Pokémon World Online

Part 21: The Underground

Disclaimer: I don't own the idea of the underground or its members. Drix owns those. Yep, another part that doesn't continue the PWO Corp scene. Aren't I the worst? Anyways, I've been spitting these parts out lately: 3 well, as for dedications, I'm dedicating this part to Drix for the underground and the ideas and to Poland because it's not boring. Yep, now onwards to more PWO goodness. And this one is safe for all ages once more. No more limey things from me in PWO again. I'm typing this while eating a plum XD

Oh and I have a shirt I got from a camp that says "The Underground" on it (twas the theme of the camp) so I have deemed it my unofficial PWO Underground shirt. I'm wearing it right now :D okay, enough ranting for now, onwards to the fic.

ooo

Drix closed his eyes, enjoying the wind that rushed by his face, causing his purple hair to whip violently about his head. He had to hand it to PWO Corp; they made very realistic effects and spared no details in their game. Pokémon World Online was rather pricey, but the money was well worth it. "Land down there," Drix coaxed his Salamance, petting her neck. Her smooth, blue scales shimmered in the early morning sunlight as she flew gracefully through the sky. Salamance growled softly to show that she had heard and began her descent. Drix never used Salamance for battling much anymore, preferring to battle on his own, but the dragoness was really special to him. He didn't know what he would do if anything happened to her.

Salamance landed in front of a rundown shack near Greensboro City. She looked up at him as he slid off her back. He patted her head and gave her a treat from his inventory. Salamance took the treat and ate it in one quick bite. Drix waved to his dragoness as she took off back to the skies. He stood watching her wheel through the sky before entering the shack. He remembered that as a Bagon she had always dreamed of flying. She often flung herself from high places in hopes that she had learned a trick or two, but was always woken to reality when she crashed into the ground. It had been difficult raising her, but in the end it had been so rewarding and he wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

Drix entered the shack and walked over to a small console mounted on one of the walls. He typed in a password and the wall began to move back, revealing a spiraling staircase. Drix began the descent, darkness swallowing him the further down he went. Above him, the wall moved back into place, closing off the exit. He was unphased by this and continued down the stairs until he finally reached the bottom. Drix opened the door in front of him and stepped inside. As soon as he did, he heard a soft whistling of a dart. He lazily moved his head aside as a dart struck the wall where his head had been moments before. "Damn it, Drix!" a woman with flaming red hair looked up at Drix with a face full of anger, a blow pipe clutched in her right hand. She was wearing a yellow half shirt that clung closely to her body and short shorts that matched. Beside her, her Shuckle was slithering over to her.

"Oh hello, Luna," Drix said with a yawn.

"Don't you take that casual tone with your superior. We don't see you around the underground for weeks and then you think you can just saunter your way in here." Luna glared at him. Quick as a flash, Drix had his sword drawn and pressed to the young herbalist's throat.

"Superior, eh?" Drix smirked, letting the blade go and grinning at the look of terror that had just crossed Luna's face. "I'm a member of the top ten and I've agreed to help out with the Twilmer mission despite how much I can't stand that little fuzz ball of an admin. I'd keep your mouth shut if I were you." Luna gulped, but her usual annoyed expression crossed her face. She humphed and walked away with her nose in the air, Shuckle slithering behind her.

"Drix!" Drix heard his name chorused. He looked up to see the infamous mage twins, Shi and Sho. Their Kirlias waved at Drix. He waved at them with a smile. He always liked the twins. They were really easygoing and easy to get along with.

"How have you two been?" Drix asked.

"We've been great," Shi began

"but it's been really weird without you here," Sho continued

"everyday like you used to be." Shi finished.

Shi and Sho would often finish each other's sentences and speak almost as if they were one. "I've been busy taking care of some business topside, but I had a bit of a break today, so I thought I would update Maple on the mission. Do you know where he is?"

"He's in his office," Shi pointed further down one of the lavishly decorated halls.

"Though be careful, he hasn't been in the best mood." Sho added. Drix nodded and continued on his way.

