Chapter 27: Lies and Pain
The scouts awakened to the darkened lair. They got up off the ground hesitantly. There was a strange silence about the place, it didn't seem real, in a space that didn't truly exist. Where had they been brought to and why hadn't they been able to find it before?
"Enough with the silent type stuff! If this isn't a trap then where is Luna and Artemis?" Mars chimed out into the darkness.
"Maybe we just played into their game…" Uranus looked apprehensive as they all stood waiting for whatever came next.
"I get the feeling this is too elaborate for just a trap…" Tuxedo Mask added.
"No, wait, up ahead." Neptune said.
They looked when suddenly the room seemed to lighten a bit ahead. Artemis and Luna in a darkened egg-like force field, unconscious as if sleeping.
"Let's go get them!" Venus began to run. Sailor Moon just behind.
"Wait, we shouldn't run into this right away!" Jupiter followed swiftly behind the others just the same, in an attempt to catch up with them in case it was a trap.
"But we're almost there!" Sailor Moon persisted.
Suddenly the room seemed to warp, as if it became longer and suddenly Luna and Artemis were farther away than before.
"I told you it was a trap..." Uranus said they were all slightly panting.
"Or a trick it seems." Mercury tried to scan the area. The room had in fact shifted in length somehow.
"Not a trick. But really you don't think we'd give them to you that easily?" Suddenly Sedna appeared behind them.
"It will be more fun our way. We want you to fight for them. Charon's last seed backfired a little…so we're going to have you fight two more of our Kakoi demons before we hand them over so simply." Varune shook his head appearing.
"But we were told otherwise." Venus persisted.
"You said the longer they stay in there the longer they're in danger…" Sailor Moon added with a worried whine.
"Oh so you care that your friends have been found but what about our Charon? No questioning as to his fate?" Ixion appeared making it obvious that their enemy had encircled the scouts.
"You said only the person who cared for him most could let him out. We couldn't get to Pluto…it's probably best she didn't come." Uranus defended.
"So you don't know? You really don't know?" Sedna laughed mockingly at them.
"What's going on?" Neptune asked.
"You don't seem to be aware of your fellow Scout's actions. She came on her own accord." Varune added.
"What did you do with her?" Uranus asked threateningly, turning to Ixion.
"Nothing. We didn't do a thing. But you'll find out about what Charon and her have been up to the moment you win this next battle. I told you you'd get your kittens back no tricks. It's not a trick, you will…but first…" Ixion smirked.
"It's my turn."
They looked straight ahead to see a man, overly tall, dark build, a slightly boyish face with chiseled features, with dark short cut hair and side burns that pulled down into his hard cheek bones. He was muscular, more than any other man in the room. His blue vest had spikes on its shoulders and he had a kind of a strong and harsh look about him. His eyes were silver, piercing.
"Good luck Orcus, you got the last to winners before the big boom." Sedna chimed before the others, were gone just as quick as they came in darkness.
"Who are you?" Jupiter looked to him, the only one willing to challenge his stone cold demeanor.
"Orcus, once called the Senshi Angel of War, but now I've seen it was just a poor excuse into making me an Angel of the Dead."
"How?" Uranus asked, suspicious of the man's dark tone.
"I brought death to those who required me to. The Moon's army once, took me up to make their weapons for war. My powers are in force, and for that never once was I seen as someone worth glorifying as a true Senshi. But now you will have to face both Pain, and the anguish of a False Oath, …if you really wish to know who you really are." His glare moved quickly from bitter, dark and evocative, to a young charm of a young man akin to power
"We know who we are…we just don't understand who you guys are." Venus cut him off.
"No, you know who you are according to how the Silver Millennium and the Moon wanted you to see yourself as. Specifically, a guardian: someone who only does well and protects their lovely princess from danger. But you can't even act like you have, in fact, protected the lives of everyone when there are so many in this world who will be so easily swayed to sin or betrayed by isolation. And this time the Demon seeds will be in their raw form. If you can survive their wrath then, will you attain your friends."
The scouts watched as two seeds changed differently than before. The seeds seemed to sprout into the ground and from it grew two female demons that looked half normal half tree; its upper body almost human, almost nude, it's legs and arms vines that formed limbs that seemed to merge into the ground. One was dark red and the other was deep purple, but their roots were a strange glowing color between as if it was feeding off of some unknown source. Their eyes were almost white and glowing, the inside of them yellow, the black ghost-like face that normally marked the possessed human sat between their hipbones, ready to release seedlings. They had colored skin, and a rather sly mouth. (I posted an Image on my Deviant.)
