Poke lore it can fit in as another ‘alternate/parallel’ timeline; nothing really disproves the possibility of Ash being in the game timeline in an alternate universe (which the game timeline loves to lean into the idea of when it comes to cosmology).
Mangas
This is a tough one; despite how there are differences, there’s no real reason not to use it. Even if Adventures tends to give the protagonists of the original series different arcs & characteristics, it’s heavily inspired by the game and follows it for the most part. That, and like, NOTHING he shows is out of the possibility of the OG Game Ethan. Adventures is treated like a parallel universe / timeline where the characters live out the same events with some slight differences; any Pokémon or items he does get in Adventures are completely possible for him in the Game Timeline. Basically, what I’m trying to say is, he looks like Ethan, he does the same stuff as Ethan, has access to the same stuff as Ethan; might as well treat him as Ethan. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll try to stay away from Adventures and mostly use it for some scaling chains. This rule will also include the Golden Boys Manga which is an even MORE closely followed Game Timeline than Adventures is.
Super Smash Bros
(Sorta… gotta bring it up given we addressed Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale)
As you can tell, Super Smash Bros. won't be used; unlike All Stars, Gold doesn't even make an appearance in the Series, though there are plenty more problems than that. First off, the big issue is that this takes place in a separate universe where all the events occur from the perspective of someone in the real world, with the hands being the embodiment of that person. This means that person, biased or not, can conjure up any sort of scenario, disregarding all logic and reason (they are LITERAL TOYS afterall). The story is, legitimately just… all these characters just sort of existed one day and started coexisting in a huge tournament-style fighting world. Nothing has really implied that this plot point has changed whatsoever, and even if it someday does, the feats that happen in this game would be such an outlier for what Red's been shown capable of that it wouldn't make sense for his canon counterpart to scale, even if you say Gold is stronger than canon Red. This makes everything in this game unrealistic to scale to their main series counterparts.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon
The Mystery Dungeon Series, at its core, is more of an alternate universe / select area of the world situation where we follow the adventures of a bunch of wild Pokémon. There are mentioned to be humans here so it’s not a drastically different world given that even Pokés know what they are (and just like every other game… it is the world of Pokémon (as in the same place); ontop of all that media like Pokémon Rescue Adventures having Pokés building their own sanctuaries and such is not new stuff… nothing really implies this doesn’t take place in the mainline Poké world and going by this logic it’s implied to be a select area in the world or at least a parallel one where the Player is transported to a place where Pokémon live in peace (meaning scaling should be no issue), plus it gives important feats + lore that are applicable to the Pokémon verse (so in this case it will be brought up).
Pokkén Tournament
It’s a Pokémon fighting tournament game; nothing contradictory is really hanging around, and it gives some mid-high tiers better feats... surprised Nintendo hasn’t given us, like, an actual Smash clone of Pokémon yet.
Pokémon Masters + Pokémon Masters EX
For very obvious reasons, Masters is very contentious given how events don't fit into the traditional timeline... like... for example, Lysander should be dead, Red and Eleo are different ages than when they met... inconsistencies like that make the Masters series kinda weird to use. Though I will say there's definitely not enough GOING AGAINST IT to call it unusable, lore from the game timeline is brought up consistently (even if some varies), the official Masters Twitter has given us dozens of introduction sheets that illustrate their history (which shows the games they’re from)... meaning it’s at least trying to derive FROM the original games & the Pokémon verse is already known for already having alternative parallel timelines (like Rainbow Rocket from Sun & Moon) where the same characters have lived VERY similar lives (with some notable differences). It’s the reason why Mangas and other such stuff can work with the ‘game canon’, it’s like analogous or synonymous canon in the sense that even if it isn't exactly straight-up 'CANON', this game specifically can be treated as a hypothetical what-if scenario for if all these characters met or did certain things- the same way that Mortal Kombat Story Modes are treated in versus; meaning that scaling should still be entirely possible since they're supposed to be more or less the same characters. Though this is ironically going to be the least touched topic (aka we’re not gonna use any scaling from Masters), not only for the controversy that comes with it (we don’t wanna be Witch Hunted), but also just… because it’s unneeded for the blog as we’ll discuss at least for scaling chains. We will however use the game to add to Ethan’s Movepool, Abilities, Items, & Pokémon when applicable as they’re stuff Ethan directly gets in the game (similar to what we’re doing for Spike via PSASBR).
Pokémon TCG
It’s a card game... yeah, not much to talk about lol. It’s based on the games & some of the anime, gives more information on certain Pokémon, and provides plenty more moves and such for Pokémon to use… (just nothing specifically for Ethan) at least from what we can tell it doesn’t affect the blog in any significant way.
The section below highlights ALL media we did end up using (which includes some stuff that is not seen as contentious that we didn’t bother to make an argument for); despite this… for the sake of simplicity, it will be left here for your viewing pleasure. It's not necessary to read and can be skipped over if you wish. With that being said: enjoy and keep in mind… SPOILERS AHEAD!
ALL Media Used for Blog
Ape Escape
Television Shows:
Ape Escape (Shogakukan Music Shorts)
Ape Escape The Movie: Battle for the Golden Pipo Helmet
Ape Escape (Nicktoon Cartoon)
Anime/Manga/Comics:
Saru Get You ~On Air~ (Anime)
Saru Get You ~On Air~ 2nd (Anime)
Saru Get You (Corocoro Manga)
Ape Escape (Disney Adventures Magazine Comic)
Games:
Ape Escape / Ape Escape: On the Loose
Ape Escape 2001
Ape Escape 2
Ape Escape 3
Ape Academy
Ape Academy 2
Ape Quest
Saru Get You: Pipo Saru Racer
Ape Escape SaruSaru Big Mission
Ape Escape Million Monkeys
Ape Escape: Pumped & Primed
Eyetoy: Monkey Mania
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale
Super Bomberman R [Only used to further clarify a canon ability]
“Lost Media” (basically medias that are impossible to be found whether it being canceled or simply WAYYY too hard to find any footage or files for the entirety of the game; aka no longplays):
Ape Escape M™
Ape Escape: Yumi's Great Adventure
Ape Escape Lemmings
Ape Escape Athletics
Ape Escape Pipo Jara
Pokémon
Anime/Manga/Comics:
Pokémon Gold & Silver: The Golden Boys
Pokémon Adventures [We read the following arcs specifically: [Red - Green - Blue - Yellow - Gold - Silver - Crystal - Ruby - Sapphire - Fire Red - Leaf Green - Emerald - Diamond - Pearl - Platinum - HeartGold - SoulSilver - X - Y - Omega Ruby - Alpha Sapphire]
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon : Ginji's Rescue Team
Pokémon Pocket Comics: Legendary Pokémon
Pokémon Movie 12 - Arceus and the Jewel of Life / Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai [We did use a few select random episodes of the overall anime (like eps from Season 1 of Pokémon, Black & White, etc), though aside from Movies it was mostly a skim of the anime as it was the least of our focus]
Pokémon Origins
Pokémon Evolutions
Pokémon Generations
POKÉTOON Shorts
Pokémon: Twilight Wings
Pokémon: Hisuian Snow
Pokémon: Paldean Wind
Games:
Pokémon Red / Green / Blue / Yellow / FireRed / LeafGreen
Pokémon Gold / Silver / Crystal / HeartGold / SoulSilver
Pokémon Ruby / Sapphire / Emerald / Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team / Blue Rescue Team / Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX
Pokémon Ranger
Pokémon Stadium
Pokémon Stadium 2
PokéPark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure
PokéPark 2: Wonders Beyond
Pokémon Battle Revolution
Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness
Pokémon Colosseum
Pokémon Diamond / Pearl / Platinum / Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time / Explorers of Darkness / Explorers of Sky
Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Adventure Squad!
Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs
Pokémon Black / White / Black 2 / White 2
Pokémon Conquest
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity
Pokémon X / Pokémon Y
Pokkén Tournament / Pokkén Tournament DX
Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon
Pokémon Sun / Pokémon Moon / Ultra Sun / Ultra Moon
Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! / Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee!
Pokémon Sword / Pokémon Shield
Pokémon Legends: Arceus
Pokémon Scarlet / Violet
Pokémon Masters / Masters EX
Extra Content:
Pokémon Music Videos
Pokémon TCG (yeah didn’t really cover it but it’s fine to use)
Background
Spike/Kakeru
(The World's First Time Traveler Is A Gadgets-Wielding Monkey Catcher!?! Spike Is On The Loose!)
It was a day like any other in the world. People from all around the world were enjoying a famous Monkey Park enclosure, which was popular for its wide collection of monkeys and a particularly notable albino monkey named Specter. Despite these monkeys' popularity, they weren't subjected to the best conditions behind the scenes. So when Specter stumbled upon a defective 'Peak-Point Helmet' created by a Professor in the same city, it gave him a boost in intelligence that made him superior to humans and granted him powers which caused him to lead an escape from the park with all the monkeys.
The same Professor who had started production of the Peak-Point Helmet had also been making a time machine at the time. You see, today was going to be the day that his lab assistant, Spike, and his rival, Jake, would test it and see if they could make a breakthrough in the possibility of traveling through time. Though by the time Spike and Jake made it there, the monkeys had taken over the lab, which made way for Specter, his monkeys, Spike, and Jake to all be sent back through time.
This was quite the problem for the humans, as you’d imagine. Specter, having realized the opportunity he’d been given, thought he’d create a future where the monkeys ruled the humans as opposed to the other way around. Even worse, Specter had captured and taken over Jake's mind. So, alongside the Professor and his granddaughter and assistant, Natalie, Spike was given tons of newly invented Monkey Catching Gear to catch all those monkeys across time and prevent the world from being completely changed.
Spike traveled all across the world through the past, present, and future as he looked for all the monkeys scattered about, even running into Jake a few times as he was just as competitive as ever. Eventually, Spike managed to find Specter, though he got away, and with that slight miscalculation, Specter was able to change the ‘present’ into his ideal ‘future,’ giving him the capabilities to start his complete world takeover. This event led to Natalie and the Professor getting captured. Despite how against the odds it was, Spike persevered with the help of his AI assistant Casi and tracked down Jake one final time.
Inevitably, while Spike did end up saving Jake from Specter’s mind control and captured over 100 monkeys on his journey, Specter wasn’t quite finished. Intrigued by Spike’s vast depths of determination, he willingly invited him into his Sky Fortress where he tried taking over his mind. Spike, utilizing everything he learned on his journey, managed to break free of the mind control, sending Specter running once more. While this did save his ‘present,’ there was still one person who needed to be saved. Specter, in a completely separate dimension known as Dimension X, was preparing another takeover. So after catching all the lingering monkeys still scattered throughout time, he went to the ‘Peak Point Matrix’ to confront Specter.
It was evident to Spike and everyone else that Specter had been mistreated, but that irrational sense of rage he was directing at everyone was only because of the Peak Point Helmet. Spike even managed to briefly get through to him and help him remember one of the only people who took care of him during that abuse. Despite that, his ego was too great. With one long, drawn-out battle, Spike managed to capture Specter and return him to his normal state. Despite how everything turned out well for Spike and time itself, in the process, he made a long-term enemy in Specter. No matter what he did from there, Specter would always return in some way. Whether it be from tournaments, more world takeovers with millions of monkeys, or even other dimensions or time periods, Specter would rise once again, with someone always managing to rise up and stop him.
Though that's not to say they were complete enemies. Over the course of their battles and times together, they eventually grew to slowly respect each other to the point of being KIND OF ALLIES... sometimes which is progress! So, no matter where you are throughout time and space, if there's any monkey business, you can assume that Spike will be on his way and he’s already GOTCHA!
Ethan/Hibiki/Gold
(The Champion of Johto is 11 Years Old? Ethan is always going for Gold!)
“When I decide I wanna do something, I go for it! Sometimes you just have to dive in!”
Imagine a world chock-full of creatures of all shapes and sizes, from the fluffy critters that roam the forests to the fabled beasts of legend, the world of Pokémon truly knows no bounds when it comes to its titular fantastical beings. To bring out their true power, however, humans eventually learned to capture Pokémon and use them as their own partners, training them to bring out their latent potential. This occupation would become what’s known as a Pokémon Trainer, now an extremely common profession within the Pokémon world, many seeking to test their abilities against others to see who truly is the very best. And it would be a disservice to leave out this young boy in those conversations: New Bark Town’s own Ethan.
Much like other kids his age, Ethan aspired to venture out on his own and see all the world had to see, as well as all the Pokémon he could find. And after a request from Professor Elm to meet with Mr. Pokémon himself, Ethan would have that opportunity, being given a Pokémon to accompany him on his mission. After returning from his errand, Professor Elm saw a unique bond between Ethan and his new Pokémon, and suggested that he take on the Pokémon League challenge and see all that there is to see in the Johto region. And so, with the challenge set and a new companion by his side, Ethan set out to become a true Pokémon Master.
Ethan traversed the region, meeting new faces and battling all kinds of foes, including the dastardly Team Rocket, who sought to regain the power they had once lost upon being defeated by a mysterious trainer many years ago. Luckily, Ethan and his new allies were able to put a stop to their revival along his road to the League. Ethan also found himself butting heads with the red-haired rival Silver, who initially had a very elitist view on Pokémon, believing that only strong ones are worth having around. But after beating him multiple times, Ethan showed Silver that the bonds one shares with Pokémon exceeds that of pure strength, changing the hotheaded young boy’s mindset for the better.
Eventually, after defeating all 8 Gym Leaders in the Johto region, Ethan made his way through Victory Road and into the Pokémon League, where he faced five of the best Trainers the region had to offer: the Elite Four and the Pokémon Champion. In a gauntlet-style effort, Ethan defeated them one-by-one until he came face-to-face with the master of dragons himself, Lance. And finally, after a hard-fought battle between two of the strongest trainers in Johto, Ethan came out on top and bested Lance’s dragons, becoming the new Pokémon Champion.
Usually, this would be where a Trainer’s journey would end, but for Ethan, a new one was just on the horizon. After seeing all there was to see in Johto, Ethan made his way to where it all started: the Kanto region. Here, he would face off against all 8 Gym Leaders, who were more than ready to challenge the Champion with their beefed-up teams. Even still, they all fell one-by-one, even the former Champion of Kanto, Blue. But Ethan’s journey still wasn’t done there, as to prove himself the greatest Trainer of all time, he needed to fight the current Kanto champion. But he wasn’t in the Pokémon League; he was on the peak of the mysterious Mt. Silver, where he had been training ever since his victory against Blue. After scaling the harsh weathers of the mountain, at its very peak, Ethan met with arguably the greatest Pokémon Trainer of all time: Red. And without a single word, the two threw their Poké Balls to battle.
It was a hard-fought battle, but eventually, Ethan and his Pokémon overcame the incredible power of Red and his team. With that, Red disappeared, leaving Ethan standing on the quiet peak of the mountain to ponder the journey he made to get to where he stood. He’s certainly come a long way since doing that errand for Professor Elm, and no matter where he ends up next, Ethan will always be looking for a new battle to ignite his HEART and SOUL.
Intelligence, Experience, & Skill
Spike
Naturally, as a gadget user, Spike is extremely intelligent and skilled (when it doesn’t come to tests); he's learned over 30 separate gadgets, all within seconds of getting his hands on them, and found multiple ways to combine them in combat. He found a way to paradox Specter's corrupted future while stranded by himself in a bad present with no gadgets, won the Virtual World and Virus Tech tournaments even though they were rigged for him to lose, became extremely proficient at sumo wrestling, and has been in over four adventures, catching over 1000 monkeys in the process. He's done smaller stuff like pilot planes, sculpt statues, found innovative solutions to hard problems, & learn snowboarding all within a few seconds… he tends to be really flashy & athletic (capable of doing handstands), but what he really shines in is how he’s great at fighting all types of opponents and experienced fighters: trained boxers that have had 99 consecutive victories, swordmasters (a literal yellow monkey learned how in a day) + sword knights, judo masters, skilled kickboxers, karate experts, Shaolin monks (which includes black belts), heavyweight champions, pop stars, sumo wrestlers, giants, emperors, mythological fighters, fighters with their own mastered fighting style, Olympic participants (speedsters), mechs, robots, knights, (giant knights), ninjas, psychics, dinosaurs, clowns, regenerating aliens, futuristic tech & fighters, pirates, bounty hunters, military tacticians (and actual military), terrorist groups, gunslingers, literal sentient objects and animals, bombers, invisible fighters (fully invisible in Pumped and Primed AND Million Monkeys), vampires, tech users like himself, and legendary mages, as well as reality-warpers. Spike has pretty much seen it all, nothing quite surprises him at this point!
Ethan
Ethan, like many other Pokémon trainers, is known for his strategic skills and dedication to battling. He has beaten the entire Elite Four and become Johto's Champion; defeated two separate sets of regional Gym Leaders; caught and trained over 493 Pokémon; fought an entire floor of Pokemon with 9 other dex holders; and showcased strategic skill to the point where he can understand the functions of hundreds of different attacks and make all his Pokémon work in unison during battles. He’s even beaten a fellow trainer named Red; whose been battling for years & considered a legendary trainer, one of the best to ever traverse the world. Ethan is also great at a number of different skills: he’s great at surfing & skating, apparently great at making costumes, & he’s an excellent shot with his Poké Stick.
In terms of experience, while the exact time Ethan’s journey in the games lasted is unknown, realistically it probably would have been a couple of weeks at the earliest. In that time Ethan fought a wide variety of Trainers and Pokémon improving his skill as a trainer which made him capable of fighting and defeating his Rival Silver, a skilled trainer in his own right, a powerful criminal organization in Team Rocket, their former boss Giovanni, & Legendaries like Ho-oh and Lugia!
On the Manga side of things, he fought against Team Rocket members while paralyzed, fought with the Masked Man on multiple occasions where he was at a disadvantage via the masked man using his Ice-Types to help get an environmental advantage. Ethan was also a huge asset in helping stop’s Archie’s attack on Battle Frontier and has even fought with Arceus, the creator of all things in the Universe; & he’s been on his journey for multiple years, it’s safe to say that Ethan's experience is quite large, at least by comparison to other trainers.
Equipment
Spike
Stun Club
“Club your enemies and stun the monkeys. Swing the Club around for 360 attack!”
The Stun Club is a blunt weapon that Spike uses to Stun enemies on contact (this is consistent). Spike has learned to duel-wield Stun Clubs, connect them together to form a huge one, carries a large stronger variant, AN IMPRACTICAL insanely larger version, and even carries several elemental variants around with him. Similar to other model variants like the Mecha Bo (an upgraded variant of a stunclub), it can reflect energy, tether onto others like a rope, and it can shoot paralysis beams.
Time Net (Monkey Net)
“You can't catch monkeys without your Net! Keep it with you at all times!”
Spike’s most iconic weapon is a Butterfly Net that can Warp monkeys across Time and Space. It’s good for removing people from a battle, as the teleport coordinates can be set anywhere (usually the lab), where not even normal teleportation can help you escape (given Specter and Pink get stuck there). It can shrink large enemies to fit them inside, grow larger, nab multiple enemies at once (he’s caught up to 12 Monkeys in one swing), be used to rode by Spike as a sort of semi-intangibility & while you’d think it only works on Monkeys, the Professors’ Nets can literally work on anyone (this is really consistent). Inevitably, it was found that Specter has a natural resistance to the Monkey Net; to counteract this, they made a special mode called the Monkey Net Ace, which overflows the Net with electricity to catch those who resist it. In other words, electricity makes the Monkey Net exponentially better at catching EVEN those who resist it… then it got a FINAL version that did all that but BETTER (Monkey Net → Monkey Net Ace → Ultimate Super Monkey Net… that’s 3 layers of BFR). And if Spike is feeling really flashy, he can throw his Net like a boomerang to catch enemies. On another note, it’s likely that once you’ve been 'captured,' you aren’t going to be able to get back out. Monkeys like Specter explicitly have Dimensional (it’s explained he teleported to Dimension X) and Temporal Travel (as we’ve seen Specter has Time Travel in Ape Escape 1 and his normal teleport literally uses the same identical animation), even Pink Monkey can teleport, yet she is unable to escape the lab once caught (which is the same across all canons)... Monkeys caught are teleported in with their Pipo Helmet (for some reason- and they explicitly still work as the Monkeys retain their intelligence and can use their abilities [as that’s a digital space inside the lab]; if the Helmets WEREN’T still working then Specter would have reverted to being a normal monkey again). While Specter did somehow escape in Ape Escape 2, it's never explained how and confirms that in the first game & third game, he couldn't escape using spatial or temporal warping (as he literally had his Helmet when he broke out). This means these methods of escape from Spike’s BFR shouldn't work, making them useless for negating the BFR.
Saru Buster (Salva Star)
The Salva Star is a more convenient variant of the Monkey Net, it fires Nets that instantly warp people away on contact. It’s a long ranged Monkey Net, there’s not much more to say.
Teleport Boots
Spike owns a pair of boots that allows him to teleport around short distances in quick succession on the battlefield. Something very similar has also been showcased in the anime.
Monkey Radar
“The Monkey Radar tracks down those pesky monkeys.”
The Monkey Radar is a device that can scan an environment for Monkeys in the direction it’s facing, turning from Blue (no detection) to Yellow (slight detection) to Red (definitive detection) to showcase how close you are to them. It can also read the thoughts of the Monkeys and give you their statistics if close enough. While that feature may only work on Monkeys, it’s also been shown the innate ability to SUMMON Red Boxing Monkeys out of thin air! (including Pipotron G)
Sky Flyer / Dragonfly
“Rotate the Sky Flyer for an uplifting experience!”
The Sky Flyer is a propeller type gadget that lets Spike gain some vertical height and glide through the air. The gadget has several separate variations, one that focuses on high damage output, one that focuses on speed and height, and one that focuses on control.
Jetpack
Spike (in the Anime & Million Monkeys) was given a Jetpack that he can use to fly around and boost his speed significantly. It can also be used to fire exploding energy projectiles at a target. The big downside is that unlike most of Spike’s gadgets, the Jetpack only has around enough fuel for a single mission… eventually it’ll run out of gas and be unable to fly.
Parachute
It’s a parachute.
Bicycle
Spike owns his own Bicycle that he can use to get around more conveniently. Though he seems to really hate using it…
Super Heaters
They’re heat producing devices that can keep a user warm even if they were hypothetically in the Antarctic.
Super Hoop / Dash Hoop
“Spin the Super Hoop round and round to create a shield. You'll run faster too!”
The Super Hoop is one of Spike’s most useful gadgets; by spinning the hoop around him like a hula hoop, Spike can increase his speed significantly until the hoop stops spinning. The spinning hoop acts like a barrier that can block enemy attacks and, due to this reason, can be used to ram into enemies with no repercussions. The Super Hoop has three variations, one that freezes enemies on contact, one that sets them on fire, and one that shorts out their electronics.
Dash Boots
The Dash Boots are essentially a more convenient Super Hoop, Spike doesn’t need to take out any Gadgets as he’s always wearing them. They can be used to help Spike ram through enemies and gain major speed.
R.C. Car
“A Radio-Controlled Car! It's really fun AND it'll get into areas too small for you!”
The R.C. Car is a remote-controlled miniature car that can fit into tight spaces that Spike can’t. While it is primarily for traversal, the Professor has found ways to make it more effective in combat; not only can it be remotely detonated and disguised as everyday objects (like pudding or sushi), but it can ram into enemies and has also been given a fire, thunder, and ice element variation that the car can inflict onto enemies upon ramming into them or exploding near them. It can fire miniature satellite lasers with specific models. It can also teleport back to the user good as new even if you detonate it.
Slingback Shooter
“Use this gadget for long distance attacks.”
The Slingback Shooter Gadget is a Slingshot with a built-in targeting system. It comes with an infinite amount of pellet supply somehow and has more finite secondary ammo in the form of Homing Pellets and Explosive Pellets. Ontop of that… Spike can upgrade his bland infinite ammo with some more effective base bullets via slingshot variants! He carries a Fire Sling to burn enemies, Ice Sling to freeze them solid, and Thunder Sling to disable electronics and other gadgets.
Laser Gun
It’s a gun that shoots energy projectiles at enemies, that’s about it. It’s essentially an upgraded variant of the Slingback Shooter when it comes to only using Basic Ammo (sadly it has no variants).
B Launcher
The B Launcher is a BETTER version of the Laser Gun, it shoots MASSIVE balls of energy that electrify and stun opponents. It also deals a lot more damage than before, at the cost of being slightly slower! It can also fire a SUPER bullet that creates pillars of energy.
PSP (Playstation Portable)
Spike owns his own PSP that he uses to play Ape Escape titles like Ape Escape On The Loose (narcissistic tbh).
PS2 (Playstation 2)
Spike owns a Playstation 2 to… you GUESSED IT… play more Ape Escape Games!!! This dude needs to branch out more. 😞
Yo-Yo
Spike carries around a Yo-Yo that he messes around with whenever idle enough for too long, essentially it’s just a way to enjoy his free-time.
Radio & Headphones
Spike spontaneously pulls a Radio out of his pants just so he can show off his sick dancing skills, what a guy.
Binoculars
Spike has Binoculars for seeing farther away than normal, because well… yeah that’s what Binoculars do!
Sunglasses
Arguably the most important thing in his entire Arsenal, the fated Sunglasses that every single person in existence must wear, bro is getting in the Squirtle Squad with this one.
Assortment of Guns
Spike in the Manga carries around a large assortment of Guns including: dual laser pistols, a real pistol (revolver), and an RPG.
Bo Staff
It may be hard to spot, but Spike owns a Bo Staff that he utilizes for a miniature Ninja arc in the Manga.
Growth Flashlight
The Professor invented a flashlight that can grow whatever it shines light on, which can be used to make opponents proportions unreasonable to operate or use… or grow himself much larger than before (As it’s one of the Professors Gadgets, it can be sent into a fight whenever).
Restoration Ray
This ray is capable of restoring anything that it’s shined on into a ‘newer’ condition, which in most cases means completely restoring the user even if they’re nothing but bones.
Division Light
The Division Light can separate an individual into two to make multiple copies with no downside and even better it can be used to separate fused individuals.
Transparent Spray
The Transparent Light is a spray that can turn somebody completely invisible, the downside is that the User has to spray ALL parts of their bodies including vulnerable parts of themselves like eyeballs.
Jitama Code (Communicator)
The Jitama Code is a gadget that the Professor made for the gang for worldwide communication regardless of where they are on the planet; though it seems a bit redundant when they can communicate interdimensionally anyway.
Sarunalander
When Specter found a way to turn humans into Pipo Monkeys, the Professor invented special watches that protected their physiologies from being changed while wearing them. While the Watches can be shorted out with a large amount of electricity… Spike’s seems to lack this issue, the only downside is it will run out of energy after a few hours.
Miniature Lab (Possession Gadget)
In "SaruSaru Big Mission," the lab once shrunk was used to possess and take control of Pipo Monkeys… though due to the setup it was impractical. Luckily in the anime the Professor made a gadget inspired by that lab, making it more practical for the gang. When attached to someone's head, the device allows the user to shrink down into a miniature lab inside the helmet, giving them perfect control over the person (& their movements) from within the helmet as you possess their body. SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY!!! And just like in Ape Escape Big Mission… it can be used as a Mobile Lab that can be brought onto the battlefield (being able to turn small & big!)
Costumes
“You can change equipments.”
Spike throughout his many adventures has picked up a plethora of costumes that he can wear, while they aren’t EXTREMELY important to this debate it’s a fun little thing to address because he has a lot! The primary use would be a lot of them are functional armor, while others are very humorous.
Normal Wear: This costume is a revamp of Spike’s iconic look from the first Ape Escape game with a brand new hat and hairstyle.
Normal Set: This is the normal outfit that Spike wears in Million Monkeys.
Doctor Set: Whenever Spike feels like being a Doctor, he has an entire costume to start his malpractice of medicine!
Burning Set: This costume is for when Spike is feeling really heated, it fills him with a fiery hot spirit that is reflected by his clothing.
Jacket Set: This costume is a more formal ‘Jacket’ set that is used for meetings and such.
Pirate Set: YARGH!
Role Play Set: This costume is for whenever Spike feels like role playing some DND with friends… or it’s at least implied to be!
B-ball Set: This is the Baseball shirt of a famous Pipo Monkey Team that Spike apparently likes.
Blue Set: This costume is an entirely blue crisp new look for Spike.
FairyTale Set: This costume makes Spike real funny, can’t imagine any bad things when you’re part of a Fairy Tale!
Pop Orange: An Orange look that really pops out to a wide audience, though it’s seemingly not orange scented.
Aloha Set: Spike's Vacation Wear has adorned with plenty of pictures of palm trees, though now this brings up a question... why does his costumes change his hair color-
Business Set: Spike can channel his inner office worker whenever he needs to, after all they’re some of the strongest warriors around!
Ninja Set: Spike’s Ninja Set is exactly what you’d expect, generally dark clothing used for blending in… this is only used by true Ninjas!
Tiger Set: This costume is patterned like a Tiger, bring out that animal instinct inside you!
Soccer Set: Spike uses this costume when… well- he wants to play Soccer! It even comes with Pink Hair!
