Welp... here we go.

What's up guys, it's ButterHunter here, with... a new story!

Okay, first, let me squash something right out of the gate. NO, I am not writing this story just to capitalize on the most popular story choice in the Games category. Yes, I looked it up. If I really wanted to do that, I'd write a one-shot story about Harry Potter. Yes, that is the category with the most stories.

I'm writing this as a sort of test. If you've read my other stories, you'd know that I was considering making a third story. Well, here it is. I'm putting up here now as a way to sort of... test the waters, so to speak.

If I get some positive feedback, then I'll probably continue. But if I don't, then I'll keep this story on the back burner for now. I'm testing to see if I can handle three stories at once. But please, don't expect any others until I finish at least one.

With that said, prepare for a hopefully decent Pokémon story! Starring the shameless self insert, me!

Just a quick heads up, this is going to be as original as I can possibly make it. All the towns, names of characters, and other things are all going to be as original as I can make it. If a name of a town or something overlaps from one in the games or anything, please, cut me a little slack, okay?

Now... the first chapter, will begin.

Chapter 1: A Tall Man with a Big Heart

(DISCLAIMER: I do not own ANY part of Pokémon. That's owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, and other affiliates. I only own my OC.)

Our story begins deep within the heart of a large woods, near the middle of the day.

The woods were peaceful. Birds were chirping, leaves were rustling…

And a man on the ground was sleeping soundly.

Okay, let's back up a bit. Deep in the heart of some woods, a lone man of eighteen years was lying on the ground at the base of a cliff. He was tall, very tall at that, had brown, messy hair that stayed that way no matter what he did, and brown eyes, which were closed at the moment. Black glasses were close by, neatly folded and resting on a nearby rock.

He wore a simple red jacket and some jeans, with a sort of mini pack clipped on his belt. A silver watch ticked away on his left arm, and in his right hand was a bag of some kind. A pair of running shoes were strewn off to the side, leaving his feet bare save for a pair of simple cotton socks.

Slowly, his body stirred. Then his eyes opened up, revealing deep brown eyes, which looked tired. Slowly, he rose to a sitting position, rubbing his head a little.

"Oh man… what the hell happened last night?" he asked himself quietly, trying to ignore the dull pain in his head. He grabbed his glasses and looked around. There were beautiful looking trees, lush shrubbery, the sound of gently flowing water somewhere nearby…

But he couldn't really feel happy about his surroundings at the moment. Why?

Because it didn't make any sense to him. He had no recollection of where he was.

Then another thought came to him: he couldn't remember who he was. No name, no identity, no… anything.

He began to panic a little bit. He couldn't remember a thing! What was he supposed to do?

"Okay, okay… calm down, me…" the man told himself, taking deep, calming breaths. "Let's… let's try to think here. Let's not think about what we can't remember or can't do. Instead… what can we do?"

His eyes instinctively glanced over at his bag. 'M-maybe… do an assessment check. See if anything I have can jog my memory.'

He quickly reached into his bag and started pulling out items that he would find. The first thing he found just so happened to be some strange looking bottles filled with liquid. The bottles were purple in color, and had a spray-like nozzle on them. All together he had about ten of those.

The next thing he pulled out was a small, red and white sphere. A white button was on the side of the ball, and pressing it simply opened it up, revealing a rather tiny space inside it. He had about twenty of those in the bag.

"Well… whoever I am, I certainly seem prepared." the man mumbled softly. He continued his search of his bag and found something important: a wallet. Inside the wallet was some paper money, totaling to about 5,000 dollars.

There were still a few more things left in his bag. They was an empty card of some sort, maybe an ID card (which was blank except for two thing, a name and a photo, matching his description.), a small, handheld device with the words PokéNav Plus on it, some snacks and water, a new set of clothes, a spare set of running shoes, and a small journal with a pencil and pen. The journal was blank, but there were some torn pages at the front.

"Well… this gives me something. At least I have supplies. And… my name is… Cameron?" he read aloud, reading the name on the ID card.

He repeated that a few times. It did seem natural. "Okay, well… that's one mystery solved. Now… where am I?"

He stood up shakily. His legs had almost fallen asleep on him, so it took a while before he could stand normally. Once he got his bearings he simply packed up all his things and started to walk through the forest.

He kept hearing small noises throughout the woods. Leaves rustling, birds chirping, his own breath… it was rather nerve wracking.

He kept avoiding tall grass as much as he could. He couldn't explain why, he just… didn't feel safe going into those places.

