This is by far my favorite chapter! I find it really exciting and I hope you all do too!

Warning: This chapter is extremely violent.

Disclaimer: I do not own any Sailor Moon characters

Chapter 9: Pandemonium

The queen sat at the high table with her scouts and daughter on either side of her. She was scanning the sea of people, most of them eating, drinking, talking, laughing, and smiling. She did her best to fake a good attitude, but her mind was on her distant husband; physically and mentally. He was a good fifteen feet or so away from her at the center of all the gallivanting and mingling with high secretaries from all across the universe and introducing himself to new people he had never met. A genuine smile was on his face the whole night. Standing in the middle of a group of politicians, he caught her eye and raised his glass to her. She blinked in shock and responded by doing the same to him and noticed that her champagne flute was empty already. Although her tolerance for alcohol had gone up since this whole debacle, she had to keep her limit to two small drinks maximum, if that, at this event while pregnant. She still hadn't announced it to the press yet that she was with child, but it would come out sooner or later.

"Excuse me your majesty."

She turned around to find the tall, dashing young man who was also known by the name Thomas Hayward. He had a glass of wine in one hand and a glass of sparkling water in the other. He handed her the class of bubbling water and smiled her.

"I saw your drink was empty but I didn't want to be presumptuous and give you more alcohol," he said.

She took the glass with a smile on her face, "See? This is more appropriate than a tennis bracelet."

"Would you do me the honor your majesty and take a walk with me around the perimeter of the room? We can be like vultures stalking our prey."

She giggled at him and delightfully accepted the invitation. He held his arm out to her and helped her down the steps from the upper level table to the floor. She continued to sip her sparkling water as he started to go on about his ideas and policies he wanted to put forth all while charming her and making her laugh from time to time. They had made two full laps around the whole banquet hall and she hadn't even noticed.

"Having a stronger connection with the moon I think would help a great deal," he said enthusiastically.

"Well I couldn't agree more," she smiled, "but what are your domestic thoughts? What are you going to do for the people who are suffering on your world?"

He paused in their walk and turned to look at her, "I want to see to it that the rich get taxed and that money goes to the poor. I want to see students have mandatory volunteer work in their communities and such."

Thomas noticed that the queen was staring out at the couples happily dancing on the glossy floor and held his hand out to her. She looked at him with a quizzical expression over her face. She had never danced with anyone except her husband before. Then again, she had never been separated from King Endymion before either. Serena beamed at him and placed her gloved hand in his and he guided her out onto the dance floor. They moved over to where Haruka and Hotaru were dancing awkwardly together and giggled at them

"Trying to teach her how to dance since my dance partner is up on stage playing with the band," Haruka explained to the queen.

"How's the lesson going?" Thomas asked.

"I've been stepped on seven times and we're only half way through the song."

"I didn't want to dance in the first place," Hotaru complained.

"That's because you don't know how," Haruka replied. "You need to learn sometime in your life. Do you want to be a wall flower for the rest of time?"

"Yes," was her stubborn answer.

A laugh, a real laugh bubbled from Serenity's throat, catching Darien's eye. He watched from the table as she was spun around in a circle by the all too eager young nominee. He had to give it to him, the man had moves. He was pulling out all the elegant stops to woo his wife and from the looks of it, it was slowly working. So this is what it felt like to have your significant other drift away from you? Darien never thought he would see the day where he would sit back and actually let his legally bound partner float away mentally and emotionally from him. Fighting for her, giving her presents, sending her letters, even accidentally impregnating her were all things that had made her fall away from his grasp. He needed to sit like the magnet he was and let her drift back to him when she was ready.

On the dance floor, Serena started to drift away from the conversation that she and Thomas were having, feeling herself getting all warm, fuzzy, and tingly. The room started to spin against her will and her vision was blurry. She felt her knees get wobbly and she gripped onto Thomas's arm for support and he shot her an expression of concern.

