Planeswalker test? Whazzat?

"What's a planeswalker test?" Rigel asked his navi as they entered the testing room. "And why did we have to go through half the hallways in the colosseum just to get to it?"

"I'm not sure, but it looked a lot more interesting than sitting around waiting on the NetPolice to ask us to do something."

"I'll give you that much," sighed Rigel, waiting for his teammate for this thing. According to the registration board, her name was Area D-wait a minute, it couldn't be. Could it?

"What do you mean 'no entrance without papers'!?" shouted Area at the top of her lungs against a receptionist sitting behind a desk, "I'm here for some Planeswalker test! My name is Area Darkholme!" "The modelling agency is out of this door and to your left... Then walk down the stree--" "--STOP! I'm here to NetBattle for some test... If you just could check my name, you'd see I'm good here." Area muttered to herself for a few seconds before the receptionist started to speak to her again, "Could I see your PET?" "Yeah yeah," Area had immediately replied while holding out her PET. "Oh, you ARE correct here..." said the receptionist with a lazy tone as she handed back the PET. Snatching the PET out of her hands, she snarled as if she were a wild tiger and walked off after showing her PET to a security agent again. "They don't get a lot of visitors here," muttered Area as she continued to walk and look for her companion. "I better hope this Duke guy isn't really a duke. I'd so loathe that..."

"He isn't that bad," Divinity said as she pointed at a person in the distance, "That's him." "How the heaven are you supposed to know?" Area said as she glared at Divinity. "Database within my brains!" Divinity said, standing proud with her hands against her hips, "I am intelligent!" "Yeah yeah... Excuse me?" she started as she looked at the person, "Are you Duke Rigel?"

That's her, alright, Rigel said, spotting Area from a distance. Soryu's sister, and a sure candidate for most attractive netbattler in the last ever. Better not worry about that, though. Last thing I needs is a fight when we're supposed to be teaming up.

"Yes, that's me," said Rigel calmly when asked if he was Duke Rigel. "Area Darkholme, I presume?"

"That would be me, yes..." she said as she looked at Duke from top to toe. She started to speak to him again as she smirked slightly, "Heh, you're older than I expected. Shall we get on the Net then?" She slowly walked over to the nearest spot where she saw a plug-in slot, but then turned to Duke. "Or are we supposed to plug in at a specific place? This is new to me, I could get to the battle terrain from ACDC with that whole Cyber Beast mess," she said as she waved her hand through the air as if she was erasing the memories of the Cyber Beast battles. "So, got any ideas?"

"Did you expect someone say...only 15 years old?" remarked Rigel, also smirking. "Anyway, I was directed here, and that was about it. So I'm assuming we're just supposed to plug in here."

Rigel pressed a button on his PET, sending Pianissimo back into the net.
"I'm pretty sure this is the place," came a quiet voice from the PET's speakers.
"Well, that was the easy," said Rigel, smiling pleasantly.

"If it's that easy..." muttered Area as she stood a bit closer to Duke so he could hear her but others couldn't, "Maybe stealing some information from them will be possible in the future." Snickering softly, she sent Divinity into the Net to get on with the so-called Planeswalker test.

"Divinity, let's go." "Got it!" "Divinity.EXE, transmission."

"Funny you should mention that..." said Rigel softly, recalling having to do just that more than once in the past. "I may end up having to do that again myself."

"Duke," Area started as she put the PET in the pocket of her jacket, while Divinity's hologram appeared on Area's shoulder, "We are going to buy some stuff. We'll be back soon." Area turned away from him and started to run to the exit. Eventually she disappeared from sight as she ended up outside and in a bus headed for the SciLabs.

She stepped through the entrance again with a wide grin on her face as a flying Divinity floated closely above her shoulder. "Duke," she said as she stood next to him again, "This time... You'll really see a fight." As she said these words, she tilted her head so that he could only see one of her eyes from a side while the shadow from her hair fell upon it and a wide grin under her face that almost looked like it could belong to a demon. She held the PET out towards the device before them and sent Divinity into the mainframe of the Colosseum.

"I should certainly hope so," Rigel said, eyes narrowing in response to Area's seemingly demonic grin. It was a good thing he and Pianissimo had finished talking several minutes before. "I guess this is where the fun starts, then."

Rigel sighed as he jacked Pianissimo out. The way he said his parting lines to Divinity, it seemed like he WANTED to team up again before their mission. But since he had no romantic interest whatsoever and rarely held on to allies, why would he want to...?

Then it hit him. Oh for the love of...he's actually going to do it, isn't he. I mean...Area's really hot, and she's...well, she's less of a bitch than that psycho chick Mysterioso faced all those years ago, but...I probably wouldn't stand a chance with Area anyway. Oh well, I can always try.

