AN: I really didn't mean for this update to be up so late. Blame my New York Mets if you have to. They're trying for a playoff spot and all of us fans are doing everything we can to…will…them into the post season. Most of us have rituals we follow in order to do that. Sure, most of us know what we're doing has absolutely no effect on how the team plays but I guess it makes us feel better, like we're helping the cause. Me? I change what I'm writing whenever the Mets lose, trying to find what works to make sure they keep winning. Losing streaks are the most annoying! I keep changing what I'm writing and wind up lost midway through a bunch of different stories. Anyway, sorry about the delay. I hope this chapter makes up for it. OH! The title of the story! In order to answer a few questions about it! "Unseelie" is pronounced "Un-see-lee." What the Unseelie Court is, well, that's a little harder to explain. According to Scottish folklore, fairies are classified in two ways: the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court. The Seelie Court-- the "Blessed Court" --is made up of helpful, kind fairies that are, traditionally, thought to be beautiful to look at. The Unseelie Court-- the "Unholy Court" --is thought to be the polar opposite of the Seelie Court. The Unseelie Court is unkind to mortals and sends out a "Host" that torments any unlucky human who happens to see them. They're traditionally thought to be more or less, ugly in appearance. I hope this clears up the confusion! To anyone who's read this story, thanks for taking time out to read it. To anyone who's left me a review or put my story on alert, you rock like a box of socks. Remember, I'm open to any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, good, bad, or indifferent. Just let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own The Matrix, The Animatrix, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Meeting you with a view to a kill
Face to faces, secret places, feel the chill

Night fall covers me
But you know the plans I'm making
Still overseas,
Could it be the whole lot opening wide
A sacred why
A mystery gaping inside
A week is why

Until we dance into the fire…" (from "View to a Kill" by Duran Duran)

Neo, clad in a coal black karate uniform, complete with a red "Karate Kid" style headband around his head, dashed about the underground labyrinth that spread out around him. He wandered through the stone tunnels that made up the claustrophobic confines he wandered through. The tunnels, themselves, were piled with boxes and odd bits of rusting machinery. Among the boxes and rusting refuse a clan of ninjas made their home. A clan of ninjas that all seemed to be gunning for Neo, so to speak.

The hair on the back of Neo's neck stood on end as he darted for cover, narrowly avoiding a patrol of red clad ninjas. The entire compound-- if one could call the underground space a compound anyway --had been put on alert after he failed to silence the first patrol of ninjas he'd come across. Since then, Neo had been alternately running and fighting for his life.

The strange thing was that none of the danger he was in was real. True, Neo had learned he could be hurt in this underground maze but the danger was programmed and watched over. If he were to get into too much trouble, find himself in a situation he couldn't fight or run out of, he'd be taken out of the program.

Everything in underground complex Neo found himself standing in looked and felt real. Then again, Neo suspected that most of what he'd felt was real wasn't real at all. It was, in all actuality, the furthest thing from real.

Everything Neo-- then going by the name Thomas Anderson --experienced was just a figment created by malevolent machines. All was part of a neural network called the Matrix. His entire life-- up until a few weeks ago anyway --was nothing more than a figment of some machine's imagination, if they had imaginations.

Neo, as Thomas Anderson, was nothing more than a player in a video game. He was a nothing more than a Sim-- a being created out of data and nothing more, who was controlled by some outside force --in a world of something else's creation. Whoever was controlling him, Neo decided, must have had a sick sense of humor to make his life what it was during his days in the Matrix.

If what he had could be called a life anyway. It was more an existence than anything else. An existence that was punctuated by his search for the elusive Morpheus and a question that drove his quest and his late nights in front of his computer.

Now, Neo knew his body rested in the Real World while his mind wandered a false, video game based reality. He was a character in one of the many games he remembered playing during his time in the Matrix doing things he'd only imagined doing during his "stay" in the false reality. Well, he thought he played and imagined.

Either way, though, Neo was busy playing ninja-- part of his martial arts training, he'd been told --and alternately enjoying himself and being more than a little amazed at his newfound skills.

"Neo, you hear me?" a voice boomed, crackling from someplace above Neo and breaking the almost oppressive silence in the cave.

Though it had been disconcerting at first, the newly unplugged male was getting use to how things worked in the new world he was told he had to call home. There were still plenty of disconcerting things in this new reality but Neo knew he had no choice but to get use to them. After all, he couldn't go back to his old life, even if he wanted to. That was what Morpheus had told him and what the others had confirmed.

