Characters / Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus: Sara Diktaylis

Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus Main Character Page
Windchasers (Professor Sycamore) | Infinity Train (Denizens, Red Lotus Uprising [Chloe Cerise], White Gestalt (Specter), Elipzo) | Pokémon World (Goh Fujihachi, Professor Cerise, Sara Diktaylis) | Den City | The Multiverse

Sara Diktaylis

"She's [Chloe] not important! I am! I’m the one who should be important! I should be the one having a Pokémon and being a Trainer and everything!"

The queen bee of Class 5-E, the ringleader of the bullies that made Chloe's life miserable.

As the characters becomes a Walking Spoiler by the end of Act 1, all spoilers will be unmarked. You have been warned.

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A-D

• Abusive Parents: Her mother's an Alcoholic Parent who's not winning any parent of the year awards, and is a big factor as to why Sara herself is so screwed up.
• Achievements in Ignorance: She activates the Unown to crush Parker's leg by complete accident.
• Adaptational Context Change: The Hi-Skitty doll that was the catalyst for her father's death was sent back because it wasn't "cute enough" in Blossoming Trail. In this story, she rejected it because she wanted a real Pokémon and not just a toy.
• Adaptational Dumbass: Sara was no genius in the original story, but she could at least think straight, even if most of her decisions were hasty. This one operates on Insane Troll Logic most of the time. To be fair, this is shown after her expulsion and having to deal with the backlash of her actions, so she's not in a clear state of mind.
• Adaptational Jerkass: The original Sara was by no means a saint, just a jerk with an unhealthy ego who still had some sympathetic traits. This Sara mixes that with Parker's Roaring Rampage of Revenge with the Unown in order to create a truly monstrous character.
• Adaptational Karma: In the original Blossomverse, Sara's ultimate fate was to start anew with a loving foster family, with the epilogue of Voyage of Wisteria noting that things are looking up for her. In this story, she ends up being thrown into a mental facility with the chances of her ever getting out being slim at best, with the only positive thing being that her mother has lost all parental privileges and is thrown in jail.
• Adaptational Wealth: Blossomverse!Sara's economic status wasn't brought up at all in the original trilogy. In here, as part of being a Truer to the Text Sara Berry expy, she's stated to be rich enough to afford a week-long cruise.
• Alcoholic Parent: Her mother, Marianna Diktaylis, drinks to make her problems go away and leads to severe Parental Neglect on Sara's part. Needless to say, this only served to mess her up even more.
• All for Nothing: Her attempts to get a Pokémon from Chloe via bullying led to her expulsion, losing all her "friends" that also got expelled and being chewed out as an apathetic bitch who bullied a girl to her breaking point just because she reminded her of her mother and because she's a monster loving weirdo.
• Alpha Bitch: Her only goal was to make Chloe so miserable by destroying her love for her hobbies and any potential friends at school by by making so that getting her a Pokemon would be the only way to make her stop.
• Always Second Best:
  • One of the things that she loathes the most about Chloe is the fact that, no matter what she does, the redhead always seem to be one step ahead of her without even trying (despite the fact that Chloe has actually worked for what she has been given). Even after getting the Unown, Chloe is still superior to her as Sara doesn't get a single hit on her during their fight, even when Chloe focuses more on the defensive than the offensive because Chloe's travels on the Infinity Train have toughened her up considerably whereas Sara is just mindlessly trying to strike Chloe down like an unsucessful game of Whack-a-Diglett.
  UnSycamore (aka Asher): Everything you have, Chloe is a step ahead of you. So go ahead, get all the Pokémon and this building all to yourself. To Chloe, the entire world is her oyster!
  • Even her first wish of wanting to be Chloe Cerise has shades of this. Sure her father is Professor Cerise, but in this reality, Chloe is now Chloe Sycamore, adopted daughter of Professor Sycamore who helps him study Mega Evolution, is from Kalos (to which Sara equates as "very beautiful" and she calls Sycamore the "Ikemen professor") and has a pet Houndoom. She's also much more enthusiastic about Pokémon...something that Sara always pestered Chloe to be into.
• Ambiguous Situation: Sara likes to boast about her family being rich enough to let her do what she wants, such as getting to go on a week-long cruise to Slateport, but her tendency to both lie and twist the truth to hurt others means it's just as likely that she's once again just trying to make people feel bad.
• Ambitious, but Lazy: She can muster and rally 20+ students to ruin Chloe's life for good through manipulation tactics and pull a Long Game that will ultimately drive her suicide...and yet she can't use that motivation to just go to Professor Cerise's Institute and get a Pokémon for herself.
• Ambition Is Evil: Getting a Pokemon and being allowed to have her own journey to get away from her abusive mother, no matter the cost. And if you want a more clear cut "evil" example, there's her deciding to take over Vermillion City after getting the power of the Unown.
• Animal Motifs: Foxes. Her surname is Greek for "Foxglove" and her screen name is Vulpix_princess, Vulpix being a fox-like Pokemon (or rather, they're modeled after a kitsune). Like how kitsune are masters of illusion, she gives off the illusion of a proud boastful bitch when she's really a broken girl who lashes out in the world because a part of her is afraid to speak out, but she ends up stuck in a cycle of abuse instead.
• Arc Villainess: She ends up being the main villain for the Cyan Desert Car, and ultimately Act 1 of Crocus.
• Asshole Victim: By the end of the Cyan Desert Car, her life has been completely annihilated beyond repair and she can only mutter to herself on the slimmest chance she can earn redemption as she's forced to continue living in a world that utterly despises and wants nothing more than for her to suffer for her actions. However, given that said actions involved bullying Chloe to a breaking point, attacking her younger brother, and unleashing hell using the Unown to the point that she sent Professor Cerise train-bound (including nearly making him kill his own family) nobody's willing to shed tears for her.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Sara's "strategy" is mostly to just swing her bat at Chloe's and see if anything works. This only makes her tire her out more because Chloe has more experience with her donut holer and can defend herself from Sara's more predictable attacks.
• Attention Whore: Like Chloe, Sara absolutely detests not being in the spotlight and will go to incredibly outlandish lengths to get the attention she believes she deserves.
• Ax-Crazy: Devolves into this as the Cyan Desert Cart reaches its end, wanting nothing more than to murder Chloe in front of her friends and loved ones and even makes an Unown copy of Professor Cerise and have him strangle her just so she can get some victory out of her favorite bullying victim. Extended use of the Unown will do that to you.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In a very roundabout way.
  • The main reason why Sara did everything she did in the Cyan Desert Car was to escape from her abusive mother. Come the end of it, and Marianne gets arrested for child abuse, ensuring mother and daughter are separated at last.
  • She attacked the Cerise family all because she can't stand Chloe being happy. End results? She undoes most of Chloe's progress on the train, leading to the latter destroying Augustine's optimisim, breaks Parker's leg, gets the Professor train-bound and Talia is left alone to soldier on until half of her family returns and her son recovers.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: She sees Pokemon as objects instead of sapient beings with emotions. She even attempted to kidnap Yamper, caged Sobble and was willing to "gift" all of Goh's Pokémon to bribe her classmates.
• Batter Up!: She uses a baseball bat to beat Parker up like a pinata and upgrades it to grow/throw crystaline spikes and set it on fire to fight Chloe.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: She clashes with Chloe using a crystal bat — as Chloe's favorite sport is softball — in an attempt to one-up her, even going as far a to set it on fire since Chloe's main element is fire. It fails because Chloe's a much more skilled warrior due to her two month trip on the Infinity Train and is able to focus on the fight, rather tham going on a berserker rampage.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Cyan Desert Car Part 5 is her getting this lesson thrown to her face. Every wish she asks for through UnSycamore is given to her without strings attached; the problem is her selfish attitude and stubborness that prevents her from reaping the benefits. Even her third wish to "Get what she deserves" from Chloe also stems from it. Because what Chloe thinks she deserves is a massive beatdown and to fulfill her promise to kill Sara and the classmates "all kinds of dead" for all the bullying she endured from them.