He heard something ahead of him. It was faint, sure, but… was that a soft cry? His pace instinctively picked up.

The noise was getting louder. Now it was definitely a cry of pain. And it seemed to be coming from the edge of some tall grass close by.

"H-hey! Is… is someone in there?" Cameron called out. The noise softened. The grass rustled towards him, and…

A small creature came out. At first, Cameron didn't know what it was. It was small, with a pure white body up until it's head. Most of that was covered by a large green… helmet? Hair? Hard to tell. On top of that, small, flat red horns could be seen. The creatures stubby left arm held a cut on the side of it's body. The creature looked pretty hurt...

Cameron could only stare at first. 'W-what… what IS that thing?'

Then the creature actually noticed him. It became scared, trying to dash away into the grass, but it tripped, hurting itself more.

"Woah, woah, woah! Hey, hey, calm down!" Cameron called out, holding out his hands in a 'stop' gesture. "I don't want to hurt you!"

The creature didn't listen to him. It tried to get up again, but it seemed to cause too much pain.

"Hey, hey! Calm down! Calm down. Calm. Calm down." Cameron insisted, his voice becoming softer. He approached slowly, carefully, as the small creature tried again to pull itself back to it's feet.

This time it was successful, and it shouted at Cameron loudly in it's weird language. Cameron paused for a second, before saying, "Hey, calm down… I don't want to hurt you. Please, just calm down…"

He wasn't sure if it even understood him, but the tone must have been doing something to help. The creature slowed down its moving. It took a second look with it's almost perfectly hidden eyes.

Cameron got down to his knees and held his hand about a two feet away from the small, scared creature. "Easy there… easy there. I promise… I won't hurt you."

Slowly, the creature walked over to his hand, keeping a close eye on it the whole time. When it was close enough, it gently poked his hand, then quickly took a step back as if he were to follow up with a smack. When that didn't happen, the small creature again took a small step forward and touched his hand again.

"That's it… it's okay…" Cameron murmured gently, taking off his bag. "You can trust me, okay? I won't hurt you…"

The creature was curious. This new person wasn't being like the one creatures it had seen in this forest. This one… this one seemed like he actually cared. It gently stepped closer to the kneeling human, staring in a curious way.

A soft beep came from Cameron's bag. Confused, he took his hand away from the creature and pulled out the PokéNav and found it to be softly beeping. He flipped the top up and found a little blinking button that read, 'PokéDex', which seemed to be why the machine was blinking. Curious, he clicked it.

The device showed a black outline, but soon became a clear picture of the exact creature in front of him. "Woah… so that's what this does?" he asked himself. A bunch of things came onto the screen, like a description of the creature as well as its name: Ralts.

(I realize that you have to actually catch a Pokémon for all of this to appear in a PokéDex, but please, since this is the only time it'll happen, and for this story's purposes, just follow along with me on this one, okay?)

"So… you're a Ralts? And… a female… wonder how this thing can tell?" Cameron mused to the little creature. The Ralts looked at him in curiosity about the device in his hand.

Cameron suddenly looked back to the little Ralts, remembering about its injuries. "Oh… right, you're hurt…"

The Ralts also had seemed to forget about it's injuries. It definitely didn't look in the best shape right now.

But before Cameron could wonder what he could do to help, his hands starting working. He reached into his bag and quickly found one of those purple bottles he had in his bag. Suddenly, the answer clicked.

"Now… this should work." Cameron explained, giving a warning to the little Ralts. "It might sting a little though. Okay? You'll feel better after I give you this."

He almost added, 'I hope.' at the end of that sentence, but he felt it best to leave that out. He didn't want to scare off this already frightened creature.

The Ralts seemed to think about it, eyeing the spray bottle nervously, but it nodded after a few more seconds. "Okay… here goes."

The first spray of the bottle was the worst. The liquid in the bottle stung like hell on the cuts of the Ralts, and it wanted to run away. But it resisted, instead biting its lip and staying still.

Then the second spray hit. That one didn't hurt nearly as bad. Only a slight wince escaped it. Then the third spray came, and the feeling of the liquid hitting it was all it felt. The cuts on its body quickly healed with each spray.

Two or three more sprays, and the bottle was empty. But the tiny Ralts looked good as new. No cuts covered its body, no pain when it moved, nothing. It jumped around excitedly, so happy!

"Heh. Someone has some energy." Cameron's voice spoke up, getting the attention of the Ralts. "Well… I hope you don't get yourself hurt now. Be good, okay?"

