The Poke Mart employee scoffs distastefully when Luce hands him a piece of paper containing a shopping list in lieu of ordering over the counter.

Luce finds himself looking away uncomfortably as he regrets coming into the store.

(In an incredibly sociable world like this, conversation drives every interaction instead of gestures and habits. Luce never expected that the first thing they would frown upon is a person's desire to not talk.)

(In the real world-- or the old world-- people conversed in shops with gestures and habits and general mannerisms. Words in interaction were barely needed sometimes, but that just wasn't social norm in this world-- it was actually very rude here.)

(Introverts sure have it hard in this world...)

The least the shopkeepers expect is a polite greeting and prompt requests-- being handed a note and indirectly ordered to fetch a list of items is frankly... impolite. Sure, it's their job, but it still isn't the most courteous thing to do. 

In this world, you respect all workers, after all.

(Huh? That should be the norm in the other world as well, so why doesn't it seem that way? Is it because they worked in retail?)

He's left Chimchar at the Pokemon Center. He just needed to fetch Potions and some other status healing items, that was all.

Maybe he could come back tomorrow. He didn't want to--

"Here it is," the shopkeeper's sharp tone cut in, a sack of products laid on the counter. "Your total comes up to 2,700 Poke."

And oh no.

Oh no.

His heart sinks in a sudden, heart-rendering panic and he suddenly realizes-- are the prices here seem to be higher than the prices in Sandgem? That makes sense-- this is a city, after all. Things are pricier here.

And that was bad. Very bad.

Because even if he scraped together all he had, that was still a bare 2,400 Pokedollars at most. He should've asked the prices first. Why didn't he ask for the prices first?

His heart beats louder, faster, and it becomes harder to breathe, especially with the weird looks the guy behind him in line is giving him. So he scrambles-- scrambles, because his hands are shaking.

His mouth opens and closes and tries and-- he finds his pen, desperately scribblin out the words-- but this is bad. Is it written too messily? Should he rewrite it?

"Sir, you're kind of holding up the line."

He jumps, and his mind goes completely blank. There are almost panicked tears in his eyes at this point, he's stuck to the ground, and his breath is stuck in his throat.

He tries to apologise-- but like a nail in the coffin-- his voice just doesn't come.

(Oh.)

(Oh right, I can't speak.)

(I forgot again, did I?)

Luce feels his entire being fall into silence-- no, it has always been silent. He's just suddenly-- hyper aware of this little detail, that's it. Nothing to be dramatic about.

He doesn't breathe yet.

He looks away, and raises the note in his hands, pretending his hand isn't shaking, grasping the edges of the notepad tightly.

It takes a moment for the shopkeeper to lean over the counter to read it well, but when he does, he lets out a deep, very inconvenienced sigh.

"Alright then, I'll remove a Potion from this. Your total is 2,400 Poke."

Almost shamefully, Luce tucks his note back into his pocket, pays, gathers his items-- and rushes out of the store with his head hung down, too scared to even look at anyone else in the store.

He definitely wasn't going to come back to this store again if he could help it.

-

He makes a beeline to the Center-- or he was supposed to, at least. He crashes into a figure, and the man-- a stout older man-- tumbles forward with a surprised yelp.

Luce drops his Potions in surprise.

"Who in the name of--!!" the old man swirls back around and he's angry. He's very angry, of course.

Luce is signing to apologize but a part of him thinks he ought to write it down instead.

"You!" Luce jolts at the loud volume-- freezing up like a deer in headlights when the man points at him. "Watch where you're going, young man!"

And Luce bows, as apologetically as he can physically express. 

The old man launches into a mutter of how hasty children have gotten in this day and age, can't they think of the people in the crowd, what if he hurt himself? And this was already the second time today, his leg hurts now--

Huh? His... second time?

[I'm really sorry.]

He shows the note and it suddenly feels dumb. Why would he write for something so easily expressed without words?

The man looks at him, and then breathes out with a, not disappointed, but resigned sigh.

"Just don't do it again, alright?" he says, crouching down to pick up the fallen plastic bag, "goodness, all your things are scattered. And this one is scratched up!"

Luce finds himself nodding defeatedly, gathering his things back into his bag, clumsily maneuvering his notepad in his hand while he worked on it. He already knew some of them were scratched up, even when he first got them-- but they still worked and that was enough for him.

"You know, you would really do well with a Poketch."

Luce pauses, looking up with a confused blink in his eyes.

The man sets his hand on his hips with a frown. "Now, don't tell me you've never heard of the Poketch. Y'know, the Pokemon Watch? Latest fad in Sinnoh?"

Luce keeps his notepad up, still on the writings of 'I'm really sorry' at him.

And the man gawks in a highly offended manner.