• Berserk Button:
  • Being denied something she wants makes her flip her lid.
  • As shown in a flashback, saying anything positive about Chloe or otherwise taking her side reduces the blonde to screeching like a banshee.
• Beyond Redemption: The entire world and our lord and savior Chloe Cerise can say otherwise, but Sara knows better than them that no matter what, her actions with or without the Unown has made it so nobody will forgive her, and the only thing that she's going to get if not a swift death is a consistent life of pure misery. The fact that Auric confirms that the Infinity Train, which is willing to give even cyber terrorists a second chance, wants nothing to do with her is proof of that.
• Big Bad: She becomes the ultimate antagonist of Act 1 of Seeker of Crocus, as she raises absolute hell with the use of the Unown and Shadows.
• Big Bad Slippage: While she was always a terrible person, she was originally nothing more than a school bully of Chloe who pestered her constantly with her Gang of Bullies. However, as this gang begins to realize what they've done, and Sara gets verbal beating after verbal beating over how horrible she is and how much she sucks, she starts heading down a darker and darker path until she gets her hands on the Unown and becomes the main antagonist of Act 1.
• Big Bad Wannabe: That being said, she's barely a threat at all without the Unown and Shadows at her beck and call; the final battle even hammers this in as she can never land a serious hit on Chloe, who effortlessly fights back and never uses her fire power directly at her, depicting her as utterly pathetic without those same things at her side, to the point she can't even be given a way out by her death, as she simply gets another lecture telling her she sucks. To drive the point home, Parker, a little kid in a wheelchair defeats her Shadows just by standing up to them while the idiot adults she trapped are screaming like headless Combusken.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: Despite being a boastful bitch who crushes people who are "abnormal", Specter can easily tell there's a broken sad little girl who just wants love. Kinda like Chloe once upon a time.
  Specter: My point is that, for as much as Sara is acting proud and violent and angry, there is also a girl who is broken and lonely, doing all she can to find what will make her happy.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Sara is perfectly capable of coming across as an ordinary, if not decent girl, but beneath that facade hides a darkness that makes even Chloe crawl under her skin.
• Big "NEVER!": When Professor Cerise tries to call her mother to pick her up from the Institute, Sara screams "NEVER!". Given how her mother prefers the bottle over her, she has a justified reason to not want someone to call her.
• Brutal Honesty: If there's one thing Sara is good at, it's that she doesn't sugarcoat why she hates Chloe and most her points actually aren't wrong. Even Chloe admits that Sara makes valid points, despite rubbing it in everyone's face about it.
• The Bully: A smug bullying brat who leads her classmates to ruin Chloe's life solely for being different.
• Bully Brutality: She wants nothing more than to destroy Chloe Cerise's chances of a future and happiness, and doesn't feel sad over the possibility that she could've been expelled if she retaliated, nor does she worry about the implications of Chloe committing suicide or the fact that she nearly killed Chloe and her mother because they stood up to her.
• Cannot Spit It Out: She refuses to open up that she wants help with her problems, instead lashing out and violently destroying lives then confessing that she just needs help. It takes the Barista being empathetic to her that gets her to finally spill her heart out, but by then it's too late to fix anything.
• Character Exaggeration: Sara wasn't the most complicated of characters in the original trilogy, but her status as a bully is amped until it's basically the only thing she has going for it: most of her flashbacks involve putting Chloe down, or somebody else if Chloe isn't present, and even when the story tries to put focus on other things about her like her home life, it always doubles back to either making Chloe or somebody else suffer.
• Classic Villain: She's an envious, entitled, spiteful, manipulative, greedy Dirty Coward who has the charisma to convince her entire class to worship her and an unhealthy obsession with bullying Chloe for being "different".
• Climax Boss: Subverted. You would think she'd be this for Chloe's arc, since she's the main antagonist for Chloe in the Pokemon World, but after her defeat, Chloe still requires the first couple of cars of Act 2 in order to truly let go of her "Chloe of the Vermillion" persona and actually work on herself as a person. So instead of a climax, she comes across more like a mini boss, with Chloe's own issues taking the form of her proper boss.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: Once she gets tired of Chloe dancing around her attacks, Sara merges with the power of the Unown in order to try and beat her up once and for all. Unfortunately, even this isn't enough to actually let her get a hit in, and she eventually has to resort to using Gloria's Unown Sycamore to get wishes in order to try get some sort of advantage over the overpowered isekai protagonist.
• Cool, but Inefficient:
  • During her final face off against Chloe, she grabs the baseball bat she used to beat up Parker and upgrades it to be covered in crystaline spikes and on fire for good measure. This doesn't help her get a hit on the pyrokinetic werewolf girl whatsoever (who doesn't even turn into a werewolf and only uses the fire once to protect her from the spikes and absorb the flames from Saras attacks). This is in contrast to Chloe's weapon being a simplistic, yet uninsipring, rusty l-bend steel pipe that has no magic capabilities in them and how Chloe resorts to punches, slaps and kicking her in the crotch to get results. This is because Chloe has been traveling long enough and fought even worse monsters than her bullies, and thus has more experience in actually fighting (along with a more personal reason to beat the snot out of Sara).
  • Giving her mom a Mind Rape and forcing her to be a loving stepford wife sounds cool, but it's ultimately not showing that Marianna will be punished for her actions. In contrast, Gloria asking for security footage of Marianna being abusive to be shown throughout the city did a much better job to get the point across, as Officer Jenny quickly gets her handcuffs out.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Serves as one to Blossoming Trail's version of Chloe Cerise, of all people. Both of them are incredibly violent girls who have a lot of trouble just telling people about their issues, and who would rather take incredibly convoluted ways of getting what they want rather than take the easy way out. Alongside that, they both end up constantly lying and spreading Malicious Slander against those they believe have wronged them, all the while Playing the Victim Card in order to garner as much sympathy as possible. However, while BT!Chloe got a lot of Character Shilling and admiration from the denizens who didn't know any better, Sara receives the kind of treatment someone with such a personality would receive in real life: becoming incredibly unpopular by most people, before becoming Hated by All once the true extent of their malice and slander gets exposed.
• Cooldown Hug: Inverted. Chloe gives her one of these after their battle, asking her to learn to move on from her pain before it's too late. This, instead of calming Sara down, causes her to blow up and try to claw her throat out so she can die and get away from all the empty promises of hope she's been given.
• Combat Breakdown: As her fight with Chloe continues and she exhausts more and more of her options to fight, she starts growing more and more tired and desperate to get a hit in on the redhead until she uses Gloria's Unown-Sycamore in order to get her wishes and try to get something over her and even that utterly fails thanks to Asher's tricks.
• Composite Character:
  • She has Chloe and Goh's negative traits: wanting attention from others, selfishness, a severe lack of empathy, thinking that the world is only for her, and an inability to explain what she truly wants and goes deeper and deeper in denial. She's also one of Molly Hale in that she uses the Unown to create a construct of her father.
  • She also ends up mixing Parker's status as the wielder of the Unown and Big Bad of the Cyan Desert Car.
  • Her and Chloe's fight is a reference to No More Heroes and she combines Bad Girl (her pink dress and baseball bat — that she even sets on fire — combined with an Ax-Crazy personality) with that of FU (Chloe's trash talk references Travis's speech towards FU) of a supernaturally powered being who keeps throwing temper tantrums despite having so much power and is a Dirty Coward that hides behind others before their jerkass attitudes end with them completely alone against the hero surrounded by family and friends by their side.
