Chapter 21: A White Sheep Amongst the Black Sheep, And One Black Amongst the White

"DARIEN!"

Sailor Moon and the Scouts opened the door to his apartment. She ran in first.

She saw him on his bed. His face was bruised slightly. He was shaking, clutching his head with one hand,and his chest on the right side with the other.

"Darien! Are you okay?" Sailor Moon noticed the wound, that looked like a Seed was only half emerged and somewhat un-attatched.

"I-I keep blanking out. I tried to stop them-Ixion…they hit me from behind-they know who we are. They can find us-"

"Who?" Sailor Mars came in behind Sailor Moon, the others following.

"Ixion and some other guy... Ixion was pressuring him to get the Demon to try to seed me. I tried to heal myself and stop it, but I didn't have a chance to change or get away." He clutched his chest. "I'm trying to resist it. If I let it take me over…. I don't want to do anything else to hurt you. I can resist this one-I don't see the point in creating mischief…but its hard..." He said, grunting as he tried to resist.

"Don't worry. I'll heal you right now." Sailor Moon said desperately, as calmly as she could. She used her Scepter to heal him. It didn't take as much energy to destroy it, but he seemed a bit more weakened from the struggle itself.

"You're lucky he has such a strong heart. He may have succumb once before Serena, but we all have our faults." Neptune said calmly as he came too again.

"I can't forgive them for this." Sailor Moon said, as she took his hand as he sat up.

"What did they do exacty?" He asked.

"They made it look like you were cheating on Serena. That monster has some serious copy-cat abilities." Venus shook her head.

"It was that Ixion guy again? He's got a serious problem. I'd love to burn him to a crisp." Mars said.

"Someone else was with him…I think, it might have been that Charon one he refered to…" Darien said trying to get up.

"No, please rest! You were trying to fight it. That probably took a lot out of you." Sailor Moon said.

He got up and took a breath out. "Ill be fine."

"If that was Charon…do you think that's why Pluto said she'd go on her own to track down the demon?" Uranus asked suspiciously, slightly more directed to Neptune.

"You don't think she would?" Mercury asked.

"I'm afraid she might have. She seemed distraught about it." Neptune bit her lip.

"He seemed less pushy than Ixion did. Still…I don't doubt he'd use that demon to his own advantage." Darien breathed out finally feeling together again.

"How did everyone already get seeded without us knowing?" Jupiter asked.

"When it can hide as anyone... as soon as it knows one person's identity it seems to be able to network in with the people it knows. This could have been going on under our noses all weekend and just came to fruition today." Mercury presumed.

"Then lets go and see if we can find Sailor Pluto. I don't want to leave anyone else alone with that monster." Sailor Moon said. Darien looked better now. "Don't exert yourself please." She said.

"I won't. Don't worry about me Serena." Darien said. He knew what he was going against now. Tuxedo Mask wasn't about to sit around in the background after that.

"Why did you come after me again? Don't you care that your Princess' suffering for her Prince?"

"That is Sailor Moon's burden..." Sailor Pluto felt pressure. She cared but she couldn't let this go just yet. "I won't let this go on. I care…but not the way you presume I do…" Pluto said. "Where is the demon?"

"I let it go do it's own thing. Mainly I told it to find the rest of them. Most of the town succumbs to it so easily...I never really expected it to go this way so soon..." Charon said.

"What do you plan to do? Kill the other scouts?" Pluto held her staff protectively. "You're not this bitter are you? …you couldn't…"

"No. Make them suffer. Just as we did." Charon shook his head. He didn't like how she still expected more of him; as if he was easier to overcome than Ixion or the others because she thought she knew the old him now. Frankly he wasn't even sure what he expected of the whole encounter with her again. "I don't think you have the right to judge me about how bitter I may be."

"How could you wish that on them when you hated the feeling yourself?" Pluto reasoned. "This was my mistake. Don't blame them-"

"I know it seems wrong. But you don't understand…I wish I could bring you back to the past to see it all..how it happened...what I did, what we all did... It is their fault. It was everyone's fault for sitting back and not acting on change. I wish I had the time to explain it all fully to you Pluto I do…but I'm sure the day is coming soon when you will understand." Charon turned to leave.

"What if I want to understand now?" Pluto pleaded.

