Luce wakes up to a gentle prodding on his hand.

Looking to the side, his eyes meet Chimchar's, catching the monkey right in the middle of squishing his palms. Chimchar squeaks in surprise, jumping out of the way, his tail flame lighting back up. Quickly extinguishing the flame, he ducked back under the covers.

Luce lets out a quiet laugh.

Then he points at the veranda. Chimchar catches what it means and nods.

He's slept with the shawl around him, so he adjusts it, making sure it fully over his neck, before making his way over.

They sit side by side, watching dawn break in from the sky. Luce sets a hand on his chin and gestures outward. Right hand on his left elbow, he brings his left hand up.

Clumsily, and with the wrong hand, Chimchar imitates him.

So Luce does it again.

Bit by bit, they learn new words. With the help of his little notepad and a lot of emotive gesturing, Chimchar memorizes signs. From Barry's name, to everything around the garden, to Chimchar and Piplup and casual greetings.

Chimchar knew how to sing the alphabet song too, though he could also say it in intones of his name. He'd probably learned it from a child in town, or something. Luce teaches him how to sign the letters anyways.

It's nearly eight in the morning when Barry comes in with a loud yawn.

"Woah, Chimchar's one quick learner," he says, crouching down beside it. "Do you understand a thing you've just done, boy?"

Chimchar cheers proudly, one hand raised in the sign nickname Luce had chosen for him, the other hand pointed at himself.

"Ooh, you got yourself a sign nickname. That's nice. Luce picked mine too," Barry says. Then he signs 'good morning', and Chimchar, with all the excitement in his little tiny body, signs right back.

It's nice that Chimchar has a full set of five fingers.

"Are you two teaching Chimchar sign language?"

They turn to the wall to find Dawn looking over, two paper bags in her hands and her features set in a pleasant surprise.

"Morning!" Barry calls, and Luce signs similarly in greeting. Chimchar eagerly follows.

Dawn unlocks the latch on the gate, making her way in. "Good morning to you too," she greets them. "Your clothes are washed and dried. I brought them over first thing."

"They're already dry? That's quick!"

"Yeah, I have a dryer in my house. We don't exactly have a lot of spare lab coats, after all. Here you go," she says with an almost bashful grin, handing the paper bags to the boys, who inspect the contents in muted amazement.

They were still warm.

Luce signs out a word of gratitude.

"Is that 'thank you'?" Dawn asks. She sits down beside them on the veranda, lifting her skirt against the ground so it wouldn't crease. "Hey, I want to learn some too!"

Chimchar raises his proud hand with his sign name.

"Learn in your own time," Barry sneers, mostly just to be nasty. "We're gonna set off for Jubilife today! We can't waste anymore time here."

"Stingy!" Dawn sticks a tongue out at him taking Luce's sleeve, "I'm not asking you and Luce didn't say no. How about you go on your own, if you're in such a hurry?"

Luce blushes a little, belatedly realizing Dawn was calling him Luce without any prior prompting. Perhaps she had picked it up from Barry, or maybe she just never heard his name before now and assumed it was Luce to begin with.

Barry cringes. "You're still holding a grudge on that time I crashed into you?!"

'Blair crashes into everyone all the time,' Luce signs, knowing full well that Dawn couldn't understand it. It's mostly to spite Barry, so he reckons it's fine.

"No I do not!" Barry swirls around in denial.

He feigns a hurt expression. 'So it's just me you always crash into?'

"No!" Barry snaps again, and this time, his face heats up, "you're just- because-- ugh! Always there! Yeah, you're just! It's a coincidence. Yeah."

"You're barely making sense," Dawn informs him. She sighs, not quite understanding the conversation going on but very amused nonetheless.

Chimchar seems to share her sentiments, as he snickers at the side.

'He rarely makes sense,' Luce smirks at him.

"Now you're just being mean!" Barry whines. Chimchar giggles at the scene, and Barry grinds his teeth at him, offended.

"Is this 'Barry'?" Dawn asks, repeating the sign for Barry's name.

Luce nods.

"You're doing it wrong, it's more like--" Barry signs it properly, "a sharp downward! Yes it matters. And the direction matters too. And how high your arm goes."

Dawn makes a disgruntled face, trying again, "so like, this?"

"Your face matters too!"

