Title: Aviophobia
Author: Shadow/Phantomness
Pairing: None
Fandom: Pokémon
Theme: #8, Phobia
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks

Warnings: None

Erika does not like Flying-type Pokemon. It is not because they are strong against her Grass-type Pokemon. All Pokemon types have strengths and weaknesses, and it would be unfair to judge one because of its relative superiority. It is not because she finds them ugly – on the contrary, wild Pidgey are quite pretty to look at and on the weekends she feeds them breadcrumbs at a nearby park. It is not because they smell – her Gloom produces a wide range of foul odors that need to be refined into the perfumes she enjoys, and she loves him.

No, the reason Erika does not like Flying-type Pokemon is because when she was younger, her uncle took her flying on a Fearow despite her protests. She clung to him for all of fifteen minutes, alternately crying and screaming, and when he finally landed, she promptly threw up.

Her mother and father scolded him, saying that she was too little, look how you’ve scared the poor girl. She hid in her room until her uncle left, even going so far as to skip dinner that night.

Afterwards, her mother coaxed her downstairs and gave her okayu with broiled fish, and she felt better. Nonetheless, she did not want to fly, ever again.

Perhaps it is better that that uncle never visited.

When she was fourteen, she had a date with a neighbor and they had to ride his Dodrio to go to Vermillion City. It was nerve-wracking, and she almost strangled him by accident. When they did arrive, she had no stomach for the hamburgers and fries he treated her to.

Needless to say, they parted ways very quickly, and she took a bus back to Celadon in the morning.

Erika is still afraid that she might have to go flying again. But as long as they stay on the ground, she does not mind Flying-type Pokemon that much.

And she smiles when she hears the Pidgey singing in the morning when she wakes up.

End Fic

Completed 11/9/09

We went over phobias in Psychology class. How you cure them is with systematic desensitization or flooding/implosion. The first method involves presenting the stimulus but not allowing the individual to feel fear, over and over until the individual is classically conditioned to stop panicking. It’s the nicer way. Flooding is exposing the patient to an overdose of stimulus (example, if you were afraid of spiders you’d be locked in a room full of live tarantulas), trying to shock the fear away.