So...I originally had this chapter ready on Friday night, but couldn't login all weekend long! What was all that about?!
angel-in-training312 - Continued! Soon? Hopefully soon enough for ya!
Kai's Snowfall - Okay. I won't deny it. 8D Thanks! And sneaky, sneaky Ein...
QUEEN EEVEE - Shady just keeps getting nastier and nastier, huh? Thanks for the support, all.
Celestial-Dragonz - Yes, what is Ein up to? You get the feeling that everyone has their own agenda around here...Hmm.
Hiro the Wolf - Hiya, haven't seen you in awhile. (sweat-drop) Mostly my fault, for not updating for so long. But anyway, your wait for this chapter is over! 8D
SkyMaster - No...more...baked...goods... (groan)
Whoops. (looks up) Short replies to your great reviews...I just wanted to get this chapter out after that interesting weekend. Apparently everyone else on this site was logged in or something? Haha.
The spikes of her pointed heels clicking loudly on the polished floor, Lady Venus made her way through the hallways, her pink veil fluttering as she walked. Two of her pink-clad Peons flanked her, silent as they followed their mistress down to Ein's private work room. They had just returned to the lab after a shopping spree in Phenac—under special guises, of course—and she was already bored. The stuff-bag, she had decided, would come up with something for her to do.
"Wait out here," she commanded when they reached the door. The Peons consented, moving to stand on either side of the door. Their Lady entered the room, the door shutting firmly behind her.
The scientist was hunched over his work, his pen scratching away at his paper. Venus came to a stop a few paces behind him, tapping her foot impatiently, and heaving a heavy sigh every few moments; trying to get his attention. Ein continued to work, ignoring her easily for the time being. He needed to finish this sentence about—
"For Ho-Oh's sake, Ein!" Venus cried in her best girly-girl voice. "I'm right here, you know!"
"Apparently so," Ein muttered in reply, putting his pen down with a sigh and swiveling in his chair to look at his fellow Admin. "What can I do for you, Venus?"
"It's 'Lady' Venus." She pouted behind her veil.
"I hardly believe it matters." Ein decided to be frank with her.
She tossed her head like a Ponyta, head high. "Well I do," she sniffed. She looked back at him coyly. "How is our little Snagger?" She peered past him, at the TV screen that monitored the cell room. "Is that where he is?"
"Yes, he's in there." Ein replied blandly. He wanted to get back to work.
"Oh!" Venus giggled, pushing her veil out of her face. "You've got his little girlfriend too? That's so cute!"
It was Ein's turn to be impatient; he tapped the counter. "Are you here with purpose, or are you just here?"
"I'm absolutely, positively bored around here!" she cried in answer, back to pouting in a split second's worth of time. "I don't have anything to do at all! I mean, it's not like I'm some ruffian Team Boss, or some kind of super important scientist—"
"Have you gone shopping lately?" Ein asked, slightly hopeful.
"I just got back!"
Ein sighed softly, his hope having been bashed brutally in at those words. "Ah."
Venus sighed loudly. "So you don't have any ideas as to what I should do now?"
Go on another shopping trip...? "Well...Not that I'm aware of. How about checking in with Dakim and Miror B?"
"Is Shady here?" she asked brightly.
"No. Gonzap sent him to meet with Master Nascour."
"Oh." She thought a moment. "I'll go visit our little Snagger first. Then I'll find Dakim and Miror B."
"Brilliant," Ein answered. It took all his might not to sound relieved. Venus was much better to talk to when she was in one of her baleful moods, not her bouncing, happy, shopper-girl moods. Besides, he had notes to pre-write before his experiment.
She clapped her hands gleefully. "I'll see you again later, Ein!" She left the room, the sound of her heels fading.
Thoroughly relieved, Ein turned back to his notes in peace. It wouldn't be long now...
Shady descended down into the Under via the elevator, arms folded. After Gonzap had given him the orders to meet with Nascour, he had left the lab, heading for Pyrite. He had spent the night in the dark alleys of the run-down city—somehow, it was much better than finding a place to sleep in the damn lab—before heading for the elevator first thing in the morning.
Gonzap hadn't really given an exact time of when he was supposed to meet with Nascour, so Shady had decided to get there early. From the few times he had seen Nascour around the lab, he had observed that the man disliked tardiness, and was strict with his punishments. Easier for him to just get there early, and wait if he had to; compared to getting there late and suffering the consequences.
The elevator arrived at the floor of the Under and the gates opened, allowing Shady to step off the rusting platform. Red coat swishing slightly, he made his way along the edge of the giant abyss, which was portrayed in the eerie shadows of the neon signs that were the main source of light in the below-ground town—barely any light from the top of the abyss, in Pyrite, shined down to these depths.
And Shady was about to go deeper.
Silently, he climbed the stairs to the small platform that looked over the edge of the abyss, approaching the control pannel for the famous UFO of the Under. From a pocket in his coat, he pulled out one of the more rare controls: a D-Disk. He slid the disk into the pannel, waiting for the light to give him the signal.
He recieved his disk back and stepped onto the hovering UFO that waited beside the platform. Once it felt his weight, it slowly began to descend down. He slipped the disk back into his coat as the platform and the glow of the neon lights disappeared from view.
He disappeared down into the Deep.
"Hey, are you okay?"
Wes glanced over at his cell-mate. For once, Rui's voice was soft and gentle; not hopeful and bright. She was watching him thoughtfully as he leaned against the back wall of the cell—it had become his favorite position—with his arms folded loosely.