"That is ludicrous!" he says, dramatically in all the ways that he really didn't need to be. He grabs Luce by the wrist-- Luce squeaks soundlessly as he gets dragged forward-- "that must be fixed. Come here!"

Clutching almost fearfully at his bag of Potions, he's taken across the Center to the back, where they stop before a stout man in a pierrot costume.

"Oh! Chairman," the pierrot addresses the man, quickly turning around to politely greet the-- the chairman?! "And is this a new customer? Well, come right up, time for a quiz!"

The. The chairman , Luce realizes, finally, that this is the chairman guy that's supposed to give you the Pokemon Watch once you enter Jubilife.

And now he's about to take the Poketch quiz, just like the game goes.

Luce glances at the Chairman, who grins at him as he churns out a proper explanation of what's about to happen, from his identity as the creator of the Poketch to the quiz campaign that wins you a free watch if you complete it.

All the while, the pierrot is spinning cheerfully, preparing his tools.

"I'm a Poketch Campaign Clown! Let's roll out my question," he dances on the spot with his little spinny shoes, "ready or not, now here you have it!"

Luce has no idea how he got into this situation, but the question comes and he reaches for his notepad, rushing to write down his answers. When he lifts his head to the warm, he's met with the friendly smiles of the Chairman and the campaign clown.

"Ding-ding! You're absolutely correct!"

The cheerful little Pokemon trivia is given with an infectious energy, and Luce nods as he says it. The Pierrot hands him a coupon, and the chairman takes him by the arm again and they go off to find the next clown.

They patiently wait for him to get his answers out, and never once give him a weird or impatient look for his actions.

"And there we have it! A brand new Poketch, and we just got ourselves the new shipment, so this is fresh from the factory!"

It just feels so right around his wrist, probably because he wore one-- a normal watch-- on a daily basis in the real world.

The chairman grins, and Luce can't help but smile back, bowing in gratitude.

"Now, look here," the chairman turns his attention to the Poketch, clicking around a few buttons until he reaches the Memo Pad app. "This is what I want to show you the most. Don't you think it's quicker to write it here than your notepad?"

And yes. Yes it is.

"You can use any uncapped pen on it if you don't have a stylus."

He actually does have a stylus. Most Sinnoh devices are made with them, after all. 

Luce has one that comes with the Pokedex, mainly for situations where you would have to use gloves-- and Professor Rowan had them commissioned because Sinnoh winters were harsher than the regions Professor Oak, his partner in creation, was used to.

He writes 'Thank you very much' on it, and he's happy.

This is a good gift. He'll probably still need the notepad for longer notes, but this is much more convenient when he needs to be quick and precise.

'This is an amazing gift. I appreciate it.'

"Don't sweat it!" the chairman grins, "now keep that smile on your face, alright? You're basically advertising us, so no Poketch wearer's gonna have such a gloomy look on them!"

And Luce chuckles at that.

This encounter has definitely, most definitely, cheered him up.

-

The Pokemon Center doors slide open and Barry is running forward, looking over, suddenly realizing his road isn't clear and yelping a panicked "get away please!!"-- and Luce only has enough reaction time to squeeze his eyes shut.

They go toppling right out in a painful heap, forehead to forehead and limbs pretty much everywhere inconvenient and painful.

"Oh hey, Luce!" Barry lands on his hands and knees, gleefully taking notice of the person beneath him. Luce's head is spinning as he lays on his back, and if one of those Potions weren't broken they certainly are now. Barry grins, "fancy meeting you here. So that Chimchar inside is yours!"

Barry hops up quickly, helping Luce up like the previous three hundred times he's crashed into Luce in his life.

Luce sighs, checking his Poketch. There is a scratch now and he's upset.

"Oh, you got one too!" Barry says, showing off the orange one around his wrist. "Huh? Why's mine red?"

'It's actually orange,' Luce signs.

"Ohh," Barry says, evidently disinterested in the precise colour of his Poketch, "whatever then. Are you staying the night here? And you dropped your potions," he scoops them off the floor to inspect them, frowning a bit at the scratched-up ones.

'Yes,' Luce simply responds, 'you should too.'

"Yeah, I will!" Barry assures him, tying up the plastic bag and slinging it over an arm, Then, with the smile of a totally innocent young man, he raises his hand in a curt bye, "just give me a second, alright? Admiral and Sergeant are back there with your little spitfire, so watch over them. Be right back."

He spins right around and the Center doors close as he leaves.

Luce recovers from his surprise when the door opens again-- and unsurprisingly, Barry's already run off somewhere too far to see.

Where is he... going?

And why is he taking my Potions with him?

Luce finds himself sighing again, but this time, there's a hint of content in his breath, paired with sheer bewilderment.

Just a little, he chuckles at the 'little spitfire' part. Now wasn't that just a perfect name?