  • She combines Straybow with Alicia in that she's jealous of someone else's success that ends up causing a lot of trouble for everyone involved (Straybow) and envisions herself as a princess who wishes to invoke a Spiteful Suicide when things turn out badly for her (Alicia).
  • She holds her classmates, and Kurune, hostage just like Ms. Turner did at the end of Blossoming Trail.
• Confidence Sabotage: She talks to Chloe while she's having a moment with Professor Sycamore to let her know how she's gotten the Unown and has used them to wreck havoc on Vermillion City, including punishing her family. This leads Chloe to snap and do another sabotage to Sycamore, as she uses him as a scapegoat and an emotional punching bag to vent her frustrations, making him feel worthless and lose all hope before falling completely insane.
• Create Your Own Hero: Indirectly. Sara's bullying drove Chloe onto the Infinity Train, where the girl faced multiple trials that not only strengthened her mentally but also physically and ends with Chloe not only heralded as a hero on the Infinity Train off to stop the Apex but also ultimately ended her reign of tyranny, so now she's heralded as a hero in Vermillion City as well.
• Creative Sterility: Despite her manipulative ways to get Chloe to be bullied to the brink of suicide, she has little to no creativity outside hurting people to get what she wants. She has command of some of the most powerful Pokémon in existence, but she can't think of a creative way to kill her opponent except to make a giant stick to bash Chloe's brains in and instead just turns the Institute into a luxurious palace for herself. In contrast, Chloe doesn't even need those tricks to beat her opponent, as she's spent months on the Train combatting tougher baddies than her former bully, but she also uses some quick thinking with Asher and Specter to get her to grow mad. She also doesn't have any ideas on how to effectively put her mother in prison outside a Mind Rape. Gloria outshines her by making the Unown wish for security footage of Marianna violently attacking people to spread across the city so Officer Jenny has no choice but to put her under arrest.
• Crystal Weapon: Her weapon against Chloe is a crystalline baseball bat.
• Daddy's Girl: She loved her father, so much that her construct of Professor Cerise is fused with Professor Cerise to make the "perfect" father for her.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Her father is dead due to unknown reasons and her mother is an alcoholic who neglects her. The Hi-Skitty doll that became the impetus to her father's death? She rejected it not because it wasn't "cute" like in Blossoming Trail, but because she didn't want a doll; she wanted a real live Pokémon of her own as a status of her being an adult.
• Descent into Addiction: Amelia points out that this is going to happen to her with the Unown, comparing it to three friends and a mother who went through a haze of drugs. Sara, for her part, rejects the idea. However, Amelia was right when Sara keeps trying to wish for Chloe's life but ends up never getting what she wanted.
• Despair Gambit: Sara's plan to get a Pokémon involved corralling everyone in Chloe's class to bully her to the point that she would give them a Pokémon just to make it stop.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: Once she gets the power of the Unown she decides to use it to rule Vermillion City with an iron fist, damned be the consequences.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • She was expecting Professor Cerise to give her a Pokémon by just apologizing and begging for it. Instead, Cerise details the reasons why she's not getting one because she's done too much and hasn't done anything to make up for her mistakes.
  • After she tells Chloe the reasons why she bullied her — mostly that Chloe has many attributes to that to her abusive mother — she wasn't expecting Chloe to actually admit that she is right about that. She also wasn't expecting Chloe to hug her and actually move on from everything.
  • She never expected Parker of all people to stand up to the shadows about to kill the parents of her former classmates.
• Didn't Think This Through: Comes with operating on Insane Troll Logic on average.
  • Didn't consider how bullying Chloe was going to end up with her reputation ruined, that she's bullying the daughter of a Professor and the backlash that would ensue, not to mention all of the classmates that followed her are now expelled and saddled with bad reputations of being stupid bullies with moronic parents who willingly let the bullying go on. Moreover, she also didn't consider that her "crush everyone who isn't normal" speech would also imply that she'd attack a fellow student who has Asperger's, not to mention that "No-Show" Goh is assumed neurodivergent and dark skinned...
  • She tried driving a wedge between Chloe and Goh by posting pictures of Goh having fun with Gloria, Victor and Ash at the trading event with a text reading "Your friends have moved on, why not you?" Chloe notes that not only does she know Goh is doing fine, but getting these photos meant that she was stalking them and Chloe could just text Goh what's up.
  • She pays the Cerise Institute a visit to try get a Pokemon before she leaves Vermillion City, and is surprised when they refuse to give her anything because of her previous behavior.
  • She's willing to murder Chloe and Talia in the Cerise Institute...to which Specter points out that no matter the illusions on the place, the security cameras are still rolling so they will record evidence that Sara was about to commit manslaughter, and make it so that there are little to no chances that she will ever have a taste of freedom ever again.
  Specter: You saw Chloe. She accepted everything she did wrong. She accepted that you wanted to kill her. And you didn’t even hesitate even though the security cameras have been recording this non-stop.
  • Her wishes always end up badly because she doesn't word them correctly or her attitude prevents her from reaping the benefits.
  • She didn't consider that maybe she could use her Unown powers to prove that her mother was an abusive alcoholic bitch instead of just plain out torturing her. Case in point: Gloria wishing to have the security cameras broadcast Mama Marianna's abuse across Vermillion City did more to destroy her reputation than anything else.
• Diligent Hero, Slothful Villain:
  • Sara only puts the work into making people do stuff for her, and she doesn't even have the brains to consider just walking to the Cerise Institute to get her Pokémon. She also doesn't use her Unown powers for her own benefit. She instead makes an elaborate castle, uses an Unown copy of Cerise to take over him, forces her mom to be a Stepfordized version of herself, and her idea of murdering Chloe up with a giant stick to pummel her to death. In contrast, Chloe has worked her way up from a Professor's daughter who tackled a Ghost to a hardened warrior with a donut holer, actively works on making amends with people, and on the Train she gets the goodwill of citizens by creating stage productions. This is highlighted in their fight when Sara has little to no strategy and Chloe deflects every swing of her bat without fail.
  • She's also the Slothful villain to Ash and Goh. Both of them also work hard to achieve their dreams to become Pokémon Trainers whereas she whines and complains on how their passions made them unable to see how Chloe is suffering when she's not even willing to go to the Cerise Institute until after she's completely lost her empire.
• Dirty Coward: She can never face Chloe head-on; she always has to use someone else to fight her battles or break her down to the point that Chloe can't retaliate. When she and Chloe clash at the penultimate chapter of the Cyan Desert Car, she never gets a hit in, while Chloe successfully defends herself. The only time Chloe gets hurt is when UnCerise steps in and literally wipes the floor with her. This is also to highlight how they've handled their bad hands in life: Chloe getting on the Train means she's had no choice but to toughen up in order to survive those obstacles for two months and she's much more used to getting beaten around by 20+ students whereas Sara has no idea how to fight because she never had to confront as many obstacles like Chloe has and never physical.
  Specter: Not once did you land a hit on her. Not once did you make her bleed. She almost destroyed your only weapon. And if that weapon goes, you’ll have nothing. The only time she got hurt was when your daddy had to fight your battles for you. Face it, you could never fight her head-on. That’s why you use others like your pawns.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Her entire MO regarding her bullying is this.
  • She made Chloe's life at school a living hell just for annoying her by talking too much about horror and for refusing to give her a Pokemon when she asked.
  • Everyone in the Cerise Institute (with justified reasons) refusing to give her a Pokémon? Take the Unown and go on a rampage.
  • A little boy standing up to her for his sister's bullying? Beat him up with a pinata and then break his leg.
  • Her former best friend questioning if Chloe hated her more than the entire class? Strangle her, then throw her so hard into the wall that her skull almost cracks.