And just like that, he slung his bag back over his shoulder and started walking again. The Ralts just stared at his retreating back. Someone… someone was being so nice to her… and yet they just were walking away after they helped like it was no big deal.

So it quickly followed after him. Thankfully, Cameron had paused to look around his surroundings a bit more. He didn't notice the small creature at first, until it tugged at his pants leg.

"Oh, hey there." Cameron gently responded, kneeling down again. "What's wrong?"

The Ralts offered nothing. It simply looked at him, unsure of what to do. Should… should it just follow him, or stay here, or…?

"Are… are you okay?" the human asked, looking curiously at the small creature.

The Ralts knew it had to do SOMETHING. So it did the first thing it thought of.

And hugged his arm.

"Awww… that's adorable." Cameron cooed, patting the small creature's head gently. "You came here to say thanks? That's really cute."

Another few minutes passed before the Ralts let go of Cameron's arm. Cameron patted it once more, before standing. "Well, you're very welcome, little Ralts."

And turned around again. But when he started walking… he heard the gentle steps of the Ralts behind him. He took another step. More steps from the Ralts.

"Um… I don't think your home is this way." Cameron gently told the Ralts, glancing over his shoulder. "Didn't you come from the grass back that way?"

He looked forward and started to move, but the Ralts only followed after him again.

Cameron turned. "Hey… is something wrong? Because… you can't follow me everywhere." he explained softly. Ralts looked crestfallen, but the human wasn't done. "If… if you can't tell, I don't know where I am. But I do know, that I don't have the ability to take you home or anything. I can't take you with me. I'm sorry."

The Ralts looked upset about that. It looked around franticly, looking for some way to change his mind…

When it saw something it didn't like. It froze up, then started pointing behind Cameron rapidly.

Cameron didn't get it. "No no no, you don't get it. I can't take you with me. I don't have anything else I can really do for you."

Ralts would've tried again to give him a warning, but by then the thing it saw was alright upon them. A low growl came from the tall grass nearby.

Cameron turned just in time to see a small, grey wolf creature come out from the grass, slowly. It was looking right at Cameron, with what looked like hungry eyes.

"Woah, woah woah woah! Hey! Get out of here!" Cameron yelled. The wolf ignored him. It snarled, and then continued its slow stalk over to Cameron.

Cameron wasn't sure what to do. Fortunately for him, he didn't have to make a choice.

Because the Ralts stood between him and the wolf.

The wolf paused, looking at this new prey. It gave Cameron time to pull out his PokéNav and identify the wolf.

'A… Poochyena?' he thought. He wanted to read more, but the wolf had had enough looking. So it started to charge.

Not if the Ralts had anything to say about it. It stood defiantly and growled loudly. LOUDLY. It caused the Poochyena to stop in place, covering it's ears while whining in pain. Hell, even Cameron winced a little bit.

Unfortunately, the Poochyena wasn't done. It recovered quickly and looked right at the tiny Ralts, eyes full of hunger. It charged forward and tackled the small Ralts, using it's whole body.

The Ralts stumbled, but stood straight again and did something else. It lets out an earsplitting cry, aimed right at the Poochyena. Pink waves of energy came from its mouth. Some surrounded the wolf, and it appeared to become hurt, judging by the way it stumbled around. Before anything else could happen, the small wolf did the smart thing and ran back into the tall grass with its tail between its legs, whimpering softly.

The Ralts took a small breath, and then turned around to look at Cameron, who was wide eyed. The small creature walked over and looked up expectantly, almost saying, 'Well?'

"Y-you… you just defended me…" the human murmured softly. "Even when I said you couldn't come…"

Quickly, he gently picked up the small Ralts and held it up to his eye level. The Ralts was slightly startled, but recovered and looked back into the human's eyes.

"You… you really want to come with me?" he asked. The little Ralts had never nodded as hard as it did then.

Cameron had a last-second debate on whether or not to take the Ralts, but ultimately decided to just take it along. Besides, it probably would've just followed him around anyway even if he said no.

"Alright, I guess you're coming with me." Cameron gave in, much to the joy of the Ralts. It happily tried to hug his arm, but couldn't due to how he held it, so it simply just hopped up and down in his hands. Cameron couldn't help but laugh at the adorable sight.

"Well… I'll need some way to carry you…" Cameron mused, gently putting the Ralts down and looking through his bag again. "And I don't know if what snacks I have will be good for you…"

He started pulling random things out and placing them around him and his new Ralts friend. The small Ralts looked very curious about everything the human pulled out, and poked everything he pulled out.

