Heart of Steel [Pokémon Fanfiction]

End| The Road Traversed

After Dad and I went home that day, the next few weeks seemed to play out on their own. Several trials took place, each of which condemned Valerie and the rest of the Insurgents to their fates at the hands of a one-sided jury and a mountain of evidence. They were all imprisoned for years, if not their entire lives.

I was given a month by the League Board to be with my family, who now consisted of just Dad and my Pokémon. That month went by all too quickly, and I officially took over the role of the Hoenn League Champion.

But in that time, the ecstasy and bliss I felt from being reunited with Dad and reentering a semblance of a normal life faded, being replaced with... nothing. That was literally what it felt like. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, I felt empty. And I was reminded of the reason every time I looked at the empty Poké Ball sitting within the equally as empty Mega Brace, the framed photo of my former partner and me mounted above it on the wall.

Then the days after that month became weeks.

The radiant shimmer my stickpin once held had faded to a dull glint, perfectly mirroring how I personally felt. Nothing I said, did, or experienced seemed to change this. Not even when I battled. The activity I had said time and time again was my passion had now become a stale, lifeless occurrence. It was every last bit dull a role that I dreaded when I was still set to become Devon's president.

When I wasn't battling challengers, I was sparring with the Elite Four, as well as the Gym Leaders. I crushed them each and every time, the task becoming increasingly easier with every battle. Everyone I battled was shocked that I could defeat their teams of six so easily with only five Pokémon, but I refused to fill that sixth slot. I knew their strategies and learned and overcame every last tactic they threw at me. Battling had become, for a lack of a better word, boring.

But I didn't stop. I couldn't stop. Battling, while incredibly dull now, still gave me the slightest bit of life. It got me out of the house and away from the memorial that I both loved and hated. And it reminded me of what once was. I had promised Meteor that I would keep fighting, that I would be strong. So I was, and it was all that I was. I was nothing but strong.

And so the weeks became months.

Dad was far from ignorant about my stagnant mental state, how lifeless I was. In fact, he tried his hardest to help me. I saw counselors, psychiatrists, and therapists, all of them trying to help me. But there was nothing about me that could be helped. That still didn't stop them from trying.

I was prescribed medication after medication, all of which I either refused or disposed of. They didn't need to be wasting these pills on me when there were people out there in much worse states than I was that could actually benefit from them. And I couldn't stand the idea of drugging myself so that I would feel temporary, artificial mood swings. I wanted to be myself, not some fake me hopped up on a pharmacy's worth of antidepressants. I wanted to be the person that Meteor and I both knew existed. So where was that real me?