Battle Couple: Michael and Faith, both as trainer and pokemon and alongside eachother with guns.

Bad Date: Michael had a long string of these before he got involved with Faith, since whenever the girl would learn that he was a Phoenix Trainer she would challenge him and then become enraged when he inevitably beat her.

Badass Preacher: Christian priest Freeman Bible moonlights as a Phoenix Trainer.

Awesome McCoolname: Many of the Phoenix Trainers have one of these to a greater or lesser extent, with names like Merlin Durai, Darius Taurus, Andrew Lawless, Freeman Bible, and Dragon Matrix.

Tommy of 'The Kangaskhan Kid' fame looked like he was going to become this, but bailed after being killed and later resurrected. Surge and Sabrina are major players in the mission to the refinery. The real final battle with the Wraith unfortunately turned out to be one of these as well, as it was very brief and not accompanied by the apocalyptic global holy war described in Freeman's prophetic book. Most notably at the refinery where the diabolical Wraith Ragnarok expected was actually the more benevolent Sarangel.

Anticlimax: Arguably several of these.

Meanwhile narrator and Phoenix Trainer Michael Anastas struggled to come to terms with his burgeoning feelings for a Ninetales named Faith and all struggled to survive onslaughts by the minions of demonic super pokemon known as the Wraith. On their journey to the refinery, Ash was forced to confront the reality of his own death and its aftermath, as well as to master the secrets of the Phoenix Trainers. Together, Ash and Merlin gathered the other Phoenix trainers in a bid to infiltrate the refinery and save humanity from the coming storm. Merlin then revealed that a hurricane so huge that it spanned the entire Pacific Ocean had recently formed over a mysterious 'oil refinery' owned by Team Rocket leader Giovanni. He astonished the other guests by using his own Mewtwo to actually resurrect Ash from the dead.

Merlin was the leader of the Phoenix Trainers, a small renegade cadre of the world's strongest trainers that operated outside the jurisdiction of the Pokemon League. However, a visitor named Merlin Durai arrived at Ash's small, private funeral.

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