Chapter 29: Tearing The Foundation Down By It's Roots

"Algae, Horkos, lets divide an conquer. Maybe when they realize how guilty they are we'll let them get some answers to their questions." Orcus seemed to fall back into the shadows, as the room suddenly shifted and each scout found themselves alone.

"Come on and get out and fight! I'm not afraid of you!" Jupiter said still strung up by one of their vines.

"Oh, I can see it in this one's eyes: Pain… Are you remembering something? Oh, you know what she lies about? Jealousy!" Horkos approached.

"Oh I see it! We remind you of the Doom and Gloom sisters don't we? Oh but we're much worse. We can see that your pain hides most in your heart…the lonely scout." Algae loomed in.

"She supports her princess, but in the back of her mind wishes she could find a love like that. But she can't can she? Only she can win the heart of a man she'll run away from when the scouts are beckoned by the same princess who lives a happy life in love…or maybe she runs away from the man she knows she loves because she doesn't want him to become…what is it? Just another ex-boyfriend?" Horkos said as slowly their vines climbed up Jupiter, pinning her arms to her sides, wrapping her up in them like a stem; a tree, consuming her.

"I don't mind doing this if it's for the better of everyone." Jupiter persisted, as she aimed her rage, preparing to strike at the last moment.

"A half lie." Algae prodded. Her words like daggers.

"A truth!" Jupiter persisted. "And another truth, I'm going to cream you guys."

"Go for it. If you die too, I guess, either way you'll never get a chance to have a happy life with that boy…Ken?"

'Guys, where did you go?" Mercury called out. "I can't get a reading on anything here."

"It's because we're everything here. We're better than the punny fruits of your Earth, stronger than the trees decades old, and much faster growing than anything you've seen…darkness and discord flourishes…"

A vine suddenly darted for her wrist, catching her off guard, emerging from nowhere in the darkness.

"Where did the seeds of darkness come from?" Mercury clenched her fists, as she put her other arm instinctively in front of her to protect herself. She'd need to do something if she was going to get loose.

"Ah, the inquisitive one. The one whose answers never get found…"

"She's got love life issues too…" Horkos and Algae came down as if they were attached to vines from the ceiling…wherever that ceiling began.

"Yes, but we all know, her dreams will die too for the sake of her scoutdom." Algae's red eyes blinked at her, inches from her face.

"I don't care if I-" She stopped as the bitter pain from Algae's vine now wrapping around her neck brought a shock to her system. She needed to attack; but she wasn't going to do it well hanging like this.

"Can't become a doctor? Can't help people? Or maybe you're jealous of the free bird whose only occupation will be to save the world, and nobody expects more of her than that? But you? You're parents? Your goals? That brain of yours will go to waste, for the sake of waging wars against others." Horkos' vines wrapped further up her arm, now she was dangling from the top down, as if a prey of two black widows.

"Oh, onto the scout of love… rather loveless don't you think."

"I'm not listing to you two War demons, I've gone solo before I can handle it!" Venus claimed out to the darkness as it whispered to her.

"Oh right…and you could handle the love then. Perhaps you are jealous that your Princess could bring her Prince from the grasps of darkness, when you were left to kill the men you loved…" Horkos whispered now clearly behind her in her ear.

"Venus love and beauty shock!" She quickly turned, her attack hitting blackness behind her. She breathed out, having held her breath as she attacked. She couldn't understand what they were getting at. "I don't get it. I'm not jealous of-"

"Oh but you miss it. The spot light? Sailor V? Being number one scout? Kind of a fooling yourself and your friends playing number two in the scouts aren't you?" Horkos was behind her again. She went to jump away but instead her foot was entrapped in the demon's vine.

"No, no Horkos…even more so she misses a man she was never supposed to love. A real Ace of the deck wasn't he?" Algae appeared in front of her from the darkness, shooting a vine to Venus' neck as she was caught off guard. Sailor Venus put her head down and felt her palms crunch. She had felt long reminiscing feelings at times; ones she'd buried over the years... at times she had wished she could have saved him like Sailor Moon had released Darien from the brainwashing years ago but it was past now. She felt the pain of the vine twist around her neck.

"Soon they'll find out everything. I mean it is more or less Pseudia's territory isn't it?"

"What do you know? And how could you know anything?" Venus asked.

"Ah, well since we retained some of the memories of the warriors whose blood was our water, we could tell you…" Horkos smiled. "Algae, tell her the ultimate pain…" Horkos now had both of her elbows pulled back, restrained, as Venus fell to her knees.

She felt another breath near her face, and closed her eyes. Would love really be her downfall?

"Your Ace was never meant to be. You were adored a strong dashing and particular warrior of the Earth Prince named Kunzite in the past, and denied your Ace then…

- Too bad you killed both of them."

"I'm done with this!" Sailor Mars sent out another flame arrow into the darkness to find they went nowhere.

