Samuel Sapphire



Samuel Sapphire is the main character of Articunomew's story 'Beginnings of a Master' and is considered a self-insert character. He is seventeen years of age at the start of the story, with his birthday coming towards the end of the story arc.

Character
A native to Metone, Sam's family immigrated to the independent League of Southern Island when his mother was approached as a replacement for the Gym Leader of Mist City due to her considerable psychic powers. Despite this, Sam retains vague remnants of a Metonian accent, which becomes more noticable when he is angry or under stress.

Sam displayed an interest in Pokémon from an early age, displaying a surprising capacity for the memorisation of different Pokémon facts for a small boy. When his older sister began her Pokémon journey at the age of 13, Sam was gifted with a young Growlithe to compensate for needing to stay close to home. When his parents divorced a few years later, his mother was no longer able to pay the hefty fee for a Trainer's License, and Sam instead continued his education in the education system of Southern Island. His passion for Pokémon translated into high marks in courses involving Pokémon. Further, Sam also displayed a talent for languages, but was lacking in the areas of Mathematics, physical education and certain of the sciences.

At the age of fifteen, Sam was approached by his mother with a job offer to work with Professor Rowan Jr, performing simple maintainence, cleaning duties and occasionally helping with the Pokémon of the laboratory. From this, Sam became very familiar with the native Pokémon of Southern Island and the Hoenn region, though he has basic knowledge of many species from outside these areas.



At the age of seventeen, Sam entered into a Newspaper Contest that was run by the International League to bolster the ranks of Pokémon Trainers. He ranked third, and was permitted to participate in the Contest, which gave ten children their starter Pokémon, a PokéDex and a Trainer License. Sam was transported to Dictioy, a region directly north of Kanto, and was given the starter Pokémon Frezint, an Ice/Dragon type. Due to security risks, the ten winners were paired off and given a mentor to guide and protect them on their journey to the first city of the region: Arw City. Sam was paired with Nicholas Stone and his starter Pokémon - Sparx the Pichu. The mentor assigned to them was Brendan Birch, son of the famous Professor Birch.

Within hours of receiving his Trainer's License, Sam displayed unusual levels of compassion and awareness of his surroundings, discovering an injured Eevee who was running wild in the streets of Comed Town. During his retrieval of the Eevee, he captured his first Pokémon, a Nymbis. After cornering the Eevee and hurting himself in the process, he sought help from the town's Pokémon Center. Unfortunately, the relationship between Sam and his starter seemed rough, at best, and the two were regularly unsure of how to interact with the other.

Following their departure from the city, Sam began to experience seemingly random episode of terror and discomfort. These feelings increased until the source was discovered: a small ghost puppy who had been feeding off of the energy of both Brendan and Nick. Due to Sam's low grade psychic powers, the baby ghost Pokémon was unable to feed from him properly, and instead tried to scare him off.

Family
Sam is one of five children, and comes from a long line of skilled psychics and Trainers. His mother is a Gym Leader at Mist City Gym, specialising in Psychic-type Pokémon. Sam's sisters also display strong psychic abilities, while Sam is the only boy of the family to show any psychic powers, albeit, very weak ones. Sam's father is a Physical Therapist His parents divorced when he was fifteen years of age, though this has not seemed to have affected Sam too much. His older sister also set out on her Trainer journey when Saw was thirteen, but returned two years later and settled down, raising two daughters.

Pokémon
As Sam has just started his Pokémon journey, he has not caught many Pokémon. At this point, he only has his starter Pokémon, Dirden the Frezint, and Zeus the Nymbis. If needed, Sam would possibly be able to borrow Pokémon from his older sister or his mother. Furthermore, his pet Growlithe would also be able to be sent, though he does not officially belong to Sam, but to Sam's father.

Trivia

 * Despite being seventeen years of age, Sam was not the oldest in his year to rank in the Newspaper Contest. The oldest was an eighteen year old girl, who was in her final year of eligibility.
 * In violation of the rules of the Newspaper Contest, Sam accidentally had an encounter with three of the starter Pokémon being offered in the Contest, due to Professor Rowan being one of the hosting professors.
 * Sam's psychic abilities rank at 7 out of a possible 100. This means he has enough strength to shield his emotions and thoughts from other psychics, though these shields would easily be broken if pressed. He also has some slight talents in teleportation, but he is unable to utilise this, due to the limits of his psychic abilities.
 * Sam's favourite Pokémon is Articuno.