• Distaff Counterpart:
  • By the end of the Cyan Desert Car, she becomes similar to Asher. She's been abused and lashes out on an innocent soul who did nothing wrong. And upon realizing that she is Beyond Redemption, she'd rather die than work on it. Amusingly Asher (who is acting as UnSycamore) has to teach her that she has to make the effort to redeem herself and then let it go.
  • She also becomes one of Dr. Yung, in control of powerful Pokémon she uses to terrorize people and doesn't think about consequences. However, unlike Yung directly commanding his mirage army to attack Chloe, Sara personally goes in for the kill while Parker is the one who subdues the shadows by bravely standing up to them.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: She hates Chloe giving her a hug and learning to move on from everything Sara gave her, to the point she starts clawing at her throat so she can die.
• Double Meaning: Chloe nicknames her "Salt Princess" because it's an actual fairy tale - though more commonly known as "'The Princess and The Salt'' - and because Sara is going through a rampage in a fit of a rage, which is considered being "salty" in today's lingo. Chloe even dares her bully to "Get all nice and salty" for her.
• Driven by Envy: She's jealous of the so-called "privileged" life Chloe has and she will do anything and manipulate everyone around her to fulfill her dreams of crushing that stupid little red-haired monster-loving princess to bits.
• Driven to Suicide: When her wishes go completely sour, she decides to kill herself because she'll never get what she wants and the entire world won't let her get a break. However, the barista stops her, believing the only fitting punishment for her is to stay alive so she can work on her mistakes and perhaps get a second chance if she puts the effort into it.
• Dumb Blonde: This Sara has been hit pretty hard with the Adaptational Dumbass treatment, at least compared to her Blossomverse counterpart and Sara Berry inspiration.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Her Stating the Simple Solution regarding giving her a Pokemon is perfectly valid; while she may have done terrible things to get it, it's also a foolproof way of getting her to leave for good, as she can't venture out into the wilderness without being mauled by Wild Pokemon, not that anybody would care. The only reason this option isn't taken is because Professor Cerise, being the smart and pragmatic man he is, believes giving her what she wants at this point isn't worth it.

E-M

• Easily Forgiven: Subverted. No one is going to forgive her for everything that she's done and she admits that she doesn't want an easy path to forgiveness, not that a story like this is ever going to give her one anyhow, nor the people around her have given her a reason to believe she'll get one. At best, Chloe just decides to not dwell on the past and move forward.
• Entitled Bitch: She wants everything and feels like the world should cater to her whims, not unlike Chloe during the early chapters.
• Epiphanic Prison: The wishes that UnSycamore gives her do grant her all that she wants, but she's so stubborn, selfish and spoiled that they always never turn out how she wants them to be.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: More of a jerk than outright evil, but she hates Chloe so much that she simply can't comprehend why anyone would take her side.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Amelia, as a female character who lost a male who is important to their life and rather than move forward, are stuck in the past and create their own world where they never left. The key difference is that Amelia didn't really harm anyone that we know of and ultimately wanted to be left alone. Sara wants everyone to worship her and those who don't can go fluff themselves.
  • Also to Chloe. Both of them are Daddys Girls with a vindictive streak and disturbing capacity to wish harm upon others. The difference is that Chloe never stooped to the lows Sara went to, does her best to apologize and admit when she's wrong, and refused an offer for power with Dr. Yung for love and companionship in contrast to Sara using the Unown for her own wicked deeds. And Chloe is actively working on bettering herself with support for her friends while Sara used others like pawns for her own ends and didn't care if her actions would hurt them.
• Evil Is Petty: Her whole entire reason for destroying Chloe's life is because she simply can't standing being considered inferior to her.
  Specter: You don’t want Chloe to just apologize. You want nothing more than her to accept that she is lesser than you and that she dies knowing that she is an insignificant bug for you to squash under your foot.
• Evil Virtues: Honesty. For all that she lies and manipulates, she's also capable of speaking honest truths about Chloe and her classmates and their choices in life. She tells Chloe that she's an annoying brat who doesn't know when to shut up, and that her classmates still had a choice of working to make amends after their suspension but foolishly continued sucking up to her.
• Expy:
  • By the penultimate chapter of the Cyan Desert Car, she becomes akin to Bad Girl as she wields a baseball (that she sets on fire), wears plenty of pink and topped with a crown, along with being an Ax-Crazy Daddy's Girl. Many of the lines she states actually comes from Bad Girl's pre-battle cutscene and boss battle and Specter calls her "Bubblegum Fatale", which is the name of her DLC from Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes.
  • To conclude the Live A Live comparisons — Augustine is Oersted, Chloe is Alethia — Sara is Streibough. She is jealous, petty and goes out in doing all she can to spite someone because they could, culminating in near-apocalyptic levels of destruction. Main difference is that Sara's target is Chloe and Augustine is indirectly affected by her actions.
  • Another Sara, around the same age as Crocus Sara, who was a brutal, lie-loving bully to a girl despite being aware of how dangerous she could be if provoked whose actions led to (one of) the main characters being kidnapped was a major part of the backstory of ViVid Strike!. While both would end up suffering serious comeuppance, Crocus Sara's fate was very different to that of Vivid Strike Sara, notably being a lot more physically violent^note Being beaten with a paint can can't really compete to what Rinne did to all three bullies, which included breaking one of their wrists with her own grip, slamming another's face into a locker with enough force to leave blood and shatter her glasses, and kicking the third one into another locker to similar bloody results. Rather interestingly, given said Sara would have a brother who would, as a result of very biased information, do terrible things to people under the implication they had harmed his sister only to get hit with a harsh dosage of reality when he realized that no, he was not harming villains and avenging his grievance-laden sister but acted out as a unforgiveable monster that will ensure legal trouble for his family and imprisonment for himself, this also reflects as an expy on Blossoming Trail Parker and Chloe.
• Fairytale Motifs: Aside from the princess and castle motifs, Chloe nicknames her "Salt Princess" as a reference to a fairy tale called "The Princess Who Loved Salt".
• Fatal Flaw: Her greed is her biggest flaw; whatever she wants, she wants it NOW without having to work for it.
• Faux Affably Evil: When she isn't actively looking to destroy Chloe, she hides her nastiness under a sickeningly sweet facade.
• Freudian Excuse Denial: When accused of bullying Chloe and wanting to be a Pokemon Trainer to escape her abusive mother, she reacts with shock before denying it.
• Gemstone Assault: In her battle against Chloe, she makes a crystalline bat that fires crystal spikes at Chloe, befitting her desires to be a princess who wants luxuries.
• Grass is Greener: She wants Chloe's life more than anything because of how Chloe has a loving father into Pokémon and can be near Pokémon every single day...except Chloe and her dad don't see eye to eye due to his work and Chloe feels like Pokémon are the enemy.
• Hated by All: By the time Crocus starts, all the love and adoration she had from her classmates has withered away to nothing. This is once it's revealed how she systematically bullied a classmate to the point that she ran away in the idea she would commit suicide for absolutely petty reasons. By the time the Cyan Desert Car is finished, it'd be a miracle to find anyone in Vermillion City who feels sorry for her.
• Her Own Worst Enemy: She could have anything she wanted if she wasn't so selfish or stubborn about it. And if she just told someone about her family life, she would've been able to live in a healthier environment.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Chloe wouldn't have been able to kick Sara's ass if Sara didn't push her to the brink of running away from home by daring her to battle Ash and the Train hadn't picked her up so she could become stronger to stand up to her.
  • As the Harvest Moon Car showed, she used her big mouth to get attention from everyone. They gave her attention by making her reveal that she wished that Chloe died just because she battled Ash. This spurred a few students to go to the Cerise Institute and help create the Enginered Public Confession that got her expelled.
• Hope Crusher: She pulverizes any hope Chloe and her family have of reconciling quickly, let alone Chloe getting an earlier exit home, when she gets her hands on the Unown.