He'd taken the red pill to learn the truth and now he had to live with the consequences of his choice. Part of that was learning about the Real World and discovering what abilities-- Abilities Morpheus swore were supposed to be great enough to end the war they'd been fighting --were and refining said abilities.

"Yeah, I hear you Tank. What's going on?" Neo called out, still feeling a little foolish since he was, really, speaking to the air around him.

Or what he thought was the air around him. Morpheus never did go into detail about the whole "air he was breathing" thing he'd mentioned during their first spar.

"When you go into the next area, one of the members of the crew are going to be joining you," Tank answered, "and the program's going to change just a little. Don't worry if things get out of focus for a few seconds. I'm just changing things on my side to allow for your new teammate."

Neo nodded his head, knowing that Tank would see him. He was, after all, watching him run through the program on the pretense that he'd pull him out if he were to get hurt too badly. It had come as a shock to the man's system when the first punch he took from one of the opposing video game ninjas hurt like he'd actually been punched.

Morpheus had said that his mind made everything he felt in this virtual space real. Neo guessed this was another case of that happening. He came out of these training programs peppered with bruises from opposing ninjas.

The space around him fell silent again-- save for the occasional hiss of steam that came out of one of the vents in the walls of the tunnel --as Neo noticed the tunnel he was standing in fuzz out of focus for a brief moment and go back to normal.

Well, normal for what the surrounds were. Part of Neo wanted to go into the next room-- He wasn't going to lie. Playing these virtual games were quite a rush for him. --but another part of him wasn't exactly keen on the idea.

Every time another member of the Nebuchadnezzar's crew decided to pay Neo a visit in whatever training program he was in at the moment, he always wound up feeling a bit foolish for even trying to do whatever he was doing. These people were famous-- or infamous, in some cases --and they were obviously good at their jobs.

Even the two younger boys-- nineteen year old Hawk and Mouse if he remembered correctly --had an air of confidence around them whenever they were in a program with him. It might have been all an act, a way to seem bigger and more impressive than they actually were but they still seemed extremely confident about what they were doing, especially Hawk who gave orders as if he was captain of the ship and not Morpheus.

The only one he hadn't the occasion to train with was the quiet medic-in-training. The short statured young woman-- Though Neo had thought she was a young girl when he first met her --who he started to think of as Dozer's pale shadow because she was always standing with him in the craft's medical bay.

If it wasn't for the fact she'd admitted to him that she was from the Matrix and showed him the plugs in her skin Neo would have though the shy young woman was from Zion, like Tank and Dozer. He also had a hard time believing that she was nineteen years old but that was true as well. She'd confirmed it more than once, telling him that you had to be over eighteen to work on a ship and she was over eighteen.

The only reason Neo figured he hadn't had the opportunity to train with the young woman called Pixie was the fact she was training to be a medic. Medical skills, maybe aside from some battlefield first aid, were no help in the Matrix, if what he'd heard about the false reality was true. The skills Pixie was learning were better suited for work on the ship, putting people back together after they fell apart in the Matrix.

Steeling himself for whatever new twist Tank had thrown into the program in order to accommodate his new teammate, Neo eased around a bend in the tunnel. Thinking as if it was a video game-- it was in many ways --he figured he was headed for the next area. Knowing video games just like anyone who came out of the Matrix, knew that entering a new area meant new dangers and the possibility of a boss or mini-boss.

Peering around a stack of crates that took up most of the space in the tunnel Neo was standing in; it seemed that he was at the center of the tunnels. He'd found the heart of the ninja's stronghold so to speak.

The room-- a circular chamber that had three tunnels on the far side, heading off to the right, left, and down the center --was full of red clad ninjas bearing scorpions on the backs of their jackets. Said ninjas seemed to be more interested in sparring each other than in the fact Neo had wandered into their midst.

Counting himself lucky-- since he had to be outnumbered ten to one --Neo started to slip towards what he thought was the closest exit. He knew he'd been placed in this program to train his martial arts skills but being out numbered didn't seem like a good way to train. It seemed like the quickest way to get pulled from the program, even with the help that was supposed to be joining him in this new room.

Neo figured he was in the clear until one of the virtual ninjas, standing on one side of the large space, seemingly watching the others spar, noticed Neo. His eyes, black and blank, locked onto Neo's white clad figure and his virtual body went completely rigid.

"Intruder!" the virtual ninja bellowed, his shout stopping the sparring that was going on around him. "Attack!"

