(Notes: This is a story about personal flaws and growth, as well as the importance of trying new things and leaving your comfort zone. It focuses on Sabrina and Erika's growth, both as individuals and together.
That's why, even if you're not a fan of the Erika/Sabrina ship, I think fans of both characters can find something valuable here.
I've aimed to stick close to game canon while filling in blanks and expanding on character personalities.
Feedback: If you have any suggestions for how I can improve, I'd really welcome the feedback. Of course I'm happy to hear positive feedback too! Even hearing that something in here made you smile would really make my day!
If you're just here to argue in the reviews section instead of actually reading my story, don't bother. I've worked hard on this and half of the reviews being people telling other people to shut up just makes me feel like no one actually wants to read it.
Special Thanks: I wanna give a shout out to my friend Kagura who helped inspire me to get back into writing again by bouncing headcanons with me! Check her out by Googling kagurasart.
PS. You can see the most up to date version on my ao3! It's getting pretty long but the romance gets going as early as Chapter 7!)
- One Year after Team Rocket's Initial Defeat -
The better I am at my job and the more famous I become, the more this indescribable emptiness threatens to consume me. That's what it feels like sometimes. Is this really all my life will ever be?
This level of melodramatic pensiveness sounds ridiculous coming from me, I know. After all, I am an extraordinarily successful individual and a professional in something I excel at. I have had powerful psychic powers from a young age and became a Gym Leader while I was still a teenager. This is, statistically, incredible.
People who have met me boast about it as if I am their friend. People say I am a prodigy in my field. Apparently I'm good looking. I have many traits that people would be envious of, right? Not that it matters. It shouldn't and doesn't matter. What matters is that there is nothing wrong with me. It is normal for someone busy like me to not have friends.
... Ugh.
But without even realising it, invasive insecurities always break into my thoughts lately, even when I attempt to remind myself that I'm supposed to be this great successful person.
Why do I feel so empty.
You know, people say it is rare for a child to develop such powerful psychic powers. Why do the psychic powers matter though? Being young did not stop Brock or Misty, both multiple years my junior, from becoming widely respected Gym Leaders with many friends. It didn't stop Olivine City's new Gym Leader. When I think about it that way, it makes me believe there's really nothing special about me, not in a way that really matters.
Psychic powers only feel special to other people, but to me they're mundane. All I can think about lately is what I don't have. That seems immature of me but it isn't new, these thoughts first emerged while I was a child. Eventually I buried myself in my training and pushed all these uncertainties out of my mind, but maybe it was naive of me to think they were gone for good.
For most of my life I thought I would be content simply defining myself on my powers and being successful. That this was just how it is always meant to be. But... how can I 'inspire' people like some other powerful Pokémon Trainers do, when my powers are simply what is now expected of me?
I feel nothing when people look at me or ask me about my powers. I respond with a rightfully-earned confidence in my ability. That's all. They quickly move on once the novelty wears off. They never connect with me.
Maybe that's my fault.
Well, most people never connect with me, but there was that child I battled last year.
Despite being so young, they defeated me with a graceful passion I had rarely seen before. They went on to become Kanto's Champion within mere months.
They weren't hugely talkative, but somehow just their fiery eyes and the way they communicated with their Pokémon were burnt into my mind. They connected to and inspired every person and Pokémon they met, good or bad, myself and my Pokémon included. I felt a connection with the Champion, of all people, and the double-edged sword of inspiration struck again.
Inspiration is a beautiful, frustrating thing. My meeting with that Trainer, the connection I formed with them over the brief time we knew one another, rekindled all kinds of questions and emotions in me that I had buried when I was younger. I continued to hope they would just go away if I focused on my training.
I now feel stuck in this state of emptiness though. These thoughts are meaningless nonsense that should not affect my professional life, but I cannot find inner peace despite my training and teachings. I don't want them to be there, but this empty feeling is starting to dominate my every thought. Even my dreams. It's gotten past the point of being annoying, to being a genuine inconvenience.
Since that Trainer defeated me, my once composed mind will not shut up! And it's not just because of them. Lately, everything reminds me of my other inspirations and just how empty they make me feel.
Just one example; Kanto has become a happier and more beautiful place since the new Champion defeated Team Rocket. People and Pokémon from across the world are visiting. Travel connections with Johto have become significantly more convenient. Even just staying in Saffron City, I've seen more kinds of people and Pokémon than ever before. It's inspiring, but also a little overwhelming. They make me realise how little of the world I actually know.
And just like when I was a child, my ignorance and lack of understanding has caused genuine issues. Like when I recently learnt that Eevee possessed the ability to evolve into a majestic Psychic Type called Espeon. I desperately wanted an Espeon of my own, but was too proud to ever consider asking for help.
In the end, no matter how hard I trained Eevee there were no results. Eevee remained an Eevee. One day I became so overwhelmed with frustration at my ignorance and lack of ability to evolve a Pokémon into a Psychic Type, my own speciality, that the electricity in Saffron Gym short-circuited.
As in, my own overwhelmed state of mind caused me to lose control of my psychic abilities. It doesn't happen often, but it had happened before - and each of those times were among the most ashamed I had ever been of myself. The times I had truly felt like a failure as a person.
I had to close up for the day and tell all my Gym Trainers to go home. I.. I really felt truly pathetic. I vividly remember that and the other times it happened, even now. I'll probably never forget them. They make me feel wholly unworthy of the pedigree of perfection people perceive in me.
Still, after that I worked closely with engineers from Silph Co. to redesign my Gym without a necessity for electricity. Conveniently, finding ways to hide my shame and avoid the possibility of it happening again is good for the environment too I guess.
But after all that shame and humiliation, someone else who inspires me told me that I had inadvertently 'inspired' this polluted City to become more eco-friendly.
She looked so happy when she found out my Gym was updated like that, and it made me want to work with Silph to update the infrastructure of other parts of the City too.
I guess that brings me, gracelessly, to someone who was among my first inspirations as well as someone who just keeps re-entering my life, for better or worse.
There was a long period of time where I desperately avoided thinking about her altogether because of how empty she made me feel, and how utterly hopeless I am at friendship. But if I ever want to address the questions and emotions I've been pushing down for years, I'm going to need to talk about Erika.