• Horrible Judge of Character: She assumed Chloe was a privileged princess who got whatever she wanted at the drop of a hat and thus made it her life's mission to ruin her. Chloe doesn't like Pokémon because of the abuse put on her and her father, while loving, never even gives her anything to do with Pokémon with Ash and "No-Show Goh" being his research fellows due to him not wanting to be accused of nepotism that would've ultimately proved that Chloe was privileged.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: While not nearly as evil as some of the worst monsters on the Infinity Train, Sara's a nasty piece of work who'll use and manipulate everybody to get what she wants and destroy another girl's life both for funs and to squeeze her for everything they're worth and could care less if her victim decided to jump off a roof to end it all, nor does she care about who are affected by her selfish desires. And that's before she gets her hands on the Unown...
• Hypocrite: Sara uses peer pressure and bullying tactics to destroy Chloe. When she gets a taste of her own medicine and everyone mocks her, she can't take it.
• Ignored Epiphany: As Chloe predicted in the Ninjala Car, the expulsion wasn't enough for Sara to realize that she should stop being a bitch and work on herself. And even earlier than this, she didn't realize that going after the girl who nearly killed her after her Carrie-like threat was a bad idea.
  Chloe: Didn’t you ever get punished by a reasonable adult? Oh wait, you did. But the suspension was nothing more than a vacation for you to lick your wounds, get your little groupies to cling onto your every word on how to not learn from your mistakes, push a girl like me towards suicide, and to let Princess Dumbass continue her path to making herself more like an arrogant blowhard!
• I Just Want to Be You: This turns out to be one of the true reasons for why Sara bullies Chloe. She has everything Sara wants in her life: loving parents, close proximity to Pokémon, etc., so she wants to get rid of her so she can steal and live the life she wants.
• I'll Kill You!: Is reduced to muttering this in her fight with Chloe as Chloe keeps trash talking her and Sara can't land a hit on her even when she's empowered by the Unown.
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: When she fakes a phone call to Goh's mother, she notes that she ate stew "without star-shaped carrots". This turned out to clued Tomie in that something was off; her grandson loves stew with star-shaped carrots.
• Informed Attribute: She's apparently supposed to be an Excellent Judge of Character whose ability to read people like a book makes her even more effective as a manipulator. However, the people she demonstrate thiss with, Class 5-E and Chloe, are people whose actions are so straightforward that even an average joe would be able to make the same guesses that she did. She doesn't read anybody else besides them, and when she eventually does try to read someone else, in this case Goh, she fails miserably.
• In-Series Nickname: Chloe calls her both "Sara Salt" and "Salt Princess" to reflect how Sara is so spoiled and salty towards her. Yuri calls her "Sunk Cost Sara" and Asher likes calling her "Miss Tyrant". Gloria decide to call her "Princess Sara Berry" which Specter also picks up on.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • She thinks that the best way to get a Pokémon is to bully Chloe so badly that she'll give one up to her, and the class, to make the bullying go away. It's so insane that a a pre-schooler can wisely tell her that all she had to do was talk to Chloe's dad.
  • She attacks Parker in "self-defense" for how she tried to attack her, even though it was she who smacked him across the face with a paint can (after she poured the contents onto his sister) and confessed at how she loved bullying his sister.
  • She kept bullying Chloe, even after the paint can incident and subsequent suspension, because Chloe could cope with everything. She has to be told that no, the only reason Chloe didn't retaliate was because she could've ended up expelled or worse, arrested if that happened.
• Irony:
  • She got away with making an entire class follow her by giving them what they wanted — attention and the "promise" of making them Trainers. As her mother plainly points out, if only she thought about that when Parker asked for good things about his sister...
  • The entire Unown incident came from how she wanted to run away from home. After everything she's done, she's gonna be staying in Vermillion City for a long time.
  • When she gets the Unown, she has so much power to do whatever she wants...but she can never ever leave the Institute due to how the Unown are stuck there. Meanwhile, Chloe, while she did run away from home and isn't officially a Trainer at this point (Hewie notwithstanding), is free to travel wherever she wants on the Train and has broadened her horizons by exploring multiple cars, going on magical adventures that Sara will never go through and has lots of supportive friends. Moreover, Sara's ultimate fate is to experience what she put on Chloe — to be caged in a mental institute — while Chloe will get what Sara wanted more than anything: to go and do whatever she wanted and get out of the suffocating atmosphere that was Vermillion. Also, she spends more time physically destroying her mother with the supernaturally powered Unown instead of doing something simplistic like Gloria proved — just show security camera footage of Mama Marianna's abuse.
  • Sara just loved putting so much pressure on Chloe until it looked like Chloe was gonna drop dead. In the climax of the Cyan Desert Car, she can't stand it when everyone else puts pressure on her. In a more ironic twist, she's able to manipulate her classmates' festering anger and annoyance to destroy Chloe's life, and she gets psychoanalyzed by Specter, he himself known to be capable of analyzing others and exposing their weak points...which in an even more ironic sense, she's basically being smacktalked by Chloe's proclaimed OC, symbolizing everything that gave Sara the justified reason to ruin Chloe's life.
  • What caused most of Sara's problems — assuming she was always like this — was feeling trapped with her abusive mother. After everything she did, her ultimate fate is to be caged up in a mental facility.
  • She loved mocking Chloe for not being into Pokémon like she is. Thing is, Chloe got a Pokémon prior to Sara and is actively learning to like them on her own terms while Sara will likely never be allowed to have one for years to come and was quick to abuse them for her own desires.
• Irrational Hatred: Hates Chloe for the sheer fact that she exists, is not into Pokémon, wouldn't shut up about her hobbies, and has everything she wants in life. Goh points out that it's something even deeper. Rather, she hates that she sees her mother in Chloe, as someone who everybody takes her side and absolutely refuses to see her in the wrong. Chloe herself questions the stupidity of Sara's ire towards her.
• It's All About Me: No one else matters but herself and she'll only care about others as long as she can use them to get what she wants. And for all her talk of promising to get Pokemon for her classmates, she never intended to honor that promise.
• Jerkass: She doesn't care about anyone except herself, not even the classmates she strung along. Even her "best friend" Patricia realizes that Sara has been using everyone to get ahead in life.
• Jerkass Has a Point: For all her nastiness, all her gripes with Chloe and her baditude towards people are not without merit.
  • She claims that the reason she never told anyone about her mother's abuse because no one would believe her. Considering how the school handled Chloe and her bullying problems, she has a good point.
• Karma Houdini: Zigzagged; while she is going to be punished for all the atrocities she committed with the Unown, she ultimately gets away with getting Professor Cerise onto the Train, Chloe undoing most of her progress and Augustine's mental breakdown.
• Karmic Shunning: After Vermillion City learns that she's the reason Chloe ran from home, her "friends" refuse to talk to her and willingly try to save Talia from UnCerise suffocating her.
• Kick the Dog:
  • She slams a paint can in Parker's face while mocking him that he could do nothing to stop his sister's bullying and humiliation.
  • Professor Cerise didn't let Chloe go to her softball camp, not out of malice, but due to a last-minute conference and then reassured her that she could go just go some other time. Chloe was willing to accept this, if begrudgingly, at first. When Sara finds out about it, she twists the knife by telling Chloe that her father doesn't love her.
  • Tries to kidnap Yamper as a last ditch effort to get a Pokémon and then breaks Parker's leg with a giant paint can when he tried to stand up to her.
• Kid With The Remote Control: She's the one who has full control over the Unown in the Cyan Desert Car arc.
