Hello everyone! I'M SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SORRY ABOUT HOW LATE THIS CHAPTER IS!!!! Please forgive me I know I haven't updated in months!! I'm so sorry, but I had so much homework and projects the past months, and I have a show coming up next weekend. I'm relieved that I even got this chapter done because I have another project to do that's due on Monday. So please, please forgive me and enjoy this chapter. Sadly, it is the second to last chapter of this story, I'm so sad its coming to an end but I hope you guys enjoy this chapter I hope you guys haven't given up on me, and since it was so late I made sure that this chapter was 8 pages long.
I don't own Sailor Moon.
Serenity11287: I'm sorry it took so long, but here the next chapter!
Megan Consoer: Here's the next chapter.
Ideagala: I'm sooo happy you liked my last chapter so much, I hope this one is just as brilliant as the last one; let me know.
Angel313: Hmmm, I did originally want to bring the Generals back into the story line, but the story kind of ran away from me and I was almost finished with it by the time I realized I hadn't put the Generals back in. Don't worry I do plan to mention them, but I don't think I'll bring them back in this fic.
Sweetlilgiggles: You don't have to worry about reviewing late, heck look how late I'm updating, lol. As long as you eventually review it I'll be happy all the same
Sakura-blossom-wolf: I'm glad you found the sequel and I'm soooo happy to hear that you enjoyed my first fanfiction as well. I'm sorry this is so late, and thank you for the review.
Also Thanks To: Sailor Lunakitty, meranglegal (my beloved editor), vIcky82, x.spanish.eyes.x, MoonRoseStarlightPower (love the name)
Chapter 8: Build Up
Serena collapsed onto the park bench letting out a huge sigh. Several days since her fight with Ann, and she was grounded for two weeks. She wasn't allowed to go to the arcade, no TV, no videogames, no manga; the works of being grounded, and life sucked. She went straight from school or detention to home, which meant no possible time to go and see Darien.
She'd let out a loud and long wail when she'd realized she wouldn't be able to see Darien besides their normal run-ins in the morning. They weren't fighting anymore, and Serena was sure that he was so close to remembering. If she could spend more time with him it might help him remember faster, but she couldn't so that if she was grounded!
Glancing at her watch Serena immediately stood up again and began walking back home. She had to be home in ten minutes or her parents might consider extending her punishment.
"Hi Serena," a voice said from behind her. Serena turned around thinking that it might be Darien, she was a little disappointed when she saw it was Alan instead.
"Hi Alan, I'm sorry I can't stay and talk right now, my parents are going to kill me if I get home late. That ah …thing with Ann got me grounded." Serena said hoping he didn't hate her know just because she didn't like his sister.
"No hard feelings Serena, Ann probably deserved it, do you mind if I walk you home?" he asked.
"Umm…I guess that's ok," Serena said starting down the street with Alan at her side. She didn't see the harm in allowing him to walk her home, only that she knew Darien wouldn't really like it. But she didn't like walking home by herself and there was no way she could contact Darien, and Alan wasn't that bad. Besides there were more pressing things to think about.
Amy still hadn't been able to pin point the location of the massive amount of energy. It only kept getting bigger and bigger, their enemy was storing too much energy in one place, and it could cause deadly complications; like blowing up Tokyo. They needed to locate their enemy's base, and fast. But Tokyo was huge, and the energy field kept getting bigger and bigger everyday, making their search even more complicated.
"I like you a lot Serena," Alan said suddenly beside her.
"W-what?" Serena gasped totally forgetting that he'd been walking beside her, the sudden confession seemed out of place. "What did you say?"
"That I like you Serena," he repeated.
"Are you asking me to go out with you?" Serena asked suddenly worried, she didn't want to hurt his feelings, but she was so close to getting Dairen back.
"I guess you could say that Serena," he said halting their walk. He looked at her with an intense expression, letting her know he was waiting for an answer. Serena for a moment was lost for words, how on earth could she say this as nicely as possible.
"I'm sorry Alan, but…I'm kind of seeing someone else right now," Ok so she was telling a little white lie, but with a little more time Serena had no doubt she would be telling the truth. She got the guts to look up at him to see how he was taking the news, and Serena saw something ugly flash in his eyes, sending a shiver down her spine. But it was gone almost instantly making her wonder if it had been there at all.
"It's that…Darien isn't it," he said putting an ugly emphasis on Darien's name.
"Yes," Serena said. She saw something flash through his eyes again, and it put her distinctly on edge. "I'm really sorry."
"Don't worry about it Serena, there is one thing that I would request of you though." He said leaning in closer to her. Serena took a small step backwards trying to keep him out of her personal space bubble.
"What's that?" she was almost too afraid to ask
"Would you come to my apartment to have hot chocolate with me, I promise it won't take long."