Drix opened Maple's door and casually slinked in, shutting it behind him. "Who's that?" Maple looked up from his stack of paperwork. "Oh, Drix, what in the hell are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be with the admin." Maple's light brown, long hair hung in his face as he began scribbling on a piece of paper in front of him.

"I came to update you on the situation and since when has it been a crime to see my old buddy?" Drix smirked, leaning on Maple's desk. Maple ignored him and continued his scribbling. Drix sighed and turned to face the opposite wall, looking at a painting of an Ursaring.

"You know," Maple said, still scribbling away, "I'm not the leader of the underground's top nine. You need to share information with Serena before coming to me."

"So that's how it is." Drix turned to leave. He had his hand on the door knob when Maple called for him to wait. Drix smirked, but made sure he had a straight face before turning to face Maple.

"I'm sorry, I'm just so stressed form all of this paperwork. I'm not sure what is going on, but Serena has us working like dogs, well, except you. A lot of the nine have bad feelings towards you because of this." Maple looked up at him, green eyes flickering in the light of the candle on his desk.

"You think having to listen to that brat is easy? It's taking all of my willpower to not take my sword to that egotistical prick." Anger flashed before Drix's eyes, but he remained calm.

"I'm sorry," Maple dropped his pen on the desk and held his head in his hands. "My brain has turned to mush from all of this stupid paper work. And here I was thinking that I could play PWO as an escape from real life." Maple laughed as did Drix. This was the old Maple he knew.

"Is this about Twilmer or the glitch?" Drix asked, leaning against the desk.

"Actually, it's about Dream," Drix nearly slid off the desk. "As you reported to us, she escaped with Arceus. Both are intractable glitches that shouldn't even exist in the first place and apparently they are complete opposites. Heh, it's almost like one is Satan and the other god. Anyways, I shouldn't say anymore as Serena wants to be the one to make all the big revelations." Maple rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, when's that meeting starting? I would like to get back as soon as possible. You know the one time I'm away from Twilmer's rag tag group will be the one time something goes wrong."

"Hmm," Maple looked at his watch and laughed, "the meeting should be starting about now. We better go to the meeting room or Serena will have our heads." The two men walked out of Maple's office and walked to the end of the hall where a pair of grand doors stood. Several players bustled about, however only eight were gathered at the doors, which wouldn't open until Serena commanded them to do so. While the underground was a rather large faction of gamers, only nine of them held any power and out of those nine, only Serena knew all the secrets of the complex system. The underground used to have a boss, however he quit playing one day unexpectedly and the group hadn't heard anything from him in over a year, and so the duties of the underground fell to her.

The twins, Shi and Sho, were waiting in the corner. They were amusing themselves by creating blue flames from their staffs. Their Kirlia clapped as they performed and those gathered laughed, including Luna. "It appears Serena is running late," a gruff voice spoke behind them. Drix turned to find Midget and his Machoke. Midget was a gamer who had accidentally set his height code much lower than it should've been. He always sat on the shoulder of his Machoke unless he needed to fight. He was one of the nine since he could fit into small place and easily hide to dig up information for the underground. No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than the doors swung open, revealing a large round table of white marble. Nine handsome leather chairs surrounded the table and in one of them was a strong young woman. She sat calmly, her Roserade at her side.

"Ahh, it's Queen Serena and the gamers of the round table time again," Ziac, a male swordsman with a large build, joked. Shi and Sho laughed while Luna merely looked annoyed. Ziac was often described as the loveable idiot of the group and always managed to bring a few laughs in a desperate situation; something Serena and their previous boss had found invaluable.

"Xate, bring the minutes form the last meeting here," Serena ordered in her dangerously calm voice. Green hair snaked down her back like vines on a great oak. Xate, an item hunter who hid behind his Lucario mask and didn't have a partner of his own at the moment, nodded and brought the notes over to Serena as the rest took their seats. Drix saw, to his displeasure, that he was seated next to Luna. "Okay," Serena said, silence instantly falling across the room. She leaned her grace master staff against the table as she stood, looking each of the eight gathered before her in the eye, save Xate who always wore his mask. "Last meeting we discussed Drix going to accompany the newest admin on her journey to fix a glitch on Firewall. The motion was passed and now Drix has been with Twilmer for a couple of weeks. How's that been going?"