Alien Set: It’s said that anyone who has this space themed outfit can be the strongest in the entire universe!
Green Jersey: This is the type of Jersey you’d see a typical green jock wear, but Spike rocks it really well.
Bronze Set: Spike coats his entire body in Bronze, I get the feeling this isn’t very practical!
Silver Set: Spike coats his entire body in Silver, I get the feeling this is very practical!
Light Armor A Set: This Lightweight Armor is used to protect the torso and eyes primarily, used for Monkey Warfare!
Light Armor B Set: This is the same as the other Lightweight Armor set, but with no eye protection! Why!?!?
Heavy Armor Set: This Armor Set is used to protect a majority of the body with no issue and even comes with a built-in scanner.
Military Set: This Set is used by Human Military Personnel who went to fight against the Pipo Monkey Army!
Dark Fashion Set: The Dark Fashion Set is… very dark, it seems like your typical cool & badass set, it even comes with a chain and glasses.
Second Fashion Set: This is canonically Spike’s second favorite Outfit aside from his main set, it’s reminiscent of something Jimmy would wear (which is probably a jab at him). 😭
Historical Armor Set: The Historical Set is more of a Knight themed set that comes with a built-in cross symbol and Light armor that covers the entire body.
Samurai Set: Spike obtained this set of Samurai Armor in Ape Escape Million Monkeys and the Ape Escape Manga, it acts as a protective garb that’s based on armor that Warriors in Japan would wear.
Businessman Set: Just like in Pumped & Primed, Spike wears ANOTHER Business Set… though this is much more traditional in comparison. He looks like he’s working a Minimum Wage Job.
Gunfighter Set: Spike can become a Gunslinging Cowboy when wearing this Outfit, it even comes with the trademarked neckerchief all Cowboys are known for.
Dancer Set: Spike gains a ridiculously large hairpiece afro and a purple button-up shirt, this is the ONLY way you can BOOGIE.
Toro Costume Set: Spike and the rest of the Ape Escape cast are really big fans of the Doko Demo Issyo series, which features the iconic white cat Toro!
Pipo A Set: Whenever Spike feels like dressing up like a Pipo Monkey, this is his goto set!
Pipo B Set: Whenever Spike feels like dressing up like a Pipo Monkey… with a LARGE HEAD, this is his goto set!
Bananarang
“The irresistible aroma of the gadget is a sweet monkey lure!”
The Bananarang is an allure type gadget, anyone who smells the scent will be hopelessly entranced… more so the hungrier they are (which includes inanimate objects for some reason as seen above). Even better, it's even been shown to work on humans.
Water Cannon
“Rotate the right analog stick to shoot water!”
The Water Cannon is QUITE LITERALLY a Fire Hydrant that you attach to your hand like an arm cannon. Given its high pressure water it can lock-down and keep opponents stunned, but it can also be used to activate switches and completely put out flames… meaning it exhibits force!
Water Net / Aqua Net
“The Aqua Net is a gadget that allows you to swim underwater easily.”
The Water Net is a device to help traverse underwater, it comes with a built-in oxygen meter, and recycles oxygen to let Spike stay underwater way longer than he normally can. It also has a built-in ‘Water Net’ hence the name, which functions like the Monkey Net but underwater.
Water Mech
“You can freely swim in the water without worrying about air.”
This is an incredibly enhanced version of the Water Net, while it doesn’t come with the Net feature meaning Spike can’t capture people with it… it does come with an INFINITE oxygen tank, an indefinite amount of missiles (it says 99 but it never depletes), it’s way faster, has an ice variant, and a charged feature to shoot multi-shots. In short it’s a BATTLE variant of it for high-speed underwater action.
Boat
“Use the boat to travel across water. The Professor even designed it to withstand lava.”
Okay it is JUST A BOAT, but it can fire missiles, has an Ice Variant to shoot freezing missiles, and can be used to travel across lava!
Tanks
"Flatten some monkeys with the giant tank!"
Spike just so happens to own a TANK, while it’s relatively slow moving… it packs an incredible punch, even destroying substances that not even the Stun Club can break. There’s also an Elephant Model that’s slightly faster, an Ice Variant that freezes enemies, and a charge feature to shoot giant missiles.
Electro Magnet
“This Electro Magnet is truly attractive"
The Electro Magnet is the counter to all things metal; not only does it let Spike attract and attach to metallic objects, but it can also be used to strip anything metal off an attacker, such as armor. It’s been shown to attract stuff as heavy as 1 ton steel balls.
Magic Punch
“The Magic Punch – satisfies that destructive urge!”
The Magic Punch is Spike’s most DESTRUCTIVE option, it’s a giant spring loaded arm-mounted Boxing Glove that accelerates at such high speeds that it can break ‘almost anything’. Even stuff that the Stun Club can deal NO damage to, the Magic Punch will oneshot. The Magic Punch can also stun for longer than the Stun Club.
See-All Scope
The See-All Scope is given to you by the Professor in Ape Escape 2. Its primary function is to "spot secret locations." It does this by scanning for weak points in objects and anything suspicious that it can pick up on the scanner. Then, those weaknesses can be shattered with the Magic Punch; they work great in unison!
Snowmobile
"Use the snowmobile to cross fields of snow."
A Bunny shaped Snowmobile that can effortlessly travers snowy terrain, this vehicle is all about mobility!
Submarine
“Search the ocean depths with the submarine.”
A Submarine shaped like an Angler Fish, it’s used for capturing Monkeys underwater without the need for resurfacing for breathing. It can fire torpedoes and catch monkeys.
Pipo Mech
“A spanking-new, super-cool robot!”
The Pipo Mech is a giant Mech themed after the 2nd Protagonist, Jimmy’s pet Monkey Pipochi. The Mech was made by the Professor and can be sent into combat to assist any of the Professor’s lab assistants. The Mech has a giant rattle that can be used to destroy metal effortlessly and it can jump to make shockwaves. The downside is it’s quite slow and can eventually be harmed enough to cause it to overheat and explode.
Giant Mech (Literal Voltron Robot)
The Giant Mech is a Mech suit created by the Professor, the Professor’s cousins, and Aki… and… I’ll be real, it's literally a Voltron Robot. Not only can it withstand lava & electricity, but it can fly at faster than light speeds. In terms of size it’s comparable to the Earth, but it can also be as big as Saturn! Its primary means of attacking are fast paced punching and kicking combos (due to its jet Propulsors), but it can shoot out massive capsules that hold giant items & summon a MASSIVE Capture Net to catch enemies with. The only problem is that it needs multiple people to pilot (DUH it’s a Voltron robot), Spike pilots the head and would need to get 4 other people inside (which is likely reasonable given he has access to support).
Nuggetcher
The Nuggetcher is… a vacuum… that sucks pants right off of people. I don’t know what they were cooking with this one. On another note… it can shoot explosive coins and has a sweeping attack.
Cookies
Cookies in Ape Escape are the Health System that keep the Protagonists alive, once it reaches zero, that’s the end of it. Though Cookies are sold in shops and found all over the overworld and inside enemies… meaning Spike always has a consistent way to replenish health. In fact, the Professor can warp in cookie containers that produce cookies upon being hit; they've been stated multiple times to be bottomless, meaning Spike can have potentially infinite healing.
Top Buster
This item calls down a hailstorm of missiles all over the field that can hit EVERYBODY, even the user, it’s an all or nothing strategy.
HP Recovery
This is a HP Recovery Kit which can be used to recover any Health loss that Spike might have suffered.
Fire Suit
Touching this Item gives the User an aura of fire that burns enemies on contact, sending them into the air.
Lightning
This item summons down lightning strikes on all other opponents on field, the user is completely safe from this attack.
Banana Peel
The Banana Peel item throws several peels around where you picked it up that ANYONE can slip on to get stunned.
Safety Jacket / Lab Batteries
Essentially a Safety Jacket is Ape Escape’s take on extra-lives, one is automatically consumed on death to bring Spike back to life. And while I really want to say that they AREN’T canon… They appear on the overworld as collectable items (as seen above), they’re sold in shops, and characters straight up mention extra-lives… in terms of what we do know; it can bring Spike back from death explicitly (since he can come back from drowning). As for what it can help Spike recover from, really the most it’s been shown to do is bring users back from stuff like stabbing; nothing implies it could regrow parts of the body. It just heals surface-level injuries and revives the dead. Now, while that is the limit for Safety Jackets, Spike has also been shown to carry around 'Lab Batteries' which accomplish the same purpose on a grander scale. 'Lab Batteries' bring the lab and everyone inside back to life when destroyed. Given that 'Extra Lives' are canon within the series, it's safe to say these are fair game as well. The main reason is it’d be really strange to selectively choose which are canon; especially when both live systems can be equalized since they accomplish the same thing. As mentioned, they achieve the same result as a Safety Jacket, though they can actually bring Spike back from being fully vaporized.
Flak Jacket
The Flak Jacket is an item that covers the user in a Metal Coating that makes it impossible to damage them due to the increased durability, preventing damage until it wears off.
Cloaking Jacket
The Cloaking Jacket, cloaks the user with the field that they’re on which makes them completely invisible.
Speed-Up!
This powerup briefly increases the speed of anyone who picks it up, while active the user can move at their new and improved top speed near instantaneously.
Items
(PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale)
Given nothing is really contradicting Spike's appearance within PSASBR it should be fine to give him the items he has access to within it:
Support
While Spike may be strong in his own right, he would never have gotten as far as he did without support from his friends, who help out when it comes to the more technical side of things! They provide a ton of support, even if most of them don't come into battle themselves, giving Spike gear, strategic planning, and backup.
The Lab / Time Station
The Lab/Time Station is the main hub world for Spike and hosts some of the Professor's most brilliant achievements and gadgets; none are quite as impressive as the teleporter. The teleporter (Chitemakun) is a device that can transport someone across time (literally the entire premise of the game) and teleport across space unrestrictedly (like other dimensions for example or interstellar distances like the Moon), giving them the ability to alter the past to affect the future and whatnot, leading to events like undoing or changing the existence of others. The Teleporter used to have a time-limit to make sure no one got trapped in the past or somewhere far away while using it, but it’s since been removed to give Spike and the others ease of use. The teleporter has a number of other features; it can be used to achieve a sort of semi-flight in combat, it can be used to swap the bodies, minds, & souls of two individuals caught in the 'Dimensional Light' it emits, and it cannot be used by anyone except those it's been given permission to access. The Lab also hosts an inescapable underground segment called the Paradise Room, which is a... well... It's basically a vacation spot for anyone caught by the Time or Monkey Net (just an inescapable one as said earlier in the Time Net section). Outside of that, the laboratory has a few more things to offer. Obviously, it's the location of all of Spike's tech, but it has plenty of games, an encyclopedia giving information on captured enemies inside, informative documents (via Casi), and a virtual reality software that can transport users inside to train. Though, it's also been used to contain captured individuals in the past by putting them inside the virtual world. The Lab has also been shown to be able to move and fly, but more interestingly, it has demonstrated the capability to possess others. However, the combat applicability of this technique is a little questionable, as the Lab had to be shrunk first. Additionally, it could simply be a result of controlling the Helmet technology on a Pipo Monkey's head rather than straight-up possession.
Professor & Natalie
The Lab also hosts some of Spike's most helpful comrades, like the Professor and Natalie, who are constantly providing Spike with tips, tricks, and strategies mid-battle! They both do exactly what they would from the Lab in any Ape Escape game: they can send in gear & items as big as this large golden ball (plus newly developed gear) with the teleporter and give Spike tips for a fight or exploration via phones and intercoms. They have a consistent record of coming up with gadgets on the fly to assist in weird or dire situations; that's their intuition at work.
Casi/Charu
Casi is a helpful AI that the Professor created to assist on missions when necessary, she usually transports Spike his new gear when the Professor isn’t available. Casi is really informative (as she holds most info that Spike and the registered Computer has ever gathered within her); she can protect against hacking (datawise usually, but she can even manually fight the viruses while she is corrupted), analyze the stats of opponents, track targets across dimensions, delete data (as seen with the leftover virtual world), hack tech, and can come into battle herself to assist Spike when uploaded into a mechanically constructed body that is Waterproof. Now the big reason Casi is being treated as a summon for Spike… is well… because in a DEFINITELY not messed up sort of way everyone in the lab OWNS her, she’s on standby for all their needs (and has been called/sent in before by the Professor). ☠️ Not only does Casi have access to the EXACT same gadgets as Spike (no like literally she has ALL of them via the Professor and the Million Monkeys game which includes the Monkey Net), but she also has her own special abilities she can bring to the table that Spike doesn't. Casi comes equipped with an arm cannon that can fire multiple spurts of homing energy (and do the same with her hands); she can fire lasers from her mouth, fly, generate energy tendrils to act as barriers, create duplicates (like a LOT of them), become invulnerable, turn into a fast green ball to dash around, teleport across a universal range, and has a few special moves she can use in combat:
Gadget Control - Disables the ability for anyone in the area to use their gadgets and electronics in combat.
Gravity Control - Manipulates Gravity making everyone extremely heavy and slow, almost as if everything is drawn out.
Input Control - Manipulates the motor functions (movement controls) of anyone nearby, causing their directions to flip leading to disorientation.
Time Control - Completely stops time until her Stock Gauge runs out, she can fire multiple projectiles or launch multiple attacks that will resume when time starts once again. She can also spam this ability by chaining it with more time stops.
Illusion Force - Creates multiple copies of Casi to beat up & combo her opponents!
All-Range Shot - Creates dozens of rapid-fire homing projectiles that will always hit the target.
Mirror Force - Creates a shield that nullifies all incoming attack types; making Casi invincible!
Bundle of Bananas / Summon Capsule
When Spike was inside the Virtual World tournament, he learned how to utilize bundles of bananas to summon monkeys out of thin air; though if that doesn't tickle your fancy, in Million Monkeys, he can summon all of the exact same monkeys in the real world utilizing some sort of spinning disk pulsating with energy. It could reasonably summon ANY of the Monkeys Spike has caught over the years, but we’ll only bring up the ones that HAVE been sent into combat from the Lab or have been summoned before… meaning no Pipotrons. 🙁
Pipo Monkey
Spike has captured hundreds of Pipo Monkeys over the years (possibly even over 30K Monkeys), each designated by their pants color. While he won't summon all of them in a given fight, we'll cover the basics that a typical Pipo Monkey can do, which should apply to any others as well.
Pipo Monkeys are highly resilient, capable of being separated into pieces, having their skin literally unzipped, and having a majority of their body reduced to bones, they can even self-resurrect themself from death with no ill effects. They aren't particularly smart but do exhibit a fair bit of intelligence; they can form their own thoughts, feelings, and ideas. The color of their pants usually indicates their proficiency: Yellow is an all-arounder; Red are expert fighters; Blue are more cowardly but tend to be fast; Green are high-tech gadget users, often showcasing explosives; and SPECIAL pants-wearing monkeys fall into no other category… Pipo Monkeys also all have the inexplicable ability to stretch their arms like they’re made of Rubber (which is really consistent for some reason). Outside of that they’ve been shown to pilot a number of Mech tactics (Mechanical Bulls, Turrets, Giant Robots) and UFOS (for firing lasers, missiles, hypno rays, & teleporting).
Their most impressive attribute is their ability to adapt; a Pipo Monkey can become proficient at almost anything within seconds of active duty, thanks to their clothing. Special pants monkeys have been shown to gain powers from their clothes. Monkeys dressed in 'parody' costumes have gained abilities such as flying (by dressing as Superman), climb walls like a Gecko, become kaiju sized (by dressing as a Monster), produce web string (when dressed as Spiderman), learned some sort of magic that produces force on impact (by dressing as Darth Vader), multiply themselves (as ninjas), grow limbs and produce guns (as a sheriff), become REAL monkeys (SOMEHOW???), become the protagonist of the medium they’re in, gain experience & skills (by dressing as Snake), and equipment from the individuals they copied (like Ratchet). This is most prominent in "Ape Escape 3" and seems very intentional as the plot circles around tv and media parody. Though the Bomberman crossover outright confirms they have these capabilities via the 'Pipo Monkey Bomber' who has the ability called 'Aping,' allowing them to copy the abilities, items, and resistances of a target.
Red Monkeys
Spike has the ability to summon Red Pants Monkeys with his Monkey Radar which can charge and attack opponents in straight lines. It can even throw banana peels, trip enemies, and fly through the air!?
Pipotron G
The Monkey Radar can summon the Pipotron G from Million Monkeys to deal some devastating blows to opponents that send them flying.
Monta
Monta summons down waves of meteors onto the battlefield that deal damage to any enemies hit by them mid-air or by the explosive shockwaves they produce.
Monzo
Monzo has the ability to spin so fast that when he tosses a Ninja Star it’ll act like a protective barrier rounding Spike; it travels outwards hitting anyone in its way, until it disappears.
Tutanchimp
Tutanchimp has the ability to conjure a sandstorm that makes it harder for opponents to see due to obscuring their vision.
Pink Monkey
Pink Monkey is the Diva of the Freaky Monkey Five which means she’s her usual cheery, sometimes angry self. When summoned onto the battlefield, she’ll either be happy or angry. If she’s angry, she’ll create shockwaves that can hit everyone on the field; if she’s happy, she’ll throw healing items for Spike to pick up. However, given the rest of the series, Pink has been shown capable of much, much more. She can fire heart-shaped projectiles that stun people briefly with the power of love (which also works on females), create barriers to ram people with, teleport, throw explosives, grow larger when angry, produce electric ball projectiles, and create streams of electricity. She even seems to have picked up a thing or two from Specter, as she can utilize telekinesis and produce laser beams from her hands.
Samui
Samui has an incredibly strong swing that can send anybody in his vicinity flying, one hit from him and you’re out!
Monki-san
Monki-san is looking forward to exploring the vast depths of the universe and to pull that off he’ll need a vessel! This Monkey summons a ship out of thin-air that he rides by… holding onto it- which causes shockwaves as it takes off.
Edison
Edison can summon in a GIANT Goliath Arm from out of thin air to crush enemies. Where and When did it come from…?
Red Monkey
Red Monkey, the expert wrestler, martial artist, Hollywood action star, and DINO SUPLEXER himself; no matter what, he'll always be seen as the leader of the Freaky Monkey Five. In Million Monkeys, he can fly all across the screen dealing damage to anyone he flies into; but in his other appearances, he's been seen carrying two Metal Reinforced Wooden Clubs that he can set on fire for more powerful attacks, glide through the air & create shockwaves, spin around like a beyblade, boost his speed, combust into fire; and can stun people with high-velocity fart clouds. He can even make a fart stream to LITERALLY fly... yikes.
Leo
Leo creates a massive disco ball over all opponents on the field, which causes them to boogie! Everyone fighting against Spike will be forced to dance until either attacked or Leo stops dancing.
Pumpkin
Pumpkin throws hordes of candy-shaped bombs onto the field, damaging all enemies in his vicinity.
Bruce Monkee
Bruce Monkee is a well-renowned martial artist in the Ape Escape universe who has dominated many other martial artists in combat. With just a circular sweep of his nunchucks, he can create a wave of energy so strong it sends everyone flying.
Miyamoto
Miyamoto settles matches with very decisive slashes, acting too fast for anyone to react; he’ll cleave into a person at super speeds!
Wakkie
Wakkie was in charge of the management for the Goliath Head, which he can summon out of thin air to shoot lasers at enemies in its proximity.
Pipo Snake
The creators of Ape Escape and Metal Gear are actually pretty good friends, as surprising as it sounds. When both series reached their third installments with Ape Escape 3 and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, they featured a story mode linking their worlds. More importantly, when Snake went off the radar during a mission to stop a monkey-equipped Metal Gear, Campbell called his old college friend, the Professor, to solve the problem. Since all the protagonists were busy, the Professor had Campbell send Snake's battle data, which he then uploaded into a Monkey Helmet, creating a monkey as skilled and stealthy as Snake… this was Pipo Snake! Pipo Snake comes equipped with his own codec, just like Snake, to call in support. He has a Banana Pistol (that fires actual bullets), watermelon bombs (that work on a countdown timer), pineapple grenades capable of harming massive trains, and, of course, the legendary cardboard box.
Toro & Friends
The creators of Ape Escape and Doko Demo Issyo are well-known friends (they're homies); so within Million Monkeys, Spike was given the ability to summon a majority of the roster from Doko Demo Issyo! While sadly they are mostly reskinned super attacks, I cannot pass up the opportunity to include Toro in a doc… look at the lil dude! To save time, I’ll just name the newish stuff we get from the cast: Pierre can read tarots which can sometimes yield tons of powerups, Jun similar to Leo can force people to dance, Suzuki throws bombs, Ricky similar to Bruce Monkee can send people flying with a circular force attack, and Toro summons an entire army of KURO to stampede enemies. (still such a cute addition to the franchise)
Pipo Monkey Items
These are items that the Pipo Monkeys have access to rather than Spike, that they can use in combat.
Ethan
Poké Balls
Poké Balls are a device created in the Johto region from a fruit called Apricorns. It was discovered that by fitting hollowed Apricorns with a special device, they could capture wild Pokémon. The exact mechanics of their operation remain somewhat vague; however, we know many of their applications. When a Poké Ball makes direct contact (some balls don’t need to however), it generates a beam that links it to the target (or sometimes transforms the target into the light itself to absorb it into the ball); this beam then shrinks the target (as mentioned in Legends Arceus) until it fits inside the ball. All Poké Balls have varying success rates; once a Pokémon is 'caught', it becomes trapped in a digital subspace, effectively converting them into data for easy use and transport. At this stage, they can be transferred to a PC for storage. Furthermore, a captured Pokémon's data is automatically added to the Pokédex, listing information all about them automatically (no it is not written by children). You can carry up to 99 of each ball type (with the exception of only ONE Master Ball per trainer), the only downside being that while it can work on creatures and human-like species, humans themselves CANNOT be caught by them & have never been implied to (while it’s brought up in the games, the anime always has the funnier approaches).
In total that means Ethan is carrying around 2278 Poké Balls! (99 carry capacity per ball * 23 = 2277 Poké Balls + 1 Master Ball = 2288; given canonically you only ever receive one Master Ball).
Pokémon
Pokémon are ‘Monsters’ or Creatures rather… that live throughout the World with Humans; they vary and come in all shapes and sizes, though their most important function is to fight battles for their trainers who have captured them. It’s implied that a Trainer can only have up to six Pokémon at a time (as per Trainer rules), though while it is the standard limit, trainers like Crystal & Alder for example have been carrying seven or more Pokémon… It's just managing them & giving them all the attention they need (plus league rules) at that point can get more and more problematic the more you carry. It’d be really goofy to implement literal League Rule limitations in a DEATH BATTLE scenario… So with that covered it’s time to discuss all of the official Pokémon that Ethan owns.
Typhlosion
Gold’s starter Pokémon in Pokémon Adventures is the (Fire-Type) Volcano Pokémon with an Impish Nature, Typhlosion! It was nicknamed "Exbo." Originally, it wanted to go with him to find its lab friend, who was taken by a thief (who would become Gold's rival). The two have formed a strong pair. It knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Tackle: The Pokémon slams its body into the opponent.
Ember: The Pokémon shoots multiple fireballs from the flames on its back at the opponent.
Smokescreen: The Pokémon releases a stream of thick white smoke from its back that covers the battlefield.
Double Team: When the Pokémon is about to get hit by an attack, it disappears, creating an afterimage when it does; it then reappears somewhere else.
Flame Wheel: The Pokémon fires a ball of fire from the flame on its back at the opponent.
Flamethrower: Typhlosion releases a stream of fire from its back or mouth at the opponent.
Blast Burn: A specially powerful move that only a few Trainers in the Adventures Manga world know; the Pokémon hunches over and releases a powerful stream of fire from its back at the opponent.
Eruption: The user attacks opposing Pokémon with explosive fury. The lower the user’s HP, the lower the move’s power.
Fierce Flames Eruption: The user synergizes with their Pokémon to use a Super Attack that creates a pillar of fiery energy to rain down meteors.
Triple Finish [Ultimate Fire-Type Move]!: You know that move from Smash Bros? It’s in the Manga- by uniting 3 different Fire types all together Ethan can do a fire variation of the attack, firing a huge spire of flames!
Togekiss
Togekiss is the Jubilee (Fairy/Flying-Type) Pokémon! The Naughty Natured Togekiss hatched from an egg given to Gold by Professor Elm, hoping being with him would help it hatch. Gold nicknamed it “Togepo.” Surprisingly strong as a baby Pokémon, it won its first fight against Gligar and even defeated Silver’s Tyranitar (though it fainted too). Despite this, Gold initially left it out of battles, causing their connection to waver. Eventually, they overcame this, leading to Togepo’s evolution into Togetic and inevitably into Togekiss! It has such a strong connection to Gold that they can work in sync even when blinded! The new wings allow Gold to use it for flight, as pictured above. The moves it knows are:
Shown Moves
Double Edge: The Pokémon flies towards their opponent and crashes into it with a powerful tackle.
Metronome: The Pokémon waves one of its arms(or wings in this case), and the tip of it starts to glow. It then uses a random move.
Growl: Togebo was revealed to know Growl by his Pokédex entry! It makes some sound at the opponent which forces them to stop from battling for a bit.
Charm: Togebo was revealed to know Charm by his Pokédex entry! It looks at the opponent in an apologetic way, causing them to put their guard down.
Sudowoodo
Sudowoodo is the Imitation (Rock-Type) Pokémon; it has a Jolly Nature. Gold has it in both the Golden Boys and Adventures manga. In Adventures, it has the nickname “Sudobo.” In both versions, it serves as a literal roadblock that Gold has to deal with. Despite Sudobo’s strategy to camouflage, making it seem like it likes to avoid conflict, it is an extremely capable fighter! Its moveset consists of the following moves:
Shown Moves
Focus Punch: The Pokémon punches the opponent with great force.
Mimic: The Pokémon instantly copies the move last used by the opponent. It can also use the move to form its body to look like the opponent.
Low Kick: One of The Pokémon’s legs extends, zigzagging back and forth until it reaches the opponent and trips it; or, The Pokémon runs up to the opponent and swipes one of its legs underneath it.
Mud Slap: The Pokémon slaps the ground, causing a wave of mud to shoot out of the ground at the opponent.
Flail: The Pokémon flails its arms and legs around the opponent, hitting it.
Rock Tomb: While this move was executed off-panel; it likely just punches the ground, causing rocks to jump out and hits the opponent.
Sunflora
The Sunny (Grass-Type) Pokémon Sunflora was caught by Gold to help Gym Leader Falkner defeat a wild Skarmory; it has a Serious Nature. It was noted as being a great jumper when it was a Sunkern, capable of soaring high in the air. Its nickname is “Sunbo.” These are its following moves:
Shown Moves
Flash: The Pokémon’s eyes and body shine brightly, blinding the opponent.
Growth: Sunkern's body size grows larger.
Mega Drain: Sunbo was revealed to know Mega Drain, but Gold was interrupted before he could finish the attack... it grabs the opponent and drains energy from them.
Sunny Day: Pokémon’s body glows brightly, powering up Fire-type attacks.
Giga Drain: The Pokémon releases a beam of energy from its mouth at the opponent. The beam sticks to the opponent's body and absorbs its energy, giving it to Sunkern.
Solar Beam: Sunbo knows how to use Solar Beam, but the move was executed off-panel, it releases an energy beam from its mouth comprised of solar energy.
Politoed
The (Water-Type) Frog Pokémon Politoed was originally a Poliwag nicknamed “Polibo,” one of many Pokémon living in Gold’s house; it has a Quiet Nature. After getting separated from Gold, the two eventually reunited, leading to its evolution. It knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Water Gun: The Pokémon releases a stream of water from its mouth at the opponent.
Whirlpool: The Pokémon waves its arms and a giant wave of water appears out of nowhere on both sides of the opponent and swallows it up.
Double Slap: The Pokémon slaps the opponent's face with one of its hands multiple times.
Dynamic Punch: The Pokémon punches the opponent with great force.
Hypnosis: The Pokémon releases waves of psychic energy from its body at the opponent. The opponent then falls asleep when hit with these waves of energy.
Perish Song: The Pokémon quietly sings a song into its opponent's ear. After a while, both the opponent and the Pokémon faint.
Brick Break: The Pokemom punches the opponent with one of its hands.
Bounce: Polibo knows the move Bounce, but the move was executed off-panel; it allows the user to jump really high then land on an opponent (which lets it avoid most attacks).
Ambipom
The Long Tail (Normal-Type) Pokémon Aipom was another Pokémon that lived in Gold’s house with the nickname “Aibo,” being Gold’s first Pokémon; it has a Naive Nature. It is noted to have an extremely strong tail, capable of grabbing objects or holding up its entire body with it alone. Aibo evolved into Ambipom after learning the move “Double Hit.” It knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Scratch: The Pokémon scratches the opponent repeatedly with its two hands.
Swagger: The Pokémon whispers to the opponent, causing it to become confused.
Agility: The Pokémon’s speed increases, and it runs extremely fast.
Baton Pass: The Pokémon touches the target with the hand on its tail, passing on their stat changes to the target.