He was halfway through his bag when suddenly, the Ralts spoke in its weird language again. Cameron looked down at it to see it holding one of those small, red and white orbs for him to take.

"What? This?" Cameron asked as he took the orb, confused. The ball was barely half the size of the Ralts. Surely it didn't think that this would be a suitable home, right?

The Ralts saw the human's confusion and tried something else. It pointed at him, then at the orb, then made a throwing motion, and then pointed at it.

It took Cameron a second to process what it was saying. When he did, he simply stared at the Ralts. "So… you want me… to throw this at you… why?"

The Ralts just stared at him. Honestly, it didn't know why it knew this, it just knew, somehow.

"I… I don't know why you'd want me to throw something at you…" Cameron started slowly. "But… you haven't lead me wrong yet, so… here goes, I guess."

He clicked the button on the small orb and gently lobbed it at the Ralts. He expected it to hit the ground next to the Ralts, but that wasn't what happened.

Or at least, not first. The small orb first opened in mid-air, and somehow stopped in front of the Ralts. Then, a bright bolt of energy touched the Ralts, and it was pulled into the ball before it.

The orb closed, and hit the ground, gently shaking a bit before clicking loudly. Ralts had be caught.

Cameron had watched the whole thing with wide eyes, but now quickly grabbed the orb and pushed the button again. With another bright bolt of energy, the Ralts quickly came back out, standing before him. It looked a little surprised itself, honestly.

"Well." Cameron stated quietly. "That happened."

The Ralts seemed to agree with him on that. It carefully held out the now empty again ball to Cameron, who took it. Rather than throw it into his main bag, though, he placed it in his small side bag, where it would be easy to grab if need be.

"Well… guess we should get going, huh?" Cameron asked, starting to pack up. The Ralts agreed with him.

But just before they stood up to start walking, Cameron thought of something. "Hey, since we're gonna be traveling together, do you mind if I come up with a nickname for you?"

The Ralts shook its head, it didn't mind. Cameron tried to think up a good name, but nothing really seemed to click.

Then, he thought back to his PokéDex. The device knew Ralts as a 'Feeling Pokémon'. That's when a nickname clicked.

"I'll call you… Empathy." he told his Ralts.

The Ralts thought it over for a second, probably judging its new nickname. It seemed to like it, as it smiled a bit more and hopped up and down in front of Cameron.

Cameron chuckled. "Alright, Empathy it is then." he responded, leaning down to pick up Empathy. He was going to simply hold her the whole way through the forest, until she crawled carefully up his arm and sat down on his shoulder.

Cameron was a bit surprised by Empathy, but simply chuckled a little bit. "Alright, you can sit there for now. But don't expect me to let you stay there the whole time."

Empathy nodded, and together, the two ventured further into the forest…

Some time later…

The two were still walking through the forest. These woods never seemed to end. Even so, not a single soul could be seen.

Yet noises were echoing all around the two, so they knew at least they weren't alone. Whether that was a good thing or not remained to be seen.

Cameron slowly came to a halt, as he once again judged his surroundings. "Ugh… how much further are these woods?"

Empathy only shook her head. She didn't know.

"*sigh*... oh well." Cameron shrugged, resting on a nearby fallen log and taking Empathy off his shoulder. "At least I'm not alone."

Empathy seemed to share that sentiment. She had to admit, this human seemed really nice, if slightly confused about everything.

Suddenly, a light moan sounded out. The two first thought it was some sort of other creature, but it turned out it was just Empathy's stomach.

"Oh… you're hungry, huh?" Cameron asked. "Well… maybe there's something you'd like around here. Let's look a bit."

The two walked around the log they were sitting on, and searched around. Nothing really seemed all that appetizing to Empathy…

Then Empathy spotted something. She chattered in her language, making Cameron stop. "You see something?" he asked the Ralts in his hands, to which she pointed in front of him.

Cameron looked up, and saw… a berry bush. With some ripe, plump berries, blue in color. The only problem was that they were on the other side of a large amount of tall grass, which was unavoidable.

"Those?" Cameron asked, and Empathy nodded. "I mean… I guess it makes sense. You were wild, you like wild berries, but… that tall grass makes me… uneasy."

Empathy looked up at Cameron. She almost seemed to ask with her eyes, "What do you mean?"

"I don't know, I mean… that Poochyena came from the tall grass before. What if there's more of those?" Cameron asked quietly.

In response, Empathy stood up a little straighter, and seemed to puff out her chest. She was practically screaming, "I'll protect you!"