"What are they?" Sailor Moon said clearly freaked out.
"The true forms of the Kakoi Demons. The demon seeds that sprouted from the Tree of War, out of the Apple of Discord, which came from the blood of the wrongly fallen." Orcus answered, who was now suspended up above, sitting, just watching the events.
"Well that clears things up…" Jupiter said sarcastically, apprehensive about the situation.
"I'm Algae, born of the Demon Seed of Pain. When the feeling over comes one of destruction and loss I am that. When things turn sour, and it is nobody's fault but their own I am the pit at the stomach that curdles, and the demon of the human who takes joy in causing that the overwhelming feeling of anguish and emotional termoil." The violet one said, her long hair curly and black.
"I'm Horkos, Demon Seed of the False Oath. I am the darkest of them all, the promise that causes the undone of another; the lie hidden as a truth. It's the undoing of a soul who asks for honesty and receives lies. The broken hearted, and the beginnings of all true chaos, under a mask of falsehood." The ruby one said, with long black hair, smooth, wavy. Their voices smooth but high pitched; somewhat evil, like a cackle, but somewhat seductive in their way with words.
Suddenly their dark maroon limbs, like tree trunks made from vines that became their legs, meeting their colored skin. Vines sprouted from their back, and danced around their upper body, naked in the shape of a human body. They moved like tree roots perforating the floor.
They reminded Sailor Moon oddly of the doom and gloom girls. They towered over them smirking.
"So, who wants to discover the pain of realizing all the petty lies you told yourself and others?" Horkos chimed, her vines suddenly reaching out quickly darting at the nearest scout who happened to be Mars.
She darted barely in time.
"We're innocent. You don't have the right to play a blame game of evil." Jupiter proclaimed.
"Ah, the scout who wishes she could find herself a boyfriend…always referring about her past ones but never has one… tell me Jupiter, how many times have you exaggerated about that? Willing to fight a man, but never let him in. Or how about the close friend of yours, you keep telling yourself you happen to be close with, when you know… it's much more." Algae spoke, her words like daggers to Jupiter, who stood still in her tracks.
"Jupiter don't-" Uranus said when suddenly , Algae struck her with a vine capturing her in her midsection from beaneath her.
"Oh Algae, always quick for the pain. Tell me, how long do you think they'd last, if they heard about all of the false oaths they've told themselves and others? How long could they handle the emotional toil turned to physical pain?" Horkos smiled.
"You handle the lies, I handle the pain." Algae said. "The more pain you feel about your own lies, the more physical pain I'll give you." Jupiter cowered.
"Ken and I…we're just…"
"Oh don't lie to yourself. You're so preoccupied with you exes you can't even see the boy infront of you. Sounds like a false oath to yourself." Horkos smiled, as the room seemed to stretch again, separating Jupiter from the rest of the scouts. Suddenly Horkos's vines submerged into the ground, only to reemerge, twisting up with Algae's.
"Is that emotional guilt I feel? Pain?" Algae laughed, when suddenly the vine around Jupiter glowed, as she cringed under the electric pain.
"I thought you'd be a bit more of a threat against them, but it seems not. And Uranus, you have such a nice sword, I was hoping to see you use it." Orcus smiled, his spiked shoulder pads moved closer to his ears as he leaned back above them, crossing his arms.
"We'll have them rounded up in a jiffy Orcus. Lady Eris will be so proud."
"We don't even have to seed them. They're guilty on their own." Algae and Horkos boasted. "Or how about you Tuxedo Mask?" Horkos departed and suddenly left Algae, their vines, now emerging from the floor like trees. "You flat out lied, said you would protect the scouts and let Pluto walk in here on her own didn't you?"
The scouts looked to him.
"That was her own decision to make. I trust Pluto to make her own decisions, and if Charon cares for her-"
"So if Sailor Moon made the decision to come here and save, oh I don't know, Diamond? Or how about Ixion? How would you feel?"
"Stop playing these games!" Neptune proclaimed.
"Oh games? No, no darling. Just revealing all of the pathetic lies you tell yourself, so you can wallow in your own internal pain turned physical? If we really wanted to play straight, you'd all be guilty and could be seeded as easy as pie…" The black fase over her low stomach, where the seeds would emerge, taunted the scouts.
They couldn't loose yet.
Pluto depended on them.
Luna and Artemis depended on them.
Jupiter depended on them.
The world depended on them.