Double Team: When The Pokémon is about to get hit by an attack, it disappears, creating an afterimage when it does. It then reappears somewhere else.
Double Hit: The Pokémon hits the opponent with their hands, though in this case… their tails!
Mantine
The Kite (Water Flying-Type) Pokémon, Mantine, was caught by Gold to help in the battle against Lugia; it was given the nickname 'Tibo'. It is mostly used as a very efficient means of flying in tandem with Remoraids. It has no moves, but it does have the ability 'Water Absorb'.
Shown Moves
Nothing lol it just flew a bit YIPEE
Croconaw
Croconaw the Big Jaw Pokémon is a (Water-Type) with a Naughty Nature that Gold got as a Starter in the Golden Boys Manga run. It’s very adept at water combat; it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Bite: The Pokémon bites down the opponent.
Water Gun: The Pokémon shoots water from the mouth at the opponent.
Slash: The Pokémon slashes the opponent.
Pidgeotto
The Bird (Normal Flying-Type) Pokémon is a Pokémon that was abused by his rival ‘Black’, before swapping to his side as an ally; it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Peck: The Pokémon stabs the opponent with its beak.
Gust: The Pokémon flaps its wings and creates a strong gust.
Elekid
Elekid is a (Electric-Type) Pokémon that Gold won in a Basketball Competition as a Prize; it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Thunder Shock: The Pokémon stands on its head and releases electricity from the antennae.
Leer: The Pokémon’s eyes flash and the opponent is weakened.
Thunder Punch: The Pokémon launches a fist of electricity shaped like its own fist from its fist at the opponent.
Protect: The Pokémon puts up one of its arms to block an attack.
Bayleef
The Leaf (Grass-Type) Pokémon Bayleef is a Starter Pokémon from Gold’s rival that was abandoned for being too weak (i'm sensing a theme here); it knows:
Shown Moves
Razor Leaf: The Pokémon fires many leaves at the opponent.
Vine Whip: The Pokémon strikes the foe with its vines coming out from the upper body.
Stomp: The Pokémon jumps in the air and slams the opponent.
Reflect: The Pokémon creates a barrier which protects it from getting hit by an attack.
Synthesis: The Pokémon restores its stamina by using the energy from the sun.
Tackle: The Pokémon runs to the opponent and tackles it.
Gyarados
The Atrocious (Water Flying-Type) Pokémon Gyrados was obtained from… Gold’s rival… ‘Black’... after he abandoned him for being too weak, SIGH. (bro this is like the third abandoned Pokémon how does this dude keep BEATING you LMFAO); the Gyrados knows:
Shown Moves
Dragon Rage: The Pokémon fires bolts of energy from its mouth.
Thrash: The user of Thrash attacks for 2-3 turns, during which it cannot switch out, and then becomes confused. Confused Pokémon have a 33% chance of hurting themselves each turn, for 1-4 attacking turns (50% chance in Generations 1-6). The damage received is as if the Pokémon attacks itself with a typeless 40 base power Physical attack.
Hydro Pump: Black told Gyarados to use Hydro Pump but Jasmine's Steelix finished it off before it got to use the move, it shoots out water at high speeds out of its mouth.
Remoraid
Gold has the Jet (Water-Type) Pokémon Remoraid in both the Golden Boys and Adventures Manga, in the Adventures Manga they are given to him by Yellow’s Uncle to help alongside his Mantine in the fight against Lugia; the only move it knows is:
Shown Moves
Water Gun: The Pokémon shoot water out of their mouth, they use this to propel themselves and mantine thus allowing its flight.
Tyrogue
The Scuffle (Fighting-Type) Pokémon Tyrogue is a Pokémon that was gifted by Daycare Workers as a prize for treating his Pokémon well in the battle with his rival. Unlike Gold’s other Pokémon, it has exceptionally good senses & thanks to his Fighting Spirit… he can recover quickly and fight even after being nearly beaten to the point of fainting. It knows these moves:
Shown Moves
Rock Smash: The Pokémon hits the opponent with a strong punch that can shatter rocks.
Headbutt: The Pokémon headbutts the opponent.
Pikachu
The (Electric-Type) Mouse Pokémon Pikachu is a Pokémon that Gold found after it fell from a ‘time tunnel’ in the sky… long story short… a legendary Pokémon Hunter named Eusine sent this Pikachu back in time to try and lure out a bunch of legendaries throughout the region… and while Gold did temporarily give it away, he eventually got it back; it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Thunder: The Pokémon releases multiple massive bolts of electricity from its body at the opponent.
Quick Attack: The Pokémon runs quickly to the opponent.
Headbutt: The Pokémon jumps up and slams its head at the opponent.
Agility: The Pokémon runs around quickly, dodging attacks and confusing the foe.
Thunderbolt: The Pokémon releases a powerful bolt of electricity from its body at the opponent.
Pichu
The (Electric-Type) Tiny Mouse Pokémon Pichu was hatched from an Egg by Gold (why Ethan you already have a Pikachu). He also has a Pichu in Adventures (& a quick-tempered nature event Pokémon in Heart Gold), being either an egg he hatched or Mon he found based on the canon you use, they’re nicknamed “Pibu'', it knows:
Shown Moves
Flash: Pokémon’s body flashes brightly, blinding the opponent.
Volt Tackle: The Pokémon fires a powerful bolt of electricity from one of its hands, or its body becomes surrounded by streaks of electricity. It then flies towards the opponent at a high speed and crashes into them.
Charm: The Pokémon makes a cute face at the foe, rendering it unable to attack.
Helping Hand: In Double Battles, boosts the power of their partner's move.
Swagger: Swagger confuses the target and raises its Attack by two stages.
Pain Split: The user adds its HP to the foe’s HP, then equally shares the combined HP with the foe.
Smeargle
The (Normal-Type) Painter Pokémon Smeargle was a Pokémon Ethan is shown to have in official artwork for Gold & Silver. While it has no prominent moves due to being only in artwork; it does have the unique move ‘Sketch’. Sketch allows Smeargle to permanently copy the last move used by an opponent.
Scizor
The (Bug Steel-Type) Pincer Pokémon Scizor was a Pokémon Ethan is shown to have in official artwork for Gold & Silver. Due to the nature of being only in promotional art it has no prominent moves. Though this is likely the same Pokémon that Ethan can receive as a Gift in the game; that Scizor knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
X-Scissor: The user slashes at the target by crossing its scythes or claws as if they were a pair of scissors.
Swords Dance: A frenetic dance to uplift the fighting spirit. It sharply raises the user’s Attack stat.
Iron Defense: The user hardens its body’s surface like iron, sharply raising its Defense stat.
Agility: The user relaxes and lightens its body to move faster. This sharply raises the Speed stat.
Bulbasaur
The (Grass Poison-Type) Seed Pokémon Bulbasaur was a Pokémon Ethan is shown to have in official artwork for Gold & Silver. Due to the nature of being only in promotional art it has no prominent moves.
Noctowl
The (Normal Flying-Type) Owl Pokémon Noctowl was a Pokémon Ethan is shown to have in official artwork for Gold & Silver. Due to the nature of being only in promotional art it has no prominent moves.
Dragonite
The (Dragon Flying-Type) Dragon Pokémon Dragonite was originally a Dratini given to Gold in the Dragon’s Den as a prize. Though with enough hard work and effort it evolves into the mighty Pokémon Dragonite! It knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Extreme Speed: The user charges the target at blinding speed. This move always goes first.
Thunder Wave: The user launches a weak jolt of electricity that paralyzes the target.
Twister: The user whips up a vicious tornado to tear at the opposing Pokémon. This may also make them flinch.
Dragon Rage: This attack hits the target with a shock wave of pure rage. This attack always inflicts 40 HP damage.
Tyranitar
The Armor (Rock Dark-Type) Pokémon Tyranitar was showcased in the ‘Gotcha!’ Music Video as one of Gold’s Pokémon. Visibly its only showing is when it created a stone wall to shield itself from a Hydro Pump.
Shown Moves
Just shown to make a wall; wall level fr 🙁
Ampharos
The (Electric-Type) Light Pokémon Ampharos was showcased in the ‘Gotcha!’ Music Video as one of Gold’s Pokémon. Visibly its only showing is when it created a storm to use the move Thunder.
Shown Moves
Thunder: A wicked thunderbolt is dropped on the foe to inflict damage. It may also leave the target paralyzed.
Shiny Gyarados
The Atrocious (Water Flying-Type) Pokémon Gyrados was a mandatory encounter during Ethan’s journey in the Lake of Rage, it’s a Shiny Gyrados of varying nature.
Shown Moves
Dragon Rage: The foe is hit with a shock wave that always inflicts 40-HP damage no matter what.
Leer: The foe is given an intimidating look that lowers its DEFENSE stat.
Twister: The user whips up a vicious twister to tear at the foe. It may also make the foe flinch.
Bite: The target is bitten with viciously sharp fangs. This may also make the target flinch.
Eevee
The (Normal-Type) Evolution Pokémon Eevee was given to Ethan by Bill, the person who made the Pokémon transfer systems that are found all around the world. He got it over Wi-Fi like a true gamer, it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Tail Whip: Wags the tail to lower the foe’s DEFENSE.
Tackle: A physical attack in which the user charges and slams into the target with its whole body.
Helping Hand: The user assists an ally by boosting the power of its attack.
Raikou
The (Electric-Type) Thunder Pokémon Raikou is a part of the Legendary Beast Trio (the 3 Elemental Dogs), Raikou is the Electric-type of the bunch. Ethan managed to catch it while traveling through various different routes, it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Spark: The user throws an electrically charged tackle at the target. It may also leave the target with paralysis.
Roar: The target is scared off, and a different Pokémon is dragged out. In the wild, this ends a battle against a single Pokémon.
Quick Attack: The user lunges at the target at a speed that makes it almost invisible. This move always goes first.
Reflect: A wondrous wall of light is put up to reduce damage from physical attacks for five turns.
Entei
The (Fire-Type) Volcano Pokémon Entei is a part of the Legendary Beast Trio (the 3 Elemental Dogs), Entei is the Fire-type of the bunch. Ethan managed to catch it while traveling through various different routes, it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Stomp: The target is stomped with a big foot. It may also make the target flinch.
Flamethrower: The target is scorched with an intense blast of fire. This may also leave the target with a burn.
Fire Spin: The target becomes trapped within a fierce vortex of fire that rages for four to five turns.
Roar: The target is scared off, and a different Pokémon is dragged out. In the wild, this ends a battle against a single Pokémon.
Suicune
The (Water-Type) Aurora Pokémon Suicune is a part of the Legendary Beast Trio (the 3 Elemental Dogs), Suicune is the Water-type of the bunch. Ethan managed to catch it while traveling through various different routes, it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Rain Dance: The user summons a heavy rain that falls for five turns, powering up Water-type moves. It lowers the power of Fire-type moves.
Gust: A gust of wind is whipped up by wings and launched at the target to inflict damage.
Aurora Beam: The target is hit with a rainbow-colored beam. This may also lower the target’s Attack stat.
Mist: The user cloaks itself and its allies in a white mist that prevents any of their stats from being lowered for five turns.
Articuno
Articuno the Freeze Pokémon is a part of the Legendary Bird Trio (the 3 Elemental Birds), Articuno is the (Flying Ice-Type) of the bunch. Ethan managed to catch it within the Seafoam Islands, it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Ancient Power: The user attacks with a prehistoric power. This may also raise all the user’s stats at once.
Agility: The user relaxes and lightens its body to move faster. This sharply raises the Speed stat.
Ice Beam: The target is struck with an icy-cold beam of energy. This may also leave the target frozen.
Reflect: A wondrous wall of light is put up to reduce damage from physical attacks for five turns.
Zapdos
Zapdos the Electric Pokémon is a part of the Legendary Bird Trio (the 3 Elemental Birds), Zapdos is the (Flying Electric-Type) of the bunch. Ethan managed to catch it outside a Power Plant, it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Ancient Power: The user attacks with a prehistoric power. It may also raise all the user’s stats at once.
Charge: The user boosts the power of the Electric move it uses on the next turn. This also raises the user’s Sp. Def stat.
Agility: The user relaxes and lightens its body to move faster. This sharply raises the Speed stat.
Discharge: The user strikes everything around it by letting loose a flare of electricity. This may also cause paralysis.
Moltres
Moltres the Flame Pokémon is a part of the Legendary Bird Trio (the 3 Elemental Birds), Moltres is the (Flying Fire-Type) of the bunch. Ethan managed to catch it inside Silver Cave, it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Ancient Power: The user attacks with a prehistoric power. This may also raise all the user’s stats at once.
Flamethrower: The target is scorched with an intense blast of fire. This may also leave the target with a burn.
Safeguard: The user creates a protective field that prevents status conditions for five turns.
Air Slash: The user attacks with a blade of air that slices even the sky. This may also make the target flinch.
Celebi
The Time Travel (Psychic Grass-Type) Celebi is an Event Pokémon that was given to Gold during his journey, it has the incredible power to travel across time with no restrictions (the event is literally Gold traveling through time). It knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Leaf Storm: The user whips up a storm of leaves around the target. The attack’s recoil harshly lowers the user’s Sp. Atk stat.
Recover: Restoring its own cells, the user restores its own HP by half of its max HP.
Nasty Plot: The user stimulates its brain by thinking bad thoughts. This sharply raises the user’s Sp. Atk stat.
Healing Wish: The user faints. In return, the Pokémon taking its place will have its HP restored and status conditions cured.
Jirachi
Jirachi the Wish (Steel Psychic-Type) Pokémon is probably the most obscure of any of Ethan's Pokémon. It's a special Jirachi with unique moves and details that the normal Jirachi is incapable of. Ethan got this from the Pokémart for the "Make A Wish" event (to access a new area in the PokéWalker) after trading it from a parallel universe (okay then). It has the innate ability to grant wishes and knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Wish: A self-healing move. The user restores its own HP by up to half of its maximum HP in the next turn.
Confusion: The target is hit by a weak telekinetic force. It may also leave the target confused.
Rest: The user goes to sleep for two turns. This fully restores the user’s HP and heals any status conditions.
Draco Meteor: Comets are summoned down from the sky onto the target. The attack’s recoil harshly lowers the user’s Sp. Atk stat.
Mew
The New Species (Psychic-Type) Mew was given to Gold through a limited time event where it would be given by a NPC in the game via gift, it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Pound: The target is physically pounded with a long tail, a foreleg, or the like.
Mewtwo
Mewtwo the Genetic (Psychic-Type) Pokémon is one of the world’s strongest Pokémon, a man-made creation from the DNA of Mew. Ethan managed to catch it deep within Cerulean Cave, it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Psycho Cut: The user tears at the target with blades formed by psychic power. Critical hits land more easily.
Amnesia: The user temporarily empties its mind to forget its concerns. This sharply raises the user’s Sp. Def stat.
Power Swap: The user employs its psychic power to switch changes to its Attack and Sp. Atk stats with the target.
Guard Swap: The user employs its psychic power to switch changes to its Defense and Sp. Def stats with the target.
Groudon
The (Ground-Type) Continent Pokémon Groudon is the personification of the land itself. Legends tell of its many clashes against Kyogre, as each sought to gain the power of nature. Ethan caught it inside the ‘Embedded Tower’ after obtaining the Red Orb & it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Earthquake: An earthquake that strikes all POKéMON in battle excluding the user.
Ancient Power: The user attacks with a prehistoric power. This may also raise all the user’s stats at once.
Rest: The user goes to sleep for two turns. This fully restores the user’s HP and heals any status conditions.
Eruption: The user attacks opposing Pokémon with explosive fury. The lower the user’s HP, the lower the move’s power.
Kyogre
The Sea Basin (Water-Type) Pokémon Kyogre is the personification of the sea itself. Legends tell of its many clashes against Groudon, as each sought to gain the power of nature. Ethan caught it inside the ‘Embedded Tower’ after obtaining the Blue Orb & it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Aqua Ring: The user envelops itself in a veil made of water. It regains some HP every turn.
Ancient Power: The user attacks with a prehistoric power. This may also raise all the user’s stats at once.
Ice Beam: The target is struck with an icy-cold beam of energy. This may also leave the target frozen.
Water Spout: The user spouts water to damage opposing Pokémon. The lower the user’s HP, the lower the move’s power.
Rayquaza
The Sky High (Dragon Flying-Type) Pokémon Rayquaza is said to have lived for hundreds of millions of years. Legends remain of how it put to rest the clash between Kyogre and Groudon. Ethan caught it inside the ‘Embedded Tower’ after obtaining the Jade Orb & it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Rest: The user goes to sleep for two turns. This fully restores the user’s HP and heals any status conditions.
Air Slash: The user attacks with a blade of air that slices even the sky. This may also make the target flinch.
Outrage: The user rampages and attacks for two to three turns. The user then becomes confused.
Ancient Power: The user attacks with a prehistoric power. This may also raise all the user’s stats at once.
Latios
During an event Ethan took an Enigma Stone to Pewter City Museum where he met Steven Stone. After learning about it it turns out it was a 'Soul Dew', leading to the arrival of the Eon (Dragon Psychic-Type) Pokémon Latios or the Eon (Dragon Psychic-Type) Pokémon Latias depending on your playthrough; it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Protect: Enables the user to evade all attacks. Its chance of failing rises if it is used in succession.
Refresh: The user rests to cure itself of poisoning, a burn, or paralysis.
Luster Purge: The user lets loose a damaging burst of light. This may also lower the target’s Sp. Def stat.
Zen Headbutt: The user focuses its willpower to its head and attacks the target. This may also make the target flinch.
Latias
During an event Ethan took an Enigma Stone to Pewter City Museum where he met Steven Stone. After learning about it it turns out it was a 'Soul Dew', leading to the arrival of the Eon (Dragon Psychic-Type) Pokémon Latios or the Eon (Dragon Psychic-Type) Pokémon Latias depending on your playthrough; it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Dragon Breath: The user exhales a mighty gust that inflicts damage. This may also leave the target with paralysis.
Water Sport: The user soaks the battlefield with water. This weakens Fire-type moves for five turns.
Refresh: The user rests to cure itself of poisoning, a burn, or paralysis.
Mist Ball: A mist-like flurry of down envelops and damages the target. This may also lower the target’s Sp. Atk stat.
Ho-Oh
After obtaining a Rainbow Wing & climbing to the top of the Bell Tower in Ecruteak City, Ethan encountered and captured the (Fire Flying-Type) Rainbow Pokémon Ho-Oh; it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Extrasensory: The user attacks with an odd, unseeable power. This may also make the target flinch.
Sunny Day: The user intensifies the sun for five turns, powering up Fire-type moves. It lowers the power of Water-type moves.
Sacred Fire: The target is razed with a mystical fire of great intensity. This may also leave the target with a burn.
Fire Blast: The target is attacked with an intense blast of all-consuming fire. This may also leave the target with a burn.
Lugia
After obtaining a Silver Wing & traveling to the Whirl Islands, Ethan encountered and captured the Diving (Psychic Flying-Type) Pokémon Lugia; it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Aeroblast: Critical hits land more easily.
X Sp. Atk: Sharply raises the user's Sp. Atk.
Whirlpool: Leaves the target trapped.
Punishment: The more the target has powered up with stat changes, the greater the move’s power.
Ancient Power: The user attacks with a prehistoric power. This may also raise all the user’s stats at once.
Safeguard: The user creates a protective field that prevents status conditions for five turns.
This Is It!: Has a chance (50%) of reducing the user's sync move countdown by one. Raises the user's accuracy by 1 stat rank. Applies the Critical Hit Next effect to the user. Increases the user's Special Moves ↑ Next effect by 3 ranks.
Shining Soul Aeroblast: The user synergizes with their Pokémon to use a Super Attack that creates a vortex of air energy to shred through foes.
Arceus
A special event gift which contained the Alpha (Normal-Type) Pokémon Arceus…Ethan obtained this from someone to celebrate the 12th Pokémon movie, though there are a number of potential ways for Ethan to get it. There are two things to cover when it comes to the controversial nature of Arceus; mostly the counters to Ethan getting it:
1: You cannot legally obtain Arceus without hacking. This isn’t true; while it is HARD to obtain, it’s certainly not impossible. Given Pal Park exists within HeartGold, it means you CAN get Arceus in-game through trading from games like Platinum (meaning it’s legal and requires no hacking, it’s completely possible).
2: You need Arceus for the event to happen at all. Yes, this is true, but that’s a good thing in this case. It’s a Story Event that requires specific Pokémon (Arceus), similar to other events which people DO consider canon. And as discussed before, you CAN get Arceus, making this a canon story event that happens. It’s even referenced and brought up again in BDSP and was going to BE in the original DP.
Accounting for these two factors, while it is HARD to do the event, it is completely fine to give to Ethan… aside from that it knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Judgment: The user releases countless shots of light at the target. This move’s type varies depending on the kind of Plate the user is holding.
Roar Of Time: The user blasts the foe with power that distorts even time. The user must rest on the next turn.
Spacial Rend: The user tears the target along with the space around it. Critical hits land more easily.
Shadow Force: The user disappears, then strikes the target on the next turn. This move hits even if the target protects itself.
Dialga
Inside the Sinjou Ruins, Arceus is brought to an altar that is painted with lots of strange symbols, then Ethan has him create a separate legendary member of the Creation Trio of his choice. The (Steel Dragon-Type) Temporal Pokémon Dialga, the Spatial (Water Dragon-Type) Pokémon Palkia, the Renegade (Ghost Dragon-Type) Pokémon Giratina; Palkia & Dialga combined can manipulate Time & Space Dialga knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Dragon Breath: The user exhales a mighty gust that inflicts damage. This may also leave the target with paralysis.
Scary Face: The user frightens the target with a scary face to harshly lower its Speed stat.
Palkia
Inside the Sinjou Ruins, Arceus is brought to an altar that is painted with lots of strange symbols, then Ethan has him create a separate legendary member of the Creation Trio of his choice. The (Steel Dragon-Type) Temporal Pokémon Dialga, the Spatial (Water Dragon-Type) Pokémon Palkia, the Renegade (Ghost Dragon-Type) Pokémon Giratina; Palkia & Dialga combined can manipulate Time & Space; though Palkia has the ability to also REVERSE time to affect a person’s age (the ‘forget moves’ part is referring to how lower level Pokémon can’t use certain moves), Palkia knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Dragon Breath: The user exhales a mighty gust that inflicts damage. This may also leave the target with paralysis.
Scary Face: The user frightens the target with a scary face to harshly lower its Speed stat.
Giratina
Inside the Sinjou Ruins, Arceus is brought to an altar that is painted with lots of strange symbols, then Ethan has him create a separate legendary member of the Creation Trio of his choice. The (Steel Dragon-Type) Temporal Pokémon Dialga, the Spatial (Water Dragon-Type) Pokémon Palkia, the Renegade (Ghost Dragon-Type) Pokémon Giratina; Giratina can trap people in the Distortion World (a separate dimension of perpetual nothingness), Giratina knows the following moves:
Shown Moves
Dragon Breath: The user exhales a mighty gust that inflicts damage. This may also leave the target with paralysis.
Scary Face: The user frightens the target with a scary face to harshly lower its Speed stat.
Silver Feather
The Silver Feather are the Feather’s dropped off of Lugia, they can be used to summon Lugia and his Avatars.
Poke Stick
A regular Pool Stick but Pokemon-themed! This is used by Gold as an unordinary way of throwing out Pokéballs by hitting them, he’s an excellent shot capable of making impressive hits with it, it’s not just good for range though, in the Manga Gold even uses it to fight swordsmen, because Sticks are the best Swords!
Goggles
Gold has a pair of goggles that he mostly uses when skateboarding, however it also shields his vision from things like bright light or smoke.
Skateboard/Scooter
A Skateboard used by Gold to travel around, originally it was just a simple Skateboard but he ended up adding wheels and a handle to turn it into a Scooter later before then going back on that and turning it back into a Skateboard! good it was cooler when it was Skateboard anyway
Pokégear
The Pokegear is a small device most notable capable of communicating with people far away via the phone feature, however it does possess a couple of other notable features. It has a digital clock to tell time, it’s able to tune in and listen to various radio broadcasts around the region, and it’s known for providing maps for the entirety of Johto and Kanto regions! In the Manga it’s even been used as a sort of spyglass.
The Pokedex
The Pokedex is a small electronic device made to catalog and provide info on Pokémon around the region, just by pointing the Pokédex in front of the Pokémon and pressing a button it will give a short blurb about the Pokémon and the info around it, it also keeps track of Pokémon captured and or seen. Upon capturing a Pokémon they are transformed into data & that data is instantly recorded inside the device (no it is not written by children lol); this is stated in the anime & manga in order to know everything there is to know about the creature you captured.
Gym Badges
Gym Badges are a token of Victory over the various Gym Leaders found throughout the Region(s). Gold had beaten all the Gym Leaders throughout Kanto & Johto, giving him one of the highest badge counts from trainers across the series. Outside of mere decoration though, it is implied that badges IN GENERAL have the power to inflict major world-wide destruction or imbue the world with Life due to the power it has over Pokémon. Though Gold has never channeled it in such a way obviously.
Sygna Suit
A Sygna Suit is a specially made outfit that mirrors the appearance of a trainer's partner Pokémon. It's believed they're made to strengthen the bond between Trainer & Pokémon to give them an advantage in battle! Ethan has two different variants, one for Lugia, & one based on Shiny Lugia!
6★ EX Style
This costume represents Ethan’s pinnacle of potential when it comes to sync pairs, having achieved 6 Stars to get an EX costume! What does it do you may ask? It’s just a costume.
Healing & Improvement Items
Ethan has access to a variety of different healing medicines that can patch his Pokémon up in a tight spot, and can even revive them if they find themselves fainted. These include:
Status-Healing Items
Ethan also carries around items that can remove certain status conditions from his Pokemon.
Held Items
Ethan carries ‘Held Items’ which he can have his Pokémon hold onto to achieve a number of different effects.
Key Items
Key Items are Items that are so vital that Ethan HAD to bring them on his adventures to even get as far as he did!
Items
(Pokémon Masters)
This one is actually one of Ethan’s most important sections, it has a huge amount of unique items never seen in any other Pokémon games. The amount of stat-amping, healing, stat-altering chicanery he gets from Masters is outright absurd:
Misc. Items
This is a category for items that are generally separate from normal items due to special properties (like being evolution items) & or not being able to align with any others due to how different they are.
Abilities
Spike
Double Jump
Spike has the innate ability to jump twice in mid-air. It’s mostly used for traversal, as it’s a really good tool for propelling yourself upwards.
Self-Sustenance
Spike, as well as the other protagonists and characters of the Ape Escape franchise, have pretty consistently had no trouble breathing in space. Spike survived inside the Pipotron’s Virtual Space (as seen above AND in Pumped and Primed), which included outer space, Dimension X which is just SPACE, and he went to Specter’s moon base in Ape Escape 2 with no issues, despite how a majority of monkeys still had to wear helmets while there. also not really anything to do with Self Sustenance but he did learn how to swim in space :)
N.P.I. (Non-Physical Interaction)
Spike is capable of harming and dispelling Whispermeres in the original Ape Escape which are literally said to be Ghosts… (which is also supported by the fact that it’s a Haunted House setting and they can come out of coffins, like yeah they’re definitely ghosts) meaning Spike can harm non-tangible entities.
Fourth Wall Awareness
Spike has vaguely addressed the audience a few times throughout his manga run, but the final time was pretty blatant… as he thanks his audience for sticking by him for so long!
Gadget Recall
In Ape Escape 3, whenever your gadgets are stolen or lost (this is a Monkey stealing your Net), your lost Gadgets can be automatically warped back to you upon teleporting back to the lab; it's explained that the Gadgets have a special sensor that activates when you teleport, allowing them to accompany you no matter the distance. While it may seem this feature is exclusive to the Ape Escape 3 protagonists, it's evident that there are no differences with the Gadgets. They're the same Gadgets from Ape Escape 1 (no like literally their appearance is the same & they do the same thing) and it’s implied to be from the Professor himself; this is very obvious as Natalie literally sends you the Monkey Net you use throughout the game & it has these special sensors given it warps back if you lose it. No reason to assume the Professor ONLY implemented this into the Monkey Net and that this wouldn’t apply to all Gadgets like it does for the Ape Escape 3 Protagonists.
Tech Manipulation / Power Nullification / Attack Negation
Jesus why is this on all his Gadgets
This one is easy to miss (despite how it was included in the Gadget section briefly) so we’ll bring it up again here to be safe. In Ape Escape Pumped & Primed there is an ‘Electricity’ effect that can be given to Players upon hitting them, this effect disables all Gadgets & Supers. You become physically incapable of not only using gadgets, but attacking in general during this time period (no like really you can still move around, but you can’t even Punch, Shoot, or Slice- you can’t perform any attacks on people while affected). Though the neat part is that this ‘Thunder’ variant can be applied to nearly all of his gadgets!
Special Moves
Dimensional Break - Spike can charge his Stun Club with energy that creates a powerful arc of fire that deals mass damage to anyone hit by it.
