Title: Silent
Author: Shadow/Phantomness
Pairing: WataShi (Lance x Ash)
Fandom: Pokémon
Theme: #48, Voice
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks

Warnings: Fanon, implied rape and torture, het

To be completely fair, he was drunk at the time. He wasn’t sure how it happened, but he’d been floating on one of the flickers of almost-memory, and Gary had poured him another glass, and he had started to talk, blabbing what should not have come to light, because he hadn’t known it himself yet, but the upshot of the mistake was that now people knew about the Chosen.

Lance and Charlotte had almost – almost been stripped of their Champion positions. In any case, they were now little more than prisoners, with circuitry embedded in their wrists and hawk eyes scrutinizing their every move.

People were afraid of what they did not know, after all, and learning that some of their Champions were damn bloody powerful – with enough power to destroy region after region, if need be, never mind that they could heal and cure and create, was nothing.

People don’t like to be frightened. If they can’t control, they kill, but they knew that killing either Champion would simply cause a more powerful, more unstable form to emerge, the Mistress of Dark Illusions or the Mistress of Revealing Light, so it was better to chain them in their current forms and make them suffer.

It wasn’t fair, not quite fair, but Ash got off easy, because Professor Oak testified that he had no ill intent and he couldn’t control his power anyway, which was true. Ash did not come into full Guardianship until Charlotte and Lance were both dead, and with the way things were now, the two Champions would never die. Chosen were immortal unless killed, and no one was going to kill them, thank you very much.

They were immortal, after all, and the councilmen had wheedled, and Ash, being Ash, didn’t find destruction necessary, or purification, and he was the last one, the Shadow Child, and both Light and Darkness were bent to obey him.

After all, they had sworn their oaths to duty, and even if the legendary Pokémon fretted, there was little they could do.

No, they were caught in a web of their own making, and though Charlotte wished for her death and the Shield to manifest, and Lance felt the Sword pooling in her chest in icy rage, they did nothing.

After all, Chosen weren’t supposed to break promises.

Sometimes, Ash visits them. He doesn’t like to, because he has his own life, and he really doesn’t give a damn about a prophecy written millennia ago. But Lance saved his life a few times, and Charlotte might – just might – be his half-sister, so he endures it. The scientists are always polite when they are let in, and though they’ve brainwashed and stolen a lot of information from the Chosen, they don’t have it all yet.

Not yet. There are still some things they don’t know, and when vengeance is paid, it will be bloody indeed.

At other times, Ash thinks, the silence makes him want to scream and cry and apologize, but that’s ridiculous because he has nothing to apologize for. Lance never speaks when he’s here, and even Charlotte’s words sound dull and dead. He can’t really understand why.

Chosen were created to help people, weren’t they? So if they’re locked up for the good of humanity, what’s wrong?

He doesn’t get it.

Lance doesn’t speak. She quit speaking a while ago, and some of the guards take shameless advantage, laughing because they know she won’t hurt people while Ash’s promise holds her down. Being in love has always been her weakness, and now more than ever, she curses the oath she swore and wishes she could call the Sword and be done with it. Who would wish to be a useless sack of flesh, used and abused?

Her eyes are cold, hard glass now, and she barely wakes, even when Ash comes along. She purposely lets one of the guards handle her roughly while the Champion is watching, and Ash almost screams in denial as he sees the man throw the Dragon Master to the ground. Something snaps inside him, and before he knows what he is doing the man is dead and there is black lightning crackling over his fingertips.

How…?

Lance smiles then, a bitter smile, and says that it was about time he, Ashton Ketchum, remembered, though at this point she is so broken that she is not worthy of being Chosen. No Chosen would allow humanity to control them like this, and she begs Ash to kill her.

Ash can’t.

He wants to hold Lance close and comfort her, but how can he when his eyes have finally opened and he knows what pain he’s visited?

He can’t forgive himself…

And she sighs, and whispers, and Ash realizes, too late, that she said forgive me, and then Lance calls the Sword, and she dies.

Lance…

End Fic

Completed 3/16/07

Edited 10/17/09

In CCS the Voice Card was able to steal people’s voices so they couldn’t speak. And this random bunny jumped me while I was washing dishes…