• Lack of Empathy: She doesn't care that Patricia is crying at the thought of her (physically-disabled) grandfather dying of despair because of how his granddaughter was ready to bully the disabled and weak. Nor does she think of letting her Unown version of Professor Cerise fuse with Professor Cerise be anything else except having her daddy back (especially when that version will go as far as strangle Talia and Chloe for mouthing back), and doesn't have second thoughts on crippling a five-year-old all because he tried to stand up to her. And when told that Chloe could be expelled if she tried a repeat of beating Sara with a paint can? All she can say is, "Sweet, that dumb bitch goes bye-bye!" In Harvest Moon Car, she loudly proclaimed to other students that she didn't care if Chloe died, which ultimately set up her downfall.
• Lone Wolf Boss: Has no connection to The Apex, Cage of Flauros, or even Elipzo. And while she was connected to the Gang of Bullies of Class 5-E, she soon ditches them when they shut the door on her and she decides to run away from home and gets the Unown in the process.
• Machiavelli Was Wrong: Sara uses the power of the Unown to stoke fear into the hearts of her former followers to have them fall in line. This fails because their expulsion and the public confession of them gleefully bullying Chloe has made them realize what they did wrong and they would rather flee than kneel before Sara again.
• Manipulative Bitch: She preyed on her classmates' jealousy and desires on wanting to be trainers (and their mutual hatred of Chloe talking too much of her horror) to destroy Chloe's life all so that she was forced to give them a Pokémon and absolutely enjoyed everything she did, going as far as wanting to kill Chloe with a spiky softball bat, mocking her little brother on how it's so fun to be evil and destroy her rival, or having her own father choke the life out of her without a second thought.
• Meaningful Name: Sara is Hebrew for "princess" and remember that she's named from the song "The Ballad of Sara Berry" and Sara Berry wishes to be Prom Queen.
• Mirror Character: If her classmates can be seen as mirrors to Team Skull, then she will be their Guzma. Both of them had abusive upbringings and felt Always Second Best to someone (Kukui for Guzma and Chloe for Sara), but Guzma was able to run away from home and create Team Skull, whereas Sara tried to make a gang for herself but failed miserably because she cares about them worshipping her instead of actually caring about them. Guzma is a talented Trainer, Sara is a plain school girl. Both of them are cowards, but Guzma decides to call it quits when faced with a tough opponent and only goes against weaker ones whereas Sara manipulates everyone to attack Chloe so she doesn't get her hands dirty. Guzma learns his lesson — both game and in anime — and learns to stop running away from his problems and ends up with Team Skull loyal to him, whereas Sara doesn't learn until she's pretty much lost everything and her future prospects are dim.
• Missing Steps Plan:
  • How her attempt to get Pokémon out of Chloe went: 1) bully her until she says yes, 2) ???, 3) Profit.
  • She tried to run away from home but instead of just going at it first, she tries getting a Pokémon from the Cerise Institute, that has every right to ban her for her actions. This gets her in trouble when Cerise calls her mom to pick her up...
  • All her wishes come true but she doesn't know how to react when they act exactly as she wanted them to be.
• Motifs: Salt. Chloe's nicknames include calling her "Sara Salt" and "Salt Princess" while she demands that Sara "Get nice and salty for her". This brings up how Sara is bitter at Chloe and how much she made her cry because tears are known to taste salty. Moreover, it's she who spills the Unown tiles out akin to how spilling salt is a sign of bad luck and she brings nothing but misfortune to the Cerise family for her actions. Finally, salt is usually used to ward off supernatural beings like demons, reflecting how she is the reason Chloe couldn't have friends at school and prevents Chloe from an early exit on the Train by her actions.

N-W

• Never My Fault:
  • Blames Chloe for bashing her head in with a paint can, forgetting that she wouldn't have retaliated if Sara didn't 1) pour red paint over Chloe, 2) didn't smack said paint can at Parker's face and 3) didn't tell Chloe her father didn't love her. Basically, she blames Chloe for everything going wrong in her life, even when she isn't physically around.
  • Even after being told that all she had to do to get a Pokémon was just go to Professor Cerise, she doesn't seem to grasp that her actions have caused her to lose everything and she starts blaming Chloe, her brother and everyone else for her downfall.
  • After UnSycamore (actually Asher) gives her ever single scenario she wished for, she keeps doubling down that everyone else is the reason she's messed up. After finally being exhausted, she admits that everything is her fault and she can't do anything to fix it.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • By breaking Chloe to the point that she's one step away from suicide, she gets her taken onto the Infinity Train and the events from there allows her to explore her horizons and eventually makes her strong enough to stand up to her former bully. It also culminates into her expulsion and losing all of her "friends" while she watches Chloe become a celebrity because of her disappearance.
  • By kicking Parker down while he had the Unown Box and was making his wish, a few tiles that spelled his sister's name fell to the ground, creating UnChloe, who is the embodiment of Parker's wish for his sister to save everyone. UnChloe is able to help bring everyone together to stop her, not to mention that it's Parker who gets all the adults to accept their flaws and see how their children hate themselves.
  • If she never had to boast over how she made Chloe run away from home and said that Chloe was such a loser for not able to stand up against the Alolan League Champion, she might've been able to get away with it for a little longer. Instead, everyone is more amazed that Chloe fought Ash and actually want to see the match (which Goh recorded) and now are bringing up how amazing Chloe was for not being afraid to fight and being open about her hobbies.
• Not So Similar: Tries to paint Ash and Goh as people like her; they want more and more out of life and are never satisfied with what they have, along with them just not liking Chloe for being a freaky weirdo monster lover. It fails when Professor Cerise states that having goals is common for a Trainer and that both boys worked to make said dreams come true, compared to Sara stealing it from others because she's too lazy to get it herself. Not to mention that Ash and Goh admit that they did mess up with Chloe in how they approached her, but they never hated her and Chloe herself admitted that she never bothered to confess her problems to them for very stupid reasons.
• Nothing Nice About Sugar and Spice: She's a pure Girly Girl compared to Chloe being a Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak, and she's a nasty, arrogant twat even before she gets her hands on the Unown.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: She tries to tell Goh that she hates Chloe for being a selfish spoiled brat and doesn't realize that she's really talking about herself until Goh points it out to her.
• Offended by an Inferior's Success: This is how she feels towards Chloe "Monster Lover" Cerise. She's a stupid little girl who doesn't know that you never use Tackle on a Ghost-type compared to Sara being wealthy enough to afford a seven day cruise for Golden Week. And yet even after Sara broke her down to the point of suicide, Chloe still keeps moving forward and keeps fighting for her life, to the point that Chloe is revered as a goddess on the Infinity Train and Sara ends up as a disgraced bully who no one loves.
• Offscreen Karma: Like her classmates, she got expelled when her confession to destroying Chloe's life went viral.
• Personality Powers:
  • She wants everything to be given to her free of charge, so letting her have the Unown fits this spoiled princess to a tee.
  • The Spike Shooter ability of her crystal bat in her fight against Chloe reflects her erratic and reckless behavior and mental instability; it doesn't matter what she does or who she hurts. As long as she gets Chloe, so what? Moreover, the fact that it's a very spike weapon shows that she wants to make sure to hurt Chloe, probably even kill her.
• Pink Is Feminine: She's a complete girly girl wearing bright pink.
• Playing Card Motifs: UnSycamore (really Asher) comments that Sara is nothing but a pack of cards, all of them the Ace of Spades. The Ace of Spades is considered the Death Card and indicates misfortune. And considering everything she has done because of her selfish attitude...
• Plot-Irrelevant Villain: She has no real connection to the main story, whether it's the quest to stop The Apex, dismantle the Cage of Flauros, end Elipzo or Sycamore's quest to become a hero. The closest connection to any of them is her bullying having shaped Chloe into her current self, and even that is more connected to Chloe's character arc than the main story in general.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • It's obvious that Sara just wants to escape her homelife with her mother. Everyone just tells her to tell them what she wants but instead goes into dire lengths to manipulate others to hurt innocent people. If she just explained that she wants help, she would've gotten everything she wanted without a such a huge price tag involved. Or, as Gloria proved, she could've just recorded evidence of Marianna's abuse and then send it to the police.