Rigel got up and started towards the exit before deciding to go ahead and do it. She couldn't hate him for wanting to team up again, could she? "Hey..." he said, trying to mask any tone in his voice. "I'm not planning on starting that huge mission just yet, unless that Espial guy gets impatient. I don't suppose you'd want to team up a little longer in the meantime, would you?"

Putting the new chip data on empty chips, she softly hummed while Divinity was sitting on her shoulder in her hologram mode. Area put the new chips in her pack before taking off towards the exit. Walking next to Duke, not noticing it entirely, she suddenly heard him talk. Area just kept on walking, while Divinity looked over her shoulder to look at Duke, and eventually ceased walking as he ended with the question. Some air escaped her lips in a soft sigh as she turned towards Duke with a hand on her hip and her head tilted slightly to a side.

"Where do you suggest we go? I can wait a bit longer with my homework, but not too long. I've done a large part already and I could ask Soryu to help me with if it gets harder than expected," Area said while keeping her eyes at Duke, "So where do we go? And I'd like to go home first to change my clothes. I also need to tell Soryu I'm going somewhere temporarily... After all, I do the cooking at our house. Soryu cooking for himself would be similar to suicide..." She sighed after saying this, noticing she's been talking too long already and kept her mouth shut while waiting for Duke's response.

Rigel obviously hadn't thought that far ahead yet. Where would they go. ACDC, Electown, and Scilabs were always too crowded, he still remembered some rather bad experiences in Yoka, and Pianissimo would probably find a way to kill him if he suggested Sharo again. This left a few other countries that he hadn't visited in years. Remembering a strong dislike of Netopia and the severe heat of Netfrica, he made his decision. "How about...Yumland?"

Rigel chuckled slightly when he heard the comment about Soryu cooking. He couldn't remember, but he was pretty sure Soryu had said something regarding that once. Pianissimo's hologram appeared, not life size as usual, but small enough to stand on Rigel's shoulder, where it leaned against his head and looked blankly toward Area and Divinity.

"Fine by me. Where will we meet up in Yumland? I'm not really interested in taking you to my home if I'm only going to change clothes..." she muttered while squinting her eyes slightly at Duke. Divinity laughed softly and then noticed Pianissimo appearing too as hologram form. She waved at him, holding her hand above her head. "Hey, Pianissimo! Looks like we'll be meeting each other sooner than we expected!"

Area turned her head away from Divinity and muttered at her with a sly grin on her lips, "What about that other guy we met online...? Forgotten about him already?" Divinity stuck her tongue out at Area as reply and crossed her arms while turning her head away from Area's.

"Anyway, Duke..." started Area again, "Where do we meet? Know any places in Yumland?"

Rigel rolled his eyes at Area's comment. Of course she wouldn't take someone home just so she could change close, it was practically ASKING for someone to...well...

This did of course leave a problem. Rigel hadn't been to Yumland since the tournament, seven years ago, and the site of that probably didn't exist anymore. Not only that, he wasn't sure Area had been there. Then he thought of something. He could always move his portable shelter and use that. It had enough room in it for someone else to be in there, but not for someone else to live in there, so it could work.

Pianissimo folded his arms and closed his eyes, waiting for Rigel to answer, before hearing Divinity calling over to him. He raised one arm, waved it slightly, then lowered it again. A slight smirk crossed his face as he did so.

"I've got it," Rigel said to Area at last. He pressed a button on his PET, which projected a second hologram. It was a blue box-like structure, big enough in reality to fit a small room inside but projected to only be a cubic foot in size. Its appearance was rather unremarkable, mostly plain with a door on one side. "Look for this, I'll set it up just outside the airport. It's rather plain, yes, but they aren't designed to be fancy."

Rigel gave Area a parting wave and smiled as he said "I'll meet you there then, I guess." He then walked out of the colosseum and caught the metroline to ACDC. Once there, the first thing he noticed was that Aida was gone, but assumed that was only natural. He himself had left saying "I'll be back soon, maybe" about a day ago, maybe more. Nonetheless, he packed up the portable shelter and once again boarded the metroline to the airport.

Both of them listened to Duke talking patiently and waved back as he left them alone. A few seconds later after Duke had entirely left from their sight they glared at each other with squinted eyes. "Don't say it," muttered Area as the two kept glaring at one another. "Did he just-" "No." Area's answer was even before Divinity could finish her sentence. "But I really think-" "Shut up," muttered Area again and started to walk towards the exit. Both remained quiet after this, deep in thought about what had been said and what would be said in the near future.

"He invited you to his 'house'?" muttered Divinity eventually, still sitting on Area's shoulder, "He really did, didn't he...?" Area kept quiet and looked straight forward while Divinity kept talking to her. "You know what he is thinking! Don't go! Don't do it! Weren't you saving your body for-" and before she could finish her last sentence, she was muted by the PET as Area pressed a button. A second later, Divinity's hologram disappeared and returned in the screen of the PET. "I'll bring along my fists... Don't worry..." she muttered, squinting her eyes slightly while looking over her glasses.