Barry's always been one whirlwind after another, being here in one moment and out the next. So he really doesn't mind being stuck on the baffled side of things, because Barry's always been impulsive and at his own pace, and he's glad that hasn't changed.

Now, who on earth is Admiral and Sergeant?

Only one way to find out, so he heads toward the recovery room with a smile he can't quite suppress on his face.

Chimchar greets him happily once he enters, closely followed by a familiar-looking Piplup. Luce lets Chimchar hop up to his shoulder, and Piplup bows in the one, very recognisable way this Pokemon has learned to greet. Luce smiles and nods back.

(He's in love. Piplup is actually imitating his manners.)

(If that's isn't cute, he doesn't know what is.)

He guesses that Barry nicknamed his Piplup along the road. Which probably means that Barry's gotten himself another Pokemon-- and he's proven right when Piplup leads him to the bench, where he finds a regal little Starly in a roosting position.

The Starly, Luce guesses it's a male too, pries one eye open to consider Luce, and turns back around to seemingly take a nap.

Luce looks over Piplup and Starly. He reckons Piplup is Admiral and Starly is Sergeant, though that's just a guess from the typing combinations. Barry's always been strangely interested in military titles from his father's weird books.

Luce signs hello to him, and once again, Chimchar happily imitates, even saying something that Luce assumes is him explaining what it means to the disinterested Starly.

He spends the rest of the time practicing the alphabets with Chimchar-- to the curious looks of a Machop and Shinx by their side. Luce tries a couple of times before he manages to get the Machop to follow along too, to the pleasant surprise of the trainer when she comes back to retrieve it.

If there's anything a Pokemon fan really wishes for in their lives, it would definitely be the adorable interaction potential Pokemon as a species could provide. 

And Luce was honestly really satisfied by what he's gotten thus far.

-

(He barely remembers anything about the real world, and it's slowly fading away, as if the entire thought process had been a dream. It doesn't stick, and he'll eventually forget he even had such a dream.)

But one thing, he remembers clearly.

He knows the gym leaders of this region, the general structure of the cities, and the potential Pokemon encountered on each route, as well as the calamity that's bound to happen in a couple months.

(He can't ignore the memories, but they're unobtrusive on a daily basis and he respects Lucas' wishes among everything else. He feels closer to Lucas than... the other person he once was... and Barry evidently hasn't noticed a thing as well.)

So he had no qualms going on this Pokemon journey. 

The problem lay in the fact that he already knew that only disaster awaits, which he has to go save now as is the curse of the protagonist of the story.

Chimchar squishes his palms and Piplup leans into his side. Starly is still offish, but he's gotten about a step closer than before.

It's starting to get confusing, so let's give his identities names.

The original main character of this world should be 'Lucas'. 

His original world self-- he doesn't remember their name, so he'll call them 'Cece', which makes his name here an amalgamation of both, 'Luce'.

And Cece is only vaguely knowledgeable about the events of the Sinnoh saga. Luce is a fan of Pokemon and aspires to be a trainer, but he's just a normal ten-year-old.

Barry has his father, and he's picked up a lot of trivia and skills from him. Dawn is aspiring to be a researcher-- she's got the education-- perhaps she's even graduated Trainer School at some point, seeing as she's Professor's aide and has the qualifications to do field work.

So does Lucas have any edge to his identity?

He looks through his Pokedex with his free arm. The Pokedex, much like the mangaverse, seems to be a rare item only a select number of people in the world can own, purely for the purpose of gathering data for Professor Rowan.

So what sets Lucas apart from other people is merely the fact that he's 'chosen' for this, and thus 'destined' to become the main character and eventual savious of the world-- which isn't much to say for himself in the long term.

He reads through the Pokedex entries for Shinx, Bidoof, and Starly, the few Pokemon he's encountered so far. Cece has always disregarded this, so Luce will have to read them up and learn about the common sense of this world.

Yeah, he has to do at least that much, or he'll fall behind his rivals. 

-

Barry eventually returns, carrying a bag of fresh Potions and medicines, because apparently if you snag the receipt right back and glare at them angrily enough, they will exchange it for new ones.

Luce shudders. The characters in the show tend to liken Barry to his father, but Lucas knows that Barry takes after his mother most of all.

'You really didn't have to,' he signs, feeling sort of guilty about it. He felt like a child that needed to bring his mom to school to complain about his classmate.

They're in the Pokemon Center dorms now, passing by a few other trainers that range from newbies to seasoned trainers, judging by their Pokemon. They managed to get a five-person bunk dorm with two senior trainers who wouldn't be back until late.

"Well too bad, I've already done it," Barry says, shoving it into Luce's hands. "You really should tell them off when they do that to you."

'It was fine.'

"It is not," Barry hisses. "You know they're just doing it because they're unprofessional assholes. Stop letting them walk all over you like that!"