Serena was one of the only people whom Drix would obey outright without question. "It's been okay. Twilmer annoys the shit out of me, but the rest of her party isn't that bad. There's this herbalist who I swear is gay, but apparently he and Twilmer have something going on. Then there's a tamer, the one I've submitted notes on as the Play Boy Bunneary, who could be a n00b, but she's a pretty decent tamer. Than there's Aura..." Drix trailed off. He felt Luna's glare on him, but he ignored it.

"Aura?" he heard several gasp around the table. Aura's reputation preceded her, apparently. Serena held up her hand for silence and was immediately obeyed.

"Aura's on her party? You failed to submit notes on this piece of information." Serena's cold blue eyes focused on Drix.

"Yes, I know, but Aura was fully aware I was submitting information to some outside source, I believe. I know she was keeping a close eye on me, so I decided to not submit her name in case she had someone intercepting my messages, which she would be perfectly capable of doing. She has the largest array of contacts I've ever seen, though I could probably take her. She has never once beaten me in a fight." Drix leaned back arrogantly in his chair.

"You also forget to mention that you've never beaten her either," Luna shot back causing Drix to nearly fall out of his chair. "I bet you just wanted to tell us this information yourself because you're so arrogant. Or," Luna looked thoughtful, and then grinned evilly, "you wanted to protect her because you have feelings for her."

"That is going too far," Drix frowned at Luna, hand traveling down to the hilt of his sword.

"Peace," Serena said, slightly bored.

"If you ask me, it sounds like Luna has a small liking for Drix," Ziac put a hand to his chin with a grin, "What's that old saying? You always hurt the ones you love."

"Shut up before my darts make you shut up," Luna growled, placing a hand on her blow pipe. Ziac held up his hands for peace and cleared his throat.

"Peace," Serena said once again, holding up her hand. "I am disappointed that you didn't relay this information, but you had your reasons, as idiotic as they were. Anyways, the reason we are gathered here today is that the two intractable have been spotted together by one of our members traveling to Firewall where the glitch is located. I don't like the idea of those two anywhere together let alone where the glitch is located. Maple and I have researched a few options as to why she is near the glitch. I believe we both found that Arceus being there has no bearings on anything, but Dream is a problem."

Maple stood and cleared his throat, "Yes, well, we figured Twilmer would probably have to go back to Firewall to fix that glitch. As we all know, Dream and Twilmer are as opposite as two people can get except for the fact that both of them share an unnatural affinity for this game. If Dream is waiting at Firewall for Twilmer, than nothing good can come of the situation, plus our own personal interests in Twilmer will be down the toilet."

"That is where you come in, Drix." Serena turned her eyes to him. "We can't have Twilmer avoiding Firewall altogether because she won't do it as she's very self reliant, and Dream will find a way to get to her no matter what. We need you to make sure that she goes to Firewall after she'd done with PWO Corp. It's not that far away and I believe you can make it seem like the next logical course of action quite easily."

"Can do," Drix saluted.

"There's a lot more information to go over; however I must cut this meeting short as I have to go to work. If anyone has any questions, Xate has the meeting minutes and Maple's and my notes." Serena stood, as did the other eight. They bowed to her as she and her Roserade disappeared.

"Well, that didn't take as long as I thought. Twilmer can't possibly have messed anything up in this short amount of time, can she?" Drix stood to leave and jumped aside as another flurry of darts flew past him.

"Damn you, Drix!" Luna shouted, brushing past him and out the door.

"What's with her?" Drix wondered aloud. Shi, Sho, and their Kirlia waved before teleporting out of the room. Xate walked silently from the room with a stack of papers.

"Love, mate. She loves you," Ziac joked before leaving with Midget.

"Sorry, but I've already got my mind set on someone," Drix thought to himself as he left the meeting room, Maple beside him.

ooo

End Part 21

Short, but there wasn't much to it except explaining a few things and tying plot together. Alright, this is the last of the filler parts. Next one will continue where I left off three parts ago.