Hurricane Crush - Spike spins in a similar manner to a tornado as he launches himself upward, juggling anyone close enough to be sucked into his vortex of pain.
Sonic Revolution - Spike pulls out two large Stun Clubs that he uses to spin around in a Spin Attack motion, hitting anyone in his way as he charges around.
Thunder Crack - Spike charges his sword with a large quantity of electric energy, which will create a path of danger & harm to anyone who touches the wave.
Sword Frenzy - Spike charges his sword and then fires a wave of energy that obliterates an opponent upon passing through them.
Super Laser Cannon - The Super Laser Cannon is a callback to Million Monkeys where he used a satellite laser to negate the regenerative abilities of an Alien creature. This version uses that same laser, instantly vaporizing anyone in Spike's vicinity.
Ethan
Special Trainer Skill
(Breeder Variation)
Each Dex Holder in Pokémon Adventures has a special skill in relation to Pokémon, with Gold’s being the Breeder\Hatcher skill, allowing the Pokémon from the eggs he hatched to “be able to realize their true potential”, it also results in those Pokémon gaining some characteristics similar to Gold.
Sync Grid
Through linking up with separate pairs of People & Pokémon, Ethan has managed to unlock special passive skills to help him in battles! It’s important to note that this doesn’t apply to ALL Pokémon, only very select ones & there are some repeat skills, though this is because the skills stack ontop of eachother!
Typhlosion Chart
Lugia Chart
Movepool
Pokémon have an assortment of different moves that they can learn based on their typing, given Ethan has literal GOD on his squad, & we don’t want this to be a formatting nightmare; the best solution is to organize ALL the possible moves EACH type can learn. Meaning we’ll have one section for each type below with all possible moves they can learn in Generation 4; while Pokémon would retroactively be CAPABLE of learning new moves from later Gens due to the retcons of the moves always having technically existed… Ethan himself has never showcased these moves so it’d be unreasonable to give them to him (thus we’ll only use Gen 1 - Gen 4 for moves)
It’s also important to discuss the fact that all Pokémon fall under an Element-based system, where some elements are strong against others, & some elements are weak against other elements… it makes the most sense to explain here in unison with the moves; meaning in each section we’ll go into what makes them important!
Fire
Fire-type moves are moves that command the power of flame in some shape or form; these types of moves are super effective against Bug, Grass, Ice, & Steel-type Pokémon. Fire-type Pokémon are weak to Ground, Rock, & Water-type moves! Typhlosion, Ho-Oh, Groudon, Moltres, & Entei are Ethan's main Pokémon to use these types of moves:
Water
Water-types are exactly what they sound like, they’re water-related in nature. Water-type moves are super effective against Fire, Ground, & Rock-type Pokémon. Water-type Pokémon are weak to Electric & Grass-type moves. Ethan's main Pokémon who use these types of moves are Palkia, Lugia, Kyogre, Suicine, Remoraid, Gyrados, Mantine, Politoed & Croconaw:
Grass
Grass-types are those of whom are made of plants or more natural than other Pokémon; if not that then it means they harness plants and natural attacks. Grass-type moves are super effective against Ground, Rock, & Water-type Pokémon. Grass-type Pokémon are weak to Bug, Fire, Flying, Ice, & Poison-type moves. The main Pokémon that use this type in Ethan's arsenal are Celebi, Bayleef, Bulbasaur, & Sunflora:
Electric
Electric-types have an affinity for Electricity & channel it to use attacks. Electric-type moves are super effective against Flying & Water-type Pokémon. Electric-type Pokémon are weak to Ground-type moves. Ethan's Pokémon that channel electricity are Zapdos, Raikou, Pichu, Pikachu, & Elekid:
Ice
Ice-types tend to be frozen-solid or related to snow & ice, they have a natural affinity for it. Ice-type moves are super effective against Dragon, Flying, Grass, & Ground-type Pokémon. Ice-type Pokémon are weak to Fighting-, Fire-, Rock-, and Steel-type moves. The Pokémon Ethan has that use these moves are Articuno… and that's it (Ice Types get no love):
Fighting
Fighting-types are naturally expert fighters who have an affinity for physical-combat or moves that channel fighting Aura. Fighting-type moves are super effective against Dark, Ice, Normal, Rock, & Steel-type Pokémon. Fighting-type Pokémon are weak to Flying, Fairy, & Psychic-type moves. The only Pokémon Ethan has that use these moves are Tyrogue (though it is important to note that Ethan having completed the deck implies he has a numerous amount of these Types):
Poison
Poison-types tend to be made out of Poison or exude it, making them have a natural affinity for it. Poison-type moves are super effective against Fairy & Grass-type Pokémon. Poison-type Pokémon are weak to Ground & Psychic-type moves. The only Pokémon Ethan has that use these moves are Bulbasaur (though it is important to note that Ethan having completed the deck implies he has a numerous amount of these Types):
Ground
Ground-types usually either come from the ground or use attacks involving the ground. Ground-type moves are super effective against Electric, Fire, Poison, Rock, & Steel-type Pokémon. Ground-type Pokémon are weak to Grass, Ice, & Water-type moves. The Ground-Type Pokémon that can use these moves in Ethan's arsenal are Groudon:
Flying
Flying-types are found in the air & sky (or are bird-like in nature), tending to use fast aerial moves against opponents. Flying-type moves are super effective against Bug, Fighting, & Grass-type Pokémon. Flying-type Pokémon are weak to Electric-, Ice-, and Rock-type moves. Ethan's Pokémon that can use Flying-Type moves are Lugia, Ho-Oh, Rayquaza, Moltres, Gyrados, Zapdos, Articuno, Dragonite, Noctowl, Pidgeotto, & Mantine:
Psychic
Psychic-types are as you’d guess… Psychic; this makes them capable of using telekinetic moves; this even enables certain Pokémon to ruin precision technology devices & mechanical machines! Psychic-type moves are super effective against Fighting & Poison-type Pokémon. Psychic-type Pokémon are weak to Bug, Dark, & Ghost-type moves. Ethan's Pokémon that can use Psychic-Type moves are Lugia, Latios, Latias, Jirachi, Mewtwo, Mew, & Celebi:
Bug
Bug-types… are bugs or bug-related; not much more to it than that. Bug-type moves are super effective against Dark, Grass, & Psychic-type Pokémon. Bug-type Pokémon are weak to Fire, Flying, & Rock-type moves. The only Pokémon Ethan has that use these moves are Scizor (though it is important to note that Ethan having completed the deck implies he has a numerous amount of these Types):
Rock
Rock-types tend to be related to Rocks that you’d find around in the world, rather than Ground-types which are related to the ground beneath you. Rock-type moves are super effective against Bug, Fire, Flying, & Ice-type Pokémon. Rock-type Pokémon are weak to Fighting, Grass, Ground, Steel, & Water-type moves. The Pokémon Ethan has that can use Rock-Type moves are Sudowoodo & Tyranitar:
Ghost
Ghost-types are at their core, the end-state for all Pokémon after they die… they become Ghosts; as a Ghost they have the natural ability to steal souls! Ghost-type moves are super effective against Ghost & Psychic-type Pokémon. Ghost-type Pokémon are weak to Dark & Ghost-type moves. The one Pokémon Ethan has that use Ghost-Type moves is Giratina:
Dragon
Dragon-types are Dragon related in nature; like they tend to be LITERAL Dragons. Dragon-type moves are super effective against Dragon-type Pokémon. Dragon-type Pokémon are weak to Dragon, Fairy, & Ice-type moves. The Pokémon Ethan has that use Dragon-Type moves are Giratina, Palkia, Dialga, Latios, Latias, Rayquaza, & Dragonite:
Dark
Dark-types have an affinity for shadows or are related to darkness. Dark-type moves are super effective against Ghost & Psychic-type Pokémon. Dark-type Pokémon are weak to Bug, Fairy, & Fighting-type moves. The one Pokémon Ethan has that can use Dark-Type moves is Tyranitar:
Steel
Steel-types are usually made out of steel or mechanics, giving them an affinity for Steel related moves. Steel-type moves are super effective against Fairy, Ice, & Rock-type Pokémon. Steel-type Pokémon are weak to Fighting, Fire, & Ground-type moves. The only Pokémon Ethan has that can use Steel-Type moves are Dialga, Jirachi, & Scizor:
Fairy
Fairy-types are Fairies… yep they’re mythical! Fairy-type moves are super-effective against Dark, Dragon, & Fighting-type Pokémon. Fairy-type Pokémon are weak to Poison & Steel-type moves. The only Pokémon Ethan has that can use Fairy-Type moves is Togekiss:
Normal
Normal types are exactly like they sound, normal individuals with no distinct traits. Normal-type moves are not super-effective against any Pokémon, the trade-off being they are almost weak to nothing, their only weak type matchup being against Fighting-type moves. The Pokémon Ethan has that can use Normal-Type moves are Arceus (the literal god of all Pokémon), Eevee (the evolutionary Pokémon), Smeargle (an artist) & Noctowl (a literal owl):
Ability Pool & Theme Skills
Aside from Moves, Pokémon can also be born with a special ‘passive’ ability that initiates the moment a battle starts! Given how many Pokémon Ethan can have access to & formatting purposes they’ll all be listed below from Gen 3 - Gen 4. As for Theme Skills & Passive Skills they were both introduced in Pokémon Masters. Theme Skills are activated by having Pokémon who match a theme be in a battle together simultaneously; Passive Skills are in simple terms just Abilities in the same way as normal Pokémon (though Passive Skills & Theme Skills would ONLY apply to Typhlosion & Lugia):
Abilities
Theme Skills (Pokémon Masters)
Passive Skills (Pokémon Masters)
Accelerated Development
Essentially in every Pokémon game in Generation 2 & beyond a new function was added called ‘Pokérus’. Pokérus is a 1 in 21845 chance microscopic organism that latches onto a Pokémon unknowingly to infect them with a disease. While you’d think this is a bad thing, it’s actually like… ONLY BENEFICIAL, this disease causes a Pokémon to gain double the normal amount of EVs (Effort Values) they normally would during a battle. Effort Values are essentially stat affinities that can be added towards any of a Pokémon’s stats depending on the types of Pokémon they defeat, with ‘Pokérus’ halving the effort needed to progress onwards. Any Pokémon can get it & from there it has a high chance of spreading to others, it’s a win win situation!
Self-Sustenance
While Ethan himself hasn’t explicitly done this, every protagonist in the series (who has used Dive), can stay underwater indefinitely with no ill effects. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume the same applies to Ethan.
N.P.I. (Non-Physical Interaction)
This is pretty straightforward, honestly; Ethan has literal ghosts on his squad that can hurt other ghosts. Moreover, he has plenty of Pokémon that can harm ghosts despite not being ghosts themselves, meaning he has Non-Physical Interaction.
Resistances
Spike
Mind Control - Specter has the ability to control minds, as seen with how he converted Jake to his cause. When Specter lured Spike to his base, he tried to control his mind (he literally YAPS about how he’s going to do it in the remake) as well… but Spike just sorta overpowered it.
Extreme Heat - Plasma Control, one of the Professor’s super moves, summons a heated ball of condensed Plasma that he can ram people with. Plasma is known to burn at over 12750 Fahrenheit on average, which is hotter than the surface of the Sun.
Extreme Cold - The Pipotrons have an RC car that is so cold that it’s described as being at absolute zero temperatures. It freezes anything instantly on contact, and it’s more than likely that the intent is for the cast to be frozen at absolute zero with no real issues (rather than just the projectile being at absolute zero). Even then, through heat transfer, being in contact with an absolute zero projectile long enough would make you eventually reach absolute zero. Which is supported by how even absolute zero cannot instantly freeze an entire human body on contact (making this inherently more impressive).
Confusion / Dizziness - During the Yellow Monkey Boss fight, he can shake you really fast to make you dizzy. Spike can break out of this effect extremely fast by mashing the controller stick.
Electricity - AAA Jellyfish can produce 1 million volts and Spike can take hits from it with no real repercussions. Spike has also been shocked continuously by Specter’s electrokinesis and powered through it… with FRIENDSHIP!
Poison - Spike can be stung by Human-Sized ‘Eggplant Bees’ with no issue. Bees are known for producing small amounts of venom and at the size of a Human you’d run the chance of being killed by the scaled up Poison (since the dosage and quality would increase).
Acid - This one is pretty simple, during the events of Ape Escape 1 you go inside a MASSIVE Dinosaur and can swim through Stomach Acid with absolutely zero issues. This same Dinosaur was big enough to eat LITERAL ships and holds an entire MAZE inside… so imagine how potent that upscaled Acid would be.
Transmutation - The Pipo Watches can protect anyone wearing them from having their physiologies changed (like when Specter was changing people into Pipo Monkeys on a Planetary range including the planet itself) and Spike got one in the anime.
BFR (Spatial) - Spike has been unaffected by the Monkey Net (NOT the Time Net, that’s a different weapon only wielded by Spike), the Monkey Net has the ability to warp humans and monkeys spatially… and Spike just kind of ignored it. In the Anime, Spike isn’t teleported away by his Monkey Net which is capable of sending people across Space (he only uses the Monkey Net in the anime, rather than the Time Net… so this is still only Spatial).
Tech Manipulation - In Ape Escape Pumped & Primed the Electrified debuff stops you from using gadgets in general (due to messing with them with electricity), though despite how this event should make the gadgets indefinitely unusable without repairs… given enough time Spike’s Gadgets fix themself automatically.
Possible Intelligence Manipulation - Pipo Monkey Helmets are known for forcibly boosting your knowledge to make you a super genius, though Spike is left unchanged by having one put on his head- (since he’s still his same self afterwards) despite how it was very clearly on and attached to him.
Petrification - Characters in PSASBR can undo the effects of Medusa’s Gaze which turns you to stone.
Partial Information Manipulation (Mind, Body, Soul) - Spike and the entire Ape Escape cast, after having beaten the Grid Core, started experiencing glitching in their physiologies. This is because the Virtual World’s Core had begun to purge itself and delete any corrupted data inside — which included them. While it is stated it’d inevitably kill all of them, they were completely fine staying there for a prolonged amount of time and also survived after the wave passed over the Virtual World (though it’s unclear if it missed them since they teleported ahead of time (and the wave COULD have beat them there mid teleport); despite how they appear fine right after like nothing happened… it’d be more accurate to say it’s a partial resistance. Information Manipulation pertains to the aspects that make you up (Mind, Body, Soul for example) the world of Ape Escape has all of these including Ghosts so even Soul Destruction would be an aspect.
Ethan
Sealing - Once Pokémon are caught they cannot be ‘recaptured’ or ‘captured’ by any other trainer’s Poké Balls with it simply forming a shield around the Mon attempting to be captured (such as in Pokémon Origins) or outright IGNORING the attempt (like in the anime).
Mind Control - It’s been showcased that Psychic Types like Espeon can create psychic barriers passively to protect themselves & allies from Psychic Attacks. Pokémon like Jynx also have the ability to ‘suggestively’ force you to dance, yet Pokémon are unaffected by it.
Spatial Manipulation / Possibly Temporal Erasure - Ethan survived being thrown into warped space, which is described to kill ANYONE who comes in unprepared (with spatial warping). He was then ditched inside which is a temporal void in-between the past, present, and future… which was described as the sacrifice of his very existence (which in this case should mean temporal).
Cellular Manipulation - Pokémon can interact with & break through Mr. Mime’s shields with moves like Brick Break despite how it ‘stops molecules in the air’ that are near their hands.
Radiation - It’s mentioned by multiple dex descriptions that Elemental Stones give off radiation potent enough to trigger literal evolutionary change in a Pokémon… AND this somehow doesn’t harm them.
Partial Elemental Damage (Normal, Fire, Water, Electric, Grass, Ice, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Flying, Psychic, Bug, Rock, Ghost, Dragon, Dark, Steel, Fairy) - Depending on the Pokémon that Ethan has out, it will have a list of elemental advantages and disadvantages, though this does mean that he at least very technically has a way to resist every element found in Pokémon. Though to name a few… can take hits from Maccargo who is 18000 F, can tank 10,000 volts from Jolteon, and can survive being instantly frozen solid by the Frozen status which is technically an impossible degree of coldness. The rest of the resistances would literally just be the fact that ANY Pokémon can reasonably take hits from any type… & some have a dedicated resistance while others don’t… it really depends.
Feats
Spike
Overall
"Power alone isn't the true strength!"
One of the most Influential & innovative games ever released by Sony; the first of which to utilize Dual Analog controls!
Became the World’s very first Time Traveler; leading to him visiting the Prehistoric Era, Medieval Era, & the Future!
Throughout his Adventures all across the Planet he’s caught 568 Monkeys in total!
Saved Jake from Specter’s Mind Control after following him all across time.
Stopped a War involving a Million Monkeys, which even the Military could not stop.
Stopped the world from being taken over 5 times.
Won the High-Tech & Virus-Tech Tournaments when it was rigged for him to lose.
After Specter trapped Spike in a Future with none of his gadgets & where every other Human was turned into a Monkey… he managed to STILL somehow come out on top.
Beat his Rival Jake, the Freaky Monkey Five, the Monkey Overlord Specter, the Super Pipotrons, & the Reality-bending Grid Core.
Secured a spot in PSASBR over Crash & Spyro, Playstation’s big two Mascots!
Fought Parappa the Rapper WHILE he was believing.
Power & Durability
A majority of Spike's feats are performed by himself without significant issues. As the main protagonist of Ape Escape, he's accomplished a great deal while traveling through time, dimensions, and across the entire world.
Anime
Carried tons of filled boxes for Natalie. (273.063 KG) [Peak Human]
Survived an Avalanche crushing him. (496.2 Tons of TNT) [MCB]
Plugged a Black Hole using a weird ‘Star’ in the Virtual World. (See Before The Verdict)
With Giant Mech (comparable to Pipotrons’ & Specter’s Giant Mech)
Could lift Australia with one hand. (5.775E+23 KG) [Class Z]
Pipotron Mech could shake Saturn and turn its rings into a bowling alley… it also uses a Moon as a Bowling Ball. (254 FOE - 254 Million FOE) [Solar System]
Game
Can survive being bit by a T-Rex.
Can shatter statues with a single swing of his Stunclub.
Can destroy massive walls with the Magic Punch.
Can knock out Yellow Monkey’s Giant Teeth.
Knocked over a Golden Statue. (26.2 Metric Tons) [Class 50]
Moved a massive Stone Block. (43.258 Metric Tons) [Class 50]
Can destroy a segment of stone pillars. (6.85 Tons of TNT) [Large Building]
Completely vaporized Specter’s Ship. (1.218 Kilotons of TNT) [Small Town]
Tanked a Spaceship exploding in his face. (998.92 Megatons of TNT) [Mountain]
Speed
Spike tends to be quite fast, given the imminent world-threatening situations he faces daily. Not only that, but he is also one of the faster individuals in the Ape Escape universe. This speed is how he effectively navigates any challenge that’s thrown his way; there’s that and he’s very athletic when it comes to obstacle courses.
Game
Dodged Lightning from the Sky inside a Virtual World. (Mach 204.85 - 0.69 c) [MHS - Rela+]
Has dodged laser-fire from a gun.
Can move in-tandem with a Magnetic Ray. (1.38 c) [FTL]
All of Spike’s moments in the Past for his adventure in Ape Escape 1 takes ‘a lot of nanoseconds’ to complete. (780.5 c) (MFTL)
Anime
Fell off a cliff and then climbed faster than he originally fell to the top.
Ran a large distance of the Virtual World in the Anime. (2.09 Quadrillion c / 6.2 Quadrillion c / 12.58 Quadrillion c) [MFTL+]
Stamina
Spike is an energetic boy always looking for adventure; this means he doesn't get tired very easily. This is very understandable when we consider the types of things he's done without rest. His constant battles, time-traveling escapades, and confrontations with Specter and his monkeys showcase his remarkable endurance and determination. Whether it's saving the world or rescuing friends, Spike's resilience and stamina are key to coming out in fights ontop.
Anime
Was fine after being ragdolled for multiple minutes by Pipotron J.
Game
Raced across massive deadly obstacle courses in Dimension X with no rest.
Traveled all around the world catching hundreds of Monkeys, which lasted around a full day.
Participated in the Tech Tournament and Virus Tech Tournament, which is the equivalent of the Olympics (testing physicality, talents & skills, endurance, and much much more), this lasted at least a few hours.
Scaling
Monkeys
Spike across ALL canons has caught EVERY single Monkey that’s showcased across the series (including those who are maximum stats in the Monkeypedia), it’s pretty easy to see why he scales… he can take hits from the monkeys, he’s kept up with them in combat & outraced them, reacted to and dodged their vehicles mid movement, and is consistently physically stronger.
Cartoons
Specter kicks a can into the horizon.
A Pipo Monkey fired a laser that split the Sun in Half. (136.066 Quettatons of TNT / 676.17 c) [Star / MFTL]
A single Monkey made a hole to the other side of the planet. (1.974 Gigatons of TNT) [Large Mountain]
Anime/Manga
Pipotron J could move faster than eyesight.
A Pipo Monkey can hit 100s of Baseballs consecutively.
Pink Monkey can split cars in half with a single punch.
A Pipo Monkey can shatter boulders.
A group of Monkeys carried a large building.
Pipotrons survive re-entry. (5.97 Kilotons of TNT) [Town]
Monkey Yellow cracked a portion of Ice that spanned to the horizon. (0.70 Gigatons of TNT) [Mountain]
Pink Monkey made an Explosion visible on an Island. (7.53 Kilotons of TNT) [Town]
It’s implied that Specter would have been vibing & COMPLETELY fine out in the open at the epicenter of a device that would cause mass global warming near instantly. (27.868 Teratons of TNT) [Country]
Pink Monkey outmuscles an elephant.
Pink Monkey uproots and carries a tree.
A Pipo Monkey, Monkey Red, & Specter… are able to pull the statue of liberty.
Pink Monkey swings a Flag so fast that it throws around cars.
Blue Monkey throws a ball to a mountain and back.
Pink Monkey throws a plane into the sky.
A Monkey caused a large stadium spanning fire with a torch instantaneously. (590.816 Tons of TNT) [MCB]
Monkeys tank an RPG Explosion that decimates part of a city.
Yellow Monkey destroys a building by stomping.
A Pipo Monkey digs from New York to Japan in seconds with Spike matching their speed.
Monkey Pink pulls a Continent.
Specter tanks an Asteroid exploding in his face. (800.669 Exatons of TNT) [Small Planet]
Specter blows up the Earth. (0.453 Exatons of TNT) [Multi-Cont)
Specter blew away the Sun with a REALLY BIG fan. (136.066 Quettatons of TNT - 928 FOE) [Star - Solar System]
Monkeys have a Remote that can turn off Space. [Debatably MSS - Debatably Uni]
The Pipotrons created a Virtual Subspace which contains Planets, Galaxies, and Stars. (3-4 x Universal) [Low Multi]
Monkeys can pilot asteroids between planets REALLY fast.
A Monkey destroyed a Manga made by their creator which would likely hold their entire cosmology… though doing this while the Manga is fictional to the Monkey is QUESTIONABLE at best.
Game
Red Monkey suplexes T-Rexes.
Monkeys can carry 100 Ton Weights.
White Monkey’s dragon destroys part of a stone bridge.
The Goliath Armor broke part of a large bridge.
Specter can pull down multiple giant Meteors that Pipo Monkeys can tank. (40.1 Kilotons of TNT) [Town]
Specter moved a massive mass of land into space, likely with Telekinesis. (6.875 Gigatons of TNT) [Debatably Island]
Altered some of the Wonders of the World (in extras art).
Upon defeating the Freaky Monkey Five they turn into Constellations in the Sky during the Specter Boss Fight. (1088.528 Quettatons of TNT - 14300.99 FOE) [Large Star - Solar System]
A Pipo Monkey could run over 80 meters super fast.
Pipotrons can dodge machine-gun fire and kick a missile mid-air.
Ran from Tahitan to Las Vegas in a short amount of time (they start in Tahitian and eventually end up in Vegas).
Specter’s Ships can go between Earth and the Moon vaguely fast.
Flew to Saturn in a short amount of time. (75.09 c) [FTL+]
Piloted a UFO across a Solar System and possibly even the Galaxy. (180.37 c - 30.88 Billion c) [MFTL - MFTL+]
Vehicles can collide with and fly between planets. (2.567 Quettatons of TNT) [Dwarf Star]
Jimmy
Cartoon
Uprooted a bunch of vines.
Survived being kicked into the horizon, not once, not twice, but three times.
Tanked an explosion that destroyed a city and polluted the sky (like a nuke).
Game
Survived an Explosion Visible from Space on the Moon. (3.52 Teratons of TNT) [Small Country]
Kei & Yumi
Game
Can dodge laser-fire.
Could Spin a Ferris Wheel.
Kicked Red Monkey through a wall.
Can survive falling from Heaven and Space (which should at least be a cloud-height drop).
Could Harm Dr Tomoki who tanked Saru-03 Exploding in his Face (we see him alive afterwards with minimal damage). (2 Yottatons of TNT) [Planet]
Random Jobbers (Side Characters)
(yes this is a real scan)
A Swordsman was capable of slicing a tree faster than the human eye.
Just… SOME GUY was able to catch an entire magazine full of bullets with a magnet.
The Professor survived being at the epicenter of an explosion that shook his entire lab.
Natalie threw a baseball so hard that it caught smoke upon impact.
Natalie dodges cannonball fire and tanks one with minimal issues.
Natalie could lift up a massive Monkey Net.
Casi catches boulders.
The Professor created the ‘Bottomless Cookie’ sack in finite time, which if taken at face value is infinite speed; the Professor has also created his own Virtual Space which given similar leeway to his Friend’s Virtual Space would be Infinite in Size. [Debatably Infinite Speed]
Grid Core
Spike has fought the Grid Core in his own domain while he controlled the entire Virtual World, defeating him with relative ease (Spike explicitly fought Grid Core after he absorbed the full power of the Reality Warping Disk) & kept up with his attacks. Then Spike came back a second time in Million Monkeys to beat Grid Core up a second time.
The Grid Core was capable of controlling the entire Virtual World, changing it, and destroying it (it is very blatantly referring to all of it, as the Professor said the death of the Core was going to purge the Virtual World) and the Core’s Power was eventually going to span to the real world universe (hence why he mentions humanity, as his control was presumably going to expand to the real world). (High Uni - 2 x Universal - 52 x Universal / Debatably 10.09 Quintillion x Universal) [High Uni - Multiversal] (See Before the Verdict)
The Grid Core’s energy moved across the entire Virtual World (which includes separate pocket dimensions with their own Time). (564.49 Quadrillion c / 1.11 Quintillion c - 58.6 Quintillion c / Infinite - Immeasurable) [MFTL+ - Infinite/Immeasurable] (See Before the Verdict)
Ethan
Overall
“Battle with your Heart!!! Fight with your Soul!!!”
Caught the 251 Pokémon scattered throughout Kanto & Johto.
Became Champion of the Indigo League.
Temporarily became the Cianwood Gym Leader for an entire day.
Stopped Team Rocket’s comeback twice.
Is the first Protagonist in the series to get 16 Gym Badges.
Defeated strong Trainers such as Silver, Giovanni, Archer, the Masked Man and Red.
Helped in defeating Archie and saving the Battle Frontier.
Calmed down an Enraged Arceus.
Power & Durability
It’s important to realize that on some level all of Ethan’s Pokémon & himself physically should scale or downscale to each other and be around the same range (it’s sorta unbelievable how many examples the manga has of trainers tanking hits from Pokémon & Legendaries), though we’ll describe PKMN scaling in greater detail when we get to the Scaling section. Though the main gist is that in some way no matter what, he’s hurt or scaling to someone who HAS hurt top tiers in the verse (the manga implies pretty much everyone scales to each other), & Gold himself has taken hits from Pokémon who can contend with his own regardless.
Ethan takes a direct hit from Lugia.
His Pikachu could harm a Articuno.
His Pokémon could destroy block slabs.
Cyndaquil, alongside Totodile, shatters a steel ball.
Lugia lifts a Cruise Ship with telekinesis; a Shadow Lugia (which is literally just a more violent Lugia) even managed to lift a Cruise Ship. (1066390.56 Metric Tons) [Class M]
Pidgey was capable of propelling a massive amount of water from his Totodile. (107.51 Kilotons of TNT) [Large Town]
Entei roaring causes volcanoes to erupt. (24 Megatons of TNT; Potentially Higher) [City]
Entei, Raikou, & Suicine were going to make storms across an entire region. (3.885 Gigatons of TNT) [Large Mountain]
Ho-Oh stops the Sky Fortress from falling. (15.59 Gigatons of TNT) [Island]
Lugia can make a 40 Day Storm. (497.13 Gigatons of TNT) [Large Island]
Kyogre & Groudon were going to destroy a region with their fight & the dispersal of the Blue & Red Gem caused Sootopolis City to be sent into the sky.
