SailorStar9:With Chapter 80 uploaded, this is Chapter 81 of this fic. For everyone who put this fic on your favorited and followed lists and/or story alerts, thank you, but remember everyone, a lot of authors (myself included) sustain on readers' reviews.
Pairings: Established!Zen/Ami, Established!Rikuo/Hotaru
Disclaimers: This fic idea and the Rikuo/Hotaru pairing belong to Pavel123; I only own the plot idea and the main pairing. Anything else belong to their respective owners.
Chapter 81: Sunny Skies After a Storm! A Friendship Dedicated to Hotaru
"Hotaru!" Chibi-Usa beamed as she and Usagi was clamoring over Mamoru to take them on a picnic in an accessories store. "Wait, the two of you!" she hurried out of the shop when Hotaru pulled Rikuo off. "We're friends, right?"
In Mistress Nine's room...
"Release my powers." Mistress Nine droned. "Hurry. Can you not hear the voices of time calling for me?"
"Let us hurry, using the Pure Hearts of humans." Professor Tomoe declared.
The next day...
"Hotaru can't come, after all." Chibi-Usa sighed, seeing no sign of Hotaru or Rikuo, the pink-haired girl having personally delivered the picnic invite the previous day.
"Chibi-Usa." Luna whispered.
"Hotaru, Rikuo." Chibi-Usa spotted the pair leaning against a lamppost. "The two of you came."
In the local botanical garden...
"This place is huge." Chibi-Usa gushed at the vast field of grass before them.
"Looks like we got stuck with chaperon duty again." Zen remarked, he and Ami were watching the group from a distance.
"You make it sound like a bad thing." Ami teased.
"A senpai from my school works here." Mamoru explained, leading the girls into the greenhouse. "He's a botanist, with his lifework being his research on roses."
In the Witches Five lair...
"Yes, Professor?" Mimete took the call.
"Mimete, what is your favorite color for roses?" Professor Tomoe asked.
"If I could have any, it would be a million red roses." Mimete gushed.
"Improving and breeding of roses is a job that requires good sense and patience." Professor Tomoe stated, spraying red coloring on the potted yellow rose on his work desk. "There apparently is a botanist with good results in that field, I take it?"
"That must be an owner of a Pure Heart." Mimete concluded and pulled out Kurebayashi Yoshiki's profile. "The target has been determined."
In the greenhouse...
"This is beautiful." Mamoru looked around at the rows of roses planted inside the greenhouse.
"Is that you, Mamoru?" Kurebayashi stood up from his gardening. "How're you?"
"Papa!" the group of children ran towards their father, lunchbox in hand.
"So many!" Usagi gawked at the six kids hanging on Kurebayashi's arms.
"There's even more of them." even Mamoru was shocked.
In the grass field...
"How goes the research for new types of roses?" Mamoru asked, the slightly enlarged group had settled in for lunch.
"I think I'm almost there." Kurebayashi replied.
"Rikuo?" Hotaru spotted her partner cast a frown at the greenhouse. "What's wrong?"
"It's probably nothing." the bespectacled teen went back to the bento box he and Hotaru packed earlier that day.
After lunch...
"Almost every variety of rose growing in Japan are planted in this greenhouse." Kurebayashi introduced the group to his workplace.
"Amazing." Chibi-Usa gawked. "And they're all so beautiful."
"Other than these, many different types of roses have been grown, thanks to improvements made by them. These are topical plants." Kurebayashi opened the glass door to the inner parts of the greenhouse. "Come over here."
"Let's go." Chibi-Usa tugged Hotaru's sleeve.
"We want to explore a little more." Rikuo spoke. "Go on ahead."
"Yikes, it's going to rain." Rikuo winced, seeing the overcast clouds in the sky.
"Rikuo!" Zen called out, dashing into the greenhouse with Ami in tow.
"Zen?" Rikuo blinked.
"It won't do you any good to get out now." Ami looked up as hailstones started pummeling the roof.
In the interior of the greenhouse...
"This is bad." Kurebayashi realized as the glass roof panels started breaking. Hurrying off to the outer portion of the greenhouse, he started patching up a broken glass with a wooden panel when a flying stick knocked the step ladder he was standing on from under his feet.
"Work is work." Mimete started. "The path of chief executive is more important. I'll take your Pure Heart." she pointed to Kurebayashi. "Appear, Daimon." she summoned the Daimon she brought with her.
Grabbing Kurebayashi by the shirt, U-Baulla proceeded to extract Kurebayashi's Heart Crystal.
"A Daimon." Hotaru gasped, seeing U-Baulla. "Ami-san."
"Understood." Ami nodded. "Mercury Planet Power, Make Up!"
"Saturn Planet Power, Make Up!"
"Blizzard Wind!" Sailor Mercury wasted no time in casting her icy gale at the Daimon.
"Whatever happened to the 'In the name of the moon' speech?" Mimete whined.
"That's Sailor Moon's gag." Sailor Mercury replied. "I'd rather not give enemies a heads up."
"U-Baulla, kill every last one of them." Mimete demanded.
Growing thorns from her legs, the Daimon shattered the ice that imprisoned her. Using her hands, she grew the yellow rose on her head and moved to attack the two Senshi.
"Death Scythe!" taking aim, Sailor Saturn released her death energy blade at the Daimon's rose.
"I'm wilting..." the Daimon choked, the color had fled from her features.
"Mercury Guardian Power!" Sailor Mercury took it up the next level. "Hailstorm Burst!" she took out the Daimon with a blast of ice shards.
"You'll all pay for this!" Mimete shrieked and made her getaway.
SailorStar9: Well, this chapter is done. Thoughts, reviews, anyone?