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The voiceless pokémon trainer

Chapter 1

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Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle... Each of them is available for the new trainers...

A ten-year-old boy with jet black hair, wearing light green pajamas silently watched from the top of his bed as professor Oak continued his lecture from the television screen in his room. If things had been different he knew he would be jumping by now. He'd probably have told the empty room 'how he would be the greatest pokémon master ever' at least once already, and be so excited that he would probably only fall asleep some time in the early morning. The professor's voice droned on in grave, important sounding tones but the boy was no longer listening, staring blankly to the wall behind the television. The room he was occupying was very nice, especially for the bedroom of a boy his age. He had a computer, a television, an enormous amounth of pokémon gadgets and his walls were filled with posters. Most of them were showing off different kinds of pokémon but there was also one announcing the indigo pokémon league with bold letters. That particular poster was located on the wall behind the television where the flat brown eyes of the rooms occupant were wandering now. When he caught himself watching it the eyes glared and their owner abruptly stood up from his bed and crossed the room, shutting off the television halfway through the program. He already knew everything the professor could possibly be talking about anyway. Even if he really didn't need to know. It was useless for him to know... The boy didn't need his mother to tell him to go to bed today like he would usual and he would not be too excited to go to sleep. And he most certainly would not be bragging out loud about his awesome future as a pokémon trainer. Not in the last place because he couldn't. Ash Ketchum had been unable to utter a sound for two years now...

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Ash woke up early but didn't move from beneath his blankets. He stayed bed for another two hours, just staring at the ceiling, before finally throwing the blanket off of him. He was lazy. He really loved to sleep. But on this day he simply didn't want to face the world. Still, he had too much energy to stay in bed any longer so Ash Ketchum finally got up at a completely normal time. It was a Saturday, which usually meant his mom would stay in bed extra long. But today, when Ash left his room, dressed in his jeans, black t-shirt and blue vest with his whistle around his neck, he was met with his mom already there, waiting for him with breakfast.

It was the kind of breakfast he usually only got on birthdays and special occasions and it included waffles and pancakes and juice and even some chocolate. The kind of stuff that would normally have him drooling. And through the entire meal his mom didn't stop smiling once. She talked small talk, asked Ash about school and all in all tried painfully hard to act like things were normal. Not that she usually didn't talk small talk. She did it all the time at that but Ash could still tell. His mother hadn't forgotten what today would, should have been. The way she talked to him today. It reminded him of their talks back in the beginning. Back when she had just started having these one-sided conversations with her son. Conversations in which she was the only one making a sound with a son who had formerly been incapable of silence. It had been really awkward for a while and today was almost as bad…

Ash wasn't really hungry, something that happened only on very rare occasions, but he still ate everything on his plate, signing his replies to his mother as he chewed. One of the advantages of sign language was that he could still talk while he was eating without giving everyone in the vicinity a view of what was in his mouth, thus being considered impolite. When Ash had still been capable of talking, his love of food had had gotten him in trouble often in that department.

The boy finished quickly, and then immediately stood up, quickly signing that he would be at professor Oaks place. Before his mom could start protesting, which he knew she would, he was already in the hall, taking only a moment to grab his white with red hat from the hanger before spurting outside. He ran across the street slightly faster then usual, his whistle bumping up and down on his chest as he sped around the corner only to stop abruptly. He slowly released his breath before slowly continueing on, a good deal slower then before. He went to professor Oaks place almost every day these days.

Eight-year-old Ash Ketchum had lost his voice only weeks after he had been allowed into the professors 'trainer preparation class'. It had been his dream to be a pokémon trainer for as long as he could remember and he had been incredibly excited. The class had been filled with seven more kids his age with the same dream, some of which wouldn't finish the class but little Ash had known that he would. Or he had thought he had known. Kids weren't allowed to leave their normal schooling to go on their pokémon journey until after they completed a training program like this. There had been plenty of boring parts in those few classes he had followed but if it helped him to become the greatest trainer ever Ash hadn't had a problem with it. But then he had lost his voice and his mother had pulled him from the class. She had good reasons to do so and had explained them all, several times. If Ash went on a journey, then how would he talk to people? Would everyone just wait for him to write everything down? It wasn't like everyone just 'happened' to know sign language like professor Oak did. And professor Oak was the kind of rare person who knew almost everything, or so it was explained to him. Ash and his mother had learned sign language too of course. But then again, it wasn't like they had had much of a choice. Ash had hated it. He would, in fact, have flatly refused to learn. However, if he wanted to be capable of speaking in some limited way, he had to learn. So learn he did.

