Libris Demonica


Chapter 6


by Weirdbard



Sailor Moon sneaking into the temple grounds found them empty. She didn't even spot Chad or Raye's grandfather anywhere.


"Perfect!" she thought to herself. Quietly she made her way to the main sitting room. The very place where she had been confronted by the scouts that morning. Not knowing why she did it, Sailor Moon quickly removed the book from it's bag and placed it propped up on a small table along one wall. Looking around once more she then de-transformed back into Serena and collapsed to the floor. Emotional and physical exhaustion were quickly sapping her strength.


Hearing a crackling and popping noise Serena glanced out through a open door and saw the Sacred Fire burning in it's special room.


"I haven't come anywhere safe! I have come to the most dangerous place I could possible choose! Why did I come here?!" Serena gasped to herself remembering the dream about Raye's plans to burn her alive in the Sacred Fire.


Leaping to her feet, her heart beating almost out of control, Serena started to flee out of the temple but was stopped when she heard the sounds of someone coming in. Trying to swallow her fear she then turned to run out through the Sacred Fire room but heard sounds of someone coming in from that way as well. Now completely trapped Serena looked for a place to hide but the large room was empty of everything except cushions to sit on and the one lone table she had set the book on. Shrinking back against the wall the table was sitting on Serena prepared herself to face her former friends.


Mars came in from the Sacred Fire room. She knew her grandfather had taken Chad out on some kind of survival training in the wilderness and wouldn't be back for a week so she didn't bother to change back to Raye. As she entered the room she actually missed seeing Serena almost tucked into a ball with fear near the back wall.


Sailor Mini Moon coming in the other door to the room however didn't.


"Momma!" She yelled out in joy causing the other scouts coming in to swiftly glance in the direction Mini Moon was looking.


Mini Moon charged across the room, intent on throwing her arms around her mother. However as soon as she reached the red hazy bubble she bounced off as though she had hit a brick wall and landed on her butt.


"Serena!" Darien and the rest yelled and raced towards her as well.


Inside the distortion field what Serena saw and heard was all of the Scouts racing toward her with blood lust in their eyes and shouting.


"There she is! Kill her! Kill her now!"


Serena shrank back till she could feel the edge of the table behind her pressing against the back of her neck and sobbed. "Just tell me what I did! Why do you all hate me so now?! Please tell me! I will change!" She cried.


Tuxedo Mask wanting to comfort his sobbing love reached out for her but was repelled by the bubble. To Serena's eyes it looked like he was reaching to strangle her but pulled back at the last moment with a sadistic sneer on his face.


"Serena what's wrong?!" Darien shouted to her.


To Serena what she heard was. "Serena you are going to die today!"


Suddenly behind the scouts a portal opened and out came Sailor Pluto. Darien in worry and shock by how Serena was now quaking in fear turned to Pluto. "What's wrong with her?!"


"It's the book behind her. It is controlling what she is hearing and seeing." Sailor Pluto explained.


Tuxedo Mask and the rest of the scouts glanced past Serena to where the book was propped up on the table. The book's eyes were open glowing a malevolent red and it's mouth was open revealing rows of tiny sharp looking teeth. As they watched the book hissed at them. In the sudden joy of finding Serena alive and in the temple they hadn't even noticed the hideous book till Pluto pointed it out to them.


Tuxedo Mask whipped out a rose and with a single gesture flung it at the book. Sailor Mars having the same idea a moment sooner had already shouted. "Flame Sniper Arrow!" And launched her own attack. Pluto's warning yell of "NO!" came too late.


The flame arrow being faster than Tuxedo Mask's rose flew straight at the book, reaching the barely seen red bubble first. As the flame arrow hit the bubble it's flight suddenly bent almost 20 degrees and now instead of flying toward the book was headed directly at Serena.


To Serena's eyes it looked like Mars had deliberately fired the arrow at her. With a squeal of shock and fear Serena desperately threw herself to the side to avoid the attack but the arrow still hit her in the shoulder burning her shoulder badly.


Tuxedo Mask's rose was only slightly behind Mars' fire arrow. As soon as Darien saw Mars' arrow get turned he tried to recall his rose but it was far too late. The rose entered the bubble and just like Mars' arrow was redirected at Serena.


Serena didn't have long to think about the fact that someone she loved as a sister had just tried to kill her because she could see Tuxedo Mask's rose heading for her as well. Throwing out her hand in a stop gesture she was barely able to intercept the rose as it headed for her chest. Intercepted it by having the rose plunge into the palm of her hand and the stem of the rose shoot out the back of her hand.


All of the scouts gasped in horror and Mini Moon started crying as Serena turned her hand and stared at the rose embedded into her right hand in shock. Tuxedo Mask's roses were shaped and changed by his feelings. They could be as soft and thornless as cotton if he was giving them to his loved ones or sharp and as deadly as any knife. Since he had intended that rose for the book it was razor sharp and had vicious thorns all along it's stem. Tuxedo Mask's horror that he almost caused the death of the woman he would love for all eternity caused the red rose head to turn black and wither instantly.