"I don't think that's-"
"My intentions are purely honorable Serena, I only ask for your company, so will you?" he asked. Serena felt a flash of power surge through the air but she suddenly couldn't look away from his deep brown eyes. It was like she was drowning in them and she would never be able to resurface.
"Here we are," she heard Alan say. Serena shook her head and looked around her in disbelief, how the heck had she got here. They had been talking outside of the park and suddenly they were here, what had happened, had she spaced out? She gave Alan an unsure smile, feeling more than a little nervous now, and very uneasy.
He led her into the lobby of the building, they went into the elevator up to the 20th floor, and soon Serena was standing in front of the door to his apartment. She hoped that Ann wasn't there, this short little meeting could end in violence, and she didn't need her punishment extended.
Alan left Serena in the living room giving her free reign to explore as he went to the kitchen to make their hot chocolate. He would be damned if he let Darien capture Serena's heart, there were other ways of tying her to him. Alan was used to using his powers to bend others to his will but this would be the first time he used them to get a girl. That stung in itself, he'd never had a problem getting what he wanted, but Serena had resisted him at every turn. Serena would be his, no matter what, but Serena had proved to have a very strong mind. He'd been able to put her under his compulsion to get her to come to his apartment, he'd been surprised how much energy it had taken him to do that. He needed her to let her guard down even just for a second so he could enter her mind and take control.
Discretely he slipped a sleeping powder into Serena's cup. It wouldn't harm her; just make her very drowsy a few minuets after she drank it. The mind was often relax when someone was about to go to sleep. He could easily enter her mind once the powder took effect, she would just fall asleep and she would wake up as his, completely under his control.
Serena looked around nervously at the living room she was standing in; something didn't feel right about this place. She wanted to leave and go home, but Serena was too nice to do that; she didn't walk out on people. Serena looked over at the clock on the wall and winced, her punishment was definitely going to be extended, and that meant even more of no Darien! Now more than a little impatient to leave Serena started thinking of excuses for her parents while she was waiting.
Ann peeked around the corner of the hallway into the living room and a scowl painted itself on her face, she'd heard Alan come in, but there had been someone else with him. What in the world did he have to bring Serena here!? Ann turned around with an angry 'humph!" ready to got right back into her room and stay there until Serena was gone, but she paused; she had an idea. An evil smile curling on her lips she turned around and walked into the living room.
"Hello Serena," Ann said walking up to her, but keeping her distance incase Serena decided to attack again.
"Ann," Serena said looking at her suspiciously from her seat on the couch. A very tense silence followed in which each girl glared at one another.
"It's obvious Serena that you and I in the same apartment is not going to work," Ann gritted through her teeth everything going according to her plan. In the beginning she hadn't minded that Alan wanted Serena, because she had a chance to get Darien. But now Ann wanted Serena gone.
"Obviously," Serena replied tersely.
"So to avoid further conflict why don't you go wait in Alan's room," Ann suggested. Serena frowned considering what Ann said, it would make since and she was in their apartment. Alan didn't strike her as a guy who would force himself upon her if she was in his room so Serena would rather do what Ann suggested. They longer she stared at Ann the day she'd been hanging all over Darien kept replying in her mind and she itched to scratch out Ann's eyes again.
"Fine, where is his room?' Serena asked standing making sure there was a safe distance between her and Ann. Ann turned and beckoned Serena to follow her down the hall. Ann felt excitement bubble up inside her; Serena would finally be out of her hair!
They had been feeding the Doom Tree large amounts of energy these past few weeks, and Alan and Ann had been acutely aware of the power building in the tree. Soon the Doom Tree would have enough power to launch an attack on Tokyo. Of course that had not been their original plan when they'd first come to the planet but it was their plan now, according to Ann. The Doom Tree only needed a little more energy and Ann was sure Serena's life force was more than enough to give it the power it needed.
Ann led Serena in front of a door that didn't look quite normal to Serena. It looked like one of those mechanical doors that slide back and forth instead of a normal door that opened and closed. Upon walking up to it Serena felt a chill go up and down her spine making her want to turn around and hightail it as far away from that door as possible.
"Are you sure this is his room?" Serena asked looking at Ann who was relaxing against the wall.
"Of course it's his room you ditz," Serena gave her a murderous glance. "If you're having trouble opening the door let me do it for you," Ann said mockingly.
"I'm not having trouble opening the stupid door," Serena said pressing the button on the door. Like she expected it slid open, but there was only darkness before her, she felt nervous again. "Why is it so dark?"
"Because the lights are off stupid," Ann said.
"Don't call me stupid," Serena said refusing to be goaded by Ann any longer, she marched into the room and heard the door slide shut behind her.