"I'm fine." Had he been one to give fake smiles, he might have given her one.
For once, she didn't ask him if he were sure. She merely bit her lower lip, looking troubled.
The rest of the day had passed uneventfully, but the night had been long and seemingly endless. Rui had tried to get Wes to sleep on several different occasions as the hours slipped away painfully slow; only to succeed once. The Snagger had only slept fitfully for about an hour, before jolting awake, shivering and shaking, and mumbling under his breath. She had tried asking him about it, but Wes had refused to answer, merely telling her to get some rest of her own.
Rui had obeyed, sensing his want to be left alone. She had managed to fall asleep, for a few hours, only to wake sometime around dawn, according to Wes. Their situation was no better, and no worse.
She could tell that Wes was having second thoughts about sending Brenden and May after Shady. Despite his efforts to seem calm and collected, Rui knew him well enough to see that he was slowly being mentally torn apart due to stress, and adding Brenden and May's names to the list hadn't been a good idea. Rui wanted nothing more than to give him a hug and tell him that everything was going to be okay, but she knew that she couldn't—he needed to at least keep some of his fast-wilting pride.
...And she herself wasn't even sure if everything was going to be okay.
The door to the cell room opened, and Rui pretended not to notice as Wes jumped; instead looking to see who entered. Venus trotted into the room with two of her lackeys, giggling as she looked in at them.
"Helloooooo!"
Rui glared at Venus. Out of all the Cipher Admins, Venus was the one who she loathed the most.
Wes merely looked as if a he had a serious headache.
The Admin peered at them, her eyes bold behind her pink veil as she sized up Wes, and dismissive as she glanced briefly at Rui. "So now we have both of you at the lab! How cute! You two kiddies were at the top of our black list, you know!"
Rui folded her arms, still glowering at the woman. "Why don't you get back to shopping and leave us alone, Venus? It's not like you were any good at Pokemon battles."
Venus sputtered for a moment. "You insolent little girl! How dare you mock me!"
Unimpressed, Rui held her ground. "It's the truth."
"Little brat! I hope they take revenge on you, too!" Tearfully, Venus spun around and left, her Peons half-running to catch up with her, slamming the door behind them.
Wes stared at Rui, slightly surprised—when had she gotten so bold? May must have been rubbing off on her...
Rui blushed slightly, seeing him staring. "I just wanted her to go away."
"Me too," he agreed lightly, and Rui swore she could detect a faint note of amusement in his voice.
May stuck close to Brenden as she followed him through the tight gap between two grimey buildings. They had followed Wes's look-alike after he had left the lab in the desert the day before, tailing him through Pyrite, only to discover that he was planning on spending the night deep in a network of alleys that were even more gloomy than the ones in Phenac.
The next morning, Shady had disappeared belowground.
Carefully, the two Hoenn Trainers had followed him, riding the big elevator down. May's guidebook of Orre didn't have much to say on the town called the Under, only cautioning tourists against wandering through the town without a local who knew where they were going. Grimly, they had taken this in consideration.
"We'll follow Shady as far as we can go," Brenden had decided at last as they rode the elevator down. "We have our Pokemon if anyone tries anything, and we can always find our way out somehow if we get lost."
Now they watched from the shadows of the neon lights as Shady boarded a hovering contraption of sorts and disappeared over the edge of the huge abyss, descending downwards. Once they were sure that he was not going to be coming back up, May and Brenden approached the platform that hung dangerously out over the void.
"We need some kind of disk," May said, sounding disappointed as she examined the control pannel as the hovering contraption arrived, empty, to wait beside the platform for its next passengers.
"This is probably what that book meant about not coming down here without a local," Brenden muttered, momentarily defeated. He looked across the chasm. "See, there's where the Poke Center is. And probably the Colosseum."
"We can't Fly down, either," May added. "We'd crash—it's too dark. And Flash would probably seriously annoy the residents, which is not what we want to do."
"Not to mention call way too much attention to ourselves," Brenden said dryly. He sighed. "Well, it looks like this is it. We can't follow Shady any farther without a disk, like you mentioned."
May looked put out. "We're useless after all...I wish we had one of those disks!"
Brenden nodded, also feeling useless.
"You need a disk?"
Brenden and May turned to see a young girl standing at the foot of the platform, watching them curiously. A Shroomish stood beside her, blinking up at them.
"Yes," May said at once, smiling at the girl. "We're not from here. Do you have one we could borrow? We really need to go down on this thing." She motioned behind them.
The girl looked at them skeptically. "You need a D-Disk?"
"Yes," Brenden said with a shrug when May looked to him for an answer. "Please."
"Well..." She seemed to consider them. "I don't have any disks with me, but my brother Nett should have them all. Want to come to my house and see if he'll lend you a D-Disk?"
May nodded. "Yeah! Thanks a lot. We really need one of those things...a D-Disk."
She gave them a smile. "You seemed like you were really upset. Follow me."
The two Hoenn natives exchanged brief glances before following the girl and her Shroomish, disappearing into the gloom of the Under.
Yay for Nett!
I feel incredibly stupid, but...
Does anyone know off the top of their head the name of Nett's sister?! (weak laugh) I can't remember it for the life of me, and I'm not at liberty to go look it up in the game as of right now. And...um...is she even his sister...?
...That's pretty pathetic. And here I am trying to write a decent story. (smack)
(sweat-drop) 8D