"You couldn't. You already proved so…" He sighed. "I wish what I did wasn't all in vain but I don't know how else to show you. You were alone. For so many years. I tried to be there for you whenever I could but I had to protect your own planet at the same time because you were never there. We all had that responsibility, but you never returned because they'd bestowed on you a curse disguised as a gift. You were left, and I hated to see you like that. Even when you had eyes for…the Earth Prince back then, I couldn't stand to watch you do nothing about it. You looked at the world from the outside in, while they went to parties and balls, trained and advised in luxery. Pluto, let them bestow another scout with your responsibility. It can be done…"

"I'm sorry, Charon. I'm sorry for what I did to you. I don't feel for him anymore…I couldn't. If I ever really did, then I wasn't really in love. It was just infatuation of the eyes. I want to fix it. I just don't see how...I can't just give up what I gave an oath to do...I want to change things I'm not sure how..." Pluto pleaded.

"I can't answer that for you. I'm sorry." He left again without another word.

She fell to her knees. Was this what it felt like? To care for someone, and hurt so bad because of it? In…her dreams…the ones the last Demon had given her had awakened skewered lost memories of what she'd just recalled… it was Charon she remembered. It was him serving her, him causing her to smile, watching him get brutally hit by one of Beryl's youma warrior's. Then making the decision to banishing anyone from entering through a portal...removing his cause. She made him leave after and closed off any way for him to get hurt protecting her. He saw it as rejection of a different kind. She'd only done it to keep everyone safe. At one time isolation was the easiest way to keep herself and everyone she cared for safe.

There was no way she could let this sit this way. But, she couldn't succumb… she cared for the other scouts, and for Rini…but…the past, back then she was alone...it was true..what he'd said. She was never quite as privileged. But she'd signed up for it. She'd let the Moon gift her with an exception from age…and with that, an increase in power, in her sense of the powers of Death. Her Senshi planet powers gave her the affinity that were powerful but like all things had the potential for good or bad… it was something she knew well. Never like Saturn's exactly…never that great. But the farther an outer the planet was from our star…the darker things got, literally and metaphorically. She'd once thought that her ability to not age would give her a head up…in the end, she's not sure it did. Now as a human she saw the validity in the temperance of things.

She wanted to fix things. But his words were so finite that she didn't know if she could break through them. Things felt so complicated all of a sudden.

"Pluto! Are you okay?"

She turned to see Sailor Mars first and then the others.

"Are you okay? Do you know where the Demon went?" Uranus asked.

"I'm not sure. It disappeared…I'm afraid quite literally." Pluto shook her head.

"Did…did you meet Charon?" Sailor Moon asked. She wasn't sure how to approach it to Pluto, but if he was as bad as Ixion...

"I did. I can't explain it at the moment, but it seems my hunches were correct. He was, at one point, the guardian of my Moons…"

"So this is running deep." Neptune shook her head.

"I'm sorry, I'm glad you're okay Tuxedo Mask."

"I'll be fine. How did you know about me?" He looked to Pluto. He could sense that she'd blamed herself for a lot. He wasn't sure it was even all about him.

"It tried to trick me as you, saying that you needed help to convince Serena you didn't cheat on her…but I knew it was actually Serena who couldn't get ahold of you."

"I can't believe it!" Jupiter shook her head. "I can't wait to get that one really good."

"Wait guys…something is here." Mercury said using her glasses. "I'm sensing an invisible dark energy…"

"What do you mean?" Venus asked.

"I can sense an energy…something's here…it's just hard to identify…but it's reading as dark energy. I think…if it acts like a Chameleon, it might actually-"

"Hey, look something moved over there!" Mars said, as a bush suddenly shifted.

"It will be two easy for it to trap us if we're not moving around. We should split up and see if we can strike it! If it weakens, it might not be able to use it's powers so easily! Maybe it will reveal itself then." Mercury proclaimed. They started to dart away, into the trees surrounding the park.

They all looked around shifting their eyes. They hoped something would move to give it away. Otherwise they were sitting ducks. These demons were getting more sneaky as they went.

"AGH!" Pluto felt claws around her neck from behind. Suddenly the demon's eyes blinked and it showed up, its scales emerging from what appeared as 's lizard like eyes, looked female, red, menacing.

"Sailor Pluto!" Tuxedo Mask threw a rose to hit it's hand. It barely scratched it's surface with it's scales. The monster used her lizard-like tail to push him back into a tree. The others heard the noise and began to run over.

"Touch me and I'll kill her!" It claimed. "Or Would you rather me change? How would it feel to fight someone you know?" It cackled. It didn't sound human.

"I don't know anyone here on this Earth. I am a lone wolf in all worlds..." She caught her own realization on her lips. Everyone she really knew where here infront of her. Rini was safe in the future. "I am the only person you can't affect. Everyone I care for is here-" Pluto said as she gasped for air. She felt her grasp on her her staff loosening as the Demon Seed Youma lifted her higher by her throat.