"You're kidding!"

"I ain't!"

"Geez, can I learn something else?"

Luce laughs, and Chimchar looks on, confused. Piplup dozingly wakes up, tottering over before knocking himself awake on Barry's ankle.

"This is Luce ," Barry signs, "and-- you really oughta start from the alphabets, though. They don't take long."

"Oh! Luce is easy. How do you sign my name?"

"Gee I don't know, what is your name?" Barry asks, rolling his eyes.

Luce realizes abruptly that she has never introduced herself. He'd called her Dawn this whole time, following the game format-- but what if that isn't her name? That would've been really awkward.

(So Barry only knows Dawn as 'the girl that follows Professor Rowan around' for now, right? He needs to get human relations down carefully in case he misspeaks.)

"Oh! Right, I forgot," the girl chuckles, blushing slightly, "please, call me Dawn. My dad is the senior lab assistant, and I'm Professor Rowan's field assistant."

(Oh, her name is Dawn. That's a relief.)

"Okay, Dawn. I'm Barry, this is Luce," he introduces himself, talking and signing at the same time, sounding in the middle ground of tired and exasperated. "And, you can choose your own sign name."

"Really?!"

"Unless you want to fingerspell everything."

"It's called fingerspelling?"

Chimchar jumps up at that, excitedly waving his hands to get their attention. When all eyes are on him, Luce claps for the beat and Chimchar begins to sing his little choppy alphabet song, miming the letters clumsily but to some degree, accurately.

Dawn and Barry hum along, and at the end of it, Chimchar looks up eagerly for validation. His eyes are even sparkling in excitement.

Luce nods. Dawn is clapping, and Barry chuckles at it.

Chimchar does a whole victory dance.

Piplup rolls his eyes, and they chuckle at the sight. Chimchar, offended, pounces on the penguin. Dawn eventually lets out Turtwig, who stands between them as a buffer for their battle.

It seems to have been a normal occurrence even before meeting their trainers, so Turtwig just looks defeated as Chimchar tries to climb over him to get to Piplup.

(Turtwig stops walking and Chimchar falls. Piplup smirks. Chimchar starts crying.)

"C'mon, let's clean up. We can make breakfast while we're at it."

-

Professor Rowan wakes up to three children homely setting up breakfast at his tea room. The futon have been kept, the soup is warm, and Chimchar is apparently addicted to the alphabet song.

Dawn sets down the omelettes just as Barry and Luce emerge from the side, dressed back in their travelling clothes, though Luce's cap was nowhere to be seen yet. Luce has his scarf right back on, and Barry has it in his arm.

[Good morning, Professor .]

He's surprised to see the words written in the notepad before him. He looks back to find Barry angrily signing 'good morning' at Dawn, and Dawn imitating it quickly, only to find out she was using the wrong hand.

"Good morning, you three," Professor Rowan says. "Seems like you've had an eventful morning."

Luce grins. He flips the notepad to the next page-- and hands it to the professor.

A string of writing had been pre-written.

[We actually came here to ask for Poke Balls, but Blair's forgotten about it .]

"Blair?" he inquires.

"You mean Barry," the person in question corrects, and Luce jolts, not so sure when he'd escaped his conversation with Dawn to come beside him. But Barry, a little annoyed, is all in his face now. "Luce, I don't care what you sign, but it's definitely easier to write Barry! No excuses for that one!"

Luce looks away with a nervous laugh, signing 'okay, okay, my bad' hastily.

Professor Rowan dismisses the interaction and continues reading. These two sure were a pair of close-knitted friends, He's sort of envious.

[We heard there was a legendary Pokemon in Lake Verity, so we wanted to catch it for you-- but then again, Blair's forgotten that too.]

[Regardless, we want to sincerely thank you for the Pokemon you've given us, and our mothers have extended their gratitude as well.]

Luce really sounds a lot more sophisticated in writing, but then again, it's not like Rowan's ever heard the kid speak a sentence otherwise.

Professor Rowan steals a glance at the Pokemon. Chimchar was showing Luce an awkward sign for the letter E, and Luce crouches down to fix it, mouthing the letter as they try it again.

Piplup sits down patiently, receiving a Poffin from Dawn. Rowan doesn't miss the way its eyes would turn periodically toward Barry, just to make sure he was still nearby. And when Piplup finally received the fresh Poffin, Piplup would take it between its flippers, nod its head in thanks, and totter toward Barry, tail touching his ankle.

