Author's Note: I was starting to think I wasn't going to be able to get this chapter up this week. It ended up being kind of a hard one to write for reasons I'll explain at the end.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon (or The King in Yellow).

Chapter 9: The Queens of Carcosa

Minako had been pacing around her room for the last several minutes trying to figure a way out of her current predicament. She felt as though she were a cornered mouse about to be devoured by a ravenous cat, which was what she essentially was. In a matter of hours she would be offered up to Ace's King in Yellow as a bride. What troubled Minako the most though was that she was just letting it happen. Normally in a situation like this she would be trying to fight her way out, but something in her head was telling her to stay in her room and await news of the King's arrival, as if it were her duty to do so.

After completing what was probably her hundredth lap around the room, Minako decided that she had had enough. She wasn't going to let whatever it was in her head that had wrapped itself around her free will order her around. She was still a Sailor Guardian and the captain of Princess Serenity's royal guard, and she wasn't going to just lie down and die because some alien king was telling her to. At last Minako went over to the door and tried the knob, finding it totally unlocked. Minako found it rather insulting that her captors felt that they didn't even need to bother locking her in her room, and it also greatly disgusted her that until just now, they had been right.

Even as Minako opened the door, she felt a strong hesitation that almost made the wooden door feel as heavy as a stone slab. She fought through it though and made her way into the hallway. After taking a quick look around to make sure she was alone, Minako began to try and look for some sort of exit. The trouble was she had no idea where in the castle she was going, and the longer it took for her to escape meant the greater her chances of being discovered before she could get out. Plus whatever it was that had clamped itself onto her mind was practically screaming at her to go back to her room and wait for doom like a good little sacrifice.

Minako ignored that parasitic voice in her mind though and went down the hallway. She had gotten to the first intersection when she had heard some sort of humming down the hall on her left. The blond turned to see wandering the hallway with a dreamy smile on her face as she ran her fingers along the wall. The woman had chalk-white skin and chestnut brown hair that was arranged in a long braided ponytail that went halfway down her back. What immediately struck Minako about this woman was that she was dressed like a Sailor Guardian.

Covering the brown-haired woman's chest was a sort of black low-cut tank top that showed off her midriff and featured a tattered yellow bow on the front. In the center of this bow was a grey crystalline broach resembling a flower. Around her waist was a short tattered yellow skirt with a large tattered bow on the back. She also had on a pair of black knee-high high-heeled boots, and black fingerless gloves that went all the way up to her elbow. Minako also noticed that the brown-haired woman had an all too familiar yellow glyph on her forehead, and her eyes were pitch-black except for a pair of greenish-grey irises.

It seemed to Minako that this woman who may or may not be a Sailor Guardian didn't notice her. She simply kept wandering the hallway as though in a trance or high on some drug. Minako realized that this meant she could just sneak past without being seen, but she also still needed directions and it seemed like this woman might not attack her. Plus there was a sort of morbid curiosity about this woman that Minako needed satisfying, even though she knew she probably wouldn't at all like what she would find out.

"Um… excuse me," Minako called hesitantly. "Could I get your help please?"

The brown-haired woman stopped her humming and finally looked at Minako. "Oh! Good day to you. I am Sailor Eden."

"You're a Sailor Guardian?"

Sailor Eden nodded. "I was once the crown princess of Planet Eden, but now I am a queen of Carcosa. I'm so sorry I didn't notice you earlier, but I was trying to remember… remember… what was I trying to remember? Oh, it doesn't matter. Come! You must simply join the rest of us for tea. We should be starting soon."

"Actually I was hoping you could give me directions to the front door of this place."

"Are you trying to leave?" Eden asked as she suddenly rushed up to Minako and took both her hands. "Oh no, no, no, no! You simply cannot leave yet. You just must meet the others for tea. We've so been looking forward to meeting you."

"Well… okay. But then I really have to be going."

With that, Eden began to guide Minako down the hallway from which she had first come down. Minako felt sure that going with this strange Sailor Guardian was the worst thing she could be doing, but she still needed directions out of the castle and playing along with Eden seemed like her best shot.

"So, um… what's Planet Eden like?" Minako asked in an attempt to lighten the tension.

