I suppose all things considered, I was pretty lucky. It was a funny thing really, the best thing in my life happened to me only days after the worst thing in my life. But I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself. My name is Riley, and this is my story.

It had only been three days since my trainer abandoned me. She was called Serena, we had been together since I had hatched. I think I was a birthday present or something, she was the first thing I saw coming into this world, that obviously meant something to me... but to her?

She never seemed to like me at all, she would shut me in other rooms away from her. That was assuming I was even out of my Pokeball at all. She basically only let me out for food and that was more or less it. Well at least that was until she decided to take me with her of her Pokemon journey. At first I was excited. I mean she was only taking me, that meant I had to be her favourite.

Well it didn't quite work out that way, she was a brutal trainer, if I wasn't battling, I was training and if I wasn't training then she assumed I was being lazy and she would punish me. It wasn't really that long until I had evolved into a Blaziken, by then we had gone through 4 of our regions Pokemon gyms. The fifth on her journey was the water gym. She had caught other Pokemon by that point and I was friends with them, but for some reason she sent me out first against the gym leader. I mean, I'm a Blaziken, what am I meant to do against a water Pokemon that's stronger than me?

Anyway that battle didn't go in my favour and she took that horribly. I don't know if the others won the battle afterwards because when I eventually woke up I was in the middle of nowhere in a forest I'd never seen before with no person or Pokemon in sight and also no sign of civilisation.

That was three days ago and I've just been wandering these woods since. I've given up on looking for her since I know she wouldn't let me find her if she went through the trouble of leaving me in the middle of a forest.

As much as I'm a fairly strong Pokemon it wasn't long until I realised that I knew nothing about surviving in the wild. Serena had always just fed me and I slept in my Pokeball. I had never needed to know what berries to eat or avoid or where to sleep. So there I was, on the third day alone leaning against a tree trunk trying to sleep, hungry, tired and scared.

Then I heard something coming towards me.

I had already had some unpleasant experiences with wild Pokemon so I tried to hide around the other side of the tree trunk. I waited a moment until I heard the noise come a bit closer before I peeked around the trunk.

It was a Braixen, she was skipping into the clearing, humming to herself. She was smaller than me but not actually by that much, she must have been unusually tall for her species. She seemed to be inspecting a nearby bush.

SNAP

I looked down at the twig I had just stepped on and then my eyes quickly darted back up towards the stranger, she was starting to look in my direction so I quickly slammed my back against the tree trunk out of sight once again. I heard the light rustling of grass being disturbed by movement somewhere beyond the tree. I listened for a moment but couldn't hear anything else so I slowly peeked around the tree for another look...

"Hi"

If anyone else had ever heard the sound that came out of my mouth then, I would have been laughed out of the forest. It was not a noise that a fully grown Blaziken should make.

After I finished backing away in fright I noticed that she had crept right up to the other side of the tree and was peering around it in much the same way I was, she seemed unperturbed by my.. erm.. quite verbally stated surprise.

"You're really bad at hiding you know?" she told me with a large grin on her face

"R..Really?" I whimpered. I thought I was being quiet.

"Oh well" she added, the smile never leaving her face as she beamed up at me. "Anyway, my name's Jane, what's your name?" she asked kindly

I looked at the ground, shuffling my feet in embarrassment for a moment before replying "I'm Riley"

Her smile still not leaving her face she said "Good to meet you Riley" Then chuckling she asked "Sooooo... why were you hiding from me?"

My cheeks flushed red as I struggled to come up with a response. "Come on brain, think of something" I thought to myself

"Working on it" my brain responded. My brain must have drawn a blank though because I then said "What? Noooo... I wasn't hiding... I was just... erm... checking the trees... for... moss... to eat" I desperately tried to keep a serious expression on my face while saying that.

She looked at me confused for a moment cocking her head to the left slightly before throwing her head back and laughing at the top of her lungs. "Ha ha ha ah... aah, moss to eat?" she choked out after about 30 seconds of her laughing at me, still wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes. "Oh wow that's a good one, do you mind if I use that one from now on?" she asked me, looking at me again.

She said that without any malice at all yet I still had no response to her question and just stood there opening and closing my mouth with no sound coming out for a few seconds before she thankfully took mercy on me and spoke again.

"Well if you want something to eat, you'd be much better served with these Oran Berries on the bush over here" she informed me gesturing over her shoulder at the bush she was inspecting earlier. Without waiting for a response she turned on a heel and skipped merrily over to the bush and plucked a handful of large blue berries and then skipping back over to me and holding them out to me.

I looked at her for a moment before taking them and gently placing one in my mouth, my stomach was very thankful for this as it was the first thing I had eaten since I was on my own, I didn't know what berries were safe so I didn't eat any of them. I was going to eat the rest slowly but then my stomach must have taken over because I just shoved the rest of them in my mouth at once and started chewing.

"THWANK WOU!" I blurted out, my mouth still full of berries. She started giggling to herself so I quickly swallowed the rest and then, with at least an attempt at regaining dignity I wiped some of the excess juice off my beak "Sorry, but really thank you, that was the first thing I've eaten in days" I said smiling gratefully at her.

She looked surprised for a second before her nearly omnipresent smile returned as she said "Really? But there are berry bushes all over this forest and most of them are edible" She looked at me curiously for a second, cocking her head again. "Are you a trainer's Pokemon then?" she asked me.

"Yes... well I was but... I think she left me here and I have no idea what to do by myself out here" I admitted looking down at the ground again, avoiding her gaze.

She was silent for about a minute until a sudden OOH made me jump and raise my eyes to her again. She was looking at me again with her grin again which if possible seemed even larger now. "I know!" she exclaimed excitedly "I'll teach you how to survive out here"

I was slightly taken aback by her offer for a moment but then I gave an excited giggle and said "Really? That would be amazing if you could"

She continued beaming at me. "Of course I will Riley, so come on, it's time for your first lesson" She gestured back over her shoulder at the berry bush again and led me towards it. "So" she began "The way you can tell if an Oran Berry is ripe is..."