Groudon raised land masses to form the world & can shift the crust of the Earth & is said to have raised & expanded them in the Pokédex. (216.31 Petatons of TNT) [Multi-Cont]
Rayquaza destroys a meteor that is described as a ‘giant of a star’ & called something similar at multiple intervals, (jp versions are very straight forward) implying it’s possibly as large as a star… this is further backed up by how it was going to destroy the world. (5.18 Exatons of TNT - 13.882 Ronnatons of TNT) [Multi-Cont - Large Planet]
Briefly held off Arceus, though it’s uncertain if his Pokémon would scale to him directly as he was practically only dealing chip damage… At the very least people on Gold’s level were keeping up with the Creation Trio.
Arceus is said to be the creator of the universe & timeline which is backed up by its own admission & the Pokédex… he should upscale Palkia, Dialga, & Giratina (Upscaling High Uni - Upscaling 5 x Universal) [High Uni - Low Multiversal]
Speed
In a similar manner to Physicality scaling, Ethan has outran & evaded Pokémon moves & physicals similar to his own Pokémon’s capabilities, all his Mons who should be around the same range via scaling, simple stuff! The section is a little small, but that’s just because we tried to stick to Ethan’s Pokémon; there’s much more to come in the scaling section.
Ethan outran a Weakened Lugia Projection while it was trying to chase and attack him & dodges attacks from a real Lugia.
Pidgeot can fly at Mach 2 speeds. (Mach 2) [Supersonic]
Dragonite can circle the entire world in 16 hours. (Mach 2) [Supersonic]
Ho-Oh can create rainbows. [SOL]
Arceus is able to process all of his memories from a newly created past while time was at a near standstill. (Mach 15123.91) [Sub Relativistic]
The Creation Trio (Dialga & Palkia mainly) were able to launch their entire dimensions at high speeds, literally colliding the dimensional embodiment of Space with the dimensional embodiment of Time. Arceus was even sending shockwaves across and through Dialga & Palkia’s Dimension & the main universe from his own Dimension (6.03 Quintillion c - Infinite/Immeasurable)[MFTL+ Infinite/Immeasurable]
Stamina
Ethan being an RPG Protagonist as you could tell, means he’s generally portrayed as having a near infinite supply of stamina; y’know… due to how you can basically do absolutely EVERYTHING in Heart Gold without breaks (though he also has pretty good stamina in the manga):
With nearly no rest Ethan did the following:
Fought two sets of Gym Leaders.
Fought two sets of the Elite Four.
Fought Trainer Red with next to no rest.
Defeated all Legendaries in both Johto & Kanto.
Trained, did chores for a Gym, and battled challengers for an entire day with no rest.
Fought multiple Pokémon back to back without breaking a sweat.
Scaling
Pokémon
There are numerous ways to scale Pokémon technically (which are ALWAYS messy); fortunately, Ethan has the literal GOD of the verse on his team, making scaling quite simple. However, it should be noted that (at least for his normal Mons on his team) not all Pokémon scale equally to each other (in the sense of all Mons, even babies and such, being God Tiers). There's a very discernible hierarchy; all NORMAL Pokémon (non Legendaries + non Mythicals) should theoretically scale to each other, whether wild or trained. There are numerous examples across various canons of wild Pokémon matching trained ones and vice versa. The real challenge comes from the narrative pushed by the games and anime at times (because they just love keeping it confusing). The major issue is that in these same media (despite how there should be NO correlating scaling chains between legendaries and non legendaries), there are numerous instances where wild and trained Pokémon can harm them… but in that same vein there are multiple instances where they are overshadowed by legendaries and are deemed to have no chance of winning, making it nonsensical for EITHER to be 100% true.
Obviously, we SHOULDN’T see a level 1 Rattata soloing Mewtwo or a Pikachu harming Arceus—but we still CAN. Given how inconsistent it is, there’s only ONE REAL explanation; it stands to reason that there are a few special cases in which Mons CAN reach that level… since NO MATTER WHAT a trainer would have had to use a ‘weaker mon’ to battle these legendaries thus scaling; otherwise, certain events wouldn't make sense (like Ethan's Pikachu boxing with an Articuno, despite it being a legendary). Following this logic, not ALL trainers would scale to each other, particularly trainers or mons who demonstrate inherent impressive showings would be in their own league of separate scaling chains (though fodder Pokémon & Trainers are obviously fine to scale to everyone).
Thus, the only ones considered across the board should be stuff like canon DIRECT showings of scaling for Ethan’s Pokémon (like Pikachu beating Articuno), scaling to wild or trained Pokémon who explicitly lack impressive showings of SCALING across Poké media and are essentially normies, either that or trainers that Ethan must have defeated with some sort of Pokémon on his team such as Trainer Red (though we’ll give special trainers their own Scaling sections cuz they’re rad). This approach minimizes confusion and avoids convoluted scaling or assumptions.
Aside from that we covered the entire Pokédex, while Heart Gold is only up to Gen 4 or potentially more (if you account for trading); we wanted to not only make sure we covered all potential Pokémon involving Ethan’s Adventures, but anything we could have potentially missed for Cosmology, Feats, Resistances, or otherwise:
Game
Pokémon with Shadow Sky can fire down ‘bursts of light’. They travel in straight lines & shadows generally move the same speed as Light; the only problem is knockback (as light has no force), but you could just say that’s game mechanics as all attack moves do that in which case it scales to attack speed. [Debatably SOL]
Croagunks can vaporize a bunch of physical clones of itself with a single blast. (2.98 Tons of TNT) [Large Building]
Machamp can hit 765 times in a few seconds; though the Pokédex references that it can fire 1000 punches in 2 seconds. (368.3 m/s) [Transonic]
Machamp punches are compared to a Megaton of TNT. (1 Megaton) [Small City]
Rhyhorn can ‘shatter mountains’ by charging into them. (17.739 Kilotons of TNT) [Town]
Arcanine can run 6200 miles in around 24 hours. (115.49 m/s) [Subsonic]
Poliwrath can turn boulders to dust.
Machop can lift and throw 100 humans simultaneously; 197.9 * 100 = 19790 lbs. (8.97 Metric Tons) [Class 10]
Heracross can lift 100x his own body weight, which would be 5.95 Tons. (5.95 Tons) [Class 10]
Machamp can move Mountains. (10 Billion Metric Tons) [Class T]
A Parasect was capable of spreading spores across 3 km in mere moments. (600 m/s) [Supersonic]
Empoleon can flood any stage in Pokkén with their Ultimate.
Mr. Mime can create a city spanning barrier that is specified to be near unbreakable.
Pokémon can use Magnitude 1-10 in a battle to cause Earthquakes. (1.04 Teratons of TNT) [Country]
Sawk can cleave 'the ocean in half.' (5.15 Megatons of TNT - 3.17 Petatons of TNT) [Small City - Continent]
When Jirachi wished up a Kyogre Avatar it was stated to be comparable if not stronger than the real Kyogre & was going to sink the Battle Frontier Island.
Seismic toss is described as ‘flipping the earth’ and does so in both Pokémon Stadium games; which is consistent as Seismic Toss is even depicted as throwing the Earth in Gold & Silver. (221.37 Ronnatons of TNT) [Dwarf Star] Both Red and Blue can tank the Stadium iteration of Seismic Toss as they’re the final bosses of both Stadium 1 & 2 respectively.
Gothitelle’s sheer psychic energy is capable of extending to over thousands of lightyears away to nearby stars, causing them to appear closer. Even if you argued it’s via distortion or projection for example it’s doing this via sheer psychic output & distortion requires the stars be stretched from out of view into sight (given distortion is squashing and stretching… distortions still MOVE the space they’re enveloping, hence why it says INTENSE psychic output in the entry… there’d be nothing impressive that the Dex could be implying otherwise) at minimum this would need the power to extend to these separate Stars (rather than actually manipulating the stars themselves). Outside of speed a feat like this would also produce energy, as not only are Psychic’s said to produce Alpha Waves (which is literally electricity signals)- and moves like Psychic are shown to produce ‘Waves’ of energy which could be supplemental to those same Alpha Waves; the important part is it definitely produces energy constantly. (0.756 Quettatons of TNT / 17.53 Million c - 70.12 Million c) [Dwarf Star / MFTL+]
This is probably the scariest Wild Pokémon feat we've found. It's said that a Kirlia can rip through dimensions to see the future, but more impressively, the next evolution, Gardevoir, is capable of distorting "the dimensions" through sheer psychic power (aka force). Obviously, that’s too vague to use, but it can be used to supplement feats on that level, like what happens in Pokkén. We see Gardevoir create a dimension full of stars. While seemingly vague at first, it has a lot going for it. We see the inside of the dimension prior to entering (via the black hole), with no stars visibly shown inside of it, just tendril lines connecting the stars that are going to be made. When we enter the dimension, the stars are initially not illuminated and start to form. Based on the evidence, they suddenly illuminate as Gardevoir channels her power to attack her opponent… before blowing up the realm (which seems fair given she has to recreate it each time) thus at BARE MINIMUM Gardevoir should scale to their GBE or Luminosity at worst & explosive yield at best. (0.045 FOE - 20.21 FOE - 58.6 Terafoe / 10.99 Billion c) [Large Star - Multi-Solar System / MFTL+]
Anime / Manga
Rhydon can survive 2000 - 3600 degree heat.
A Team Rocket Grunt’s Slowbro flips the S.S. Anne with Confusion.
A Team Rocket Grunt’s Piloswine makes an Earthquake that crumbles Ecruteak City.
A horde of Corsolas can hold up Countries.
A Wild Wailord launches multiple Pokémon into space. (220.45 Kilotons of TNT) [Large Town]
Beat a Legendary Black Tyranitar that can destroy Mountains, change river currents, & was going to wreak havoc across all of Johto.
A Roserade fires a projectile to the Sun to ‘intensify the sun’ with Sunny Day. (219.54 c) [MFTL]
A Ludicolo heated up the Atmosphere to the point of evaporating clouds with Sunny Day by amplifying the light of the Sun. (1.58 Exatons of TNT) [Multi-Cont]
The Creation Trio are capable of moving massive realms which should be comparable to the main Pokémon universe. (See Before the Verdict)
Red
This one is pretty straight forward thankfully, at the end through his journey through Kanto, Ethan fights and beats Red, thus Ethan’s Pokémon should at the very least be comparable to the feats performed by Red and his Pokémon. Red despite having presumably trained offscreen till Aloha as shown in Generations (he literally got an entire episode about it), he’s always shown at a level relative to the Protagonist in all the games he appears (usually around level 70) never getting particularly stronger… not only that but Generations shows us Gold was also going across the regions still battling & training as well- so it stands to reason Gold can scale to all the trainers and Pokémon that Red has fought (interestingly enough Ethan has an entire OTHER scaling chain to the Protags via the manga which we’ll leave here if anyone needs more scaling reassurance to protags).
Red’s Bulbasaur
Red’s Bulbasaur was capable of making this massive explosion.
Mewtwo can make vortexes capable of destroying multiple cities.
Mega Rayquaza stopped the Grand Meteor Delta’s Motion which was going to destroy the world and reduce it to ashes. (21.476 Yottatons of TNT) [Planet]
Dragon Ascent is a move that makes Rayquaza dive bomb from Space at high speeds.
Rayquaza is very consistently stronger than Kyogre & Groudon.
Implied to have fought Regigigas (Generations Ep 1 is basically just rapid-firing Legends Red fought with his Pikachu, it’d be pretty weird to show a bunch of battles he lost when we only see him winning against everyone else)
Implied to have fought Landorus
Can traverse Hisui in ‘a couple’ of hours.
Fought Lance
Nuked a city with his Dragonair.
His Dragonite alongside a Gyrados caused a Volcano to explode.
Two Dragonairs created a storm that spanned to the horizon while in the middle of the ocean.
Fought Giovanni
Giovanni’s Nidoking created an Earthquake that destroyed Viridian City Gym.
Possibly fought 100% Zygarde, though this isn’t provable; RIP!
Beat Hatsune Miku in a Pokémon Battle.
Singing Scaling NGL
Nate & Rosa
This scaling chain is pretty simple, Red was comparable to Nate & Rosa during their battle in Black & White 2… Gold scales to Red & would also scale to this (interestingly enough Ethan has an entire OTHER scaling chain to the Protags via the manga which we’ll leave here if anyone needs more scaling reassurance to protags).
Is capable of destroying a castle.
Reshiram can move the atmosphere with heat energy.
It’s implied by the people of Hisui that Cresselia is possibly the same figure who made the Milky Way Galaxy. [Debatably Galaxy]
It’s said that Regigigas is capable of pulling continents. This one is a bit more vague as while people say it’s probably somewhat truthful, this is primarily a legend.
Hilbert & Hilda
Nate & Rosa actually run into and fight Alder during their journey and are relatively comparable, the same Champion Alder who are comparable to Hilbert & Hilda… Red scales to Nate & Gold would as well through Red.
Tornadus can move at 200 MPH. (200 MPH) [Subsonic]
Tornadus is known for making storms.
Fought Reshiram & Zekrom but again
Brendan & May
Gold would scale this through his fight with Red (albeit it's a big chain); Red fought the Black & White 2 Protagonist (who fought Steven the Champion of Hoenn); Brendan and May fought Steven and were portrayed as relatives, so Red would scale & so would Gold (interestingly enough Ethan has an entire OTHER scaling chain to the Protags via the manga which we’ll leave here if anyone needs more scaling reassurance to protags).
Fought Mega Rayquaza & Deoxys
Fought Dialga, Palkia, & Giratina
Idk everyone else already did what they did lol
Lucas & Dawn
Same scaling argument through the Black & White 2 Tournament, Red can fight Nate, Nate can fight Cynthia, Cynthia is relative to Lucas & Dawn… Gold scales because he’s relative to Red (interestingly enough Ethan has an entire OTHER scaling chain to the Protags via the manga which we’ll leave here if anyone needs more scaling reassurance to protags).
Fought the Creation Trio & Arceus; in the Manga Dia was completely manhandling the Creation Trio (Dialga & Palkia) for a short while.
Together Dialga, Palkia, & Giratina created their entire Timeline; which Arceus should upscale; fought the CT in the Manga. (5x Universal) [Low Multi] (See Before the Verdict)
Even if we’re being really mean to Palkia; they were responsible for ½ - ⅓ of the World/Universe which is described as an Infinite Sky (which is supplemented by a ton of Infinite Space statements as we’ll discuss later). [Infinite] (See Before the Verdict)
Capable of keeping up with the Creation Trio (he holds his own for the entire movie).
Created a Vortex that was going to swallow two ‘Worlds’; even the Japanese translation of the game very specifically specifies the kanji for world. [Planet]
Could keep up with Pikachu & his friends in PokéPark
They can fly between small planetoids & dodge/react to incoming debris at this speed.
They can launch Gigalith to the horizon.
Eilo & Selene
Red while on his Journey to other regions met a lot of trainers, but most importantly he fought against Eilo & Selene. Given Gold is relative to Red, he would also scale their feats (interestingly enough Ethan has an entire OTHER scaling chain to the Protags via the manga which we’ll leave here if anyone needs more scaling reassurance to protags).
Ultra Necrozma absorbed the Light of Ultra Space, which includes parallel worlds. (0.00028 x Universal - 0.0148 x Universal; lol) [Galaxy - Multi-Galaxy] (See Before the Verdict)
Should heavily downscale 100% Zygarde who was capable of dispersing these Clouds. (Downscaling 1.251 Yottatons of TNT) [Planet]
Yvelta covered the entire planet in a ThunderStorm briefly. (23.279 Zettatons) [Small Planet]
Weaknesses
Spike
“In the middle of the night you may suddenly meet a Freaky Monkey in the bathroom!”
Spike, while strong in his own right, has a few notable weaknesses to go over. For one, he’s still a kid and can get overwhelmed or stumped (usually when it comes to tests of intelligence), he seems to outright despise school… which is why he’s not particularly opposed to asking smarter individuals like the Professor or Natalie for help. Disregarding that… Spike’s one real weakness is a pretty big one…unlike most characters you’d genuinely see in versus who have natural abilities, a majority of Spike’s are via inventions made by the Professor. What this means is that he’s pretty much defenseless without his gadgets; he’s a gadget fighter, and without them, there’s not much he can really do in a fight as it’s his forte.
Ethan
"My reflection! Lookin' good!"
Ethan may be an extremely strong Trainer; however, everyone has their faults, and he is no exception. For one, since he is a trainer, he depends a lot on his Pokémon in battle. This means that if they were to be removed from the fight and he can't bring them back, he becomes much more vulnerable. Another notable thing is that, for as useful as his multitude of items are, they are not limitless and are capable of running out, even with their large quantities. Additionally, given how much material Ethan has due to the long duration of the Pokémon series, it can become a juggling act to manage absolutely everything he has available.
Before the Verdict
Explaining the Grid Core Feats
AP & General Virtual World Cosmology
There are a few things that we need to cover generally for the sake of clarity: what the Virtual World is and how big it is; how the Grid Core would scale to the Virtual World; and how impressive it would be in comparison to a normal ‘world’.
The Virtual World is a digital dimension inside of Ape Escape that the characters are transported into on three consecutive occasions with very little differing, so getting a general feel for its size and capabilities was a really easy call to make. Not only are there dozens of celestial bodies in sight within the game variant of the Virtual World, with nebulas, stars, and planets, but using the anime as supporting evidence, we even see galaxies within the Virtual World, which in itself would classify it as a universe. AND EVEN BETTER, the Virtual World & subset pocket dimensions that are part of the world are referred to as a universe in item statements like the Alien Wear costume for Spike… So yeah, it’s definitely a universe at minimum!
With the size cleared up, the much more difficult matter arises: explaining and elaborating on the Grid Core's Plan and what he's capable of. An individual in the real world, labeled as the Mysterious Man (who we see in Million Monkeys), is the villain we hear the voice of throughout the entire game. Inevitably, when they get the disk, they obtain control over the Virtual World. However, due to certain safety features, they're STUCK using that power only on the Virtual World. So, during the second half of the game, he decrypts the disk little by little until finally it's unlocked. He then fuses it with the literal core of the Virtual World that is upholding everything, the center of the universe. He then weaponizes it and has it do battle with the gang, with its damage having the potential to wipe out the entire world. Though we need to expressly prove that’s what’s happening by checking differences between the original version and the English version… which means my favorite part of research is occurring, TRANSLATION. yay…
The First scene we’ll take a look at is the scene where the Mysterious Man first gets the disk and his general conversation he has with the heroes.
First Clip:
JP Version: そのディスクを渡してはダメよくやったピポトロンの達そこのお嬢ちゃんもこのディスク を探していたようで少し遅かったなしかしまさかこんなところにディスクを隠してい たのかいったいどうなっておるんじゃあのディスクにはお父さんのとても大切な研究 データが入ってるの研究データ?君のお父さんは一体?あのデータを悪用されたら大変 なことになるわこ…これは…はあ…間に合わなかった…これは始まりにすぎないこの研究データ を深く解析すれば私は全てを手に入れるそうすればね誰も私を止めることはでき ない全人類が私に比例することになるはずだ。解析にはしばらく 時間がかかる。それまでの間、君たちには地獄のオリンピアに 参加してもらおう。何、ちょっとした余興だよな。 今までのような安全な遊びじゃつまらんだぞ。せいぜい、楽しんで くれさまよ。よくやったぞ、お前たちだが、もうお前たちに も用はない楽しいバトロロイヤーの始まりだ!
Translation: "Do not hand over that disk. Well done, Pipotron elites. It seems the young lady over there was also looking for this disk, but she was a little late. But who would have thought the disk was hidden in such a place? What on earth is happening? That disk contains very important research data from your father. Research data? Who is your father, anyway? If that data were to be misused, it would be a disaster. (the virtual world is very visibly corrupted) Oh... This is... Haa... It's too late... This is just the beginning. If I deeply analyze this research data, I will obtain everything. Then, no one can stop me. All of humanity will be beneath me. The analysis will take some time. In the meantime, I'll have you participate in the Hell Olympia. What, just a little entertainment, right? Playtime as safe as before is boring. At most, enjoy yourselves. Well done, all of you (Pipotrons), but you are no longer needed. It's the beginning of a fun battle royale!" (then the Virtual World literally vanishes with all the astral bodies nowhere in sight)
Then we look at the American variant of the same conversation.
English Version: Good job Pipotron Monkeys! It seems that you TOO have been looking for the disk, but you are too late little girl. HAHAHAH... I never would have expected that the disk was hidden in such a place. What happened what's going on? We need it back, there's important data from my Father's research on that disk. Data from your Father's Research, who exactly is your Father? If the data on that disk is used for evil, we'll be at his mercy. I FINALLY HAVE THE DISK! NOW I CAN CONTROL THE WORLD! This is just the beginning, if I analyze the data further... I will have access to EVERYTHING in this world... then no one can stop me, all of humanity will obey me. It will take awhile to complete the analysis, so until then I shall let you participate in my Virus Tech Tournament. Hahahah this is so entertaining... so far it's been a safe game, but now I'll raise the stakes. So enjoy a real game now! Good Job Monkeys, but I no longer have a need for you! Let the tournament begin.
In both versions, it's pretty clear that the world was affected in some way (due to the visuals), but the English version makes it MUCH more explicit. The Mysterious Man speaks a lot more about just analyzing the data and conquering humanity in the Japanese version, which leaves it up in the air whether he really did affect the entire world. If we were to JUST use this, it would be ambiguous. Thankfully, there's a secondary scene that is much more straightforward in both versions.
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Second Clip:
JP Version: こわが!わたしの野望が! 悪いかんチャル!もうダメー! 我が世界を浄化し始めては、この光に飲ま れたらさチャル!急いでくれチャル! もう少し!イナさん! 世界が元に戻ります!
Translation: "Fear! My ambition! You Fools! It's over!
Once it (The Grid Core) starts purifying the world, we'll be engulfed in that light! Hurry!
Just a little more!
Charu!
The world will now return to normal!" (Freeing it from the corruptive changes)
No matter how you look at it, this lines up with the English variant of the text, mainly the specific key parts we need:
“MY CORE…. MY AMBITION… MY WORLD!!!” “Oh no... Casi! The Core has already started a complete purge of the virtual world, if we're caught in that light it will be the end of all of us. Casi! Everyone listen to me, the World is returning to its normal state, I'll warp us back to the stadium entrance.”
This instance makes it MUCH more clear that the entire world is being affected with the Core’s power (and that’s ignoring how the Grid Core is at the VERY center of the Virtual World and spanned all the way to the entrance with its power), NO MATTER how you look at it, in both cases the Grid Core was going to affect the Virtual World in its entirety. Which is followed up by the Professor stating that the Core was ‘starting a complete purge of the Virtual World’.
This leads us to our last topic… how strong the Core’s destruction would be, there’s a pretty simple way to figure that out… while we could say it’s High Uni (using the Infinite universe end) or 2x Uni since it would have destroyed the Virtual World and inevitably affected the real world… There are a lot of realms INSIDE the Virtual World we have to consider.
It’s pretty clear thanks to the Anime approach that there are multiple universes inside the Virtual World, though it’s uncertain if they are the same Virtual World (as the game one); this is further cemented due to how in Million Monkeys the Mysterious Man was running separate Virtual Worlds apart from the one made by the Professor’s friend (the Mysterious Man literally had his own which lines up with the anime). So we’ll have to use the Game Virtual World as our main basis, as it’d align closer with what we’re going for… it’s clear that the stages are separate Pocket Dimensions (especially with supporting evidence from the anime), we see that when one such Dimension has everything inside erased to the point of becoming a void… separate stages are still completely fine and you can only get there by warping in; we also see some dimensions inside that are 100% separate from the tournament arena stage, different looking spaces, different times of day, etc. (Casi literally lives in and explores the Virtual Space & has NEVER seen this part of it before). Given the high stakes & scale alongside the supplementary material from the anime, it just makes more sense for it to be separate dimensions, & given there are multiple times where separate stages in Pumped & Primed are called universes… it’s safe to equate all of them to Universal size. There are 52 stages in total in Pumped & Primed so equating all of them to being equal in size would make it 52 x Universal.
Disregarding those realms (and assuming it’s a single universe) there’s something way more impressive here we can use for a high end. The Virtual World is literally a digital space, it’s made up of data, bytes… even a single byte takes electrical energy… and as you can guess that energy can be converted into watt & kWh energy.
The total amount of Bits in the universe has been calculated around 6E+80 Bits (though this number can vary this is one of the safer lower ends).
Wentao Jiang, a Stanford Student has made a public illustration of how much energy a bit of data in a HDD or Data Center would be generating which makes this extremely straightforward for us to calculate. He estimated that the energy produced per bit of data would be 1.5E-9 J/bit… which makes it really easy to calculate from there.
6e+80 (Bits estimated for a digital universe) / 1.3E-8 (digital energy required per bit of data in joules) = 4.61E+88 Joules!
As determined in blogs like Kratos vs Asura, the mass energy (e=mc^2) of a NORMAL observable universe is 4.2E+69 joules, so from there it’s simple math.
4.61E+88 Joules / 4.2E+69 (mass energy of observable universe in joules) = 1.097619e+19 x Universal (10.09 Quintillion x Universal) [This would apply to any Virtual World that is a universe in fiction]
So now we know how strong it’d be to destroy such a universe (as high-end obviously, this is mostly just a counter to if you want to use Cartridge Universes for Pokémon)! Given the Grid Core was going to destroy the Virtual World, including its data (his attacks literally have to do with calling code & functions)… this means all aspects of the Virtual World would be completely destroyed & erased- so the Grid Core would scale fully to it as would the rest of the cast. Which makes sense given the Grid Core literally upholds all functions of the World.
Speed
That brings us to our second feat which is Grid Core’s Corruptive Speed Feat, the Virtual World pretty blatantly has both Time & Space as fundamentals given Casi’s Gravity & Time Control work inside of it. As discussed before it also has separate Pocket Dimensions, Grid Core when he FIRST got control over the ‘disk’ was able to send a wave of light out that corrupted the entire Virtual World… (hence the ‘it’s too late’ line from Helga) and his death released a light that did the opposite, purifying the Virtual World starting from its center. In order for the Grid Core to corrupt all levels inside of the Virtual World implies that his energy (literally identically to Arceus’ argument) was able to go spread through the finite or even potentially INFINITE Space, separate Time, & alternate pocket dimensions with reasonably their own Time Space which quantifies for Immeasurable Speed which scales to the Core’s Attack Speed… and as you’d guess, Spike & the gang can dodge the Grid Core’s more magic reality warping based abilities (used to propel the floor beneath Spike, propel cubes with TK, energy attacks, moving around as data, moved in tandem with his transformative light, lasers, & call data function attacks), physical (the core literally flying around & data cubes being launched around), & a few other attacks… saying they don’t scale to the Core’s attack speed for finitely & immeas would be ridiculous given how even the cast is portrayed & how nothing indicates it’d be higher than his normal attack speed.
Unused Potential Immeasurable Ape Escape Feat
This one was brought up during research and we're going to leave it here for convenience despite not having used it (to dissuade any future arguments involving it). The main gist is that Spike ends up in a rainbow tunnel before going into Dimension X (as seen above). It's explicitly different from the normal time travel tunnel he normally goes through and likely a completely separate dimension from it. Jake tells Spike to follow him, and after flying off-screen, they somehow end up in Dimension X. Now if this was taken at face value Spike & Jake flew between separate time spaces which would qualify for Immeasurable speed; however, there’s a few problems with this. While it doesn’t look like Dimension X, we can’t expressly prove it isn't a part of Dimension X or that Spike didn’t just teleport with Jake once off-screen. This is a lot harder to prove overall compared to the Grid Core feat where we do know these spaces are separate; so for the sake of simplicity and how much vagueness there is surrounding it, we didn’t end up using this feat.
Is the Pokédex Info REALLY made by Children?
NO.
That’s been headcanon for the longest time; it literally records data automatically, all Trainers have to do is catch them. It’s shown to be the same across ALL CANONS.
Problems with Black Holes in Pokémon
This one is really simple, it just lacks the fundamentals that ‘real’ Black Holes have. Given all of them are described as Black Holes (and there’s no reason Black Holes in PKMN should function very differently from one another) this guarantees that they all act in a similar way (which like yeah they always are shown as such), the most you can say about a Pokémon Black Hole is that it has a gravitational pull & it’s called a Black Hole… but gosh is there a lot wrong with it outside of that… It’s never been shown to spatially manipulate matter (only showcasing a vortex effect), it’s commonly visibly across the series shown off as a Wormhole that leads to a pocket dimension, they’ve been shown to explode, and have literally been cut through with LEAF BLADE (it’s described as being destroyed by a fuggin WAVE, y’know AIR-WAVE PRESSURE GRAHHH). It does so many wrong things that there’s no real leeway we can give any Black Hole across the series, they all have problems… it’s more accurate to just call it a gravity well.
Problems with Saru Get You -On Air’s Black Hole
This is pretty simple aside from the fact that while it ‘looks like a Black Hole’ it’s never said to be one & doesn’t follow any of the criteria for one. Spike & the gang are sucked towards it, but it doesn’t distort or stretch any of the Space around it & is literally plugged with what can only be described as an inflatable Star (not really much you can do to argue a big value here for Spike).
Lanturn Feat
God or Fraud?