"Are you alright, Queen Serenity?" he asked in a low voice.

"Y-yes," she stammered. "Could you escort me out of here? I don't want people to start to stare at me. I think that champagne went to my head."

He held onto her tightly and carefully snuck her out of ballroom without anyone even noticing. He helped her stumble down the hallway until finally her whole body couldn't take it anymore and she fell to the cold marble floor. Thomas scooped her up in his strong arms and she snuggled up against his chest like a baby, expecting to smell roses; she was sadly disappointed.

"Which way to your room, your majesty?" he asked.

"U-up the stairs," she whispered. "End of … the hall."

It felt like sleep was taking over her entire body, but her eyes were wide open. She could feel her feet go numb and the tips of her fingers slowly. What the hell was happening to her? She turned her head to look up at Thomas as he took her into her room, struggling a little bit to get the door open. Darien could always open the doors to their bedroom swiftly with her in his arms some how. He was made of magic … and a dash of cheater she had to remind herself.

She only slightly felt Thomas put her on the bed; she was having trouble feeling anything at this point. Her only thought was what would happen to the baby? The whole time she just kept thinking about the progressing child building slowly inside her and did her best to try to channel some sort of protective forces around it.

Thomas locked the door with a click and bounded to the bed, placing himself on top of Serena. She kept her eyes closed as leaned toward her ear, his breath heating up her skin.

"I'm not going to harm you any more than I have," he explained. "Welcome to hell my queen. You're going to die … peacefully though. I wouldn't want you in pain, after all."

He rolled over and sat on her side of the bed, leaving her encased the wafting memories of Darien's scent. She silently screamed for him in her completely numbed body.

Darien looked back up at the dance floor, expecting to find his wife again, but she had gone missing. Last he saw her, she was still wrapped up in arms with that Hayward man, but he seemed to have disappeared as well. Trying not to panic, he swiftly walked up to Rini and asked, "Where's your mother?"

She shrugged and continued on with her conversation with a rather snobbish looking young man. Darien would have a talk with Rini about choosing the right man another time; for now he had to find Serena. He walked over to the end of the table where Lita and Rei were chatting up a storm, practically arguing with one another about some topic.

"Have either of you seen Serenity?" he interrupted.

The two scouts looked down the table, out on the dance floor and scanned the room all over. Michiru was on stage playing the violin with a whole band behind her. Haruka was dancing to the music with Hotaru, trying to teach her how to waltz properly. Mina was talking to Kenji near the glass doors leading out to the garden while Ami was speaking with some advisors from her home planet Mercury. But there wasn't a sight of the queen's silver head floating around.

The hair on the back of Darien's neck rose; something was amiss. The two scouts jumped down from the table and followed him quietly and swiftly out of the room. They all started to jog down the darkly lit hallway once they knew they were out of sight of the guests.

"I'll check the study!" Lita said as they all clacked up to the second floor.

"I'll look in the conference room!" Rei declared.

"I'll look in the bedroom," Darien announced under his breath as he sped up down the marble floor with his cape flapping behind him. He held tightly onto his cane as the scouts parted from him looked in other rooms. Finally making it to the end of the hallway, he came to a halt and tried to open the door. It was locked. She never locked it unless there was a do not disturb sign dangling from the golden doorknob. He could hear shuffling inside and deep voice. A frenzied fury boiled inside him as he tried to get in by ramming his shoulder against the doors. He could hear Rei and Lita running up behind him as he kicked open the double doors. In front of them was Serena sprawled out on the bed, pale, her skin tinted purple and body looking limp. Her deep blue orbs shifted toward her husband as she weakly pointed to the deck door.

"One of you tend to Serena! Get the rest of the scouts, get a doctor, and escort everyone out of her immediately!" Darien shouted.