Moving as if they were one being, the red clad ninjas headed for Neo. Though their eyes weren't real, Neo was almost sure he saw murderous intent gleaming from their dark depths. It was obvious they were to keen on their idea of their stronghold being invaded by a single man wearing the garb of a rival ninja clan.

Neo braced himself for the attack and beating he knew was going to follow when he noticed that he wasn't alone. The red clad ninjas had a second target who just happened to be near Neo's location. Suddenly, Neo realized that he might not have been their target in the first place. Their target might have been this other individual who seemed to appear out of thin air.

Perched on its haunches like a cat atop a stack of crates, was a smaller figure. Where Neo and his rival ninjas were dressed in more traditional martial arts gear, the small individual on the boxes was dressed in a rather...strange...style.

He or she-- Neo was leaning more towards the figure being a female because he or she was slight in both height and build. --was clad in a form fitting, black body stocking with a high collar. The sort of thing Neo thought he saw some group of modern dancers wear once upon a time. A female co-worker had dragged him to see a bunch of dancers perform traditional Isadora Duncan pieces. He'd been bored the entire time and she'd never called him again.

Though it looked like something a dancer from that ill fated performance might wear, there was a definite Far Eastern flair to it. The body stocking appeared to have a single closure, a single flower shaped button pulled through a loop of elastic and set on a right handed diagonal. As if to offset it, just near the left shoulder was some sort of symbol. Since the figure was crouched, it was hard for Neo to tell just what that symbol was.

Like so many things in the created reality of the Construct, the small figure's outfit was highly detailed. The top of high collar-- brushing the small figure's jaw line --was outlined in neon green. The same neon green could be found on the paultrons that were attached to the shoulders by green ties. The paultrons reappeared as elbow and knee guards, the same bright green attached by green ties. A sword, Asian in style like the rest of the clothing, was tied to the figure's narrow waist by a bright green sash.

The figure looked over at Neo, studying for a long moment him with brandy brown eyes colored eyes. The rest of her face, though, was blocked by a silvery mask. The mask tied around her head with a neon green cord, underneath a high ponytail, and obscured her nose and mouth making it impossible to see anything about this small individual other than his or her eyes.

Not that the figure's eyes were on him for very long. As quickly as they'd tracked onto him, they returned to the crowd of enemy ninja that had amassed near them.

Neo wasn't entirely sure who the figure was nor did he have time to stop and think about it. The ninja-- he figured he or she was some kind of ninja, the way they were dressed --leapt lightly off of her perch and into the crowd of ninjas. Within moments, Neo lost sight of the small figure, her slight height being dwarfed by not only the height of the ninjas but the sheer volume of ninja around them.

The older male hesitated for a moment, before jumping into the fray, lashing out at the opposing ninjas with his fists and feet. The two of them might have been sorely outnumbered but he wasn't going to run and leave the smaller figure by his or herself. That just didn't seem fair.

Even if it turned out that his oddly dressed company was the "boss" of the training simulation, he didn't want to leave him or her alone. Though it was tempting to let to boss-- if he or she was the boss to begin with --get beaten silly by his or her own minions. That would put a quick and easy end to the simulation.

As the battle raged, part of Neo wondered where the other individual was. The Operator had said that the game was going to change because someone from the Nebuchadnezzar's crew was going to be joining him in the next room. If someone was going to join him in this game, Neo hoped their arrival would be sooner rather than later. The numbers were starting to wear on him. What's more, he hadn't seen hide or hair of the smaller, figure who'd jumped into the fray before him.

Each new fight that sprung up, seemingly after the one before it ended, was starting to become mind numbing. The throwing of kicks, and flips and blocks, the flurry of motion that began and ended each onslaught was becoming strangely dull to Neo. The more Neo fought, the less he found he had to think about fighting, as strange as that sounded. Everything just seemed to flow in an odd way, his reflexes working to keep his body safe.

Still there was the numbers game to contend with. The room had been relatively full of ninjas and it was starting to catch up with him. Though he could feel his reflexes responding, Neo also knew he was getting tired. His body-- His mind? He wasn't entirely sure --wasn't use to the sort of strain he was putting on it. He'd never taken on more than two or three ninja at a time.

It wasn't until the lights gave out-- plunging the room into darkness --that the fighting stopped. No one knew who was friend or foe, so no one attacked. Instead orders were shouted in both English and an Asian sounding dialect.

