Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon: Here Comes The Hydroflames

Team Orion

Foggy Forest. What was once uncharted territory and barren, has now been turned into a popular tourist attraction for explorers. Years ago, Wigglytuff's Guild held an expedition to the area, hoping to discover the then alleged "Mysterious Fogbound Lake". The expedition was a success, with the guild finding Fogbound Lake, and it's most sacred treasure, a Time Gear and a mystical sight of a fountain formed by the lake's geysers. Since then, more and more explorers from different continents starting coming, eager to see the mystical treasure. Increasing demand had cause the Exploration Team Federation to place a rest stop at the entrance of Foggy Forest. Now, even with the Temporal Tower Crisis long behind everyone, the Time Gear taken to fix it, and it's Guardian, Uxie, vanishing without a trace. There was no sight of explorers coming to visit Fogbound Lake.

Absol walked silently through the dense fog, keeping her eyes and ears open. A gust of wind blew past her, causing her to shiver a bit. She never liked patrolling this forest, it's creepy environment and a potential ambu-

Absol noticed something in the corner of her eye, a figure, that quickly disappeared from sight. A threat? Most likely. She quickly scanned the forest, hoping to catch the perpetrator in action. When she heard a rustling noise behind her, she jumped back and launched a Dark Pulse at the source. Hitting a nearby tree, and something fell from the tree. Absol approach the object to examine it. A Substitute doll.

Absol sighed in annoyance, realising who it was.

"Very funny Greninja. I'm laughing so much right now." Absol said sarcastically.

"Well you seem rather jumpy. Attacking an innocent Substitute doll like that, that's not how Team Orion does things." A voice said.

Suddenly a figure appeared out of thin air, a blue figure, it's tongue tied around its neck like a scarf.

Team Orion, the Exploration Team Federation's go-to team whenever they needed something taken care of and for good reasons. With the team being Master Rank, they rivalled with even the alluding treasure hunters, Team Charm. While that team focused more on exploration and treasure hunting. Team Orion focused more on bringing outlaws to justice, with an impressive arrest record.

"What's the matter?" Greninja asked. "You look you've seen a ghost."

"I'm sorry..." Absol apologised.

"Is there something on your mind?" The ninja Pokemon asked.

"N-no! It's nothing...!" Absol hesitated.

"Absol..."

"Alright fine." She finally confessed. "I have a really bad feeling about this mission."

"You? A bad feeling?" Greninja said in surprise. "That's unlike of you."

She can agree with Greninja there, it wasn't like her to have such doubt in a mission before. To be honest, this whole mission feels suspicious. Why would the ETF, who are damn well aware of Team Orion's reputation, be sent to capture some Pokemon who's been harassing nearby explorers. It felt like the higher-ups weren't telling them the whole story.

"It just doesn't seem right." Absol explained.

"Don't waste your time thinking about it." Greninja said. "It's not for us to question our duties, we just keep our mouths shut, do whatever the pencil pushers back home tells us to, and get paid."

Absol couldn't really follow with her partner's logic, she wasn't in it for the fame and glory. Sure, the pay was good, the constant flow of Poké keeps the team running. But Absol only did it because it was the right thing to do. Protect the people, for it was the right thing to-

"Who goes there?!" Greninja exclaimed. Shifting into a battle stance.

Absol turned around to where Greninja was facing and in the distance, a lone figure. They both were unable to make out any distinctive features, but it was staring right at them, menacingly.

"Identify yourself!" Greninja yelled. The silence only being his only reply.

"Identify yourself!" Absol repeated. Expecting a reply this time, but still nothing.

The figure took out something and held it up high. A sudden flash of light blinded the two.

"Argh...! I can't see!" Absol exclaimed.

"It's only a Luminous Orb!" Greninja exclaimed. "Careful! We might be dealing with a potential thre-"

A sudden loud bang was heard, like lightning had just struck between the two. When the light finally faded. Absol eyes took awhile to readjust, when it finally did, she noticed that the figure had vanished.

"Damn! He got away!" She exclaimed. "We should split up and search for- what the?!"

When she turned to face Greninja, she froze. The ninja Pokemon had turned completely grey, one arm still covering his face. She couldn't believe her eyes.

Greninja had been turned into stone.

"Gre-Greninja!" She exclaimed. Moving closer to investigate. She started panicking, she was all alone, with whatever that just turned her partner into stone. She leaned her back against the now-stone Greninja, unable to think straight.

"Calm down, Absol... You can do this..." She said to herself. "Just breathe in... And everything will be alrigh-"

The last thing she remembered was seeing a dark, purple beam at the corner of her eye. And then everything went dark.