Another problem was that the boy would be utterly incapable of calling for help should he really need it. It was the reason why Ash always carried a whistle around his neck but this was not even close to a complete solution. Around Pallet town people knew what it meant when they heard his whistle. The town wasn't that big and as the only 'dumb' kid around Ash was fairly well known. But outside his town, his whistle would sooner be seen as very shrill air pollution then as a call for help. It would mostly go ignored unless someone would come out to complain about the noise.

Ash clenched his fists, digging his nails deep into his palms, as he walked. A pout firmly on his face. He knew that... He knew that already! And there was one other reason, one that no one had said out loud but one he could still read on their faces. Who had ever heard of a 'dumb' pokémon trainer? A breeder maybe, or someone who studied them but a not a trainer. How could someone like voiceless little Ash Ketchum be in a pokémon battle anyway? The kid couldn't tell a pokémon how to attack. He couldn't tell them anything. The very idea of him batteling was ridiculous! Ash's glare stayed firmly on the ground as he walked.

Though he had been told to give up his dreams, the darkhaired boy still came to the pokémon research laboratory almost every day. And he was allowed in too. Behind the laboratory was a large piece of land, mostly forest, that was the home of many kinds of pokémon. That was the place where Ash spend most of his time. When it had been decided, soon after the 'incident', that Ash wouldn't need to go to a special school he had been happy and his mother relieved. It wasn't like the boy really needed special education anyway since, unlike most of the people who had the same disability, there was nothing wrong with his hearing. He wasn't called on in class to answer questions except sometimes to write something on the blackboard and got some extra homework to make up for that. If he wanted to ask something he could write it down. The dumb boy's work was checked more thoroughly then the work of the other kids because of his lack of participation in class to make sure he was keeping up and this method worked well as Ash didn't have any major problems with his schoolwork. No, the problem lay elsewhere. Ash had had a lot of friends before. He hadn't been 'popular' per se but he was an energetic and easy to like kid and the other children had always seen him as fun to play with. But those kids weren't going to learn sign language. That would be too much of a hassle. Having someone around who never answers back when you talk to them, someone who has to go look for paper to write everything down while his handwriting wasn't even that good. It got old fast and Ash had heard his classmates agree with each other that people who never said anything at all were just creepy.

So, with no one left to play with, Ash spend most of his time behind professor Oaks laboratory. Looking at the pokémon and playing by himself. Professor Oak often let him watch as he worked with the pokémon, explaining things to the silent boy all the while. Grownups talked more to him now. Ash supposed that having someone around who couldn't interrupt you without resorting to physical contact would have that effect. Sign language worked only with his mom and professor Oak and even they could calmly finish their sentence since there was no other sound stopping them from doing so and Ash would just have to listen. The boy suspected that he had learned far more from the professor by now then the kids who went to his trainer class. The class he had been in. The class that 'graduated' today and would get their first pokémon. The class that would probably leave on their pokémon journey immediately after and Ash was jealous. Jealous, angry, sad all at once. he understood, oh he understood how he couldn't go. But that didn't take the wish away, the desire, the dream.

No matter how slow he walked, at this point, if the dim brown eyes would have left the ground, they could have easily detected the home of the professor. It could almost be called masochism to go there today. How did he know that word again? Probably from the adults that always went on blabbering to him. It was a bad idea, he really should have stayed at home. But he didn't want to look at his mother's strained face as she pretended that today was normal. And, even though he understood.

he did, he really did.

Today was the day he would have become a pokémon trainer. And his mom was the one who had ultimately decided that he couldn't. So today, he didn't want to be at home. He also didn't want to walk through the town, where people still looked at him sometimes like he was some kind of rare pokémon.

"See that kid? He can't talk! I saw him use sign language the other day."

Ash hated those people. It wasn't like he was blind or deaf! So the town was out and he couldn't go to a classmate's house either so there was only one place left to go. The forest behind the laboratory was Ash's favorite place and most of the time it was his alone. The professor came there but he was busy most of the time and Ash knew that he'd be especially busy today.

Ignore why. Ignore, ignore...

And, besides the professor, it was pretty rare for anyone to show up. So if he could just get through the laboratory to the back door with everyone leaving him alone he'd be fine. The new trainers would probably have finished getting their pokémon right about now anyway. It was almost noon.

A voice broke him out of his thoughts. A shrill, very sarcastic voice and the very voice that the dark haired boy wanted to hear the least right now. For the first time Ash noticed that he was almost at the stairs that led to the professors house. And he'd somehow managed to make his way through a mass of people without noticing. A sigh. It figured. His eyes left the ground for the first time since he left home and were met with the very unwelcome sight of the one and only Gary Oak. A sight that was, if possible, made even more unwelcome by the dozen of squealing cheerleaders hanging around him.

Gary was the only kid Ash knew that didn't mind talking to someone who couldn't answer him back. In any other case that would have been a good thing. In any other case...

"Hey Ashy dumb! You're a bit late, all the good pokémon have already been taken!"