"You're very welcome," he says instead. "I'm... astonished, if I must admit. You two seem to already have a good bond with your Pokemon, and I've only given them to you yesterday. It's amazing."

Chimchar and Barry grin at that, a little bashful at the perceived praise. Piplup turns away with a huff-- though that little pleased blush is not lost on him. Luce reaches over to pat him on the head, though Luce can't deny that he's trying to hide his own flattered smile from being seen.

This makes Rowan hum in thought.

"With all that said, I think I can entrust you two with something very special."

Dawn gasps at that, and Rowan makes his way toward the lab, gesturing for the trio to follow him. He opens a secure cabinet and retrieves two sealed boxes of something that's evidently very, very precious cargo.

"This is a Pokedex," he says, pushing the two boxes toward the two boys. "It's a Pokemon encyclopedia that can acquire information on Pokemon all around Sinnoh-- I want you two to take it on your journey."

-

Luce opens the box carefully, cradling the smooth blue surface with a sort of muted admiration. He holds it with both hands, absorbed in its pristine coating.

He's been waiting for this. Get the Pokedex, go through the capture tutorial, and then the game begins-- classic stuff, really. He was beginning to become worried if he'd get it in the first place, but it seems the law of the main character still applies.

His first impression? It feels like a brand new DS.

We all know how amazing that feels.

Barry opens his box, and unlike Luce's, it's got an orange casing. Luce briefly stews on the thought-- Pokedexes were always red or pink in the game displays and the anime, so why were there three different colours now? And his is blue , no less.

(Ah, wasn't Dawn's pokedex pink in the anime?)

"I've ordered three of these, so Dawn is in charge of the last one," Rowan explains, "the three of you will do a great job for me, won't you?"

Dawn holds up a dull red Pokedex with a smile. "Of course, Professor."

(Oh, it's not pink. So the colouring follows the... manga, right?)

"You bet!" Barry says, an arm slinging around Luce's, "oh man, now we've got more to thank you for! I can't believe this."

Rowan laughs, "if you're so grateful, go fill it up for me, would you?"

"Yes, sir!"

Dawn shows them how to open it, registering their fingerprints in the main menu so the device would acknowledge them as the proper owner.

They first scanned the three starter Pokemon at their side, delightedly noticing how their descriptions matched up with their personalities thus far.

The most impressive feature for now though, was this.

"Scratch," came the robotically synthesized female voice. It was stoic and slightly over pronounced, but still clear. Just like a GPS voice system.

The Pokedex could talk.

"Piplup" Barry's Pokedex reads it out.

"This is so cool," Barry says, pressing it just to hear it again. "It'll even read out the description. Are you hearing this Luce?"

Piplup looks on from Barry's pant leg, interested. Chimchar has clambered up to Luce's shoulder at this point, peeking over at both Pokedexes with great interest.

Luce presses the button to read 'Scratch' again. Then again. And again.

"Uhm, Luce?" Barry turns to him, waving to get his attention but Luce isn't responding. It's as if he's been sucked into the Pokedex, listening to the words coming out of the Pokedex's integrated voice system.

Then Luce starts crying.

Chimchar is first to notice, and he gibbers, absolutely flustered. He tries tugging at Luce's hair to his clothes to generally patting him on the face, but it doesn't work much.

"Crap!" Barry squawks at the sight, nearly dropping his Pokedex. He swirls around, setting the Pokedex on the table before reaching out for the boy-- but then again, he didn't know how to fix it. "Uh-- crap!"

Dawn freaks out, "Professor!" she turns to the man, eyeing him in a way that just expected something out of him.

And Professor Rowan panics too. "What am I supposed to do?!"

-

It took him a while to calm down, but once he stopped crying, he began to cheerfully play around with the attack names, letting Chimchar test out the commands in that way.

"I had a feeling he'd be happy about it, but I didn't expect that ," Barry gestures vaguely at him, indicating the previous horror.

"It'll certainly be very helpful for him," Dawn says, Turtwig asleep on her lap.

Professor Rowan sighs, coming from upstairs. "I'm glad to see you've cheered up now," he says, looking toward Luce as the boy gave him a bashful smile, "so before you leave, take these."