Suddenly there was a fast flash of green, and Pluto was gone from it's grasp.

The scouts stood in awe, as they tried to help Tuxedo Mask up from the blow. His wind was knocked out of him hard. Sailor Moon didn't like how he'd been hit harder this time...was it Ixion who had the vendetta against him? Or was it something else with Charon? Or coincidence?

Suddenly Pluto reappeared on a tree branch with a man who seemed to have a similar apparel to Ixion and Narune.

"Why did you save me?" Pluto said as she realized how close she was to him suddenly.

"The goal isn't to kill you all." Charon said, as if it was only a half-truth, as if he was hiding his real reason, and backed off. "Ate should be spreading seeds not strangling you all...according to my commands."

"Sorry, that was my doing."

Charon's eyes darted to a voice, as Ixion emerged from the darkenss. His words seemed full of snide nonchalant humour. "I told the thing to go after the scout that got away...I just figured one would lead to the other...or something like that..."

"What-"

Ixion shrugged as if his intentions had been innocent. But his eyes told Charon that he'd been trying to set them up. "Just helping Charon."

"I don't need your help. I don't want to owe you another favor."

"So you're Charon!" Uranus proclaimed.

Charon looked over to see the scouts had found them. They were still uneasy from the fact that Ate had disappeared again.

"What is that thing? And why is it causing our town's people to create more problems?!" Jupiter asked.

"Ate is the Seedling demon of ruin and deception. It depends on false truths to bring people in, and then creates chaos from those ill-events." Ixion answered.

"We weren't talking to you buddy!" Mars proclaimed.

"It was always the raven haired one with the bad mouth wasn't it?" Ixion smirked at his own clever remark. "Still, I'll leave you then Charon. I can tell when I'm not appreciated. Nice seeing you again Sailor Moon."

"The bushes just moved." Mercury proclaimed, redirecting attention, her glasses on again. "It's at four o'clock! If I focus in, I can see a faint glint of the eyes, it seems to be the only thing that doesn't completely hide itself like before!"

"My turn! Jupiter Oak Evolution!"

Suddenly Ate was electrocuted and became to fried, unable disguise itself, burnt in places.

"Serena!" Neptune proclaimed as they all prepared to hold it off again.

"I'm on it! HoneyMoon Therapy Kiss!"

Sailor Moon felt a resistance this time. There wasn't a pure soul to redeem…there was nothing but the Demon now…she felt it took more of her energy to fix. By the time it had 'healed' nothing was left but the bones of a small lizard, and a seed that returned to Charon all too quickly for them to take. She panted after...her knees were almost weak.

"What was that?" Venus asked.

"Yea, no human host?" Mars questioned.

"Animals have souls too. But no conscience to carefully deny or resist a Seed. It's much easier to have it take over than to succumb to human nature's ability to be swayed in a poor direction." Charon explained. His words seemed as if they were detached from a malice or diabolical form, that the others had had. It was bitter, but they weren't sure he had an intent to inflict pain. "That way it can consume the whole of that entity…there is no room to heal it, and instead nothing of the old being is left. When we finally strike…nothing on this world is sacred…nothing will resist the Seed's powers." He looked away and backed off from Pluto again.

"What do you have to do with Sailor Pluto?" Uranus asked outright. "How can you try to kill us all with these crazy demons, and yet decide to save her? What game are you playing?"

Charon paused. He looked to Pluto for a moment and then turned away. "Ask her. She knows your answer." He shaded his eyes and left.

"Pluto?" Sailor Moon asked, supported by the others. Tuxedo Mask stood beside her.

She looked to them. He was right about one thing. At first it had just been obligation; she'd never known the Princess or the other scouts in the past in person to protect their actual being…it was the concept of them she was told to protect. At one point it handn't been because she cared…it was the job.

Now, she knew the human parts of them. She knew their future child.

But now she felt liminal. Between this world, and the future one. Between the scout's side of things and a man's who she once took for granted…whose past seems muddled by some kind of unknown injustice that he claims.

She was always liminal as the Guardian of Time…but now…maybe she needed to spend time on her own to find her place…

She couldn't move on from this until everything from the past had healed somehow. She didn't know how, but she had an obligation to fixed things with Charon.

"I'm sorry. I really can't explain it, other than Charon and I have a past. There is…there are things I need to do…to think about. I can't commit at this moment to anything."

She swallowed her words hard and walked away.