They morphed into their scout uniform and did as he asked. Darien then ran through the bedroom, out onto the balcony and stood up on the railing. His eyes caught sight of the copper fox who thought it was smart to try and poison his queen. He leaped down off the railing of the balcony, the ground beneath him cracking when he landed. The audience through the glass doors of the banquet hall turned and looked at him, but he ignore their gasps and expressions of shock as he went running through the garden after the monster who poisoned his wife.

Mina laughed at the joke that Kenji made about how he couldn't ever fall for a Crystal Tokyo woman because she would either out-live him or out-nag him to death. She sipped her champagne with a smile until she heard a loud crunching noise outside and a slight rumble. She turned around and found Darien knelt down on the ground and suddenly got up running off into the garden. She opened up the glass door while Lita ran up to the outer scouts, trying to get them to help escort the many people out of the ballroom. They all changed into their Sailor Scout outfits which caused a bit of panic among the attendees.

She immediately turned in to Sailor Venus and ran after the king as fast as she could, but he ended up taking twists and turns a lot more than she expected. She paused for a moment and listened to where the footsteps were going. Suddenly they stopped. There were punching noises, kicking sounds, grunts, and groans coming from a few hedges away. She ran around a few more corners, her feet hitting the pavement hard until she came across the horrifying sight of Darien beating up Thomas Hayward, one of the Prime Minister candidates. She was in a trance as she stared at him sock the man in the stomach, throw a punch at his cheek, and watched as a tooth flew from Thomas's mouth. She ran up beside the fighting men and used one of her powers to cut a divide between the two of them, trying to push them apart. They ignored the separation though and went back at it the moment they got back up to their feet. Thomas took a broken end of Darien's cane and while his attention was turned to Sailor Venus for a split second, the king's back was suddenly struck by the sharp wooden stick. He let out a wail of pain and then turned around sharply to shoot out red roses at the young man. He was pinned down to the ground by the sharp foliage and Darien went up to him quickly, kicking him in the stomach, making him spit up blood which went all over his new white shoes. Before he could get really pissed off and slam his foot into Hayward's face, Mina grabbed onto his arm and dragged him away as hard as she could.

"King Endymion!" Venus shouted. "King Endymion stop!"

With blood all over his white and silver tuxedo, his cape ripped, his eyes red from the sting of tears, and his cane broken in two, as well as part of it snapped off into his back, he finally came to an end and collapsed to his knees beside the passed out man he had been beating up. Sailor Venus ran over and bent down to his level, asking him urgently, "Why did you do this?"

"He poisoned Neo-Queen Serenity," he breathed as his chest heaved back and forth from the one-sided battle he had just endured.

He felt his back with his hands, searching blindly for the end of the can shoved into his muscles. Taking a deep, cautious breath, he yanked the wood that had been jammed into him out of his body and growled loudly in agony as he did. Crimson liquid started to stain his shirt deeply, making Mina gasp in shock. She hadn't seen this much blood since back in her scout days when they used their powers and it actually killed people. Seeing Darien use his fists, physically pummeling a man down to the cobblestone ground was alarming.

Footsteps padded down the pathway and Mina looked up to find Lita and Haruka. They both narrowed their gaze upon the crumpled man on the ground swimming in a pool of blood and pinned down by a bunch of thorny flowers. Sailor Uranus walked over to him and started to remove the roses that were holding him down. Once he was free to move – if he could at all, considering his awful injuries – Haruka preceded to lift him up and threw him over her shoulder. Sailor Jupiter pointed to his wrists and ankles with her gloved index finger, creating electrical handcuffs.

"We're taking him to the dungeons down below," Sailor Uranus announced as she and Lita exited the scene and left Mina and Darien alone.

She strung his arm around her shoulders and she said, "Come on, let's get you washed up."

"No, I want to see Serena."

"Okay. Okay."

And with that, the two limped on back to the palace in the darkness of the night.

Please let me know what you think of this chapter! I put a lot of time and effort into this one so getting your reviews and responses to it would really make me happy!

Up next: Will Serena survive this? What will happen to the baby?