  • Yeardley's little sister poses this question to her, "If she wanted a Pokémon so badly, why not go to Professor Cerise instead? You never had to bully Chloe; that's just stupid."
  • Sara claims that no one would listen to her about her mother being abusive, but only because she never went out of the way to tell someone.
  • Given how manipulative she was and how her classmates were obeying her every whim, she could have told them to stop the bullying to save themselves from being expelled. Instead, she convinced them to double down on their abuse and this leads to all of them ruining their futures. On another note, if Sara was so angry and annoyed about Chloe having so many similarities to her mother, she could've told Chloe to knock it off and explain just why Chloe's insistent talk about her macabre interests wasn't helping in the first place.
• Powerful and Helpless: Despite having the power of the Unown at her disposal, she's unable to do anything to stop Chloe or Parker. Parker was brave enough to confront the shadows that would've killed the parents of Sara's former classmates and Chloe's time on the Train has toughened her up that she can take her down with nothing but a rusty pipe. She also was unable to stop UnSycamore from giving her scenario after scenario that catered to her wishes. Amelia, who herself was in a similar position, notes that this power won't give her what she really wants. Moreover, in order for Sara to use the Unown, she's basically stuck in one place while her bully victim gets to go on a never-ending adventure on the Infinity Train, ironically making their roles swapped. And ultimately, despite the powers she had, she's not the one who finally puts the nail in her mother's coffin since she was focusing on torturing her mother instead of using these powers to put her in jail for good, like when Gloria used the Unown's powers to wish for security camera footage of the abusive alcoholic bitch to be seen throughout Vermillion.
• Princesses Prefer Pink: She sees herself as a princess and uses the Unown to wear a bright pink gown.
• Privileged Rival: She's known to be quite wealthy, bragging that she gets to go on a week cruise when Chloe only wanted softball camp, to reflect her connection to Sara Berry. However, she sees Chloe as a privileged princess who gets the fast track to a Pokémon trainer life even though Chloe never does anything for her father's research — due to claims of nepotism — and she lives in a modest two story house.
• Psycho Pink: As she's based on Bad Girl, she wears a bright pink dress and is demented little girl who wants to kill Chloe with a spiky baseball bat. Even ignoring that, she tended to wear pink as her main color and she was a relentless bully who tormented those she didn't like to the breaking point.
• Psychological Projection: She hates Chloe because she carries so many traits with her mother — an obsession with the macabre, barely paying attention to her and being so annoying in what she wants from her. This, combined with Chloe's status as the Pokemon Professor's daughter and wanting to shut her trap about her love of horror, is why Sara goaded everyone to make Chloe's life a living hell.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Played with.
  • She did get what she want in ruining the Cerise family — Chloe's progress on the Train took a big step back, Parker's leg is broken, the Professor is train bound and Talia will have to hold the fort until her husband and daughter return, not to mention paying medical bills and any other utilities while being a stay at home illustrator — but this also costed her everything she truly wanted: for someone to help her escape her abusive mother. And given everything she did with the Unown, she will be living with her sins for a long, long time.
  • Even the last part is this, since while her mother did get arrested and ensured she wouldn't hurt her ever again, this only came after Sara had effectively ruined her own life in trying to get her to go away and start anew.
  • However, if one were to look at Chloe's ascension to heroism from another angle, it's clear that Sara got the last laugh there; because Chloe was such a closed off and withdrawn girl, and being Bullied into Depression was one of the main reasons that would lead to her breakdown into the Train's path, it's easy to say that if she hadn't bullied Chloe, the girl either would've taken a longer time getting Trainnapped, if she ever got trainnapped. So Chloe only got to become a hero thanks to Sara...but at the same time, Sara just indirectly created the only person who could kick her ass and end her insanity before it could spread.
• Replacement Flat Character: For Parker as the main antagonist of the Cyan Desert Car, since while Parker was a Tragic Villain corrupted by the Unown, Sara hasn't had enough time to show many Hidden Depths and mostly just evolved into a Barbaric Bully. This gets a bit more downplayed as the arc goes on, but she still lacks considerable depth compared to her counterpart.
• The Resenter: She can't stand Chloe having everything — despite Sara being loaded and has almost every student wrapped around her little finger — and will tear her down until Chloe has nothing and knows she's insignificant.
• Rich Bitch: A bratty girl who is known to be loaded, just like the Sara where she gets her name from.
• Riches to Rags: When she first appears in story, it's made clear she's rich. However, after the whole Unown incident and her mother getting arrested happens, it's safe to say whatever wealth she had is completely gone.
• The Runaway: She attempts to be this in the Cyan Desert Car arc. If only she hadn't gone to the Institute while the Unown box was being delivered there... Her mother even points out how Sara is ill-fit to actually run away from home as she doesn't know how to survive by herself. Ultimately, she ends up unable to run away full stop; she's now stuck in a mental hospital for the next few years.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • It's fitting that Sara, who thinks she's the victim compared to that "witch" Chloe Cerise, wears bright pink like what a princess protagonist would wear.
  • Her weapon is a baseball bat with fire, effectively mocking Chloe (for she loved softball and her element is fire) and highlighting that she's Chloe's opposite.
• Sadist: She clearly gets a kick out of hurting people, be it Chloe or anyone unfortunate enough to get on her bad side.
• Sanity Slippage: Cyan Desert Car Part 5 has her losing her slowly slipping sanity when everything she built up with the Unown gets defeated by a boy in a wheelchair and her former bullying victim.
• Self-Inflicted Hell: She is stuck in an abusive household because she refuses to bring up anything about it and thus it hurts her even more that she deals with such an alcoholic mother.
• Seven Deadly Sins: She exhibits all seven of the sins at one go. She's proud and boastful (Pride), jealous of the life Chloe has (Envy), has a horrible temper (Wrath), would rather use others to get what she wants than work for it and has little to no plan except use the Unown to get whatever she wants (Sloth), wants power and riches and everything for herself (Greed), even though she's already loaded (Gluttony) and desires nothing more than to tear Chloe apart and to be loved and adored by her classmates (Lust).
• Shadow Archetype: She's essentially Chloe in that she won't confess what's wrong with her, blames others for her own shortcomings and doesn't care about the consequences in regards to who she hurts along the way. When Asher, posing as UnSycamore, gives her scenarios to let her become Chloe, Sara acts like a prick even though she's getting everything she wanted just like how Blossoming Trail Chloe acted. To drive it home, Sara uses a baseball bat as her weapon, just like Chloe was known to love softball. Sara uses fear to control others, Chloe shows compassion and kindness.
• Shout-Out: Her third dream sequence involves her, a blond haired brat whose name starts with "Sa", getting pummeled to death with a school chair while her fellow classates watch in horror.
  • She shares her name with another Sara who was known to be a Spoiled Brat who threw spite at her family.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: Just like in Blossoming Trail, Sara is named after the titular character of "The Ballad of Sara Berry", her former Girl Posse was named after Patricia (one candidate for Prom Queen) and Julie (Julie Jenkins), and her mother is Marianna (another Prom Queen candidate).
• Single-Issue Psychology: The core of her anger and spite is based on how she hates Chloe for having everything or because she's some weird Creepy Loner Girl and keeps blaming Chloe for everything that happened. Chloe is annoyed in the Cyan Desert Car that Sara basically doubled down after the paint-can incident, asking if she'll use that as the basis for her revenge story. What's really the core issue is that she got mad that her father got her a toy when what she wanted was a real Pokémon and seeing Chloe having a Yamper and the life of becoming a trainer made her all the more willing to manipulate the other classmates to make Chloe's life a living hell. The fact that her mother and Chloe actually share a lot in common does not help.