"It was beautiful once… at least I think so. It was so long ago that I don't remember. But… I think I was… happy? Back then? Oh who knows? It doesn't matter now. Planet Eden is long dead, and I am now but a faithful servant and wife to His Majesty."

Minako was now sure that asking Sailor Eden for help getting out of the castle had been a mistake. From what she had just heard, Eden had once been in the very same position she was in now. In a few more moments, Eden had delivered Minako to a set of large wooden doors at the end of the hallway. Eden pushed the doors open to reveal a large dining room with torn and moldering paintings hanging on the ornate walls. Minako saw three women sitting around the long rectangular table.

Sitting at the table's right side was a woman with long and very dark wavy hair and deep purple lips. The most surprising feature about this woman was that she had four arms, each with long purple nails on the fingers and thick black bracelets on each wrist. She also had on a Sailor Guardian costume consisting of a black shirt with a tattered yellow bow on the front, and a very short yellow skirt with another much larger tattered bow on the back. In the middle of the bow on her chest was a broach in the form of a grey crystal skull. The woman had an indifferent expression on her face as she filed the nails of her upper right hand while sipping from a cup of tea with her lower right hand, and like Sailor Eden she had chalk-white skin, a yellow glyph on her forehead, and black eyes with purplish-grey irises.

"Eden… why did you bring that girl here?" the four-armed woman asked with a sigh as she continued to file her nails. "That was such a pointless thing to do."

"That's Sailor Khali, formerly of Planet Khali," Eden informed Minako as she pointed to the four-armed woman. "But now like all of us, she is a queen of Carcosa."

"You shouldn't have brought her!" the woman at the head of the table snapped as she slammed her fist into the table.

It was at this point when Minako got a good look at the woman at the table's head. She was extremely large and quite muscular, and like the others had chalk-white skin, a yellow glyph on her forehead, and black eyes with greyish-red irises. Attached to the black shirt of her Sailor Guardian costume was a skin-tight black hood, and growing from around the top of her head through this hood were eight yellow bone-like spikes that curved upward and were arranged like a crown. In the center of the tattered yellow bow on the front of the giant woman's chest was a grey crystal in the shape of an inverted diamond, and around her waist was a thick and tarnished brass-colored metal belt with a large grey crystal buckle. Thick tarnished pieces of brass-colored armor covered her shoulders, and she also had on long black gloves that ended just short of her elbows, black knee-high boots, and a tattered yellow skirt with a large and equally tattered bow on the back.

"This is Sailor Omicron, formerly of Planet Omicron Delta 12 and guardian of the whole Omicron system," Eden informed Minako. "What's the matter Omicron? Why shouldn't I brought her here?"

"Why? Because her being here causes disorder!" Omicron practically shouted as she stood from her chair and rose to her full height of eight feet. "This table only has four chairs and there are now five people! You can't have a party for five people with only four chairs! There must only be four people, otherwise there is no order!"

"Would you quit making such a fuss?" Khali told the giant as she continued to file her nails. "Your complaining is all so pointless."

"There must always be order in the world!" Omicron insisted. "Without order, the world doesn't make sense, and it needs to make sense! Having order will make everything right!"

Minako decided to turn her attention to the last woman sitting at the table. She was fairly small and had wavy dark-blue hair that ended just at her shoulders, long pointed ears like those of an elf, and a pair of short antenna growing from her head through her hair. Like the other three women, she had chalk-white skin and a yellow glyph on her forehead, and her pitch-black eyes had bluish-grey irises. On the chest of the black shirt she wore was a tattered yellow bow with a grey crystal broach in the shape of a butterfly in the center, and around her waist was a short tattered yellow skirt with a large but thin yellow bow on the back. She had knee-high black boots on her legs, and elbow-high black gloves covering her arms.

"The last member of our party is Sailor AlfHime, formerly of Planet AlfHime," Eden formed Minako. "She became a queen of Carcosa after all of us, and is in a way our little sister."

Dark-blue tears were streaming down Sailor AlfHime's face as she took a sip from her teacup. As soon as she put it down on the saucer, she began sobbing.

