She closed her eyes and pushed her mind against the lock. It was like hitting a wall of solid diamond. The pressure was immense, a crushing force that pushed back, threatening to shatter her concentration. Sabrina's power was here, a cold, precise, and utterly ruthless imprint left on the door. She could feel the woman's paranoia, her desperate need for privacy and control.
Eliana didn't try to break it. That would be like trying to punch through a mountain. Instead, she flowed around it, her mind a liquid stream of consciousness seeking the tiniest crack, the smallest flaw. She found it in the power source, a micro-thin filament of energy that connected the lock to the gym's main grid. It was a flaw so small Sabrina herself probably wasn't aware of it, a vulnerability born from over-complexity.
Eliana sent a delicate pulse of her own power down the filament, a tiny, precisely calculated vibration. The filament resonated, humming with a discordant frequency that disrupted the flow of energy. For a fraction of a second, the lock went dead. That was all the time she needed. She focused her telekinesis, not on the lock itself, but on the hinges, dissolving the metal pins into a fine, metallic dust.
The door swung open with a soft, sighing sound. Staryu's core glowed with amusement and it was the first one to float inside. Raichu thought that her trainer had gotten much better control over her abilities since they first arrived here. Kirlia thought that Eliana had somehow gotten more reckless than she already was.
The room beyond surprised the entire group beacuse wasn't a room at all, it was a city.
A miniature city, spread out on a vast table that dominated the center of the space. Buildings crafted with impossible precision, streets paved with what looked like real cobblestones, tiny streetlights glowing with a soft, ethereal light. There were parks with miniature trees, their leaves a perfect, vibrant green. There were cars parked on the streets, their paintjobs gleaming under the soft light. There was even a tiny, intricate replica of the Saffron City Gym, complete with a miniature arena.
But what truly captivated Eliana was the sheer, undeniable life force that radiated from the dolls. They weren't just dolls, they were people, or at least they used to be people. She could feel the echoes of their souls, faint, ghostly whispers of consciousness trapped within the porcelain shells. Eliana was very excited looking at them, if Sabrina could do stuff like this does that mean she'll eventually teach her?
Staryu hovered around the edges of the room, searching to see if there was anything else in the room. It didn't seem to find nothing of note since it eventually just moved back to Eliana's side, giving off waves of disappointment. Eliana gave the star Pokémon a comforting pat,
Raichu hopped on her tail and surfed over the table, the group all felt a soft wave of fear was over the dolls. Eliana let out a soft snicker, so these guys could still see, or sense the things around them. As Raichu leaned closer to the dolls trying to get a good sniff from them Eliana stopped her.
Kirlia thought, his mental voice laced with a strange mix of disgust and fascination. All of these things were so scared, it was honestly annoying to be around.
Eliana reached out with her mind, her consciousness a delicate, probing finger. She could feel the individual minds of the dolls, a tapestry of fear and despair. There was a businessman in a tiny suit, trapped in a perpetual loop of a frantic commute. There was a housewife in a pristine dress, forever washing a miniature window. There were children, their laughter replaced by a silent, eternal scream.
And then there were the trainers, a whole group of them surrounded the gym. They were by far the largest group. They were all posed in a defiant stance, their faces contorted in a mask of rage and defiance. But underneath the rage, Eliana could feel the same raw, primal fear.
Eliana could feel their thoughts, their memories, their entire lives, all condensed into a single, torturous moment. She saw their last battles, the feeling of Sabrina's psychic power crushing their minds, the terrifying realization that they were no longer in control of their own bodies. She saw their transformation, the feeling of their skin hardening into porcelain, their joints freezing in place, their minds shrinking into a tiny, trapped spark of consciousness.
It was terrifying, a masterpiece of psychic cruelty. But Eliana wasn't horrified, she was mesmerized.
And then she felt it, a presence that was different from the others. A mind that was not scared, not in despair, but cold, calm, and utterly in control. It was Sabrina's mind, but not the Sabrina she knew. This was a younger Sabrina, a girl who was still learning to control her power, a girl who was scared of her own abilities, a girl who lost control and hurt the people she loved. Eliana could feel the girl's pain, her confusion, her desperate struggle for control.
And she could feel the moment she snapped, the moment she decided that the only way to control her power was to control everyone around her. That was the birth of the dollhouse, the origin of the city. The girl had sealed her own mind, creating a new, colder, more disciplined persona to contain her wild, unpredictable power. The original Sabrina, the scared little girl, was trapped in her own mind, a prisoner in her own body, just like the dolls in the city. Eliana didn't feel any sort of sadness for the younger Sabrina, if anything she was more curious about this side of the gym leader.
Eliana pulled back, her mind reeling from the sheer amount of information she had just absorbed. She looked at the dollhouse, a new understanding dawning in her eyes. This wasn't just a hobby, a sick little game. This was a prison, a monument to Sabrina's own fractured soul. The city was a reflection of her own mind, a miniature version of the psychic landscape she had created to contain her own darkness.
she thought, her mental tone a mix of awe and ambition. And Alakazam's mind, the distant beacon of meditation, zeroed in on them. Eliana could feel his focus on her immediately and knew her funtime was up. She decidedly returns her Pokémon to their PokéBalls, she didn't want them to be punished, after all they'd be pissed at her. And the she felt it, a simmering rage coming closer at a shocking pace. It had to be Sabrina, and she was not happy Eliana had disobeyed her commands.