And he hands them a CD each, wrapped in protective casings.

"Technical Machine 27, Return," he explains. "It's a Pokemon move that increases in power depending on how much friendship your Pokemon feels toward you. Be careful with those, they break easily."

"You know how to use them, right?" Dawn asks. She turns a little to the side and mutters, almost inaudibly, "he had TMs? What next, is he going to say he was a trainer when he was young?"

"Of course we know how to use them!" Barry says.

Luce, pointedly, does not know how to use these things. They were like the number one point of confusion for every generation, especially with the inconsistent depictions that ran from belts and boxes to bangles and scrolls.

Or maybe Luce just wasn't knowledgeable enough in Pokemon lore. Unfortunately he isn't a nerd, but hey. Pokemon journey-- he's happy enough. 

(Either way, he's just going to tuck this in his bag and pretend he knows. Since it's a CD, he reckons he can play it on a TV somewhere.)

"And, before I forget," Rowan puts a sack on the table. "Twenty Poke Balls. You needed them, didn't you? So share them equally."

Barry pounces on it, making a sound of pure joy. "You're the best, Professor! I love you!"

Luce makes his way over as well, admiring the pile of Poke Balls that Barry is counting out and shoving into their bags. He signs a quick word of thanks to the Professor as well, and the Professor hums contentedly.

"Alright!" Barry says, tossing his scarf on and hooking up his bag in one smooth motion. Piplup hops to its feet with attention, making its way to his side. "Adventure, here I come. Enough interruptions, on to Jubilife I go!"

"You're already leaving?" Dawn says, sounding just a little disappointed, "so impatient."

"Adventure can't wait any longer, Dawn!" Barry retorts. He turns to Luce and grins. "See you in Jubilife if you catch up, Luce."

Piplup nods its head at the three other occupants of the room, a greeting that could mean thank you and good bye, or both.

Luce sets his hands into two Ks and taps it on top of each other. He smiles when Chimchar happily imitates it.

'Stay safe.'

Barry salutes a 'see you later' in response, and he's out the door with Piplup right beside him.

He's in and out like a whirlwind, and the silence that permeates the lab after he's gone is almost strangely awkward. Talk about losing the only life of the party, a room without Barry gets about ten times quieter.

'I'll be going too, then,' Luce signs, 'thank you very much for all the help.'

Chimchar dashes up to his shoulder, Luce's hat on his little monkey head and chirping in excitement. Luce nods one last time at the two in the room before excusing himself to the start of his journey.

-

Frankly, it's a nightmare.

Chimchar may be able to listen to fighting instructions with the Pokedex voiceover system, but specific instructions like 'dodge there' or 'aim higher' just couldn't translate. The Pokedex, after all, wasn't Google Translate or Siri or anything like that-- it only said words that were already available.

And mirthfully enough, game-styled Pokemon battles just weren't realistic.

Luce couldn't spam the attack moves and hoped for HP to last-- first of all , there were no telling HP bars, and more attacks missed than hit simply because Bidoofs and especially Starly all knew how to dodge.

So after dropping by the PokeCenter twice, Luce decides to sit down and change tactics.

He can't speak-- which is an awful setup to begin with. 

He can try and sign, but no matter how fluent Chimchar gets with it, he can't afford to keep looking back during battle for instructions-- they had managed to do it when Barry was around, but that was because Chimchar felt at ease fighting with Piplup guarding his back.

So the conclusion is that sound, in some form, is still necessary. Whether with the voice synthesizer or an instrument of some sort.

He has no ideas of anything conventional to go for.

"What's wrong?"

He jolts when Nurse Joy approaches him, tenderly handing back Chimchar's Poke Ball. It's fresh from the Healing machine, slightly warm and Chimchar eager to get out again. Luce presses the button and Chimchar climbs onto his shoulder.

Luce retrieves his notepad, beginning to write.

[I'm mute, so it's difficult for Chimchar to listen to my instructions when we train.]

Nurse Joy hums at that, seriously taking her time to consider it.

"Really?" she asks, as if it needed to be clarified. She looks between Chimchar and Luce, almost disbelieving, "you two seem very close knit, so I figured there was a nice layer of understanding between you two."

That's a strange way to put it.