Out of pity, Minako went over to AlfHime to see what was wrong. "Hey there. Everything okay?"

AlfHime stopped crying and looked up at Minako with blue mascara still running down her face. "Oh… hello there. Say, could you do me a favor?"

"I can try," Minako answered as she leaned in towards the smaller girl. "What is it?"

"Could you please kill me?"

Minako suddenly backed away. "Um… excuse me?"

"Please? I really want to die," AlfHime continued as she rose from her chair. "I can't stand living like this anymore."

"Uh… well… I don't know."

"I'm begging you! Please! I need you to put an end to this torture for me!" AlfHime begged as she started to break down again. "I can't stand this existence anymore!"

"Will you be quiet?" Omicron shouted. "I need to think! I need to think so I can figure out how to put things back in order! Have to think, have to think, I have to think!"

"Please kill!" AlfHime insisted as she came towards Minako, totally ignoring Omicron's outburst. "I don't care how you do it, just do it quick!"

Omicron glared furiously at AlfHime as a large black double-sided axe with a long handle materialized in her hand.

"Be quiet!" Omicron shouted as she swung her axe over the table.

In less than a second, Omicron's axe had taken off AlfHime's head. Minako watched with wide-eyed horror as the elf-like girl's head rolled across the floor. Her body meanwhile remained standing where it was like a rooted tree.

"Well? Am I dead yet?" a voice spoke from the floor. Minako looked down and saw that it was AlfHime's head that had spoken. Her eyes were still open and moving. "I'm dead now, aren't I?"

"How utterly pointless," Khali spoke with a heavy sigh. "Eden, be a dear and help AlfHime, would you?"

"Certainly," Eden spoke as she went over and picked AlfHime's head off the floor.

Eden the placed AlfHime's head back onto the stump of her neck. To Minako's utter shock and horror, the elf-like girl's severed head reattached itself to her body, not even leaving a scar.

"Oh, it's no use!" AlfHime sobbed as she sat back in her chair and covered her face with her hands. "No matter what I do, I just can't die!"

"How pointless," Khali remarked with another sigh, taking another sip from her teacup.

AlfHime uncovered her face and noticed a large knife sitting on the table. She then began stabbing herself in the heart repeatedly in an attempt to commit suicide, and each time the wound she inflicted upon herself regenerated instantly. Minako meanwhile backed away in horror, her trembling hands going up to cover her mouth in order to stifle a scream. Not only were the four Sailor Guardians before her of the undead, they were also all clearly insane.

"Ah! There you are, Princess," a voice spoke from behind. Minako turned around to see the diminutive One-Eyed Pete with his oversized mouth curved into a smile and his hands calmly folded behind his back. "I was wondering where you might've wandered off to."

"And now there are six people in the room!" Omicron shouted as she swung her axe into the table. "Six people! Four chairs! It makes no sense! You can't have a party for six people with only four chairs! It's chaos!"

"Forgive me, your highness," Pete told Omicron with a bow. "I will leave and take the Princess here with me. She needs to rest before His Majesty gets here. Your order will be restored."

With that, Pete escorted the bewildered Minako out of the room. As they left, Eden went back to humming the same tune Minako had heard her hum when she first encountered her and started wandering around the room. Omicron meanwhile seemed to calm down and sat back in her chair.

Pete chuckled as they walked down the hall. "Colorful bunch, aren't they?"

"They… are they all married to the King in Yellow?" Minako asked.

Pete nodded. "They are but a small part of His Majesty's harem. Unfortunately we could not invite all of His wives to this wedding because there simply wouldn't be enough room in the castle. The four you just met though are His top favorites. You are sure to become a favorite of His Majesty's as well, if I am a proper judge of character."

It was then that a dark thought suddenly came to Minako. "Are… are you going to try and marry off all my friends to the King as well?"

"Perhaps. Though I might be able to persuade His Majesty to leave them alone if you go through with the wedding without a fuss. At this point Princess, you should know what your duty is."