Neo found himself disorientated for a moment, lost in the darkness that engulfed the space. He could barely see his hand before his eyes; such was the absoluteness of the darkness around them. The darkness seemed to heighten his senses, making him hyperaware of everything. There were subtle noises of booted feet on the rocky ground all around him as the ninja he'd been fighting scuttled to find him or a way to get the lights back on. He air was warm, uncomfortable so, and it pressed against his bare arms and face with a weight all its own.

A weight made worse by the fact he was feeling a bit tired. Now that the adrenaline rush of battle had faded, his arms felt like lead and his legs felt just as stiff.

The heavy feeling didn't stop him from taking a swing at something that clamped itself onto his arm and tried to lead him away.

"Come on," a muffled voice-- definitely the muffled voice of a young woman --hissed, the sound ghostly in the blackness around him. "This is only going to last for so long and I don't want to be here when they come back!"

There was something familiar about the voice, something in the small, hushed tone that said this person was trustworthy. With that thought in mind, Neo allowed the owner of the quiet voice to lead him along.

It wasn't long before his eyes were dazzled by the dull light of some tunnel, though Neo couldn't really say which tunnel it was. The sudden plunge into darkness had all but demolished his sense of direction. Neo couldn't even say if this was the tunnel he'd entered the central room from.

When his eyes decided to behave themselves, Neo found himself propped up against the tunnel wall, tucked into a natural crevasse in the wall that was partially covered by piles of boxes. A quick look around the small space let Neo know he wasn't alone. Crushed in with him, back on her haunches, was the strangely dressed figure from the other room.

As close as he was now, the newly unplugged male could see that the figure was, indeed, that of a young woman. One that, as part of his mind so kindly pointed out, could probably do with some filling out. The figure before him looked more like a girl than a young woman, really, with her hair pulled back into a long braided ponytail and her small, thin frame.

The figure on the left side of her body stocking, the one he hadn't been able to see before, was that of a pixie or a fairy of some kind. It flew sideways, in profile so that one could see both its tiny wings in, almost, mid-flutter.

Neo realized that seen that particularly image before, the small, sideways flying fairy. Pixie, the ship's medic in training, wore the same sort of fairy around her neck on the end of a small, thin chain. He'd seen the item slip out of the baggy sweatshirts she seemed fond of wearing and catch the ship's bare lights. What struck Neo as funny and, maybe, just a little strange, was the fact when that happened Pixie would stuff the charm back into the folds of her clothing. Almost as if she didn't want anyone to see it.

"Are you alright?" she asked, her voice still muffled by the mask she was wearing. "Those ninja didn't hurt you too badly, did they? I did my best to try to stop as many as I could but we were really outnumbered in there."

"No, I'm alright. You were the one who cut the lights, weren't you?" he wanted to know.

The figure nodded her head, removing the mask she'd been wearing to reveal a curious sort of smile. The type of smile that was pure mischief and very little else. With such a smile on her face, Neo was almost tempted to say she looked like the creature she had on her body stocking. She looked almost like an elf...almost like a pixie.

It was then Neo realized that he wasn't staring at some sort of person programmed by Tank. Instead, the person that was crouched next to him was plugged into the game, just like he was. Another look at the elven featured face, one just so he was sure he was correct, Neo was almost sure Pixie, herself, was crouched on the ground with him.

"I also didn't know you went into the Matrix, Pixie," Neo added, stating what he'd long thought was true. "I figured you being a medic and all, you'd only work on the Nebuchadnezzar."

"I'm only a medic-in-training, technically," the young woman offered, setting the mask she'd been wearing on the ground next to her. "But I'm also part of the resistance. I go in when everyone else does and I do what everyone else does. Doesn't mean I have to like it but...well...yeah."

Looking around, the young woman added, "Anyway, we should get going. They're going to, eventually; get wise that we're hiding over here. I'm going to apologize in advance before we get moving, though. Tank changed the program around a bit for me."

"Changed how? It still looks the same to me," Neo pointed out taking stock of their underground surroundings.

The only thing that struck him as odd was Pixie's mode of dress. Sure it fit the whole martial arts theme of the game but it was different from what Trinity-- The only other female he'd ever seen make frequent use of the martial arts programs on the Nebuchadnezzar.--had worn the few times they'd trained together.

Pixie was well covered, making her look younger than she was. Not that she didn't to begin with. Neo had been taken aback to learn the girl he always saw in the ship's medical baby was nineteen and not fifteen or sixteen like he'd initially thought.

Wearing her mischievous smile once again and almost bouncing on the balls of the light boots she was wearing, Pixie gave a soft giggle and informed Neo, "You'll see!"