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Darien looked up at the balcony of the apartment nervously, something wasn't right, he could tell. He'd seen Serena in the park with Alan and seen Alan lead her off. Worried he'd followed them to this apartment building, wondering why Serena had gone with Alan to his apartment anyway. Something dangerous swirled in his gut and he refused to acknowledge it as jealousy, but he wasn't going to leave Serena there.
It wasn't as if Serena needed him to be her knight in shining armor, she was probably perfectly fine. If that was the case then Darien was doing this more for his peace of mind than hers.
Darien walked up to the apartment building somehow knowing what floor to go to even though he'd never been there before. It was like an invisible string was tugging him in the direction of Serena and he couldn't ignore it. The strange feeling led him right up to door 203 and he knew Serena was in there. Realizing he had no real purpose for being there, he quickly brainstormed on what to say to the person who answered the door.
Darien suddenly went very still, a very eerie silence feel about everything; it was like the silence before the explosion. Darien felt dread take hold of his stomach, what was going on?
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Serena felt at the wall behind her for a light switch that would light up the room, it was getting a little creepy here standing in the dark like this. She finally found what at least felt like a switch and let out a sigh of relief.
The room was illuminated with a soft light and Serena's mouth dropped open in dread. This was definitely not Alan's room, before her was a huge, gigantic tree, and the vast amount of energy emitting from it told Serena that she'd found where the enemy has been storing their energy.
A loud creak penetrated the silence of the room and Serena saw with horror that the tree began to move. With a barely muffled shrieked she search the wall by the door for a button that would open it back up again. She found the button and reached out to hit it, but she was suddenly jerked into the air.
Serena opened her eyes trying to catch her breath and saw she was a good distance form the ground now and a vine as thick as her leg was wrapped around her middle squeezing the life out of her. Serena shoved and pried at it, but it didn't budge. The tree gave another load groan and Serena felt a draining sensation throughout her body.
"No!" she yelled. The vein around her waist began to glow and Serena felt herself being drained, getting weaker and weaker by the second. Serena struggled but the tree didn't even seem to notice her struggles, but she couldn't allow the tree to take in any more energy.
"It's hard to say, nothing like this happened when we were fighting Queen Beryl, but the yomas have been able to get unfortunately a rather large amount of energy these days. Whatever our enemy is using that energy for, it's building up pretty fast, I'm more worried about all the pressure the energy is creating, it seems like its all being stored somewhere. If they compact it all together with enough pressure all that energy could…"
"What Amy?" Raye asked not liking the worried expression on her friend's face.
"Oh, a number of things, it could spontaneously combust…or just erupt or explode."
Serena remembered all to well what Amy had said only a couple days before, she needed to warn the girls some how. Her communicator was in the pocket of her skirt, but her arms suddenly didn't have to strength to move anymore. She stared at them dazed as the dangled uselessly at her sides willing them to move.
Serena felt the tree pulling at something else, something that was so much more than her energy. She felt the wrenching tear deep within her as the tree tapped into her life force. Serena let out a scream as the tree took huge gulps of her energy sucking the life out of her; the tree exploded around her.
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Darien sucked in a breath as the ground began to shake beneath him, vaguely wondering if they were having an earthquake; his theory was quickly wiped away. Huge vines twice as thick as his torso burst through the walls on either side of him. They tunneled down through the floor followed by many other vines of all sizes. Trying to stay out of their way he looked around the see that there were vines everywhere now creeping inside and out of the building bursting through walls, doors, and windows. He looked outside and saw the vines start to creep out into the street from the building.
Over all the commotion he heard a scream from within the apartment and he knew it was Serena. Feeling adrenaline and urgency flood through his body he looked for a way in, one vine had broken clean through the door; he would have to find some way around it. What the hell was this thing anyway?
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A furious beeping noise suddenly erupted from Amy's computer, she snapped it open quickly and blanched at what the screen read.
"What is it Amy?" Mina asked.
"I'm afraid our enemy's energy storage just broke loose and it's moving at a startling speed. It's drawing from some unknown power source and is getting stronger by the minute." Amy said typing furiously at her keyboard.
"C'mon scouts," Raye said. They all transformed and took off in the direction of the enemy.
"Where's Serena?" Lita asked.
"She's not answering her communicator, all I'm getting is a bunch of static," Mina said.
"Well, we can't wait for her; she'll just have to catch up with us." Raye said. They skidded to a stop in the park people running and screaming around them, huge vines crept towards them pushing everything aside that got in their way. The scouts tensed and launched their attacks.
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"What the hell did you do!?" Alan demanded as he pried the mechanical door open.
"It's not my fault! How was I supposed to know her energy would make this happen?" Ann said, floating after him into the room. Vines had squeezed their way through the door some just plowing their way through the walls. They were all quivering and moving stretching out further and further as power rolled off them.