Minako had to concede that Pete had a point. She couldn't leave Usagi or any other others to go through the horror she had become trapped in and end up like those poor broken women she had just met. In moments, Pete had returned the blonde to her room. Minako checked the door once the one-eyed man had left and found that once again he had not bothered to lock it, but this time Minako was in no rush to leave. She still wasn't quite ready to just roll over and die though, and her mind began scrambling to figure out a solution to her problem despite the parasitic voice in her head that was once again telling her to stay put and fulfill the duty that had been imposed on her.

Kunzite and Brunhilde were making their way through the dead forest to Hellmouth Castle as fast as they could, with Artemis clinging to Kunzite's shoulder as they ran. Artemis still loathed the idea of working together with Kunzite, but the feline knew that he was still their best shot at rescuing Minako.

"We should be almost there," Brunhilde informed the others. "I should've known that the castle in this forest was the hideout for Hastur's minions. According to local history, that castle is said to have a rather sinister reputation, along with this forest were in. This whole area was probably blighted by Hastur's influence ages ago."

"I've noticed that most Hastur's minions seem to be dead things brought back to life," Kunzite remarked. "Like those skeleton soldiers Minako and I fought not long ago."

Brunhilde nodded. "Hastur typically reanimates the dead and uses them to do its bidding. Some of these minions are essentially just mindless robots, like the soldiers you're talking about. Others though like this One-Eyed Pete who wrote the play about Hastur and your buddy, Phantom Ace are beings who've been fully reanimated, with their souls attached to their dead bodies. Pete and other minions like him view this as a form of immortality."

"And does Hastur intend to do the same to Minako?"

"It does, and it's what the thing has done to all of its Sailor Guardian brides. Nobody knows for certain, but it seems that when Hastur mates with and corrupts his brides, the experience drives them insane and kills them, but then Hastur immediately brings them back to serve as his loyal undead queens. They become pathetic shadows of their former selves, cursed to spend eternity as Hastur's insane and undead playthings."

"You've had to fight some of these Sailor Guardians in the past, haven't you?" Artemis asked. "During that war with Hastur you told us about before."

A look of sadness came to Brunhilde's face. "Some of them were friends of my mistress and myself. One of those friends was Sailor Eden, protector of Planet Eden, one of the first and oldest planets in our solar system. It was also one of the very first planets to fall under Hastur's influence."

"This Hastur really is a horrible being," Kunzite declared with a scowl. "How could such a being like him exist?"

"You might as well be asking how things like disease could exist. And you're making a mistake when you refer to that monstrosity as a 'him'. That creature is nothing more than a cosmic anomaly with a perception of the universe so unfathomably different from our own that we can only call it insanity."

"Isn't there any way to restore those Sailor Guardians back to their former selves?" Artemis asked.

Brunhilde let out a bitter chuckle. "Love your idealism, mouse breath. But the fact is that once Hatur gets its claws, or tentacles, or whatever its true form as for appendages into a Sailor Guardian, it's too late to save them. That's why we should stop this chatting and get to the castle as soon as possible, so we can save Sailor Venus while we still have a chance."

Within another few moments, Hellmouth Castle finally came into sight in the distance. The three knew that it wouldn't take them much longer to get there. Just when they were finally starting to get close though, Ace appeared with a burst of black smoke.

"Sorry, but this is as far as you all go," Ace told the three. "This wedding is a private function, and none of you are invited."

"Get out of our way, Saijyo!" Kunzite ordered as he drew his sword and pointed it at him. Otherwise I'm going to take off your head!"

Ace chuckled and shook his head. "It seems you're a slow learner, General. I showed you when we last fought that your existence only brings Minako misery. It's best that you just stayed away."

"You may be right about me being only a curse to Minako, but I'm not going to stand by and let her be taken by a creature that's far worse to her than either of us! Now step aside!"

"Afraid I can't do that," Ace told him as an Ace of Spades appeared in his hand. With a puff of smoke, the card turned into a sword. "Guess you and I are going to have a little rematch."

"Not so fast," Brunhilde spoke as she stepped forward. "Put your sword away, Kunzite. I can take care of this masked pretty boy far quicker than you can."

"You must be the alien Sailor Guardian that the Maestro told me about. I've actually arranged a different set of opponents for you."