Which wasn't this one. And Ash glared. He glared as hard as he could at the cocky boy before him, his fists clenched at his side because he couldn't do anything else.

"Oh, I'm sorry I forgot. They don't give pokémon to dumb people, it would be irresponsible!"

Ash's glare only got deeper and he gritted his teeth. He wanted to punch the smug face in front of him. He really did, but he had tried to attack Gary once before after being provoked like this. Only once and it had been a fairly long time since then but Ash didn't think anything would change if he tried it again. Gary was still bigger than him and probably, still stronger than him. And then there was the amount of people around him who were all here for Gary. Ash wasn't the brightest kid in the world but he could see how tackling Gary to the ground right now would be a bad idea. Sthill, that didn't make him want to do so any less. Ash wished that he could say something back. Make Gary out to be everything from an alien to dog shit. But even if he had still had control of his voice Ash doubted that it would have changed anything in the way they interacted. Gary would probably only like the fact that he could scream out his anger then. In fact, Ash knew it wouldn't matter. Gary Oak had always been the exact same way, even when Ash could still talk. So, in a twisted way, Gary was the only person Ash knew with whom it didn't matter that he couldn't talk. But Gary made it very hard for him to appreciate that.

"But luckily people like me are here to give these girls something to cheer for!"

The girls started squealing again, forcing Ash to put his hands over his ears. Squeals. Really. What was it with these girls? Ash snorted, some of his anger making place for barely concealed amusement as his hands left his ears to sign to Gary, ignoring all the people around him for the moment.

Some sounds had started to seem a whole lot more irritating to Ash after he couldn't make them anymore but this was over the top. Really, why did someone like him loose his voice if there were girls like these making that terrible sound? Even in his loudest moments Ash didn't think he had been quite that bad.

While screaming at Gary had never achieved anything with the spiky haired bully, for Ash it had allowed him express his anger. Something he missed dearly. Attacking Gary was out of the question as it only got him bruises and the anger of his mother so with nothing else left he had started signing to Gary about a year ago. It was somewhat like cursing to someone who speaks a different language. Made especially funny because Ash was the only one who could follow everything that was said between them. So he signed.

"Really Gary, if sounds like that are the reward for being a person like you maybe it's good that I'm not one since I might be dumb but I'm not quite ready to be deaf yet!"

Ash grinned, his eyes coming alive and, just for a moment, feeling like he had gotten one over the other boy even if he was the only one who knew it. But Gary simply glanced down and made a motion as if to start imitating the soundless boy's movements in exaggeration. A favorite way of mocking Ash, but then he stopped.

"I would show you, once again, how ridiculous your finger wiggling looks because I am such a charitable person. "

The boy held up his hand, enlarging a brand new pokéball and Ash was back to trying to glare holes into the other.

"But I don't want to drop my precious pokémon so It'll have till another time!"

Gary made a motion as if to dismiss a servant and walked away right past Ash who also turned around to keep glaring at him for as long as possible. Maybe, if he just kept at it long enough, the redhead would burst into flames. And was promptly trampled by the horde of people, all in a hurry to follow Gary.

"Thank you all for coming to see history in the making! Now I, Gary Oak, am off to learn the ways of the pokémon trainer!"

Ash stayed on the ground until the last of the girls squeals had died away in the distance before slowly picking himself up, his hat pulled down, hiding his face. He had glared at Gary like he did normally. It had been the same insults as always. Just like always. Except...

He raised his head to look down the road where Gary Oak, his bully and ever-present pain-in-the-ass, had disappeared. On his way to become a pokémon master. Ash's dark eyes were full of tears. He pulled his hat back down. Suddenly he didn't want to go to the forest anymore. He just wanted to go back to bed and sleep. And then pretend this day had never happened. That the last couple of years had been just a bad dream. Ash stepped away from the door, intending to go back home.

"Ash, you are here! Just in time."

Professor Oak. Really, what was it with his plans today? Ash wiped furiously at his face, hopefully erasing the traces that he had been crying. Then he turned around and came face to face with the enthusiastic visage of one of the greatest pokémon expert of the world. The professor didn't seem to notice anything odd and continued his monologue.