This is honestly a pretty funny one, not in a rude way, but technically the math does check out. The basic gist is that a Lanturn can shine light to the surface from 3 miles underwater… the farther you go into water it gets exponentially harder to light up the area. Though given it’s 3 MILES DEEP, it makes it a pretty insane feat which has been calculated to 10E+35 Universes- which can I just say…
WHAT.
The real issue is that not only is this an outlier, but when we encounter Lanturns their light ISN’T shining to the surface; plus there is no force being exhibited. Lanturn’s light is never showcased to turn off when in battle, out of battle, or when fainted; there’s literally no force showcased at all via shining the light underwater (or above). Nothing is destroyed, and EITHER WAY if we took this literally, the entire universe would implode the moment any Lanturn shines its light. It’s unreasonable to attribute this feat to any ‘stronger’ Pokémon or say anyone upscales it because this is EVEN above them (and at this point is sorta just abusing a clearly unintentional Dex feat); it falls more into the realm of nonsensical feats, at least logically speaking… we Lanturned this feat back into obscurity. 😎 im sorry
What’s wrong with using the Tree Of Life Feat?
This feat is a little bit weird, but since we’re doing a Pokémon blog, we’ll at least address it. The gist is that the planet was slowly being pulled into the Sun and that multiple megas, wild, and legendary Pokémon were all capable of slowing the descent to a near halt. There are quite a few problems with this feat, though. It’s clear from how it’s described that the plan of Dark Matter (the antagonist of the game) is to cause the Tree of Life to die by pulling it far away from the Earth, basically speeding up the process. The Tree of Life’s death would have caused the Earth’s rotation to slow to a complete stop, causing Earth to fly through space toward the Sun (thus many people have assumed Mewtwo & many others would scale to Star levels of power). The issue is that this is a chain reaction effect. Slowing the tree isn’t worthy of any sort of feat because it’s not like they were stopping the direct mass of the Earth; they were just halting the Tree of Life’s ascent so it would die slower (it’s literally said the Tree of Life leaving the Earth would leave it to fall adrift into the sun; NOT that it would fly along with it or directly contain the mass like many people believe). Moreover, the feat is practically destroyed by the fact that hundreds of Pokémon, Legendaries, and Megas were helping. Dark Matter the entity LIFTING the Tree of Life to begin with one-shot every single Pokémon trying to stop it, including Mewtwo & Arceus who were assisting on the sidelines. So, it’s pretty hard to scale them directly given literal GOD TIERS of the verse FOLDED. The only real thing we can say they did is stop the ascent of a piece of land. Based on an earlier perspective, while it is relatively big, it’s definitely not Earth-sized, making this a pretty low-level feat not worth calcing.
Creation Trio Scaling
(please dear god no)
Basic Cosmology Stuff
By far the most controversial topic when it comes to Pokémon in versus battles, the Creation Trio and their scaling can get pretty messy due to numerous factors and differing interpretations. How strong are the Creation Trio? Can they scale to Arceus? Does Arceus’ have a true form? How does this factor into Ethan and his team? There is a lot to consider, but we will break it down to the best of our abilities.
To start off, it's important to recognize that Pokémon lore, no matter how insignificant it may seem, contradicts itself a lot. As many of you probably know, it's been confirmed that every separate copy of a Pokémon game is its own parallel world; Extralink says as much & when trading between different game copies it says a Pokémon has been sent across Time and Space, with you even getting a time travel award in some cases (pretty blatantly separate timelines/dimensions). This brings us to the biggest problem: all the timelines are connected (due to Extralink, trading, and other such things). Why is that a problem, you may ask? Well, Arceus, Dialga, Palkia, Giratina—the overall Creation Trio—are responsible for everything that has been created (duh). This wouldn't be a problem, but given that the Trio lore exists, it means that every single pair of the Creation Trio (as each timeline has its own) is responsible for creating everything there is: aka ALL OF SPACE AND ALL OF TIME somehow…??? This is very clear as Arceus created the Trio when there was nothing. Dialga is maintaining time itself and started it as described in the Arceus creation story, it’s also maintaining Time across the past, present, and future, while Palkia is maintaining not only the main universe but alternate dimensions. Both legendaries are the embodiments of time and space, so it makes sense. There’s no real reason to assume they’d have dominion over VERY SELECT separate time spaces & be limited in their reach, despite them all very clearly being connected… The way that the lore has the cosmology setup is WEIRD to say the least. Though I should at least note, that unironically… despite how all of these timelines ARE DEFINITELY connected… there aren't really any DIRECT examples of a Creation Trio member upholding multiple timelines. For example, in the Arceus movie, when Arceus is basically just straight-up dying, it was only affecting a single timeline. Palkia, Dialga, Giratina, Arceus, and the main Pokémon universe are five universes in a single timeline (nothing implies otherwise).
Now that aside if we consider all these timelines being connected, that leads to even MORE problems… so let’s get onto Cosmology size. The idea of space-time being infinite is the concrete idea that many people like to believe… it’s been confirmed in creator statements (It makes no real sense to use flowery language in a statement involving the cosmology itself), TCG does the same, Ultra Space has countless wormholes (which could imply infinite space), Lucian brings up infinite space, [which if bought implies infinite time would have to surround it], it’s literally said that Palkia created ‘a sky that spans for infinity’ (thus Time would surround that infinite Universe), but most importantly… every choice makes an infinitely expanding amount of timelines; it’s stated by Lore itself that the flow of time NEVER stops… meaning at the theoretical ‘end of time’ or rather theoretical INFINITE years in the future (which is definitely possible), infinite choices would have been made & thus infinite universes would be in-creation… so since Dialga is upholding the past, present, and future… it is upholding the end result which is an infinite multiverse. So if we go that route, it means an infinite amount of Creation Trio members helped make infinite timelines (as each separate world, which there are infinite of, has a whole new trio; one set per world).
Now, at this point, it may not be clear, but given there are infinite CT members creating infinite timelines (every timeline having one trio), it wouldn't be a feat anymore for speed or power. Infinity divided by infinity gives us an undefined number, which means it's no longer a valid quantifiable number or concept, making it completely unusable. This would nuke any chance of scaling outside of their own select timelines (and yes, this would stop speed scaling the infinite timelines as well because there’s an infinite amount of helpers in this case to create that infinity; nothing implies any of them did it on their own). The only potentially exempt from this rule in the CT would be Arceus, but not just any Arceus; it’d be ‘True Form Arceus’. Pokémon Arceus introduces the idea of Arceus existing in a realm beyond Time and Space (which people take as him having a true form). There’s a lot wrong with this approach. First, it’s shown to us on multiple occasions (visually and descriptively) that Arceus ALREADY exists in a realm beyond Space and Time by default (nothing implies this is describing a true form here). This already applies to all Arceus & that’s not even mentioning the Plate statements which can also apply to him rather than a true form, so it doesn’t really imply a True Form in any way as people seem to think… ‘The Original One’ just refers to Arceus in general, he is the Original One because he’s always the person to make everything inside a single timeline before all the other worlds pitch in. The only real evidence we have is when he gives you a 'piece of himself', but that could just be referring to how ALL ARCEUS are the same person (aka the 'one heart' statement). Though even if you argue there is a True Form that doesn’t inherently mean anything, you can say this ‘True Form’ created infinite mass per say (High Uni) via making the infinite Arceus avatars; though he did need INFINITE AVATARS (& CT Members) to even form the cosmology which makes it cancel out. People also seem to think Arceus transcending all things makes him upscale the entire cosmology. There are a few problems with that. First, Arceus, like all other Pokémon, has infinite other variations (making it hard to scale one individual Arceus), and even if you did use ‘transcending all things’ as an argument, we just established that the very similar ‘creating all things’ statement could just be linked to all things in that singular individual space-time, which makes more sense given the infinite Pokémon aspect. Despite how all Arceus are the same person, there’d always have to be one Arceus who makes one Creation Trio in every single universe. No matter the circumstance, it will always boil down to infinity divided by infinity, which is incalculable. This leaves us with every single CT scaling to at least five universes (which is the visual representation we are given in the anime)... which on that same note… the anime describes the single timeline that the CT are manipulating as Space Time & Arceus Dimension (that is still within the timeline) as a place beyond space & time which like yeah… that just DOESN’T help their case for a single Arceus to be scaling to separate timelines. The simplest way to look at this is if you say there are infinite timelines in one space-time. Since Dialga and Palkia are upholding those infinite alternate dimensions and time throughout the past, present, and future (where there would inevitably be infinite timelines in creation), they would be essentially helping infinite variants of themselves from the past, present, and future, plus the ones from infinite various timelines. It’s blatantly shown to us that there are separate Palkia and Dialga who exist at different points in time. In Mystery Dungeon, the future Dialga lives in a distorted future and, to stop it, has to send Dusknoir back in time. If there was only one true Dialga who were the same person throughout the past, present, & future (or rather ONLY one Dialga), he would have stopped the conflict in the present before it happened, but it had to happen for him to even know about it only in the future (here’s him in the future btw, he’s a wacko fr); this is even the same case for Arceus in the anime… means that the past, present, and future… all have separate CT members. And at this point even if you say that time as a whole has infinite timelines, then it’s the same regardless… infinite members have to help. It just becomes increasingly harder to scale all of them due to how convoluted the lore gets and how all worlds are connected; so the safest thing we can do is separate each CT member’s strength to their own relative SINGLE spacetime, ignoring any alternate timelines that may be created.
Also here’s a visual representation for anyone who is confused:
Though you may be wondering… what about Ultra Space, why is it outside the realm of scaling? Well there are a few… though we’ll discuss a brief bit about Ultra Space first, it’s a realm between realms that contains parallel realities inside: mainly the ones where all the Mainline villains won and were pulled into a single universe (thanks to an alt universe Giovani) to form a team called Rainbow Rocket. Given the context we’re given & how they come from alternative worlds, it’s safe to say that Wormholes in general are leading to parallel universes (at least given nothing really implies they vary in size, that’s literally 6 back to back instances of wormholes being universes); Cosmog’s Entry which is referring to Ultra Space (or atleast a dimension within) refers to it as another Universe, it uses ‘World’ & ‘Universe’ interchangeably throughout all evolution lines for it. There’s been a bit of discussion on if there’s also an infinite number of dimensions inside Ultra Space (via space and time statements & comparing it to the separate timeline cartridges). Though it’s pretty clear if it were truly infinite in the connective Ultra Space cosmology, we’d run into multiple ‘Copy’ legendaries. ‘Copy’ Legendaries are a big signifier for a separate universe as every universe tends to only have one of each Legendary (one set per cartridge timeline). This game even has Creation Trio members, but no matter how hard you search, you’ll only ever find one Legendary per game copy in Ultra Space… which pretty much kills off any chance of this place being that huge. Though that brings us to our second problem, not only do the Creation Trio SHOW UP IN ULTRA SPACE, but just like with the cartridge timelines… there’s multiple sets (one per timeline), which is evident by how Cyrus in his Timeline won and used the CT to make a new universe… and as you’d guess Reflection Cave also follows these parallel universe shenanigans… meaning… all the Creation Trio across different dimensions are helping each other again, yadda yadda yadda… they’re stuck with their little sphere of five universes is what I’m saying (for the Creation Trio). This sorta stumped us during our research, at every turn where there’s a possible way to scale select dimensions… the way the cosmology is running makes it impossible. We do have… ONE alternative route we could take which we tried to avoid… but this lil GOOBER named Ultra Necrozma, it’s implied to have lit up ALL of Ultra Space including the Wormholes, “Long ago, the blinding one provided light to more than just this city. It gave off enough light to illuminate all of Ultra Space. It was bright enough to reach the other side of Ultra Space... your world.” The excerpt is pretty blatantly trying to imply that it was not only covering Ultra Space with light, but reaching into other Worlds & lighting them up (which is supplemented by how it was already capable of lighting up Wormholes which should be universal in size). Now… if we take this COMPLETELY straight forward at face value, we gotta count up all the Wormholes possible to encounter individually, there are 37 Legendary Wormholes & 9 Ultra Beasts + 5 Villain Universes + Ultra Megalopolis… outside of that we can’t really prove much. Which gives us a total of 52 Universes for us to use- this would literally be EQUAL STATS with Spike… but sadly filling it with Light is less impressive so we’ll have to account for the falloff. The amount of energy to fill one Universe with Light was re-calculated to a safer end of around 1.198368E+66 Joules! If we multiply this output by 52, 1.198368E+66 * 52 = 6.2315136E+67 Joules. The mass energy of the OBSERVABLE universe (as determined in the Kratosura blog) is around 4.2E+69 Joules. 1.198368E+66 / 4.2E+69 = 0.00028 x Universal… & the higher end is 6.2315136E+67 / 4.2E+69 = 0.0148369371 x Universal… man… uh… yeah I got nothing- we have no real way to prove there’s an equal amount of Universes to the cartridge timelines so we’re cut off here. (On that same note the mere existence of Rainbow Rocket sorta bunks Multi+ scaling even more since it’d mean Cyrus SHOULD BE in control of ALL the team leaders in every universe; yet he very clearly isn’t).
NOW THAT WE’VE EXHAUSTED ALL OF OUR OPTIONS IT’S TIME FOR EVERYONE'S FAVORITE, DT (DIMENSIONAL TIERING) YIPEE!!!
To make this simple we’re going to break this into parts:
1: Palkia’s Dimension being a Spatial Dimension! This one is relatively simple to answer, the main two points that are cited are how Spatial Dimensions are referenced in relation to Palkia & how directions in space are brought up. There is a pretty big problem with this, mainly that it’s using the English version of the quote, which like… Nintendo is KNOWN for having pretty inaccurate translations (as explained in the Paper Yuu blog which I’m revamping soon teehee)... it actually doesn’t even mention Spatial Dimensions at all, it’s a complete mistranslation. As for the part pertaining to directions being involved, the argument is that Dialga has control over directions & like it’s… not really referring to Spatial Dimensions at all in the scene. Not only is Cogita talking to us very specifically JUST ABOUT all Creation– the Universe… it’s not in reference to other dimensions at least in this scene. The second problem is the way it’s framed, it’s referring to all directions, sure… but it’s not referring to directions beyond our grasp, only the limited directions and range ‘SURROUNDING US’ which could be in reference to 360° movement. This is a pretty big problem as it’s left pretty vague we have space all around us in our world that we can see by looking around us, it never mentions anything like depth when it comes to the context of ‘directions’ so it’s hard to determine if it’s implying Spatial depth / EXTRA-dimensional shenanigans (or literally just the 360 degree directions around us), which means this can’t really be used as a point for DT… this is even supplemented in Japanese where it says more or less the same thing (a rare W for Nintendo!). Now I’d like to address some other points, I’ve seen mentions of naming conventions towards DT such as ‘String Theory Soup’ in Mario & I’ve always HATTTTEDDD those arguments, first of all it’s literally just a name, it doesn’t have to be derived from ANYTHING- this brings back Big Bang Soup memories & secondly it’s not even called that in Japanese, it’s literally stated not even 3 WORDS AFTER on the wiki that it’s an ‘interdimensional hole’. As for the last direction argument there’s an interview where Iwata explains the meaning behind X & Y… “The X and Y represent the X axis and the Y axis. The world holds people with all sorts of ways of thinking, and you can get a sense that they exist in different dimensions. But if you think of them as people who think on the X axis and people who think on the Y axis-horizontal and vertical axes-then they intersect somewhere.” Now while it may look good at first glance there’s a lot of problems with it, first of all it’s interview exclusive & just a play off of words for the namesake of the game (Pokémon X & Pokémon Y), but more importantly it’s talking about X & Y in reference to how parallel universes are really similar- not anything to do with any Spatial Dimensions; “But if you think of them as people who think on the X axis and people who think on the Y axis-horizontal and vertical axes-then they intersect somewhere” it’s literally talking about positioning as opposed to a literal separate plane or direction, as in while all Dimensions are slightly different they are analogous somewhere and can intercept… is what the quote is telling us. To be clear if all we needed for Spatial Dimensions was directions like X,Y, & Z… then a lot more verses would have DT arguments; in this context it’s definitely just talking about positioning, it would be backed up if something like Depth was brought up (however it’s not).
2. Palkia & Dialga’s Realm are Higher Dimensional because Sheena ‘ascended’.
I have a lot of problems with this, so I’m going to speed round through it. First of all, the movie is outright debunking itself. Time should reasonably be a higher dimension above Space, but not only are they portrayed as equal (with Palkia & Dialga’s dimension being parallel & both being portrayed as equal in power), but ALSO Time isn’t stacked above Space; the entire cosmology is one big circle orbiting Arceus. Nothing proves they’re superseding each other with an "indefinite gap." The quote "transcend the confines of time and space" gives us a good idea of what it means: she can’t get through to the Creation Trio, so she projects an avatar viewable by both Pokémon simultaneously. Going beyond the "confines" would only apply to the set-in-stone boundaries. This should be taken in the most literal sense: to go beyond. Since we have no other evidence or context, but does that mean infinitely so? Not necessarily. All it really means is that she needs to be outside the Space and Time dimensions, which, as you could imagine, given the Universe, Space, and Time, are all adjacent. All she really has to do is project an Avatar somewhere in between them, thus not really all that impressive; this isn’t even mentioning the earlier debunks we did, this really has no basis or anything to work on even if we did take it seriously.
3. Palkia is the embodiment of ‘Spatial Dimensions’ and ‘Directions’ thus is conceptually infinite when it comes to both.
No WTF, as discussed earlier the ‘Spatial Dimensions’ were greatly over exaggerated and a mistranslation, Directions in itself is too vague to use and can just refer to the space around us in our own universe, the X & Y points in the interview refer to the differences in Parallel Universes (not literal spatial directions or higher dimensions)... meaning neither can really be used to supplement such a claim as said before. Though while we are here it is important to say, even if real this would not pertain to an Outer range, this is due to how concepts work. Concepts are the relation between superordinates and subordinates, trying to relate all of the "sub-categories" of a concept to the main or higher ones. Not only are Spatial Dimensions a Super Ordinate, but the concept of spatial dimensions in practical terms only really means you have to account for the dimensions that are observable to us in this case. A concept represents essential characteristics, which can be finite or infinite. Proving your case is essential when discussing the nature of these dimensions. Given that there are never said to be infinite spatial dimensions in lore, there is no way to say Arceus would be infinitely higher-dimensional (without wanking that is, as it’d be extrapolation of concepts and clearly not the intent). Infinity and spatial dimensions are distinct concepts. Spatial dimensions refer to measurable extents such as length, width, and height. Infinity is a broader and more abstract concept that represents something without any bound or limit. While spatial dimensions can be finite or infinite, infinity itself is not inherently tied to spatial dimensions and can apply to various other contexts. Therefore, infinity is neither a subordinate nor a superordinate of spatial dimensions in the traditional sense; they are related but fundamentally separate concepts.
For example if I had a singular Dimension, despite it being ‘finite’ finitetism in itself would not be one of its sub-categories, multiple concepts can work in unison, but this does not make multiple concepts the SAME THING… this is the same for applying ‘Infinite Space’ Dimensions… to infinite SPATIAL Dimensions… even if subsets of EACH OTHER… the concept of finite & infinite are separate from them in itself (& you’d have to apply ALL concepts in that case which makes them cancel out; like a volume of zero & volume of infinity at the same time- it becomes undefined). Unless the Spatial Dimensions themselves are classified as ‘Infinite’ in quantity… it cannot be related as a subset & leans towards headcanon. In the opposite regard if we say infinity is a superordinate that OVERSEES Spatial Dimensions then being the embodiment of Spatial Dimensions in itself is not enough, there’s nothing we can prove here… Infinity is too abstract a concept to say it’d apply here with zero evidence.
It is a non-sequitur, as you can essentially create any No Limits Fallacy with any number you want (despite providing no evidence for it). There is too little context to prove there are an uncountable number of dimensions; it’s the same reason we don’t automatically use Dimensional Theories for verses, we can’t prove they exist in the world automatically. This effectively makes it a case of Headcanon vs Canon with a high-ball estimate that we really have no way of proving; using Infinite Time & Infinite Space as an argument doesn’t work as that’s more likely referring to the space within a timeline rather than higher dimensions… like literally everything here has problems. We only ever visibly see Time, Space, & the Universe… Saying there are a hypothetical amount of higher dimensions is pretty blatantly headcanon and extrapolation of concepts in our own world which shouldn’t apply here regardless.
4. Arceus existing outside ‘Boundaries’
This is probably the quickest one as we’ve addressed it before, given the way that the cosmology is showcased & how realms are NOT stacked ontop of eachother, it definitely isn’t some sort of impressive thing to do… to exist outside the boundaries of this cosmology all you have to do is be outside the sphere bubbles… literally that’s it. Arceus existing in all things, while also existing beyond its boundaries doesn’t mean anything either, it’s shown to us in the diagram AGAIN… he has a realm that’s in the center around the entire cosmology (which includes Time & Space) nothing implies it to be a higher dimensional existence and even if he did exist everywhere… there’s nothing inherently impressive about it besides maybe omnipresence, also I’m realizing A LOT of the arguments for Outer come from interviews. Also I guess while we’re here I’d just like to say, the comparison of Pokémon to Philosophy is really weird… like Inspiration does not mean it works the exact same way & even similarities doesn’t prove it, a LOT of the arguments given in general for Pokémon DT feel iffy to me.
Quick Summary; but you’re gonna miss a lot if you don’t read all the points listed above!
In summary, there's not a lot you can do given the framing of the cosmology. There are no real spatial dimensions mentioned in the original JP text; the X and Y axis (which is only referenced in an INTERVIEW mind you) refer to the similarities between parallel universes & positioning rather than literal spatial directions. Existing outside the boundaries of Space and Time in this world, or any world, is basically insignificant without dimensional transcendence (DT). Transcending, in this case (in the Movie), would merely be going beyond or outside the sphere circle, which is not portrayed as a significant feat. Being the embodiment or concept of something does not imply transfinite mathematics, and philosophy does not support the DT argument as that’s equating inspiration to an entirely new disconnected media.
Bonus Artwork
Artwork by Ashuto! (but again!)
Verdicts & Closing Thoughts
I'm going to be completely honest; this is probably the biggest blog I've ever done (which is surprising). It's not necessarily the most complex (but by the standards of how my blogs usually go, this DEFINITELY was), regardless I want to thank you all for reading up to this point. Your support helps me turn out more and more blogs, so your presence here means the world to me. Enough mushy stuff, though. Unlike most of my blogs where I have voters, this time we're going to reach a consensus among everyone who worked on the blog with me (with a side arguing for Ethan & another arguing for Spike). That said, I think you could make a pretty good case for either side winning.
(Here’s a Fight Script for anyone interested!)
Spike’s Side
(The Arguments for Spike winning)
“I'm still better than you are.”
Stats
Stats are always super important to a fight, and this is no different. Both are inherently impressive in terms of their feats. Spike has destroyed stone pillars outputting a force around 6.85 tons of TNT, survived avalanches that outputted over 496.2 tons of TNT, vaporized Specter's entire ship at around 1.218 kilotons of TNT, tanked an alien spaceship exploding at around 998.92 megatons of TNT, and in his mech was capable of shaking the entirety of Saturn, equaling forces around 254 - 254 million FOE, which is capable of destroying star systems.
Ethan physically isn't very impressive (as he's a summoner), though he has shown he can take hits from and keep up with most of his Pokémon like Pidgey, who was capable of propelling a large sum of water, which equaled around 107.51 kilotons of TNT; Entei, who is capable of making 24 megatons of TNT volcano eruptions; the Dog Trio as a whole, which were going to make a 3.885 gigaton of TNT storm across a region; Ho-Oh, which stopped the fall of the Sky Fortress at around 15.59 gigatons of TNT; Lugia, who can make 40-day storms at around 497.13 gigatons of TNT; Groudon, who can expand the landmasses at around 216.31 petatons of TNT; Rayquaza, who can destroy a large meteor at around 5.18 exatons of TNT to as far as 13.882 ronnatons of TNT; and given he had the literal God of the verse, it makes sense that his team can be as strong as an infinite universe (High Uni) or even five separate universes (Low Multi)!
Now, obviously, if it was just up to this, Ethan would effortlessly be taking the AP category, though both sides have a lot of scaling chains... and let's be real, this debate was always going to be about Spike’s Grid Core Scaling Chain vs. Arceus’ Stats.
Even using our most reasonable ends for both, it’d still be upscaling 5x Uni versus scaling to 52x Uni, creating an attack gap of over 10.4x. This means Ethan would literally explode on contact. Though if we were super generous and say Arceus scales to the game timelines (the 480 million sold cartridges by Nintendo) and that they’re somehow disconnected from the infinite other Arceus (which isn’t provable mind you), then we’d have to use the electricity calc for Spike’s Virtual World feat. This would be 480 million x universal against 10.09 quintillion x universal, resulting in a 21 billion x gap in strength (as explained if we connect Arceus to the infinite timelines, he wouldn’t scale by proxy of having infinite help; this is a hypothetical HIGHBALL scenario of Arceus somehow scaling ALL the game timelines). Using this higher-end approach, Spike would still atomize Arceus on contact and walk through all of Ethan’s attacks like they’re made of cardboard… meaning Spike takes the overall edge in strength!
In terms of speed, it’s actually really close. Spike can easily breach the Mach ranges by dodging gunfire, rockets, and even lightning, which required him to move around Mach 204.85. Accounting for the lightning being INSIDE Virtual World however, he needed a speed of around 0.69c. This speed is backed up by how Spike can outrun magnetic rays at around 1.38c, accomplish his entire first adventure in nanoseconds around 780.5c, or even travel the Virtual World at 2.08 quadrillion to 12.58 quadrillion c.
For Ethan, while his speed is quite varied, he clears the Mach barrier with Pokédex entries like Pidgeot who is Mach 2, has sub-relativistic perception around Mach 15123.91 with Arceus from the Jewel of Life movie, can use speed-of-light attacks with Pokémon like Ho-Oh, Pokémon like Gardevoir can fire energy that moves at 17531626 c - 70126504 c, & the Creation Trio can achieve infinite to immeasurable speed when accounting for how they could move their realms and launch attacks across time and space.
Just like with Attack Potency, while you might think Ethan has an edge initially, when looking into Spike's scaling chains, it's a LOT closer than you'd imagine. They can match any of the ends each other can pull off. Both can reach far into MFTL+, but Spike can even match Ethan's Infinite and Immeasurable ends through Grid Core; the Core pulled off the same feat as Arceus by firing a wave of energy that went to different dimensions with their own time and space. Given the Virtual World can be argued to be Infinite in size, you can argue it to be an Infinite or Immeasurable speed feat, meaning Spike and Ethan would be pretty much even. However, it is important to mention Ethan would have an edge in the category; while Spike would be Immeasurable, upscaling Arceus from the Creation Trio would give Ethan a decent edge over Spike, meaning while initially "even," Ethan should take the speed category when not taking Arsenal, Items, or Abilities into consideration.
Arsenal & Abilities
This is probably the tricky part; first, let's start with the most important stuff and work our way down. Ethan using the Apple Cup can increase his stats fivefold, which would make the AP gap only 2.6x and cause it to no longer be an AP stomp; this would be devastating for Spike if pulled off. Not only that, but Masters in general gives Ethan potentially endless amounts of stat amps to put on top of each other with Spike having no real way to prevent or lessen their effects; meanwhile, Ethan himself can continually lower Spike's stats. If the fight drags on for long enough, Ethan is going to end up all-around stat-stomping; aside from that, it's also important to note that, in this case, Pokémon are going to be much more helpful than Monkeys. While they can "copy" opponents, it's not like Spike can order them specifically to do that; while they'll listen to what he says, Pipo Monkeys generally only do the few simple commands asked of them before they go POOF (plus moves like Transform & abilities like Trace do the same); regardless, Ethan could potentially have his entire horde of Mons on the field simultaneously, making this a horde fight for Spike. Even disregarding that, Ethan has a lot of one-shot options that would straight up kill Spike with no questions asked: he could rip out his soul with a Ghost Pokémon, use Spatial Rend to distort and physically erase him (with enough time given his partial resistance), knock out all Ethan’s own support & Spike’s Monkeys with Perish Song (sort of like a double edged sword though Ethan could potentially get around the negative effects via either switching out or reviving his Pokemon with items like the Sacred Ash but the former would leave ethan vulnerable and for the latter monkeys can also revive), or even potentially erase him from time. Outside of that, another way to negate the stat gap would be to use Attack Swap and Guard Swap to trade stats; since Spike has no forms, this should work just fine on him.