"Done with what? Following, rather than leading?" A vine darted out from the darkness as she just barely leapt over it.

"Hah! I do what I please thank you."

"Says the scout who's first love was a Prince whose already taken? Who is a brave leader, but willing to side step for another for the sake of title?" Another vine whished past her, close to her face as she barely missed it.

"Old news, you're bark is worse than your bite ! Hah!" She sent another flame into the darkness.

"Ah, the scout who foretells the future, but cannot see her own downfall…" Algae whispered.

"The best friend, second fiddle? Gets all the left overs…the Goddess warrior Scout, and puts up with the pain of it all? Don't lie, if you really had things your way, you wouldn't have to had to suck it up? Act all defensive and clean up the messes? To watch your first love hold onto another and never once look at you? To run a temple and act as a sailor scout and get good grades while others get by doing so much less?"

The voices seemed to talk in unison. She moved her head, as she felt her anger rise. "Don't think I'm that easy to read-" She took out one of her scrolls.

"You are but one small breath from being burnt out."

Mars instinctively threw the scroll into the darkness, and just as quickly more vines than she could count came at her from all angles, restraining her in a web.

"Well…fire will burn you up." She lifted her head, her arms and legs stretched, she was open and vulnerable but she wouldn't stop. Even if parts of what they were said was true, she would be strong enough to get out of this.

Algae and Horkos emerged, playing off each other's sly gaze.

"Then burn us down with you. Your flames are nothing; we've already broken down the wall you've tried to build for years. We call your bluff; that confidence is just pain in disguise."

"Pair of fake scouts, the doubters, the ever important and the left overs kept to the outer skirts of the system…an extra pair of eyes, and nothing more."

"Come out and fight like the real monsters you are!" Uranus called out, her back to Neptune as they looked ahead to the surrounding darkness.

"Hah, just like the Pluto one they think themselves superior when really they were the spares. The odd ends. Four plus two more."

"We are the outer senshi, there is nothing you can say to deny us." Neptune proclaimed.

"Your oath is by far the falsest: The first to depart the faltering powers of the moon princess, the first to turn against, the first to sacrifice in the face of war. There is no winning. You two are by far the falsest of cousins and the falsest of scouts."

"Our seeds and powers are not far from your own struggles; you two claim to be the hardest to fight, but now you are the easiest to overcome."

Sailor Moon swallowed. Her friends were gone. It didn't matter how much she called, for the last short while she'd found there wasn't a soul around her.

By far this feeling that came over her, this quiet silence, the void…the fear that her friends were in trouble and she was helpless to aid them…well it was a feeling she'd come to know at some of the darkest of times; a feeling that haunted her deeply.

She closed her eyes. Anything? Any noise, light, shadow? She silently prayed.

Steps?

A Dull noise from far away, Repeating like footsteps.

Perhaps…

"Anyone? Is someone coming?"

"Serena!"

The voice…it was Tuxedo Mask it had to be, but from where?

"Darien! I'm here? Are you okay? Where are you?"

She heard the steps getting closer as she saw the darkness ahead of her shift for a moment.

"Darien!" She ran forward. A part of her warned her it might not be him moving in the darkness, but if he was near, as his voice told her, he would be around soon to help.

"I'm here, I couldn't find the other scouts! I'm so glad your oka-" She saw him only for a moment before she realized why she could distinguish his shape so well.

A spinning wheel of fire was coming up behind him.

"Nooo whatch out!" She cried.

Suddenly as he turned his back was hit with flame, singing his shoulder and part of his cape, as he collapsed in pain, rolling up his back until it dissipated at the top.

"Tut, tut, please don't interrupt. Did you think you were getting away? You by far are one of the guiltiest here…your Earth's footprint on what was once our Moon Kingdom when we followed it is the reason why the first war ever broke out. You can run towards your selfish love, but you can't run away from the consequences." Ixion revealed himself for a brief moment from the darkness, only to dissipate again into it's shadow.

Suddenly from the darkness, a vine wrapped around Tuxedo Mask's arm, one the same side as his burnt shoulder, just as another seemed to find Sailor Moon's wrist, pulling them back in opposite directions, unable to find each other's solace.

"Do you really think Horkos will make them see their lies?" Orcus asked skeptically, his voice the only sound in the place, unseen in the dark.

"If not I'm sure Eris will be quite persuasive. I heard she plans to use Pseudia's powers if she needs to." Sedna tapped her fingers on her chin, a sound barely audible in the room.

"Frankly, I think they'll all be surprised; I don't think they have a damn clue what we went through." Ixion chimed in.

"Doesn't mean they won't resist." Varune said darkly.

"We will force them to see the truth of it, they will witness this world fall apart under their rein as we watched our world fall to pieces in the past." A glowing symbol on her forehead illuminated her eyes, a deep maroon stare, broken and vengeful, calm and chaotic, the eyes of the keeper of the Seeds of Discord; their leader Eris.