• Slow Clapping: Performs this as she congradulates Goh for finally realizing how much of an Ungrateful Bastard he was to Chloe being his homework girl.
• Smug Super: She was already boastful and arrogant before she got the Unown, but when empowered by them, she becomes even worse.
• The Sociopath: Charismatic, manipulative, narcissistic, charming, has a severe Lack of Empathy, is in deep denial of her faults and is willing to kill an innocent mother and her daughter just because they stood up to her. Yeah, this girl has issues.
• Spike Shooter: Her baseball bat in her fight against Chloe fires a series of crystalline spikes. They do nothing because of Chloe's use of pyrokinesis.
• Spoiled Brat: Does not even cover it for Sara; she wants everything on her and wants Chloe to kiss her feet and grovel over her. This despite the fact she already lives on a decent apartment and is implicitly said to be rich. Fitting that one of Chloe's nicknames for her is "Sara Salt", referencing Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
• Spiteful Suicide: After every wish she makes during the penultimate chapter of the Cyan Desert Car goes to hell, she decides to kill herself instead of facing the idea of having to deal with everyone else spiting her. UnSycamore is ready to fulfill her wishes to kill herself until the barista comes in and tells her that it's not worth it. Even after she wakes up and Chloe initiates a Cooldown Hug, the act from her former punching bag is enough for her to claw at her own throat because she can't take Chloe of all people feeling sorry for her.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: Even after it's shown that her hatred for Chloe has basically destroyed her future and the futures of twenty students, she still is insistent of getting what she wants because it's either this or admitting that she ruined a lot of lives for nothing. This is lampshaded by Yuri, who even calls her "Sunk Cost Sara".
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When she fights Chloe, her strategy is use a bigger stick and power-ups to one-up her target, whereas Chloe calmly deflects every attack and manages to put more hits in. Sara has never had to get her hands dirty, while Chloe has spent two months fighting for her life, so Sara has no skills in fighting or defending herself.
• Stealth Pun: Sara likes to see herself as A Little Princess.
• Symbolically Broken Object: In their fight, Chloe knocks the crown off of her head and stomps on it, symbolizing that Sara has no more power over Chloe and Chloe's goal to end Sara's delusions of grandeur.
• There Are No Therapists: If only someone sent her to a counselor to help her deal with her problems at home....
• Thin-Skinned Bully: When Chloe finally stands up to her in the Cyan Desert Car, she can't stand the idea that Chloe is stronger and better than her, culminating in her trying to murder her with a spiky flaming bat before wishing to get what she wants through UnSycamore. Moreover, she loves hurting Chloe with hurtful words and exploiting her weaknesses, yet she can't take it when Specter does this to her.
• Tiny Tyrannical Girl: She's a fifth grader who rules like a despot once she gets her hands on the Unown to the point that Asher's nickname for her is "Miss Tyrant".
• Token Motivational Nemesis: Sara's only real role during the beginning of Act 1 is to serve as the ringleader of the bullies who bullied Chloe into becoming her current spiteful self, and is otherwise completely unimportant in the story. However, this gets subverted once the end of Act 1 comes, since she gains hold of the Unown and becomes the Big Bad for that part.
• Token Rich Student: The other students at Vermillion City's school are either relatively well off or average. Even Chloe is only slightly upper class. Sara, meanwhile, is outright stated to be rich — based on a comment on going for a one week cruise to Slateport — which is something she likes to flaunt whenever she can.
• Truer to the Text: While not an exact copy, the "Ballad of Sara Berry" influences are much clearer in this incarnation of Sara. In Blossoming Trail, she got the manipulative queen bee nature and jealousy toward Chloe and that's more or less it. Here, she has the manipulative streak, a violent side, an inability to tell reality from fiction, losing all of her popularity and friends when her obsession takes over, and turning Ax-Crazy once she gets her hands on the Unown before being hauled into a mental facility for her crimes.
• The Unapologetic: She never feels sorry about the hell that she's done to Chloe. Even after she's lead away by her abusive mother, she never aplogizes to what she did to the Cerise family or if she does apologize, it is utterly hollow compared to everything she's done.
• Underestimating Badassery: She dismissed Chloe and Parker as pathetic weaklings compared to what she got with the Unown. The former easily beats her up with her donut holer while Sara can't even get a hit in even while powered up with the Unown, and the little boy bravely confronts the shadows that were terrorizing the adults, whereas she can never confess that she's being beaten and abused by her mother.
• Unskilled, but Strong: With the Unown, she has a lot of raw power on her side to crush and kill everyone she likes. But this is useless against Chloe who has had training on the Infinity Train and is capable of matching her blow for blow.
• Unstable Powered Child: Sara was already pretty unstable as an ordinary schoolgirl, but once she gets her hands on the Unown, these issues get exponentially worse, to the point she turns into a complete lunatic and the main antagonist of Act 1.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She's the reason for the Unown Incident during the Cyan Desert Car which made Chloe backpedal from all the progress she made on the Train, affecting Augustine and crushing his hope, broke Parker's leg and broke Professor Cerise so bad that the Train calls for him.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Spoiled Brat she might've been, but Sara was nowhere near as mean or outright evil back when she was younger and her father was alive. It's only when he died and her mother turned to a bottle of booze to cope with the pain did Sara turn into the monster she currently is.
• Villainous Breakdown: Part 5 of the Cyan Desert Car is one for her as she has to hear how much Chloe has gained, she can't defeat Chloe in a one-on-one fight despite being empowered by the Unown and her wishes to get what she deserves or be Chloe end up because of her inability to admit her faults.
• Villains Blend in Better: While nobody really liked her, she had an easier time assimilating into Vermillion City's school than Chloe did because she could prey on her classmates' envy on Chloe being a Professor's daughter.
• Villainous Legacy: Has this with no less than three characters:
  • Chloe was effectively Bullied into Depression by Sara's actions, with Class 5-E going along for the ride. Defeating her is imperative for her development, but even when defeated, Chloe's still haunted by these actions as the co-author reveals in the Act 2 Prelude.
  • As a consequence of the above, Professor Sycamore was driven past the Despair Event Horizon and nearly reset the world to become more hopeful and less spiteful, or at least something where he can be of use. While he recovers, his train trip becomes long as his number plummets and gets even higher than before.
  • While more of an indirect legacy, her decision to fuse Un-Cerise with the real Professor Cerise causes the latter to suffer a massive case of Break the Cutie, leaving him to be train-napped by the end of Act 1 and giving Chloe a new quest to work towards.
• Villainous Princess: She styles herself as a princess and she's the Arc Villainess of the Cyan Desert Car arc.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about her without mentioning how she gets hold of the Unown or becomes the final antagonist of Act 1.
• Witch with a Capital "B": In Act 2, Goh calls her a "stupid pink witch". This is quite an insult because of all the princess imagery that usually surrounds Sara, so Goh is saying she is the complete opposite of Chloe (as not only is Chloe love witches, one of the insults she's usually saddled with is "Princess").
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Despite claiming otherwise (in response to Amelia's warning of Descent into Addiction noted above) the longer she uses the Unown the more her mind clearly erodes into pure insanity, and she wasn't that sane to begin with.
• Would Hurt a Child: She hurts Parker (who is in Kindergarten) over the basis that he was going to hurt them with a baseball bat — he clarified it was only Yeardley cause of how he pushed Chloe around and broke her arm — and then summons a giant paint can through the Unown to break his leg. Speaking of paint cans, it was she who slammed the paint can at his face after he tried to defend his sister.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Despite it becoming increasingly clearer and clearer that her fight with Chloe is going nowhere, Sara never gets the idea to use the power of the Unown to kill her more directly like with a firearm or something the redhead has no actual counter for.

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