Serena, her eyes still wide with disbelief and shock reached over with her left hand and grasping the rose behind it's now withered and dead blossom suddenly jerked the rose out of her hand with one quick pull. All of the scouts winced in pain and grief for their princess as they heard her let out one tiny whimper of pain as the rose tore out of her hand to be followed by a spurt of blood.


Serena continued to hold her hand up looking at the bloody hole and watching the blood pour down her arm.


"Darien just tried to kill me." She kept thinking over and over again in her mind.


Behind her the book's eyes were almost rolling up in it's 'head' in ecstasy at the fear and pain energy radiating off of Serena.


Inside the distortion bubble Serena looked up at the crying scouts but to her eyes they were laughing and cheering.


Now experts who study people's minds will tell you there is something called, 'Flight or fight response.' What this basically means is that when someone is faced with a life or death struggle they will either flee from the situation if they can or fight to the death. Serena was trapped. She couldn't flee so that left only one last choice.


Grasping her broach with her ruined right hand, Serena grimly called out. "Moon Prism Makeup!" After she finished transforming Sailor Moon moved her left hand from behind her back revealed the Spiral Heart Moon Wand. The most powerful weapon she had.


"No Sailor Moon!" Mercury cried. "The book is playing with your mind! We are your friends!"


Uranus also called out. "Don't do this Moonface!"


Pluto said. "Fight the control the book has over you. Let us help you!"


Inside the distortion bubble what Sailor Moon heard was.


From Mercury. "Oh look the idiot is going to use her toy on us."


From Pluto. "Even if you get one of us. The rest will still get you!"


From Uranus. "I don't think you can do it! You don't have what it takes to hurt one of us."


Sailor Moon could feel her muscles tense to do the spin to summon the power. The words were in her mind. She had used this weapon hundreds of times before but suddenly her arms went limp and allowed the wand to point harmlessly at the ground.


"You are right Uranus. Even though you all hate me now. Even though you all want me dead now. I still love each and everyone of you like sisters. I can't bring myself to harm any of you even at the cost of my own life." Serena opened her hand allowing the wand to fall from her grasp. Before the wand could hit the floor however it slide back into the subspace pocket it came from. Waiting till the next time it's mistress summoned it for help again.


The book had weakened the bubble around Serena in preparation for her attack to go through it against the other scouts and was unprepared for Sailor Moon's next desperate act.
Since Serena had decided to pass on the 'fight' aspect of survival, 'flight' came back again. With a sudden jump backwards Sailor moon landed on the low table and without pause then used it as a spring board and leapt forward over the heads of the scouts grouped around the edges of the bubble. As soon as her feet hit the ground she was out the door and gone.


Tuxedo Mask, Mini Moon and the other scouts stood still in double shock. First from Serena's injuries due to Mars fire arrow and Tuxedo Mask's rose and then from her almost attack on them and were caught flat footed as Sailor Moon ran out of the temple for her life.


The scouts immediately turned to follow her but was stopped by Pluto. "No we must destroy that book first!"


As the scouts turned back towards the book they were met with the sight of the wall behind the book shimmering as though it was water. Suddenly a hole appeared in the wall and with a laugh that left a chill in all their blood, the book flipped up into the hole and was gone. A second later the hole shrank to a pinpoint and was gone leaving a perfectly normal looking wall once again.


"Dammit!" The normally cool and collected Pluto swore. "It must have collected enough energy off of Serena to open a portal to somewhere."



Sailor Moon ran. She ran desperately, fearfully. Even though she was now no longer under the book's direct influence, she didn't have to be anymore. All her doubts about whether the scouts were out to kill her had been settled and settled most convincingly. All she had to do was look down at her still bleeding right hand or her burned right shoulder for that. In her transformed state, her increased healing abilities were already sealing off the hole in her hand and healing the burns on her shoulder. Soon all that would be left would be a small pink scar in the center of her hand....... and a huge hole in her heart. The man she would have died for. Would have killed for. Had just tried to kill her while her friends looked on and laughed.


Sailor Moon, her eyes blinded by tears ran home. Home to gather some things together so she could disappear. Leave Japan and try to lose her now blood thirsty ex friends.



After the book made it's escape, the scouts quickly ran outside but Sailor Moon was long gone. While the others stood around wondering which way she could have went, Mini Moon took off on her own. She knew where Serena would go. She would go home of course. She tried to tell the others but even Pluto just hushed her and told her everything would be fine soon.


"I say she will go to the school grounds!" Mars shouted at Uranus. "She would think we would never think to look there!"


Tuxedo Mask looked desperately at Mercury. "Can't you track her with your computer?!"


"Normally? Maybe but I can't get a reading on her. I don't know if it is because she is so upset that her energy patterns are messed up or the book's influence is keeping me from finding her or she just doesn't want to be found and is somehow blocking her energy from being detected herself someway." Mercury replied in frustration as she typed on her computer. "Can't you tell where she is? I thought you said you could always locate Sailor Moon when she was in trouble!" Mercury finally snapped at Tuxedo Mask.


Tuxedo Mask's eyes widened behind his mask and then he closed his eyes and started to slowly turn. Finally opening his eyes he pointed in a direction and said. "She's gone that way!"


"Not toward the school." Uranus said folding her arms and glaring at Mars.


"No. That way is her house." Mercury said.