" I want to show you something." The professor grinned at Ash widely. "Come on in! I was actually a bit worried that you wouldn't come by today so I'm happy I was wrong. "

An overwhelmed Ash was pulled up the stairs and into the building. What could the professor possibly have to show him on a day like today? He dragged his feet as he followed the professor to his lab, stairing to the ground all the way but on the inside he was curious. It could only be about pokémon after all so it was a given that is interest was sparked. When they reached the lab the professor lead Ash straight to a plateau with glass protection over it that Ash knew to hold three pokéballs. he should know, he was here almost every day. And as dark eyes looked at them he also knew those three balls to be empty now. Ash clenched his fists again but outwardly he tried not to show his turmoil. Whether the professor noticed or not was unclear, but if he did he ignored it. Instead he came to stand next to the boy and pushed a button on the side of the plateau. The glass shifted away and a previously hidden compartment in the middle opened. And a pokéball came out. Ash looked at the pokéball curiously. It looked mostly normal except for the small lightning bolt engraved on it. Would a pokémon already be inside? Hadn't all the new trainers already picked up their pokémon? For as far as Ash knew there were only three new trainers but he had no more time to wonder about it as the professor picked up the pokéball and without further ado handed it to Ash. The boy looked at the ball. Looked at up to the professor and back to the ball again. And then, without taking his eyes off the ball he signed to ask for an explanation, barely capable of suppressing the hope that was rising up in him.

The professor looked down fondly upon the child, who had unofficially become the most dedicated student of his trainer class, and then he answered.

"This is the final pokémon I had planned to entrust to a new trainer." However, since there have been some problems with this one and there were only three graduates this year I decided, in the end, not to let one of them take him. I want to entrust him to you."

The boy slowly raised his head, looking up at him with wide brown eyes, his hands trembled so badly that he could barely sign. "Really?" The professor smiled and nodded. "You have learned so much this year that I felt that this responsibility..." And that was as far as he got because Ash had already stopped listening. Instead the boy was jumping up and down and running circles through the room in joy. He stopped in front of the professor, smiled, showed him his pokéball and then made to run off with it.

"Now wait just a minute young man!"

The hyperactive boy was immediately stopped in his tracks by the voice. He turned back to the professor, making sure to look properly ashamed but still hiding his pokéball behind his back so it couldn't be taken away from him. The professor sighted. How a kid that never said a single word could make such a racket was beyond him.

"Since you're going to take care of a pokémon you will need this too. " He handed Ash a pokédex. "This is especially handy in your case since you will not need to ask as many questions to others, at least on this subject. You already know how it works don't you?" Ash nodded wordlessly, which was normal, and signlessly. The professor nodded back at him. Good. Then you can take your new pokémon home. He smiled slightly to the boy. Ash's mind however, was already somewhere else and the boy glanced in the direction where the professor had gotten the pokédex.

Ash was so happy that he thought he might burst. He hadn't been this excited in years. But something else had woken up again with that happiness. Want. The passion to reach for his dream was starting to burn again inside of him. A passion that had been lost for some time now because of his inability to act on it. There were certain basics you needed if you wanted to be a pokémon trainer and Ash understood that very well. Also, to this day, no one had been able to convince Ash that his voice was one of those basics. He understood what everyone told him, he understood above all that that was what they believed so no one was going to provide him, a voiceless child, with the basics a trainer needed. At least, not until he was an adult.

The basics according to Ash included just two things, a pokémon and pokéballs. Without a pokémon to start out with you weren't a trainer at all and you couldn't do anything. Without pokéballs... well that spoke for itself. Ash had learned his lessons well. Even if it was possible to buy pokéballs in the different towns, if you weren't an official trainer they were hard to get and without an address to send them to, if you went over the limit of six pokémon you were pretty much stranded as a trainer. But now... Ash already had one of his 'two basics'. And the most important one at that. He had a Pokémon! The strong impulse to strike a winning pose and to shout at the top of his lungs: "Pokémon, I choose you!" overtook him. Unfortunately that was quite impossible. Ash looked at the small red device in his left hand. He even had something that would allow him to be recognized as a trainer, a pokédex. He looked up. And there, on the table, right next to the place where the pokédex had been, was the second basic. A belt with five pokéballs. It was just a few meters away.

The professor looked at the boy curiously as the emotions crossed the young face in quick succession. Happiness end excitement were of course recognizable. But there was more there. Before he could ask Ash what was wrong however, the doorbell rang. He sighted, told the kid he'd be right back and went to open the door.

Brown eyes with a spark in them stared at the door. The professor was gone. But he'd be back soon and Ash wanted to be a pokémon master. He would become a pokémon master! The fire in his eyes brightened and its intensity spread across his face.

Permission wasn't one of the basics needed to become a pokémon trainer!

Strong brown eyes, dark with determination, focused on the pokeball's once again as a ten-year-old boy chose his path for the second time. The sound of his mother's voice reached his ears from the hallway, so she had been the one to ring the doorbell. Ash nodded to himself, he had to hurry...

In his mind he made the vow he would have made yesterday had things been different. Unconsciously signing along as he made it.

I hereby declare to the pokémon of the world I will be a pokémon master!

-TBC-

This story just jumped into my head and I simply couldn't 'not' write it down. Which may be a bad thing looking at the amount of stories I still have to finish but it can't be helped.

So I hope it's nice to read and please review!