Though while that's good for Ethan, there's a lot to consider when it comes to Spike and his arsenal. First of all, it's important to specify that while Ethan can lower Spike's stats, he can only do it a certain number of times; in Pokémon, you can only lower and raise your stats around 6 stages (a x4 to overall stats), meaning Ethan's only way to go past that point is with Masters items. He'll only ever be able to 4x nerf Spike and then have to focus on buffing himself. Secondly, Spike's entire arsenal is equipped for handling multiple fighters at once; it's kind of his thing. Not only could Spike start making multiple duplicates of himself (forcing Ethan to divide his time and stat nerfs across more foes), but Spike has support from everyone in the lab, giving him constant info on Ethan while also being able to be called in. Casi would be especially effective, as she could not only disable Pokeballs from being able to release Mons, but she could reverse everyone's motor functions, stop time, or severely slow down the enemy side with gravity. While Ethan could cure "paralysis," the Stun Club is already working like an extremely short paralysis; its whole purpose is opening up opponents for attacks (making para heals basically useless in terms of dealing with it). Spike has the advantage of being able to teleport around to basically anywhere he wants on the field, can track Ethan wherever he goes due to the Monkey Radar (& Ambipom), gets to have a lot more ability options with equipment like the Dash Hoop & Jetpack, has an unlimited amount of healing options with Cookie Bags (which, while Ethan has a big supply of healing, it is finite), and overall has a lot of sneaky, unpredictable items Ethan hasn't had to deal with. For example, he could use the Electro Magnet to rip Pokeballs and metallic items away from Ethan with no way of getting them back; any physical attacks from his Electro Gear would disable Ethan's attacks, moves, and abilities, leaving him a sitting duck. Spike having items like the Cloaking & Flak Jackets makes him hard to land hits on and even hurt at all, given the already present stat gap. Not only that, but Spike has a lot of counters to anything Ethan could potentially use to try and limit his gadgets. Ethan steals or knocks them out of his hands with moves like Knock Off or Thief? Spike can warp them right back to his hand with Gadget Recall; Ethan tries shorting out his technology? Spike's technology is self-repairing and would inevitably repair itself as long as Spike gets whoever is causing it off the field. Plus, he has a plethora of gadgets that are manual and would be unaffected, meaning Ethan can't really take advantage of Spike's one potential weakness. Thirdly, Spike's literal go-to option, the Time Net, is unironically his primary weapon and a BFR option. While Ethan could normally escape such a fate with Palkia & Dialga, Spike's BFR has explicitly stopped people from warping out of it with time and space shenanigans, so whoever Spike catches in his net is gone from the fight for good. Spike can not only catch multiple Pokémon at once with this tactic, but he's caught stuff as huge as Arceus. Even if they didn't fit, the Net has shrinking technology, and Arceus has never showcased a resistance to such an ability. Outside of that, Spike has a few more wacky gadgets that could make the fight problematic for Ethan. The Division Light, while usually used for cloning (on Spike), when used on someone who is a fusion of other beings or objects, instantly separates them as opposed to cloning; meaning Arceus could potentially be split into the Creation Trio or be split from his Plates, which would remove his potential resistances to any of Spike's attacks. Ethan could also be straight-up possessed by the Miniature Lab, which he has no counter to. The final nail in the coffin is Extra Lives. Yep, they were going to be brought up eventually. There's no reason to believe "Lab Batteries" are superior to "Safety Jackets"; they're made by the same exact guy and accomplish the same exact purpose (plus, Spike carries both on hand and has the same amount of each). Meaning Ethan would have to either grow tens of thousands of times stronger somehow over the course of the fight in hopes of atomizing Spike and negating his revives or kill Spike over 100 times back to back. His only other real options for dealing with lives would be soul stealing or erasure, but for very obvious reasons, this is not very in-character for Ethan to start out with. Outside of that, both sides have some stuff that essentially cancels out. Ethan is not going to try to catch Spike's Monkeys, given he'd think he's another trainer, and Spike can't use Monkey Sealing to seal any of his Pokémon in a Banana. Both have resistances and similar versatility when it comes to elements (with Ethan having an edge). Both have big enough AOE to where neither could really dodge an attack from the other, regardless of stats (Large Planet AOE for Spike via his Mech vs. Universal AOE via Arceus & CT). Both could cure a lot of each other's status effects with no real issues… meaning when considering everything the overall edge goes to Spike!
Tertiary Factors
Realistically, this is probably the most important category, determining whether either side can handle the other's diverse array of moves, skills, and experiences. Spike, for starters, is no slouch when it comes to experience. Unlike Ethan, he's had at least four separate adventures with two tie-ins via Manga and Anime, giving him at least three different 'lives' to pull from. It's easy to say he's seen and done a lot more than Ethan. Not only is Spike well-versed in Judo (beating pro sumos like Yellow Monkey), but the diversity of the Monkeys he's seen is more than Ethan's Pokémon. As said before, Spike has seen magicians, pro combat fighters, karate masters, kickboxers, heavyweight champs, giants, myth fighters, Olympic runners, mechs, robots, knights, ninjas, psychics, clowns, dinosaurs, aliens, gunslingers, and more. While you can find over 200 Pokémon when combining Johto and Kanto, Spike has seen over 1,000 different monkeys. Though while Spike's training is more diverse, you could argue that Ethan's has been going on for longer. He has a confirmed training record of at least 2-4 years using the Manga, while Spike is usually not outright training at all times. The most we could argue for him in terms of field experience is probably a few months to even a year, meaning while Spike's experience is more varied, Ethan has more actual experience. As for skill, I'd say overall it's pretty even. While Spike has actual physical skill with tech, gadgets, electronics, and fighting, Ethan has experience with summon fighting, commanding his Pokémon to make great plans, and attack as a team. In that way, they both have their edges. Though given how this category is mostly about how well one could deal with the other, Spike not only has a decent edge in Skill & Overall Experience (Quality over Duration) but has a lot of stuff Ethan has never really encountered before, making it a guessing game throughout a lot of the fight as to what all his tech can do.
While we're here, let's address one outside factor (given this is more or less the category for covering lesser stuff): everyone's favorite Pokémon, Arceus, arguably has a true form. A lot of the arguments tossed around suggest that if Arceus' avatar dies, a new one will be sent in to help Ethan. Not only has Arceus never helped one of his avatars after they've been defeated or captured (like in games), been at risk of death (like in the movies), or accidentally threatened the world (like the Manga), but Arceus doesn't even show up when his Creation Trio gets kidnapped in Diamond & Pearl (he’s a bad dad). It's safe to say he doesn't really care if Ethan OR one of his avatars got merced. Arceus, a lot of the time, is hands-off, especially if it concerns a certain universe. Given Ethan has never attempted this and how it wouldn't happen anyways, it's safe to say that if Spike killed Arceus, it'd be permanent for the fight.
Summary
Spike
Advantages
Physically Stronger than Ethan to the point of oneshotting (Flak Jacket would make this even worse for Ethan).
Comfortable fighting multiple opponents at once.
Monkey Time Net BFR is Spike’s usual GOTO option in a fight & Ethan has no counters to it with any of his Pokémon.
Stun Club being a mild paralysis to begin with negates the usefulness of Ethan’s paralysis healing items & ensures it’s still effective for making openings.
Electro Magnet can be used to steal any items Ethan has that are made of Metal.
Can negate moves like Thief & Knock Off with Gadget Recall; essentially voiding his biggest potential problem in the battle.
Spike can duplicate himself indefinitely (albeit one at a time) with no downsides; which could quickly turn overwhelming for Ethan.
Has support from the Professor & Natalie to constantly provide intel and support during the battle & help come up with strategies (even if they can’t physically come onto the field).
Casi in general cucks Ethan, Gadget Control inflicts Attack Negation on the entire enemy team, Time Stopping would freeze Ethan completely, Gravity Control would slow Ethan, could invert everyone's motor functions.
Spike is generally more mobile with speed enhancing features like the Super Hoop, Speed Up Powerup, & Jetpacks.
Has unlimited healing options with Bottomless Cookie Bags; Ethan’s supply of healing moves and supplies while vast can not match that.
Has revives that can revive him potentially up to 100 times; Ethan lacks the AP to negate these normally.
Attack Negation can be applied to ALL of Spike’s Weapons (in terms of how it works it’s similar to the move Disable) meaning it would leave Ethan a sitting duck (as it affects ALL gear and attacks of him and his Mons).
Could potentially split Arceus from his plates with the Division Light.
More varied experience & generally more impressive skill showings.
While Sealing Bananas can’t be used on Ethan’s Pokémon; they can be used to seal away Ethan himself.
Cloaking Jacket would make it really easy for Spike to land his hits; as he’d be invisible to Ethan.
Could possess Ethan with the Miniature Lab.
Can petrify ALL of Ethan’s Mons including Arceus.
Even if Ethan found a way to shut off Spike’s Gadgets, they would eventually repair themself & weapons like the Monkey Net Ace were made to resist electrical disruption which EM Waves and Radiation are comparable to (and it wouldn’t work on manual Gadgets like the Magic Punch).
Resists Distortion World BFR via resisting the Monkey Net.
Could probably stab Ethan with his Hair like DAMN it’s sharp.
Neutral
At peak (Mech vs Arceus) neither side can really dodge each other regardless of stats due to sheer AOE (albeit it’s Large Planet vs Uni AOE with Ethan having the edge)... it just doesn’t really matter given they’ll always be within a Planet’s distance.
Palkia, if given enough time could reverse Spike’s age to the point of incapacitating him, though it’s unclear if this wouldn’t screw Ethan over too due to AOE.
Both are generally suited to dealing with eachothers status effects, making them NEARLY a non-factor.
Both sides can copy each other's moves with attacks & abilities like Pipo Cloning & Transform/Sketch/Mimic.
Disadvantages
Ethan could close the gap in AP & potentially get into blitzing range if given enough time to buff himself.
Can nerf Spike’s stats which Spike surprisingly has no counters to; even Spike’s buffs are only temporarily so this could get bad REALLY fast.
Guard Swap & Attack Swap could be quick options for turning the tide when it comes to AP.
Ethan’s Pokémon are more varied than Spike’s Monkeys and are More Helpful Overall.
Ethan has more experience when it comes to summon battles & has a greater duration of trained experience
Perish Song can be used to quickly wipe out any of Spike’s Monkeys on field in quick succession; albeit they all have self revives.
Spatial Rend could negate Spike’s revives by erasing Spike from Space & Roar of Time could negate Spike’s revives by erasing him from Time.
IF GIVEN Ability Stacking on Arceus, abilities like Wonderguard would give Spike trouble at least on some level.
Ape Escape Move for the Playstation Move.
Dead Franchise Lol.
Ethan
Advantages
Solidly Faster.
His Pokemon are more Helpful and Varied than Spike’s Monkeys.
Can catch up in AP with stat buff items like the Apple Cup & with moves can lower Spike’s stats overtime.
Ethan has permanent Speed buff items that last until the fight ends; while Spike’s is temporary.
Guard Swap & Attack Swap would be really effective in turning the tides when it comes to AP.
Has a longer training duration when it comes to experience.
While not really likely as he’d relate Spike to a trainer; Ethan COULD technically catch Spike’s Monkeys if he tried, though normally that sort of thing isn’t allowed, frowned upon, or just doesn’t work (so he wouldn’t attempt it most likely).
Attacks like Spatial Rend & Roar of Time could negate Spike’s durability & ignore his revives by erasing Spike completely.
Psychics on field should help resist Bananarang's Mind Control.
IF GIVEN Ability Stacking on Arceus, abilities like Wonderguard would give Spike trouble at least on some level.
Should be able to short circuit Spike’s Gadgets if given the chance, at least for a while…
Perish Song could be extremely effective at mowing through hordes of Monkeys & Spike Clones…
Could knock away or steal Spike’s Gadgets…
Franchise is Alive and Thriving, kinda.
Neutral
At peak (Mech vs Arceus) neither side can really dodge each other regardless of stats due to sheer AOE (albeit it’s Large Planet vs Uni AOE with Ethan having the edge)... it just doesn’t really matter given they’ll always be within a Planet’s distance.
Palkia, if given enough time, could reverse Spike’s age to the point of incapping him, though it’s unclear if this wouldn’t screw Ethan over too due to AOE.
Both are generally suited to dealing with eachothers status effects, making them NEARLY a non-factor.
Both sides can copy each other's moves with attacks & abilities like Pipo Cloning & Sketch/Mimic.
Disadvantages
Spike is starting stronger to the point of one shotting Ethan and his strongest Pokémon (Flak Jacket would make it even harder to hurt Spike).
Spike can petrify ALL of Ethan’s Mons including Arceus.
…though Spike’s gadgets are self-repairing and would eventually work again.
…though it’s likely it’d mess up Ethan pretty badly too (unless you think Ethan wants to call in all his Pokémon and temporarily make it a 1v1 to negate Perish Song; RUN ETHAN RUN!!!)
…but Spike could just get them back through Gadget Recall.
A lot of Spike’s hax options just sorta work on him with no issues (BFR, Stunning, Possession, Item Stealing).
Casi could be one of the biggest problems for Ethan once on field as all of her Supers are essentially game-enders or extremely hindering (Time Stopping, Motor Function Flipping, Severe Slowing via Gravity, Attack Negation). He has no real way to deal with her as she resists short circuiting, could live on as an AI and be uploaded to more bodies, & resists hacking.
Spike has a bottomless amount of healing items in comparison to Ethan’s finite amount.
Revives are going to be a pain in the ass to deal with no matter how you slice it.
Cloaking Jacket would make Spike completely invisible and leave Ethan open for sneak attacks & hax options.
Could get sealed inside a banana if a Pipo Monkey decides to activate the process during the fight.
Johto’s Level Curve.
One of Every Pokemon can in fact NOT beat 1 Billion Lions; these mfs fold to one.
This battle is obviously a bit tough to call. While Spike takes Attack Potency (AP) via the Grid Core Feat, Ethan takes Speed via Arceus. Both have similar Area of Effect (AOE) with Ethan obviously holding an advantage via Uni AOE and both had plenty of abilities to bypass each other's defenses or end the battle in one move. However, Spike was always going to have an edge. For starters, Spike is the only one with revives for himself, meaning all Spike had to do was get rid of Ethan once, while Ethan had to get rid of Spike 100 times. Spike also has a lot of options to make Ethan's stalling tactics with healing useless. For example, Spike was always going to outlast Ethan because he has a bottomless supply of healing items while Ethan's is finite. Additionally, Spike has ways to permanently incapacitate Pokémon on the field while Ethan has no way to do the same due to Spike's revives normally. These methods include Time Netting, Possession, Mind Control on certain Pokémon, Sealing on Ethan himself, and Casi in general could stop any big plans Ethan was setting up by generally scanning him & his stats… plus all of her Special Abilities.
Even if Ethan started a little faster, Spike has ways to make the speed gap non-existent, like the Super Hoop, Dash Boots, and Speed Up power-ups (all of which increase his speed). While he couldn't match Ethan's peak stat boosts, it ensured he could keep up with him at a low-mid range when it mattered (as it likely wouldn’t get to that high point). Ethan ironically only had one Pokémon who could even deal with Spike or his monkeys, which was Arceus. Many of Ethan's hax were temporary and usually negated when a Pokémon is revived, which would be the same for Spike (like Perish Song or stat debuffs). While Ethan wasn't completely defenseless with the rest of his Pokémon, it did mean Spike was essentially completely safe for the majority of the battle (even stat switching wouldn’t work like AP due to it reverting on death & how they’re so close in speed made for hax opportunities), with the only real entity able to negate his revives being Arceus. Even BFR (Battlefield Removal) with the Distortion World wouldn't work because Spike could just warp right back or rewind time.
The main argument towards Spike losing was if we gave Arceus all abilities across the series and said they were all on and passive at once (e.g., Wonder Guard and Magic Bounce stacking), which is something no Arceus has ever done. Arceus has only ever had one ability, specifically needed for type-shifting (it wouldn’t make sense to say he starts with multiple or with a separate ability & even if he could replicate that it wouldn’t be AUTOMATICALLY ON), this argument definitely falls into headcanon territory (as he’s never attempted ANYTHING like this before). Even if Arceus did have something like this, he strictly obeys Ethan and is not going to suddenly give himself Wonder Guard, Magic Bounce, and start ripping out souls, which ultimately weakens the case for him beating Spike. Hypothetically, if we DID go this route, Wonder Guard isn't even a 100% counter to Spike; Wonder Guard does not make you immune to damage; it makes you immune to anything that isn't super effective against you. This means ALL SPIKE HAS TO DO is hit him with an attack, or someone randomly on his team has to hit him with an attack that will harm or affect Arceus’s Type at that current time (because he will always be ONE singular type regardless of the plate he has on, as that’s fundamentally how Wonder Guard works); meaning Spike has plenty of counters depending on the type he is!
Below is a chart of super effective weaknesses for each type and what Spike has to bypass Wonder Guard (based on type):
Water (Weak to Grass & Electric) - All of Spike’s weapons have Electric variants, and he can summon lightning strikes with the Lightning item; outside of that, you could even argue fruit-based moves like the Bananarang would fall under Grass (as a lot of Grass moves are fruit or plant-related).
Steel (Weak to Fighting, Fire, Ground) - Fighting tends to involve showings of combat skills physically or with a weapon; Spike’s primary attack method is with weapons, and he even knows Judo without any gadgets. Spike has Fire variants for all of his weapons, and his Pipo Mech can make quakes similar to Ground types.
Rock (Weak to Water, Grass, Fighting, Ground, Steel) - The Water Cannon showcases knockback and pressure similar to the Stun Club in Ape Escape, so it could be used as a Water attack. Grass is the same as before; Bananarang could technically fall under that category. Fighting is the closest to Spike’s primary method out of any type. He can make quakes with his Pipo Mech, and his mechs are literally made of steel and can fire steel orbs.
Psychic (Weak to Bug, Ghost, Dark) - Dark attacks tend to be very literal (like being rude, mean, or vicious to someone) and, on the other side of the spectrum, can mean darkness. It’s both for some reason, which is in character for all of his summons; those monkeys are vicious, man. As for Ghost, the Possession Helmet is literally possession, obviously falling under Ghost. As for Bug… uh… idk, Spike throws a bug at this mf trust.
Poison (Weak to Ground & Psychic) - As said before, Spike’s Pipo Mech can make ground-shaking quakes, and Psychic moves would ironically be similar to the Time Net (as teleport is a Psychic move), meaning Monkey Net BFR would work on Psychic.
Normal (Weak to Fighting) - Ironically, Arceus’ base form is the weakest to Spike, as Spike’s primary attack pattern is using weapons and fighting skills, which would be really awkward.
Ice (Weak to Fighting, Fire, Rock, Steel) - Fighting is Spike’s main attack type in this case (due to swordsmanship and sumo skills); all his weapons have Fire variants. Monkeys like Monta can call down meteors, which would be Rock, and his mechs are literally made out of steel and can fire steel balls.
Ground (Weak to Water, Grass, Ice) - The Water Cannon would be a good way to exploit the Water weakness; bananas would fall under Grass (as Grass is associated with plants and fruit). Spike has Ice variants for all his weapons.
Grass (Weak to Bug, Fire, Flying, Poison, Dragon, Steel) - Spike has Fire variants for all his weapons; Spike has flying tech that he can use to ram into people and flying tech that can harm others like the Sky Flyer… the Great Mighty Scythe can make tornadoes. Bananas could relate to Grass type, as stated before. Red Monkey literally farts poison gas as his primary attack. Dragon relates to general things you’d relate to a dragon (like claws), which all of Spike’s monkeys have. Spike’s giant mech can fire steel balls, and mechs, in general, are made of steel.
Ghost (Weak to Dark & Ghost) - As said before, Dark moves can be literal and figurative (so rude actions will harm Arceus; SPIKE FLIP HIM OFF), meaning most of his monkeys would work. Possession would fit the Ghost type and work on Arceus.
Flying (Weak to Rock, Electric, Ice) - Summons like Monta can call down rocky meteors, and Spike has an Electric and Ice variant for all his weapons.
Fire (Weak to Ground, Rock, Water) - Spike can cause quakes with his mechs, Monta can summon meteors, and the Water Cannon fires water.
Fighting (Weak to Flying, Psychic, Fairy) - The Sky Flyer has damage variants, and the Jetpack allows for flying attacks… The Great Mighty Scythe can make tornadoes. The Time Net would fall under Psychic (similar to how teleport is). Fairy is usually showcased by light-based and mythical moves, which is Casi’s primary attack method.
Fairy (Weak to Poison, Steel) - Red Monkey’s main attack method is by farting deadly gas. Spike’s mechs are made of steel and fire steel balls.
Electric (Weak to Ground) - Spike can cause quakes with his small & big mechs (& similarly big mechs simply cause quakes by punching), simple as that.
Dragon (Weak to Dragon, Fairy, Ice) - All of Spike’s monkeys have claw attacks (which would fall under Dragon). Fairy tends to deal with light and myth attacks, which are Casi’s entire thing. Spike has Ice variants for all his weapons.
Dark (Weak to Bug, Fairy, Fighting) - Spike’s main method of attacking is similar to a Fighting type (via swordsmanship and Judo). Casi’s flash beams would fall under Fairy.
Bug (Weak to Fire, Flying, Rock) - All of Spike’s weapons have a Fire variant. He has flying-based weapons like the attack variant Sky Flyer, his Jetpack, & the Great Mighty Scythe which makes tornadoes. Monta can summon meteors.
Meaning no matter how you slice it, Arceus would always have a weakness when it comes to Wonder Guard. Even when Arceus has had all of the plates (as shown in the anime), he does not use them all in unison; he needs to quickly swap and block with certain forms accordingly. This Arceus has never been shown to have the Legend Plate like in Legends Arceus, which can make a Pokémon ‘every type’. Even if he did, specifically when you use it on Arceus, the only function it serves is to SWAP Arceus to the most effective form he has so that he always hits super effectives (it does nothing defensive, so no matter what he’s stuck with ONE type regardless). Arceus has no winning strategy, even if you give him all these abilities. Spike can literally just bulldoze him or get lucky. Mind you, this entire blurb was a hypothetical based on if you gave Arceus a SERIOUS benefit of the doubt.
Another argument made was that Arceus could use precognition to anticipate events ahead of time. However, he has been tricked and controlled despite this "precognition" before… which makes that EVEN more questionable to argue as an advantage. Additionally, as said before Arceus is completely submissive to Ethan and would not act independently or disobey him. Therefore, he wouldn't perform random actions unrelated to what he would do in an average battle. This scenario also falls into headcanon territory, as we cannot prove Arceus can do this.
Ethan's only real chance at victory stemmed from getting off Roar of Time or Spatial Rend, both of which COULD erase Spike, though Spike could dodge and teleport out of the way of it with his superior mobility. But also, just... Spatial Rend and Roar of Time in general would not have been an instant game over despite their power to erase someone's time or space, mostly due to Spike's Data Destruction resistance—albeit not a full-on counter—it would buy him the time he needs (no pun intended) to get out of a tricky situation like that (since they’d have to keep him inside a pretty lengthy amount of time). Spike survived around a full minute of the data shenanigans nonstop... so as long as Spike didn’t stand there like an idiot he was fine; all Spike had to do was open Arceus up with a weapon like Medusa’s Gaze, Petrification which has worked on Arceus before, Bananarang Mind Control which has worked on Arceus before, or straight up just yoink Ethan’s Pokéball with the ElectroMagnet, then Spike can just use his AP edge to oneshot- leaving it a pretty straightforward victory.
Ethan had his heart and soul in the battle, but Spike ended up striking gold. The winner is Spike!
Ethan’s Side
(The Arguments for Ethan winning)
"Ahaha!! This is how Gold, New Bark Town’s beloved Pokédex holder does things!!"
Stats
One of the more straightforward parts of this debate, several lower calcs could be brought up during this section like machamp pushing mountains or even basic monkeys units being capable of blowing up stars (not the user), but to get the full picture of this match it is necessary to take a look at both of these character's insane cosmic feats, although first it is important to address some feats that we WON'T be using for this blog.
First of all, despite pokemon's cosmology being quite impressive, ranging from millions to a possibly infinite number of universes and timelines each of them also possibly being infinitely sized itself, there's been insufficient evidence to prove that even Arceus himself could fully scale to it, as each cartridge of pokemon holds its own creation trio + arceus, meaning there's there's little supporting that at any point a single Arceus had to support any more of the cosmology than its own universe at any given time.
Similarly, Spike’s virtual world has a Calc that would put him at quintillions of times above universal due to the necessary energy for a machine to convert the data into energy and sustent a virtual universe, the issue with this feat is that it assumes that running a virtual universe would… take any more energy than simply sustaining a real universe which is clearly not the case on a logical level.
So what ARE we using then? Well for starters, what a single Arceus has been shown to sustain is its own world within the cartridges, which includes five universes (the human world, Palkia and Dialga’s own dimension, the Distortion World and his own realm). Similarly for Spike, he can withstand the destructive power of the Grid Core which threatens both the pocket universes inside the virtual world as well as the human one, resulting in a grand total of 52 universes. This paints the picture that Spike holds an impressive 10.4 times AP advantage, which could arguably put him into the range of one shooting Ethan, simple enough right?
Well, not quite, Arceus should be upscaling that initial value by quite a bit, despite the movie's portrayal of the latter, Arceus can operate at full power even without the legendary plates in the source material, with each plate only amping his power significantly further, while there is no exact measure given, it could be argued that considering that each plate can give Arceus a 20% boost in it's type, with all 18 plates absorbed Into himself that would amp Arceus by a further 360%, meaning with the plates an Arceus at full power could be up to 18x Uni, shortening the AP gap to 2.8 times, still in Spike’s favor, but a far more manageable difference. If that calculation is not to your liking then it's also easy to argue that Arceus is consistently portrayed as far above his creation, Palkia, who can by himself sustain 4 universes by simply breathing (Arceus’ own dimension is stated to be beyond space and time so it wouldn't count for this purpose), even assuming Arceus is as little as 1.5x his original value, he'd still be 7.5x uni and 6.9x weaker than Spike, which is still considerably better, overall while the Monkey catcher has the advantage, it wouldn't be enough to “net” a win by power alone.
When it comes to speed however, Ethan should have an edge, both of their fastest feats involve sending energy across multiple universes via speed alone, when looking solely at the finite ends of these calcs, Arceus's feat would be 5.4x faster than the Core's, however its just as easy to argue that both feats would reach infinite to immeasurable results, however a small edge could still be given to Ethan due to the context of their feats, since the Core’s was made at the peak of its power whilst Arceus did his own feat while actually sleeping, it's not exactly a stretch to say that Arceus could move a lot faster while actually conscious.
Where the real speed edge comes into play however is on their travel speed, as within the same time-frame as the Arceus feat, Dialga and Palkia were physically moving their respective universes and bumping them into each other, meaning their traveling speeds are comparable to the feat getting 6.03 quintillion c, whilst Spike’s best traveling feat involves him running across the virtual world which even on the most generous interpretation gets only 12.58 quad c, a massive 4793.3 times to possibly infinite difference, this essentially meaning that even if their reactions are equal, Ethan had the mobility to literally run laps around the opponent, which means they always had methods to keep himself directly out of harm's way, this is made even clearer when comparing the AoE of their attacks, while Jotho’s champion could attack from universal distances from the aforementioned feats, Spike’s best bet from fighting at larger ranges was his Mech, who could only cover planetary distances with his own attacks, and this comes with the caveat that Spike will need to be inside piloting the Mech to reach those distances, which would make it a lot harder for him to use his regular tech aside from the standard Time Net, in short, Spike would be hard pressed to close the distance even with his teleportation. Speaking of which, it's about time we covered their…
Arsenal and Abilities
This is where the real meat of the debate can be found, if you've read the blog so far you likely wouldn't disagree with the sentiment that these two have ridiculously extensive arsenals, both have access to a variety of elemental attacks, hundreds of monsters they can summon in battle, impressive technology and reality warping etc. But which one is superior? It might be a shock to some but surprisingly Ethan had an answer to almost everything Spike could throw at him! Let's run this one by one.
First of all, let's proceed where we left off with stats, on their own they painted a very clear figure, Spike was stronger but Ethan had better speed and mobility, although this is the case initially, Ethan had several ways to close and even surpass the gap, while Spike does have a few moves that buff his own stats, they are all temporary power ups as opposed to the pokemon's that could last the entire battle, several of these would passively activate as soon as the fight started, and could even stack on top of each other, for example, the Drastic Parfait would rise all of his stats (both attacks, defenses, speed, accuracy and evasion) by six stages (equivalent to a 4x Increase), the Half Cake cuts down damage from all sources by half, the Hard Shell Taco and Ziti Special further decrease physical and Special damage, The Ultra Jelly can further increase all stats from allies by 3x, the Guard Chocolat completely nullifies the next damage it takes after successfully hitting a move and lastly the Apple Cup can do most of the previous effects and more all at once (except the increase from the Parfait and the decrease from the Sundae to 5x each now)
Things get even crazier when you account for the four Ruin abilities, each dropping the attacks and defenses of all fighters aside from itself by 25% (which works separately from regular status debuffing moves, meaning it can be stacked them) or Intrepid Sword and Dauntless Shield which will add a 1.5x multiplies to the user's physical attack and defense, and Intimidate which passively lowers the physical attack of all foes by 1.5x (these o es one does count as regular status shenanigans, meaning it can only go as far as 4x in total with other moves).