"Oh… right." Cameron blinked. "I forgot."

He gently placed her on the ground, and looked back into the field of tall grass. "Well… here goes nothing." he murmured.

The two entered the tall grass and started making their way through it. But, about halfway in…

A low sound was heard. Not a growl of a Poochyena, no… something else was here.

Empathy had heard the sound as well. She looked around, but she didn't see anything other than tall grass. But just as they both started to keep pressing forward…

Suddenly, something jumped out at them. Empathy dodged quickly and stood at the ready of her attacker.

It was a small, raccoon-ish creature, with fuzzy hair all over, and zigzag stripes all over it body. It was about at tall as Empathy, give or take, and looked at the human and Empathy curiously.

Cameron quickly pulled out his PokéDex and learned the creature's name was, "Zigzagoon". He noticed, however, that he couldn't see anything else about it, just its name.

But that became the least of his worries as suddenly, the Zigzagoon decided that it should be fighting Empathy. Fortunately, Empathy was ready, and used her standard "Growl" attack.

The Zigzagoon covered its ears in pain, but quickly recovered and charged 'forward' (more like ran from side to side and then charged forward), tackling Empathy. Empathy stumbled, but stood again and shouted once more. The pink waves once again came from her mouth, and quickly surrounded the Zigzagoon.

The Zigzagoon seemed to be struggling, but nevertheless pulled itself up to tackle Empathy again, but this time it missed by a hair. Empathy quickly finished this fight up with one more shout, and the Zigzagoon fainted.

Empathy seemed proud as she turned back to Cameron. Cameron bent down and patted her head, saying, "Nice job. Now come on, we're almost there."

They made it to the berry bush with no further incident. Cameron pried off as many berries as he could, and ended up with about seven or eight of them, two of which were given to Empathy.

She carefully ate the berries, savoring the sweet taste they left. It felt like her wounds were healing, but that was no surprise to her. Almost every berry had some sort of effect like this. This one seemed to heal her a small bit.

Once she finished her snack she looked up, only to realize that Cameron wasn't anywhere to be seen. Her eyes widened a little, looking around almost frantically.

"Empathy!" a voice called out. "Come over here! I think I see a break!"

As fast as her legs could manage, Empathy dashed over to where Cameron's voice had come from. He wasn't that far away after all, she only couldn't see him due to a tree.

Cameron was standing on a nearby stump, and was looking through a large amount of trees. He quickly picked Empathy up once she reached his leg and held her up to see what he saw. "See it?"

Empathy saw a lot of trees, but directly ahead of her a-ways, there seemed to be more light coming through the treetops. Even further away, the two could faintly see what may be a gap in the trees.

"Once we get out there, we could maybe make it to a town or something, and find out where the heck I am." Cameron whispered. Empathy heard him loud and clear, however, and looked at Cameron with slight surprise.

"Oh… right. I never got to fully explain anything about that, did I?" Cameron asked softly, chuckling sadly. "Well… just before I found you, I woke up in the heart of this forest, with no idea who I was or where I am. I only remembered my name due to something in my bag with my name on it."

Empathy seemed shocked. "I… I didn't want to worry you, so I didn't tell you at first… sorry about that." Cameron apologized gently. "But… if we get to that town, maybe someone will know me there. After all, I can't have just appeared in the middle of nowhere, right?"

He chuckled softly, but it sounded rather forced, like he was preparing for the worst. Empathy didn't know what to do, or what to say. Granted, he wouldn't be able to understand what she said anyway, but still…

Cameron shook his head. "A-anyway, why am I bringing the mood down? There's an exit hopefully right over there! We should get going!" he stated, his mood rising just a little bit.

Empathy was deeply concerned about her friend, but decided that the best course of action would be to just wait it out for now. Hopefully, things would work out for them…

Right?

Slowly, the two worked their way towards a hopeful exit…

And there we go.

Sooo... how'd I do? Okay? Not bad? Sucky? Please, leave me feedback.

Just as another heads up that I forgot to mention at the start, I will NOT be trying to come up with brand new Pokémon for this story. That would be a massive headache, not to mention it might cause maybe a few hiccups from Nintendo. Copyright, and all that...

However, any Pokémon that is from Sun and Moon and earlier is fair game. And if Nintendo releases a new game, maybe they'll be added in. Who knows.

With that said, I think I've said my piece.

Thank you for reading! If you have any questions, comments, useless bits of information, by all means, PM me and I'll do my best to respond.

Until next time guys, stay awesome. =D