Orre Region (Past)

Ocean jumped down from the trees to join her fellow team Cipher member. She looked at everyone. "Anyone want to enlighten me on this situation?" she asked. One hand was on her hip. The other hovered over her pokeballs. She examined each trainer and their pokemon. Her hand moved ever so slightly as she decided in her mind which pokeball to use.

Mikhail was getting a little sick of new people and Pokemon popping out of the bushes. Valencia was fine, and Rance seemed like a decent enough guy, but he was pretty sure the rest of them were Cipher, at least judging by their actions. In fact, that one guy sounded like the voice he'd heard in the tree earlier, and the girl had come from a tree. Honestly, didn't they teach agents about stealth protocols anymore?

You wish them to be better at inconveniencing you? Lucario asked him wryly, and Mikhail shook his head.

Of course not. I just don't want to be constantly reminded of the incompetence of an organization I devoted a good chunk of my life to.

And then, just when he thought things couldn't possibly get any more ridiculous, the female Cipher member actually asked aloud what was going on. Rolling his eyes, Mikhail decided he couldn't avoid it, might as well get most of it out in the open right now. "Well," he replied sarcastically, "you, Team Cipher," he indicated the three of them with a sweep of the hand, "are currently in the process of irritating us, not-Team Cipher. Apparently, your organization thinks it's a good idea these days to use Pokemon to attack people, to break up battles in which your own members are participating, and also to break your shoddy cover in favor of making it blatantly obvious that you're here. I think that about covers it, doesn't it?"

As Geldin expanded her two other PokeBalls Rance looked at Yong, then at him. *They really don't care about the past... do they realize what consequences it could have burning down this forest?!* He bit his right thumb lightly, and used it as a whistle. Dragonite would hear that and return - he knew this call.
"We wouldn't want to cause anymore unnecessary destruction, would we?" he then said calmly, lowering his hand. His left one was already at his belt, close to two of his Pokeballs. Should it come to the situation, he would be quick enough to send his Pokemon out and extinguish the Infernape's fire.
"Why we are here, I'm not sure of it, but seeing that Team Cipher is here as well, I don't have to think much. As for me, you can call me Rance. Now leave us alone", he said to Yong calmly. "You know that my Gyrados has its already decent strength boosted with Dragon Dance. I could order it to cancel your fire in a split second." Plus, he did not say it out loud, but he had trained his Pokemon to act without him having to say everything. Gyrados would be fast enough to Hydro Pump any of Infernape's attempts to light the forest.
"Besides, you would not survive this place getting set ablaze either if you did so. An Infernape's fire spreads too fast in the first seconds. They don't have "Inferno" in their name for nothing, y'know?"

Mikhail shot Rance and Valencia a look that basically asked if the Ciphers were serious and dragged a hand down his face. He supposed he should be glad that they were only punch-clock psychos, but dang... what had happened to the organization since he'd left it? The one with the odd-looking Pokemon seemed to know what he was doing, but the other two...

Lucario chuckled in his head, and Mikhail sent the Pokemon a look. You need to learn to find levity, my friend, his friend admonished with a lupine smile.

Levity? Three-four Cipher agents show up and act insane, and you want me to find levity? he still wasn't sure what had happened to that guy who had brought the girl her Shinx. Or that girl, for that matter. Actually, he had no idea where any of the others had gone, except for Rance and Valencia, who seemed like the most competent of the lot anyway, except maybe that blue-haired kid, also missing.

"You know what?" Mikhail asked the other two non-Cipher trainers. "I'm in favor of finding somewhere else to be. How about you guys?" They needed to figure out what the heck was going on if they had any hope of getting back to the present, or the future, or whenever it was that they had come from.

Rance watched the other trainers - probably team Cipher members - leave, and recalled Gyrados while listening to Mikhail.
"I think that would be good, too", he said then. "We won't find much in this forest, and if Team Cipher has a Celebi, it will have an advantage on us in here."
Just as he finished, Dragonite landed behind him with a loud thud, and looked around to see why his partner had called him. "Draa?" he asked.
"They're gone, Dragonite. You can relax", replied Rance calmly.

Valencia grimaced slightly, but nodded at Mikhail's suggestion all the same. That had been... rather strange, to say the least. Then again, what about this situation wasn't too weird for words?

Sighing softly, she petted Zeke absently, casting about for a direction in which to go. All sides of this clearing looked about the same, really, and there was no way of telling exactly which way would get them out of here. "I don't suppose anyone has a Pokemon that can navigate really well, to find us a way out of here? At the very least, Dragonite could fly up and see what was going on, or maybe one of Mikhail's Pokemon... that Lucario was looking at her with measured intelligence, and she remembered that her mother had once told her that species could read auras and possibly even thoughts. It was a bit strange, to think about it that way, but then, Pokemon were fascinating like that.

"Hmm..." Mikhail pursed his lips together in a tight line, considering Valencia's suggestion. It made sense, of course; there was no way of knowing the layout of this forest, seeing that they had been dropped quite literally into the center of it.

Removing the third pokeball (this, like one of the others, was in fact a speed ball) from his belt, then, he enlarged it and gave it a toss, watching as the light materialized into the smooth shape with deceptively sharp edges of his Skarmory.

"Fly up and check out this forest. I need to know the quickest way out." He very infrequently cajoled or pleaded with or requested anything from his Pokemon, but that was not to say that he treated them as mere servants, either. If one was looking closely enough, it would be evident that there was a bond of trust that went deeper than mere affectionate gestures, and that the seven of them together ran on a system of tightly-controlled discipline.

A few minutes later, the steel bird returned, alighting gracefully on the ground. A few seconds later, Lucario spoke. She says northwest is the quickest way out, but also that one of the Ciphers lies in that direction. Mikhail nodded, deciding it would be best to pass this information along to the others.

"One of the Cipher guys is ahead, but he's on the only road that will take us out of here in less than a full day. I don't know about you, but there are three of us and one of him. I'd say the odds are pretty good, wouldn't you?" With that, Mikhail set off for the northwest, not really too concerned with whether or not the others would follow.

Dragonite looked questioningly at his partner. Rance looked at Mikhail leaving, then he said: "I'll be going that way too." And he followed Mikhail
"If we get in a pinch, you and the others will be able to get us out", he said to Dragonite, which nodded.
He wasn't expecting the Ciphers to cause too much trouble anyway, at least not for the time being. They would probably send out better members than the grunts after a while, but that was not something to worry about now.
His biggest concern was the forest. If they met more grunts in here, he sure would be able to deal with them, but his Dragons weren't suited for such a confined place - they were at an advantage in large, open spaces or in the water, where there was less getting in their way. Plus, using Dragonite or Charizard in here would cause severe damage to the forest, affecting the future...