With that, Ace snapped his fingers and the ground around them began to shake. Suddenly several bony arms started to burst up from the earth, and in seconds they were surrounded by an army undead skeleton soldiers. Then just after the soldiers had emerged, five gigantic larva-like creatures erupted from the ground behind Ace and towered over the whole group. The beasts were a sickening shade of yellowish-green and each had skull-like faces.

"Oh crap," Brunhilde cursed upon seeing the undead horde.

"Like I said, this is as far as you all go," Ace declared as he pointed his sword at Kunzite. "And this time General, I'm going to make sure you stay dead."

Minako left her room once again on a quest to find the exit out of the castle. This time she was being extra careful not to be seen, as she didn't want to encounter any of the King's insane wives again. As Minako traversed the halls of the castle, she found that the voice that had been telling her to stay in her room was gone. She had no idea why that parasitic voice had decided to go silent, but Minako decided not to question it. Minako did find though that as she navigated the halls, she felt a sort of certainty about where she was going; that each turn she took was exactly the right one.

As time went on, Minako found that it felt as though she were being drawn somewhere in the castle. She had decided to go with the flow for the time being though in the hopes that wherever she was being drawn to in the castle was the same place that had the front door out. Eventually Minako finally reached the spot in the castle she was being pulled to, and to her horror she recognized it quite well because she had seen it many times in her dreams. It was the ballroom where that horrible masquerade of the dead was always held. Now it was empty, but the room was exactly like Minako had always dreamed it.

"Right on time, Princess!" a familiar voice cheerfully spoke. Minako turned around to once again see One-Eyed Pete lurking behind her. "His Majesty is just about to arrive. It's only proper that you be here to greet him."

Suddenly the mark on Minako's arm hidden under the sleeve of her dress began to burn like it was on fire. It was then that Minako realized that Pete and perhaps the King himself were somehow using the mark to control her. The massive doors in the room creaked open and a thick mist poured out to cover the floor of the room. Minako stood froze in terror as she watched a familiar figure emerge from the dark doorway. Marching through the opening in a mechanical fashion was the armored form of the King in Yellow just as Minako had seen him in his dreams. His body still moved like that of a marionette, and black starlight burned from the eyeholes of his pallid mask.

"My King," Pete spoke with a bow as the monarch approached them. "It is always so humbling to be in your presence. I present to you your bride, Princess Venus."

The King took Minako's hand and kissed it with the lips of his mask. His mere touch caused Minako's skin to crawl, and she had to fight hard the urge to vomit.

"The preparations for the wedding are almost complete, sire," Pete continued. "We shall have the ceremony within the hour. Until then, perhaps you would like to visit with your other wives. They are currently all gathered in the main dining hall."

The King nodded, and Pete snapped his fingers. Marching into the empty ballroom was a mummified living corpse dressed as a pageboy. The King followed the walking corpse out of the room to where the four fallen Sailor Guardians were still having their mad tea party.

"There's no escape for you now, you know," Pete told Minako as she watched the King leave. "You can resist all you like, but in the end you have already been branded as His. Your very destiny belongs to Him to do with as He wishes. But do not worry. For now you are but a princess serving an undeserving queen, but in an hour you shall be a queen yourself and know pleasures beyond human imagination. Now, let's get you back to your room so you can get ready."

Minako didn't even struggle as Pete took her hand and guided back to her room. Now that the King had arrived, she felt that her last chance of escape had gone up in smoke. Very soon she would end up becoming just like the broken women she had met earlier, and there was no longer anything she could do to stop it.

Author's Note: The hardest part of this chapter was the beginning where Minako met some of Hastur's previous brides. I realized that I hadn't put any thought into what those characters would be like during the story's outline stage. The first step was figuring out just how many of Hastur's wives I should have show up, and after I did I just pulled each one out of the air as I was writing the scene. One thing I did realize as I was writing the scene was that since these fallen Sailor Guardians would be aliens from other worlds, I could get a little creative with their designs. The really hard part though was figuring out their personalities. I tried very hard not to give them all the same child-like personality that Minako had in Kunzite's dream from the start of the last chapter. One thing this experience has taught me is that it's surpisingly rather hard to write for crazy people.

Please review and let me know what you think.