Assuming we take all of those passive buffs and nerfs literally, this means that as soon as the fight starts, they'll take Spike and Ethan's effective attack potency from 52x Uni vs 18/7.5x Uni to 2.6x Uni vs 135/56.2 x Uni, completely flipping the position of this fight onto its head! (although it is worth noting that upon revival Spike would rise back to 7.8x Uni as intimidate debuffs disappear upon death). Even if you don't take those effects literally, at the very least they should be able to put Ethan on equal footing AP wise with the sheer amount of buffs and debuffs considering they were already rather close previously. And considering this battle would likely involve several summons, the amps could become even larger, with the abilities Chilling and Grim Neigh, Ethan would receive a further 1.5x AP boost with every enemy defeated (can go up to 4x with intrepid sword) and Supreme Overlord gives another 10% (which is separate from the standard boost meaning it can stack indefinitely) for every ally defeated, even if they are revived, meaning the longer the battle wages, the stronger Arceus will be. This even applies to speed, as with Speed Boost he can (as the name implies) passively buff his own speed up to 4x the longer the battle goes, and with Cotton Down he can nerf Spike’s speed up to 4x every time he lands an attack (which is worth remembering Spike can't avoid due to the universal AoE) or even do the same but by getting hit instead with Tangled Hair, overall, Ethan has several easy methods of controlling the stats of the fight, and if even that wasn't enough, he can just permanently swap his AP with Spike's via Power Trick.
Now, if you were paying attention,you may have noticed that Arceus was granted abilities aside from his own from the mainline games, as such it's now important to clear out one important disagreement from the two sides of this blog: should Arceus have access to all Pokémon abilities or not? After looking at the facts given, the answer seems like a rather clear yes, it's stated over and over again that Arceus is the progenitor/creator of all Pokémon, he's consistently shown to have similar if not outright superior control over all of the creation trio’s abilities, it’s rather disingenuous to say he'd have access to any regular move but then draw the line into abilities even though they are also aspects of his creations, he wouldn't be able to grant an ability he doesn't possess, this distinction is made even more obvious when in side material like Mystery Dungeon and Conquest even regular Pokémon have shown to wield multiple abilities at once, but more importantly, the latter game gives us this description for his own signature ability:
This further supports our claim, In the worst case scenario, it's completely possible that Arceus could just give himself those abilities at will if he didn't at the start of the fight or copy them from other Pokémon in the universe/battlefield with the move Roleplay, those same abilities are important in the fact that they provide several unique resistances and hax for Ethan to work with, which we'll proceed to list along as they become relevant.
One of the most interesting effects are that Arceus can receive several immunities to different types of damage, the most impressive of which being Wonder Guard which nullifies damage from any source that doesn't use an element the pokemon is outright weak to, this is actually very consistent in the movies, as Arceus can become immune to even the blows of the Creation Trio by changing his type at will, it's even noted that the only reason Pikachu was able to harm him initially with Thunderbolt was due to the legendary not possessing the Zap Plate at the time, Similarly Arceus can also change his typing at will mid turn to always deal super effective damage with the Legend Plate, he can even make it certain elemental attacks that he's immune to can ONLY target him with abilities like this means that for example, with the Lightning Rod ability all of Spike’s moves that involve electricity become useless like the Stun Club, enhancements from the Electro Gear in an attempt the disable his attacks and another weapon we'll mention later, so if Arceus changed into a Water type, the aforementioned ability along with Sap Sipper shut down any way for Spike to deal regular damage, negating his initial AP advantage even further, he can even grant all of those immunites to any of Ethan's other pokemon or even the trainer itself with the move Entrainment, to further add insult to injury, with move Imprison, he can seal any of Spike's moves that he could also perform.
Even if we assumed that the other element negating abilities wouldn't stack with Wonder Guard for some reason, Arceus can still shift between his types at will during battle, and Spike would have no idea what are the individual weaknesses of each type were, meaning he'd have spend a lot of the time just guessing and seeing what sticks, and this is not even accounting for types like dragon, where Spike has no elemental abilities that could come close to the power of fairies.
Now one valid question you may have is “if we assume that Arceus does not start with all abilities, how would Ethan even know about what to watch out for before it's too late?” The answer to that is that even regular pokemon on his roster like Alakazam can constantly see into the future in order to avoid dangerous attacks, even being able to tell someone's entire life from birth to death from a mere glance (Gothitelle is also capable of something similar, and more importantly, Arceus himself displayed a similar capacity in the movies as even looking at Ash made him inadvertently gain knowledge on all of the changes in history that had happened due to his time travel), it's safe to say his stronger legendaries should be capable of similar if not stronger feats, the is further supported by the ability Foresight who's entire purpose is passively giving knowledge to both trainer and pokemon about particularly troublesome moves, we've mentioned it before but even Arceus’ signature ability Omnipotent has one of it's many effects being that in game he had a massively increased chance of dodging moves, the same effect as the ability “Instinct”, the legendary is also outright stated to possess Omniscience in the TCG, meaning Ethan could get info on everything he could do as well as a form of precognition that would make it even harder for Spike to land a decisive blow.
On the other end of the spectrum, how does Spike's own support fare? After all he'd be getting constant feedback from the team in the lab and his personal AI Casi, they have been shown to be able to scan enemy stats and craft inventions on the fly to help the monkey catchers out, so maybe they could give him an out? Well, the truth is that Spike likely wouldn't be able to get their help during this fight, you see, in Pokemon Rangers Palkia's mere presence in an area created a distortion/interference so potent that all forms of long range communication in that region stopped working…
This means that The Lab and Casi likely would have no way of communicating with him once the fight started, leaving him with no way of asking for assistance. However, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that Spike had conveniently summoned Casi's robot body before the fight started. How much can she help? Still not much sadly, looking at her unique skills most of them don't amount to much here, let's run them down.
Gadget Control could actually completely backfire, not much of Ethan’s arsenal requires on technology but what WOULD be likely affected are his pokeballs, it may seem like a good thing to take them off equation and limit the trainers options, however it's very consistent across the series that damaging or disabling pokeballs will actually instantly release the pokemon inside as a safety measure, meaning that using this Ability would actually cause Casi and Spike to be suddenly jumped by hundreds of different varied opponents all at once.
On Ethan's side however, he actually had several ways at his disposal to mess with or disable Spike's tech entirely, it's stated more than once that different types of pokemon like Kadabra or Magnemite can passively cause machinery to malfunction or shut down by simply being in the same area as them, this effects is even consistent in higher tiers of the verse like the aforementioned Palkia distortions, while it is worth noting that Spike’s technology is self repairing meaning they likely wouldn't be out of commission for good, that usually takes so time to happen which would still cause major problems for him, and more importantly, the gear simply wouldn't have the time to start self repairs if they're constantly being bombarded by both alpha radiation and electromagnetic waves since a lot of Spike's possible strategies would require him to get closer to Ethan and the gang, and thus walking into the range of these interferences, even more troublesome however is that the trainer could outright take control over any particularly bothersome gadget with Rotom, while Ape Escape tech is no stranger to hacking attempts and has as such developed countermeasures against it, there was nothing stopping them from being possessed by the small poltergeist, turning them against it's user, it is worth noting that a few of Spike's gadgets are manual and as such wouldn’t be affected, but none of them add anything significant to this fight.
Gravity Control is another one that sounds more useful than it actually is, slowing down foes with increased gravity isn't particularly useful since the pokemon move Gravity creates the exact same condition, However pokemon can move just as quickly as before, the only real effect would be temporarily disabling their flight, meaning on the other side Ethan using the aforementioned move could slow down Spike even further.
Input Control is arguably the most useful here, creating an effect that reverses the motor functions of all foes, the issue is that it really can't do much more than buying a little time as the effect only lasts for about five seconds, However, Arceus or any pokemon with the ability Magic Bounce can reflect the effects of all status condition/non damaging moves back at the user, meaning Casi herself (along with possibly Spike as well) would likely be affected by her own attack as it has shown to work on machinery before.
Time Control allows Casi to stop time altogether, which would be useful in negating the speed gap, however Arceus and other members of the trio have shown to be outright immune to this same power, Time Manipulation is kind of Ethan's bread and butter on this fight really, while Casi's version can only freeze foes for a few seconds, Dialga has shown to be able to stop time for as long as it needs (which makes sense since they ARE time) and Arceus has even shown that he can choose which are affected by the stop, meaning Ethan would be able to move freely during this, dominion over time in pokemon has even more useful properties, as it has shown to able to even remove people from history by destroying their time, being able to reverse time to undo damage or enemy progress and a particularly dangerous variation of the former is that Dialga is able to create conditional time loops, essentially meaning that they can set a rule and if that rule is broken, time will be reversed until before they attempted it, this was used to trap even Giratina, meaning that if for example Ethan set the condition that time would be reset if he were to fall in battle, or how Dialga originally used it, trapping the opponent in a location and resetting time if they attempted to leave it, there's very little Spike or Casi can do to ever break out of it.
Illusion Force is the first ability Ethan has no direct equivalent to, creating clones of herself that can aid in battle, however considering the sheer amount of summons the trainer has combined with his already mentioned immense AoE, he should be able to deal with all of them at once without too much added effort.
Mirror Force could be used to help give Casi more breathing room for a few seconds by making an invincible barrier around herself, although funnily enough moves like Feint can be used specifically used to counter invulnerable barriers like Protect, regardless it likely wasn't enough to turn the tides on it's own (A similar case would also apply to the Flak Jackets).
As you may have noticed already, Spike at this point has very few options left to hurt his opponent, let alone finish the fight, although he still has a few important gadgets unaccounted for that might give him a possible wincon, the issue is that most of them are either too unreliable, Ethan possesses a better version of, or can outright be countered.
For example, the Mini Lab might seem promising at first, just fit it on the target's head and you'll possess them! Although there's still some issues, even disregarding the sheer mobility difference and precognition making it so Spike getting close enough to fit the helmet on Arceus is pretty difficult, there's also the little detail that… it's probably closer to mind control than actual possession, you see the Mini Lab is designed and activated in a very similar way to the pipo monkey helmets, that are specifically designed to enhance someone's mental capacity, this combined with the fact that even after the Lab is activated the user still needs to shout commands at the target implies they're not actually under direct control of the target like regular possession would do plus it's not an ability seen anywhere else in the franchise where instead mind control is very consistent, this distinction is important because with the Magic Bounce ability, Arceus can bounce back any status effects onto the attacker (including mental effects like Confusion) and even more importantly Arceus has very strong mental defenses (which makes sense as he created the concept of knowledge with Uxie) as even a Telepath like Sheena, who had mental abilities so potent they were stated to transcend time and space was completely unable to reach Arceus’ heart, and as silly as it may sound the helmet wouldn't even fit on Arceus's head in the first place due to his size, ultimately making it's activation method impossible, while the Mini Lab has shown before to increase in size to be as large as… well, a lab. It has always done so offscreen and after repairs done by other members of the team, meaning we have no idea if it's something Spike could do on the fly alone. then maybe Spike could use it on Ethan himself? While if given the chance, it would likely work as the boy has never shown any special resistance to those effects surprisingly, the fact that it's tech based means that the lab could always be disrupted by the several already mentioned counters that pokemon have against electronics, it's also possible Arceus could similarly just reach into Ethan's mind like Sheena could and fight Spike there.
When it comes to possession itself however, Jotho’s champion has quite a few options if need be, we've already mentioned how Rotom could take over any of Spike's tech but even the assistant himself isn't safe as even base stage pokemon like Sandyghast and Yamask have possessed targets by merely touching them (makes sense for it to be a common trait among ghost types), even when dealing with the mind, Arceus had ways to incapacitate him he's superior to the likes of Uxie, who can completely wipe someone's memories by just making eye contact, Azelf who can completely drain opponents of their willpower, and Mesprit who can turn people's emotions into an uncontrollable mess, while Spike has resisted Specter’s mind control before, he's never had to deal with a telepath of potency equal to Sheena's transcendental mental powers.
Well, then how about Spike stealing Ethan's pokeballs with magnetism, leaving him defenseless? Well not only would that not be very helpful as pokemon can consistently see what's happening outside their pokeballs but they can also exit them at will, meaning if they are snatched away, this would only further prompt the monsters that hadn't been summoned already to follow suit once they realize the situation, and once more the trainer is fair more suited at taking items, moves like Knock Off and Thief do exactly that but even more impressively, the ability Magician steals all of the opponents held items every time they take a hit, even at range, and the ability Pickpocket does the same effect when the user is hit instead! And you may be wondering: “What about Gadget Recall? Wouldn't Spike be able to get his equipment back at will?” But the reality is that if you watch the original clip it's clearly stated that the equipment is only teleported to Yumi's hands once she goes back to the lab, it's not something they can do mid combat, and even if it were, the fact that Spike would lose his equipment everytime that he got hit by attacks he can't dodge meant he'd spend a lot of time defenseless against the oncoming attacks, especially since a lot of his viable options of attack in this battle specifically rely on the hax coming from his tech.
Next the Division Light, it could create clones of Spike if he used it on himself, but more importantly, it can divide beings composed of multiple parts, which could arguably separate Arceus from his plates, powering him down and shutting down his capacity to switch types automatically (although it would still capable of doing so to a lesser extent with Libero/Protean and Color Change), the issue is that Spike has virtually no way of knowing this is an option for him as the plates would already be inside of him furthermore the ability Sticky Hold specifically prevents the user's items from being knocked off or stolen and even if that weren't the case, Arceus can just call the plates right back with his telekinesis and absorb them once more, and worst of all, similarly to Heatran if Spike did get his hands on one the plates, he would become possessed by them (albeit it would amp his power as long as he held the plate) this is also consistent with Pokemon Conquest, where exposure to the plates can even induce madness to those close-by, overall making this not a reliable wincon.
The Cloaking Jacket could make Spike temporarily invisible but not only would precognition make this being used on sneak attacks futile, but fighting types have been able sense people by just their aura and emotions, meaning they could still keep track of him, meanwhile several pokemon like Gengar, Kekleon and Dragapult have been able to become invisible at will, which Spike's only real answer to would be constantly keeping an eye on his radar, which would be hard when being constantly pressed in a fight against his favor.
What is without a doubt however one of Spike's greatest helps in this fight were his Life Batteries and Jackets, they allowed him up to a hundred different uses of a revive that happened passively as soon as he went down, this combined with the boys literal endless supply of healing items with the help of Cookie Jar (as opposed to Ethan's plentiful but still limited resources) meant that this could quickly turn into a long battle of attrition if left unchecked, however Ethan had ways around this since he could camp out Spike with his superior movement and range, but even more importantly, Spike had no real counter to Arceus simply taking his side of the field into his own dimension and hitting him from there with his AoE that crosses universes(this is literally what he does at the start of his movie), while Spike was capable of both dimensional and temporal travel, Arceus’ dimension is repeatedly stated to be located “beyond space and time” which lines up with him having created those concepts, this meant that even if the radar could maybe track their movements, he'd have no way to actually reach them, another option for stalling Spike out was that the mere fact that while Dialga and Palkia were fighting, they unknowingly sent waves thorought two separate universes that were passively reverting the age of every single person and pokemon to the point that they could no longer act over the course of a few minutes, (for example turning Pokemon into eggs) even causing pokemon to forget memories and moves, the duo could even concentrate those effects onto a beam instead that only sped up the processe further (even bypassing gear specifically designed to resist these effects) while also being able to undo the effect on any person they wish, this essentially meant that the longer the battle would rage on the quicker Spike would be incapacited due to being physically weaker and forgetting all of his skills.
Speaking of dimensions, it was also one of Ethan's options to completely bypass the revives and by proxy a drawn out fight, he always had the capacity to banish Spike to the Distortion World at any time, where the laws of space and time specifically don't apply or are well… distorted! This means that once again his teleportation wouldn't be an effective choice or at the very least it'd likely take him too long to figure a way out for it to not count as wincon, in other fashions he could simply completely destroy Spike’s body as the Batteries have never brought him back from such damage he had a few hax that would negate his durability like Destroying his time with Dialga, erase him from space with Spacial Rend, or just physically destroy him with Giratina’s antimatter, this is not even accounting that since the batteries are physical items they could likely be stolen by Magician or even targeted directly by the move Corrosive Gas, which completely destroys the target's items, and even if they were just an inherent ability of his, with the ability Mummy, Ethan can completely replace passive abilities of foes with copies of Mummy upon contact, meaning that even close quarters combat could quickly turn dangerous for him.
One argument that has been brought up is that Medusa’s Head could be used to do Arceus in, as in the Mystery Dungeon series, It has worked on Arceus before, but the truth is that at his best, even that wouldn't be enough as once again, the ability Magic Bounce can passively reflect any status moves back to sender instead petrifying Spike himself, even beyond that, regular pokemon have come back from having their cellular structure messed with in order to be liquefied, and in a particular case, Vaporeon is even able to come back from being completely turned into water, and ignoring all of the previous statements, the effect in game actually runs out after only a few seconds, making it unreliable to finish the job.
But let's assume that Spike does use Medusa’s Head on Arceus, it works and then he shatters him like in game, would that be enough? Still no sadly, regular pokemon like Koffing and Golem have shown to be able to survive and regenerate from being blown into pieces by official artwork.
Even if that wasn't enough, there's nothing stopping Ethan from undoing the petrification with Full Restores or even reviving Arceus outright with the Sacred Ash (which also has the benefit of reviving and healing all of his pokemon at once), even assuming Medusa’s Head is used on Ethan instead and then he is the one shattered, Arceus was able to bring Pikachu back even after his entire body had been fully erased from time, meaning any attempts at physical damage in general were even more null (and depending on what you're willing to buy, even regular humans like Team Rocket have come back in seconds from being turned into dust). Overall, petrification has way too many caveats in order to be considered reliable, and even then this doesn't account for the fact that an item he's likely only used about once in a crossover game would be far from his first option, meaning that Ethan has more than enough time to end the fight before then or just steal the head from Spike as he wouldn't be able to get it back with Gadget Recall (as it's just a head, not actually part of his tech) or destroyed by Corrosive Gas.
And last but certainly not least, Spike’s trusty Time Net, As one of his main weapons it's a surprisingly potent option with it's layered BFR and one that would likely be brought in earlier on, so could this finally turn the tides into his favor? For starters it's worth noting that even wild pokemon have a high resistance to BFR and that resistance is even further accentuated once they belong to a trainer, as a shield is created around them that prevents capture, you might think the net's layered hax would be enough to bypass that, which it might, the real issue is that to enhance the BFR it requires for the net to overload both itself and the target with electricity, meaning that if Spike tried to use this method the amped net would immediately be redirected and have it's electricity instead absorbed by any of Ethan’s pokemon with the Lightning Rod ability as mentioned before, including the big guy Arceus, speaking of size the net could also shrink down enemies in case they were too big for the net (which Arceus would likely be) the issue is that several pokemon can learn moves like Growth and Minimize, allowing them to change their size back at will, but if that wasn't enough to convince you, Ethan also has the perfect ability to completely bypass the net, it's worth remembering that the net's main purpose is sending targets through time and into the lab, which is very interesting when you consider that in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, even a HEAVILY nerfed version of Dialga that was missing most of it's power at the time could outright turn off someone's ability to time travel by literally “shattering” their time
This meant that if anyone on his team or Ethan himself did manage to get captured, Arceus or Dialga could outright say “no” to the attempted BFR, It requires as little effort as a thought and remember, Ethan and the gang would already know what to watch out for due to precognition and Foresight, And ultimately even if the Time Net DID go through, the lab's containment doesn't actually seem to shut off any abilities of the monkeys inside aside from teleportation or time travel, which meant that if anyone was captured, anyone from the outside like Dialga and Arceus could just rewind time as stated previously to bring them back. And all of these scenarios also rely on the assumption that the net was neither stolen by Magician or turned off by distortions as soon as Spike ever attempted to get close.
In summary, despite Spike’s initial advantage in power, when it came down to it, the golden heart simply had a complete counter to everything he could attempt, this was made worse by the fact that even disregarding abilities from the Creation Trio and Arceus, a notable amount of important capacities were present in even his regular pokemon, for example Spike would still need to deal with hundreds of enemies with barrages of elemental attacks with very good range, having all of his own summons taking care of at once with Perish Song (although this would require Ethan to temporarily withdraw the pokemon not immune to the effect), being accidentally taken out if he knocks out a pokemon with Destiny Bond, being cursed to death etc. While Spike has lots of experience fighting crowds, he just never had to deal with so many powerful and varied amounts of attack and hax all at once.
Tertiary Factors
Skill is actually one of the few categories Spike should take pretty comfortably, while Ethan can successfully train to a high level pokemon like Machamp, who are stated to become masters of every single martial arts, which would imply he'd also need at least some level of skill in direct combat (this assumption being consistent with gym leaders like Bea who can spar with her own Machamp), Spike has much better and consistent showings of straight up combat on screen, being able to even defeat martial arts masters with very little experience and doing a majority of his fighting himself as opposed to the trainer.
Though this does brings us into experience and IQ, both of which Ethan has in spades, while Spike has a few good showings of intelligence, a trainers ENTIRE role in battle is to be the strategist that takes everything into account in order to create the best course of action, he's had to understand complex typing, ability and move synergies completely on his own with no formal training and became the best at it in two different regions, even more impressively, he was a determining factor in deciphering both the Unown alphabet and ruins which had stumped even specialists on the field, he's being doing it for years too as opposed to the Ape Escape games which all happen in close proximity to each other.
Summary
Ethan
"Do adventures ever end? No matter how far I travel, there's always something new to discover!"
Advantages
Massive upscaling and passive stat buffing, nerfing, and damage reduction items and abilities like the Apple Cup and Beads of Ruin would at worst let him match Spike's AP and at best cause him to be the one completely AP stomping instead
Supreme Overlord and Moxie would only make him stronger with each ally or enemy defeated
Massive travel speed advantage, far superior range, precognition and Arceus’ dimension meant that he could always deal with Spike from a safe distance where none of his abilities can reach
Could immediately end the fight via memory wiping, contact based possession, willpower reduction, distortion world BFR, antimatter and spacetime erasure and many more, ignoring revives entirely
Natural BFR resistance, time shattering and reversal were the perfect counters for the time net
Time loops gave him as much time as he needed to experiment and come up with strategies and create the optimal route of events for him
Several immunites to physical damage via Wonder Guard and other abilities, Lightning Rod in particular invalidated and redirected his power null and layered BFR
Could outright copy or swap his AP with Spike’s with Transform and Power Trick (the former also copying his moves and abilities)
Even if his resources are more limited, Sacred Ash allowed him to revive and heal all of his allies at once, similarly Arceus could bring back any of his pokemon from even full temporal erasure
Layered mind resistances made the mini lab useless
Could disable, destroy and steal Spike's gadgets at will, including revives
Gravity manipulation wouldn’t be able to slow him down, although it'd disable his flight temporarily
Perish Song could deal with all of Spike’s summons in the field and himself at the cost of just taking his affected teammates off the field temporarily
Far more intelligent and experienced
Had a counter to almost everything Spike could do lol
Neutral
Similar if not slightly inferior reaction speeds
Disadvantages
Very little experience fighting by himself if it ever came down to it
His technology was inferior and could be disabled by Casi if she were on the field
Similarly, motor function reversal could get annoying to deal with even if it was temporary
Has a plushie of his rival for some reason (i know what you are)
Gen 2's atrocious level curve
Spike
Advantages
Strong enough in base AP to arguably one shot…
Cookie Jar offers endless supply of healing items
Far superior tech and gadgets
Higher number of summons available at his best
Medusa’s Head “might” give him a wincon if you're very generous…
Temporary invincibility and extra lives could buy him some more time
Is way more used to fighting by himself and against multiple enemies…
Banger soundtrack
Neutral
Similar if not slightly inferior reaction speeds
Disadvantages
…But all of his options for dealing physical damage are negated thanks to passive abilities
…But is not something he would consider before losing the chance to do so via Magician
But he's never faced so many varied foes at once
FAR slower in travel speed
Universal AoE meant that he had no way of dodging Ethan's blows, making clones and summons useless
Could only reach remotely close Planetary AoE with the mech, which would prevent him from using his more important haxes, AoE could also be negated entire by wide guard
All of his important items could either be disabled by radiation, Destroyed altogether by Corrosive Gas, stolen by Magician, or possessed and turned against him by Rotom
No way of reaching the opponent once they went into Arceus’ dimension
A lot of status effects like mind control and input control could be bounced right back at him
Has no answers to being trapped in a time loop (which Dialga has opened fights with)
Passive age regression would incapacitate him in just a few minutes, faster if he were to be hit by time attacks
Inferior copying skills with copy monkeys
Gadget Recall was not something he could do mid combat
His communication with both the Lab and Casi would be disabled thanks to distortion
Virtually no way of ending the fight overall
Where is Ape Escape 4 man :(
In the end, it looks like Spike was all New Bark, no bite as Ethan netted himself the gold!
Final Tally
Spike (3)): Why am I here, Stars, Flip D. Switch
Ethan(3)): Ashuto, ihyulout()2, LandonTalksALot (I WAS BEING HELD AT GUNPOINT TO VOTE)
Special thanks to Ashuto, Flip D. Switch, ihyulout()2, LandonTalksALot, & Why am I here for partially researching and voting in the blog!
It’s a… Tie?!
We were pretty conflicted while debating, it could go either way!
NEXT TIME
This is another Stars exclusive matchup because I just love doing those. Now, while you might not be initially sold on the idea, there's a lot that makes it good in my eyes. First of all, this isn’t using just Ao Oni; it’s more of a soft comp approach that includes everything. Since Ao Oni in lore is a tale that changes not only between updates with story details (like literal character retcons, different deaths, different escape methods, new onis) but also between separate canons changing things as well- so compositing everything makes it a really fun bout’ (& the most sense for Ao Oni & the Entities/Spooky as a matchup in general if I’m being real). It fits the goofy and cutesy yet gory side of both franchises, has an interesting dynamic that lets all of Spooky’s entities shine alongside all the Onis, fits the spooky theme of the Halloween season coming up! (also Ao Oni just got a remake & Spooky is getting a remaster soon; YIPEE!). But let's get onto the connections, now while I’d rather convince you all with an actual blog—there is a lot to talk here when it comes to a matchup like this.
This is the general connections I came up with for the matchup (when considering all canons):
Both series are 2D-based (turned 3D) Indie Horror Franchises (that are a mix of goofy and cutesy). It follows the main protagonist of both games going through a rumored mysterious Mansion full of Monsters (this protag being the first known human to ever best both antagonists).
A Non-Human (Spooky & Ao Oni) imprison Monsters inside of their mansion and try to isolate them from the World, trying to build their ranks & range until they can eventually take control over it.
These Monsters are known for eating, absorbing, and converting their victims into new abominations that can join their ranks.
Both Ao Oni & Spooky want to be seen as scary when counting the Ao Oni anime & they hate not being taken seriously.
Both Ao Oni & Spooky are non-human species of Undead; Ao Oni being reanimated & Spooky being a Ghost.
Now, while this could be a Mifuyu (the spirit girl from Ao Oni the Animation Movie) versus Spooky matchup- not only is Ao Oni usually his own entity going by his own rules, but Mifuyu real talk really sucks. Ao Oni fits the role of ‘controller’ by himself regardless. In the games, he literally does imprison other Onis in the mansion, and that’s really the only explanation you could give for the prison cell scene (where there’s just inexplicably Onis kept in a giant prison). Meaning if you really want to, you can call the matchup Spooky vs. Ao Oni or Entities vs. Onis if you so fancy. (Also yes, it’s Ao Oni… not The Oni; I don’t know where that came from)
Though in my opinion, when it comes to this matchup- making it more loose with ‘who is in charge’ does give a chance for everyone to shine rather than one solo figure; if we're going to have a cool matchup that showcases both sides, it makes more sense to treat Specimen and Onis as their own individuals rather than fodder to throw at each other. The matchup can focus on the goofy yet terrifying side of both franchises, the constant power clashes between all the monsters (memory wiping, elemental shenanigans, summons, slicing, chomping, gore; honestly go nuts with it), and it can bring two beloved Franchises into the spotlight! (Ao Oni consistently is seen as the most Iconic RPG Maker Horror ever made & Spooky is one of the most beloved Horror Games ever made) I’m not really sure when this is going to be out, but I promise I’ll make the blog as enjoyable as possible when it releases! As always I appreciate your continued support and hope you have a great next few months! idk I’ll try to finish it faster than other blogs since there’s a lot less to talk about for a Spooky Oni blog in terms of content length, although both sides have a ton of abilities and history to consider.
Outside of that, I’d also like to announce that I’ll be subtly implementing a Nemesis vs. Sonic fight script into the Nemesis Sonic blog around a week or so. Additionally, I’ll be creating a completely revamped Paper Yuu blog (alongside the OniSpooky blog). While I don’t think the winner has changed for Paper Yuu, I missed a few things for both and it could use better formatting & stats should be reworked a tiny bit (like certain calcs & alteration/removal of some others, covers my opinions more thoroughly, adds some missed equipment, etc). I didn’t get to cover Mario or Yuu’s cosmology as well as I could have (or cover Mario and Paper being different that well for that matter which I recognize). The way I’ve decided to do it is that the revamp will overlap on the old one, so the links will lead to the new one and the archive is open on Blogspot, allowing anyone to view the old one at any time (with the new one taking priority on the old link, assuming that the process IS that easy). Anywhoozle love y’all & have a great few months! (They should all be done by then!)
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