Sure, Chimchar is quite clingy, rather cheerful, and generally very eager to learn signs if it meant Luce would praise him for the effort. But the understanding only goes as far as conversations and anything outside of battles.

Chimchar seeks Luce out for companionship, but even Chimchar should instinctively know by now that Luce is not quite as reliable a partner during battles. Luce could easily see Barry on that pedestal of trust, but Luce just didn't fit the bill.

"Maybe you two should talk it out," Nurse Joy suggests. "Sometimes, a little heart-to-heart is all a pair of friends need to sort out their differences."

Luce looks at Chimchar.

She probably said it out of no ill intent, but talking is a lot harder when one side of the conversation has no voice.

But then again... one side of the conversation never had the right words-- yet, communication was never a problem between Pokemon and trainers all over the world.

There has to be something else.

Something else that gives them trust.

Giving one curious look toward Chimchar-- who looks back with a similar light in his eyes-- he stands up, bows in gratitude to Nurse Joy, and sets off toward Route 202 again.

-

He takes inspiration from real life.

Sitting down on a stone with Chimchar in front of him, he sets his hand together before him. Chimchar has understood routine by now, imitating him almost immediately.

Luce prompts a high five on the left. 

Chimchar claps it, and Luce brings his hands back together before prompting a high five on the right. The clapping game quickly continued, quickening in its pace.

Out of nowhere, Luce brings his hand down in a chop on the Pokemon's head.

Chimchar squeaks in surprise. Recovering quickly, because it was a hard hit or anything, he whines at Luce.

Luce chuckles, and prompts for the game to begin again.

This time, two claps into the sequence, Chimchar leaps, and lashes out a hand to smack down sharply at Luce's head. Luce winces, though it really didn't hurt. Chimchar huffs angrily, looking really darn satisfied with itself.

So Luce prompts for round three, and Chimchar grins, more than ready to go at it again.

This time, right before his strikes, Luce clicks his tongue. Chimchar's distracted by that sound for half a moment-- which results in a failure to dodge.

A flick to the forehead later, Chimchar lunges forward for his own strike. Luce leans back a little, letting it scrape his nose just a little, not enough to hurt

Chimchar blinks up at him, confused.

Luce clicks his tongue again-- and pokes Chimchar in the forehead, knocking him back a surprised step.

He snaps his fingers this time-- the sound is similar, a sharp clear sound. And Chimchar pounces on him, a sticky monkey hand landing squarely on his face.

Their eyes are fully on each other, a sort of struggling comprehension finally giving way to recognition. Luce finds the edges of his lips curving upwards as he snaps his fingers one more time.

Chimchar lifts his hand from Luce's face-- and slaps gently, one more time.

And Luce nods.

-

Luce teaches Chimchar the signs for Scratch and Leer, then they tested it out again.

He signs 'Scratch' when they spot a Starly. Chimchar nods at him, and he stands with attention as the Starly gets up from its perch, realizing it's taunting for a battle.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

He keeps his hands at a steady rhythm at his side, like an improvised metronome.

And Chimchar focuses on the battle. He stalls, letting the Starly come close. One snap of the fingers, and Chimchar swerves aside from a Tackle.

Starly swirls back to balance with its wings, regaining its bearings while lifting just a little off the ground. He spins back around. Luce snaps his fingers. Chimchar leaps aside just in time to dodge another Tackle.

He then lingers, listening to the persisting, barely audible taps in the air.

The Starly scrapes the ground in its missed trail, but rolls back up-- when Luce interrupts the rhythm one more time, Chimchar doesn't think twice.

He lunges forward, and lands a clean, critical strike.

Starly coughs, thrown back from the pain. It staggers for two steps back before falling into a defeated heap.

They won.

And Chimchar looks back toward Luce.

Luce lifts his head, not quite noticing he's stopped tapping. He has another second to bask in the surprise before Chimchar grins up toothily at him and raises a thumbs up.

Luce runs up to Chimchar and gathers it up in his arms. Chimchar's delighted chitter reaches his ears, but Luce can't help but hug tighter.

They continue training, just like that.

Each battle gets easier as the signals and signs get easier to catch and time. There are trips here and there, but they work through it, dash back to the Center, and go for it again.

The sun is nearly over the horizon when they reach the end of the trail to Jubilife City.