'They aren't.' And did Barry just swear?

"They are ," he says again, "geez, when did you get so wimpy? You've got the resting bitchface and all, didn't know you were scared to use it outside of Twinleaf."

Woah Barry calm down, this is a PG rated game.

'Don't group me in with you.'

Barry gives him an offended look.

Luce peruses his new goods, admires the blatant lack of scratches-- and manages a smile. 'Thank you'.

Barry signs an, expression wise, sarcastic 'you're welcome' right back.

He sits on the bed, resting a hand on Starly's feathered back. Piplup sits by the pillow, rustling around his bag for-- whatever, apparently. And where's Chimchar?

Chimchar is playing with a Rhydon to the side, along with an excited Shinx and an eager Machop.

Luce keeps his eyes on them for a while before he realizes Barry's turned his gaze in that direction, too.

"Chimchar's definitely a Naughty nature, so he probably really wants a friend," Barry says, pointing at the scene as if to prove his observation. "Little spitfire indeed?"

Luce silently stews on that information, because maybe that's why Barry is so damn clingy all of the time... ah, he shouldn't say that out loud or he'll get noogied.

(Oh right. He literally can't say that out loud. Okay, he has finally found a perk of this new disability.)

"We went through the trouble of asking Professor Rowan for Poke Balls, too. Why'd you ask for some if you weren't gonna get any others? A Shinx would really help with your type coverage, y'know."

"The Poke Balls were for the lake,'' Luce signs back.

Barry freezes, suddenly remembering it as if it was unimportant. "Oh man, we totally forgot about that."

Luce smiles in resignation, but he acknowledges that Barry has a point. 

This isn't like the games where you could overlevel a Pokemon and it'll get you through the whole region if you try long enough. Type coverage and a stable party will mean a lot more and maybe something a little different from what the gameplay usually pertain to.

"You caught it to cover your grass type disadvantage?" he asks, gesturing at the Starly. Though, he's asking this knowing full well Barry caught a Starly simply because he is Barry and thus always has a Starly.

Barry looks at Starly and grins. He raises his hands and signs, "yes, but I wanted one personally," he always sounds strangely more formal in sign, "dad had an evolved one when we were younger, remember? We played with it all the time."

Luce flips through Lucas' memories for a moment, unfortunately coming up empty. He nods anyways, shrugging non-committedly in response.

Well, that made sense. He caught one for its sentimental value.

('An evolved one', ugh curse sign language. He checks Starly in his Pokedex, but his evolved forms aren't going to magically show up on an entry. He thinks it goes something like Starry... Avian? Staravian? Wait no, there's another. Oh whatever.)

He can only make a general guess, but Starly was probably either a Serious, Modest, or... Lonely, perhaps... And Piplup was either Docile or Hardy with its pride getting in the way somewhere.

And the clear juxtaposition that is to Barry's entire personality makes Luce think they've got their Pokemon rosters switched by fate in some sort of mistake.

"Hey hey," Barry calls for his attention, "I was thinking-- you would do really well with a psychic type Pokemon, wouldn't you?"

Now there was just this startling annoyance present in sign language that even this illogical world of Pokemon didn't seem to bother filling. Maybe sign language just isn't in their interests or something-- but there just, by fact, aren't correct words.

Grass would have to be Leaf. Psychic would have to be Mind. 

Little language differences in the real world translate right into this world's sign language and trying to decipher some things feel slow and exhausting.

Even Pokemon needed to be signed Pocket Mysterious Creatures each time.

The worst problem of all, was the fact that Pokemon names themselves didn't have signs, excluding nicknames. Much like human names, you would have to fingerspell it one by one-- which is tedious in the long term. 

There were signs for animal names in the real world, so why aren't there any for Pokemon? This was just so-- ugh! Curse you!  

Anyways.

"A psychic type Pokemon? For me?" Luce asks. Psychic types were notorious to be great Pokemon regardless of type coverage, but he doesn't quite see how that's relevant for a candidate to be a great partner Pokemon for him specifically-- oh.

"Because," Barry grins, "it can read your mind! That'd be a doozy, aye?"

"How the hell did you say that in sign? And how the hell did I understand it?"

Oh, he sees where this is going. 

Luce inches just a little forward from his bed, very interested now.

This makes very, very logical sense.

His main problem now is the fact that he can't give vocal instructions to Chimchar, and that's restricting him from any sort of trainer battling. They've gotten used to wild encounters, but that can only go as far as the starting routes-- it'll definitely get more dangerous hereon in.

And a psychic Pokemon, that can read his instructions straight from his head-- will undoubtedly be a great force on his team.

"Interested now?" Barry taunts.

"Show me the wares, o peddler of trivia I never asked for," is Luce's response. "I'm all ears."