"You fed Serena to the Doom Tree!!!!???" Alan demanded angrily as they found their way into the room.
"Yes I did," Ann said smugly and triumphantly.
"Ann, her energy is causing the tree to fluctuate out of control, we've fed it too much," Alan said, when Ann's expression didn't change and lips thinned into a hard line. "If the tree dies Ann we die too, her extra energy could be too much for the tree to handle, it could die; we would die."
That got Ann's attention, she casted a worried glance at the tree then back to Alan. "Oh, fine let's get her out of here before anything else happens."
"Wonderful idea, since all the roots lead back to here, I'm sure the scouts can find us in a heart beat now," Alan mumbled to himself. Ann looked alarmed now realizing all the mistakes she'd made by feeding Serena to the Doom Tree.
They both floated into the air having crawled through the labyrinth of vines, they both looked around for Serena.
"Where is she?" Ann demanded getting frustrated.
"Look there she is," Alan said pointing up to a high point in the tree. The tree was wrapping an array of smaller vines around Serena's unconscious body pulling her close to the trunk as if cradling her there.
"Doom Tree you can't have her, you have to give her back," Alan said floating up to Serena. He reached out to extract Serena from the Doom Tree's clutches, but a vine whipped up out of nowhere and sent Alan flying across the room. Ann looked up angrily at the Doom Tree.
"What did you do that for!?" She demanded, the tree had never acted like this before. "You have to give her back," Ann said trying to fly towards Serena. She dived immediately to avoid a flying vine, she let out a curse and flew to Serena again but a vine nailed her in the stomach, sending her flying like Alan.
The Doom Tree wrapped its vines more securely about Serena they continued to glow as it sucked energy from her, but at a much slower pace. It knew that if it drained her too fast she would die, and it needed her as a power source for now. The Doom Tree drew Serena down to the base of it and laid her under a collection of roots at the base. The roots and veins immediately began to close around her making a sort of cage or cocoon.
Alan flew at the tree again calling out in protest seeing it enclose Serena. He gripped the roots trying to rip them apart to get to Serena.
"No! You have to give her back, you'll kill yourself," the Doom Tree swung another vine at him making a connecting hit.
"What wrong with the Tree?" Ann asked helping Alan to his feet. "It's never acted like this before."
The Tree suddenly let out a scream of pain and the vine began thrashing around them.
"Something must be attacking the Tree, it must be those scouts," Alan said.
"We'll deal with them first, I'd rather leave Serena to the tree than let the scouts have as chance of destroying it," Ann said. This time Alan agreed with her, with the Scout's powers they could do a lot of damage to the Tree and they couldn't let that happen.
"Let's go," he said and they flew out of a whole made in the ceiling by the Doom Tree.
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Darien somehow managed to make it into the apartment which had been completely torn apart by the vines and roots, but Darien was intent on finding where they were coming from. Something inside him was pulsing with urgency, he needed to find Serena. Just like a few days ago when the yoma had attacked, protecting Serena was paramount in his mind; he needed to find her.
The vines kept getting thicker and thicker as he squeezed in between the vines down the hallway. He could make out some sort of door up ahead; he just needed to get through so he could find Serena. He tried pushing some of the vines out of the way, but they were too big and wouldn't budge.
He somehow got through the door, past the door there was a maze of vines. He twisted his way through and breathed a sigh of relief as he crawled into open space. Before him was a gigantic tree, it didn't look natural, but whatever it was he wanted to get Serena out.
He looked around doing a through scan of the room, he didn't see Serena anywhere. "Serena!" he yelled his voice echoing off the walls. He looked around for any sign of movement. He looked for larger sets of roots which she could be hiding under, but he couldn't find her.
"Serena!!" he yelled more than urgent now, he was beginning to panic. Serena was in danger he could feel it, and she was close by, if only he could find her!
"SERENA!" he yelled again trying to claw some of the roots apart, he still didn't get an answer.
"SERENA!!"
He still heard nothing; he felt like punching something in frustration, she had to be here she just had to.
As silence fell, Darien heard something, he wasn't sure what it was, he strained to hear it again. It was a soft, subtle shift of weight, someone was here!
"Serena!" he called out tentatively.
"Darien." It was hardly audible, barley even a whisper, but it was enough for him. He took off in the direction of the voice hope swelling within him.
"Serena!" he called out again.
"Over here…I'm…over here…Darien."
Now following her voice and the pull inside of him, he found himself at the base of the tree before a small structure of vines. When he looked at it, it resembled a cage like formation, but the roots were so tight that he couldn't see through them. He banged on it tentatively, "Serena!"
"D-Darien," he heard her weak voice call from within, he'd found her!