--------------------------------------------------------------------- Austin Jade Hello again! Well, for those of you who are reading this, this is chapter seven of the now renamed story "The Golden General." Originally this was named "Serena's deal with the enemy" but Austin and I decided to change it. Anyway, I hope you guys like this chapter! Write me and/or Austin if you do! ------------------------------------------------------------ By the time the scouts and Tuxedo Mask reached the Cherry Hill temple Luna and Artemis were also at the entrance, and ready to pounce on them, but stopped themselves when they both saw their faces. They all looked like they were in some osrt of trance or coma. But when Tuxedo Mask brought an unconsious Mercury towards them Luna and Artemis's eyes filled with worry and concern. They all walked quietly into the temple with the cats by their sides. Mars looked around the place quickly just to make sure Grandpa and Chad weren't home and when she was satisfied they weren't she followed the others. Tuxedo Mask gently put Mercury down by the fire and moved away from her side slightly so he could sit down in relative comfort. There was complete silence for a few moments, and then the two cats began to speak almost at the same time, or so it seemed to the scouts. "What happened?!" That was Luna. "What's going on?!" That was Artemis. "What happened to Mercury?! Is she alright?" Luna again. "Where's Sere- Sailor Moon?!" Again Artemis. "Is everyone alright?!" Luna. "What happened to you all?!" Artemis. "Did you lose the fight at the ice-cream shop?!" Luna. "Venus, what-" "Stop this chitter chatter. I and the remaining scouts will tell you what happened soon, but first we have to tend to Mercury!" *That* was Venus. Both cats went silent as Sailor Venus's angry face stared at them from above. Luna was annoyed, because usualy she was the one who took command at scout meetings, and she was also annoyed because, at the moment, she didn't know a thing about what was going on. Boy did she want to know! She opened her mouth to say something more, but caught the look on Venus's red face and shut her mouth tightly, remaining quiet. Artemis looked both shocked and angry at the same time but did not venture to say anything. Tuxedo Mask had been making sure that Mercury was o.k, although she was not, and he had so many questions circling around in his head at the moment he felt faint. WAs one of the first questions that popped into his head, and the second was... He shrugged his shoulders and waited for his turn to speak. "Now," Venus began to the cats again. "you just be good little kitties and stay put, and *silent* while we check on Mercury. Alright?" The cats didn't answer. Nodding to herself Venus turned to him and then looked down at Mercury. "Do you think she'll be alright?" She asked, kneeling down to the injured scouts level and touching her hand ever so gently. Tuxedo Mask looked at her. He was going to be a dcotor. He was studying for it in college. "I'll see." He bent over Mercury and checked for a pulse, there was none. He bent down to her chest to see if she had a heartbeat. She had one, but it was very slow and fluttering... almost unnoticable. "No.... she needs help... medical help... from a hospital." He said to Venus. The scouts, Luna, and Artemis all looked at him. They were not surprised. They would have to do something about it later, but right now...... they had more important matters to attend to. Tuxedo Mask suddenly asked out of the blue, "Why are we at the Cherry hill temple?" He waited curiously for a response to the unexpected question. Venus looked over at him and realization dawned on her. This was not exactly how Venus had been expecting things to go when she went to fight that monster at the ice-cream parlor with the others. Seeing that he was waiting for an answer Venus turned back to Tuxedo Mask and said vaguely, "This is where we hold our meetings, that's all. We'll explain everything to you soon Tuxedo Mask, but for now we have to take care of Mercury." Seeing the logic in her statement Tuxedo Mask bit back any questions he had and saved them for later. He understood that there wasn't time for explanations right at this moment, but that didn't stop his curiosity from driving him up the walls. Ignoring Tuxedo Mask and the two guardian cats for a moment Sailor Venus, Mars, and Jupiter talked in low tones to each other, discussing the Mercury problem. Rei was furious, tired, and sad..... How could someone she trusted so much beray her? Serena was her best friend, and Rei knew that now they would have to come up with some sort of plan to save their beloved leader from the enemies grasp. Rei knew that friends didn't betray friend if they don't have a good reason for it. Ignoring Tuxedo Mask for a bit the scouts started to discuss Mercury's condition seriously. "What do you think?" Venus asked, obviously torn between her anger towards Serena and her worry about Mercury. "Well," Mars began. "She was doing o.k before the monster was destroyed, but when Serena showed up and threw us all across the street she hit her head pretty hard on that tree. I think she might have some brain damage, or at the least, a concussion, but there's no way to be sure and we can't take her to a hospital, not in her scout form at least, so I don't think we'll be able to treat her. We'll just have to leave her be and hope she gets better." Jupiter and Venus nodded. Jupiter's head had risen and fallen throughout all of Mars's words. She had been listening intently, Mercury was after all, her friend, but when Serena's name was mentioned her head went down, both to hide her anger, and her tears. She had not cried since she was a little girl, when her parents had died, but now she felt the tears form. Because Serena had been her best friend, her *first* friend, they were like sisters. Actually, now it should be they *had been* like sisters. Just like Raye, Lita knew, friends didn't betray friends, and most especially not without a damn good reason. Rising from their kneeling positions on the floor, by Mercury's side, all three functional scouts turned around and were then faced with the problem of telling Tuxedo Mask, Luna and Artemis what they wanted, what they *needed* to know. They would not reveal their identities to Tuxedo Mask, but they would tell him everything that he needed to know, to know just how dangerous Sailor Moon could be when angered, and when she was at full power. She may be a clutz and a crybaby, but when her emotions were strong and true her powers were as well. They should know, they had seen what happened, although only once, when you really got Sailor Moon angry. "Alright," Venus said at last, sitting on the cold wood floor again, this time facing the two guardian cats. "This is what happened." And so she relayed the the two what had taken place at the ice- creme parlor and when she reached the end of her story all the two cats could do was gape. "Do.... do you mean... that Ser- Sailor Moon, has betrayed us... to the Nega-verse?" Luna asked at last. That was all she could get out though. She was too shocked to say more, and Artemis was too shocked to say anything. Venus took a moment responding, because although she didn't really want to believe it, she had to face facts. "Yes. And then the two cats exploded with questions... again. "When did she betray us?!" "*Why* would she betray us?!" "How was she able to float in midair? How could she learn to do that?!" "How powerful was she?!" "Are you sure it was Sailor Moon?!" "Could it have been an imposter?" "Why would Sailor Moon hurt any of you?" The questions were coming far too fast and for Venus and the others it was almost impossible to assertain which cat each question was coming from. They seemed to be coming from both and all the words were mixing and jumbling together so much that all three scouts weren't able to get a word in edgewise. By the time the two cats were done Sailor Venus had taken to ignoring them and turning her attention to answering Tuxedo Mask. Mars and Jupiter had tried to calm Luna and Artemis and when they found that they couldn't they just sighed and waited for them to finish. "Well," Venus said at last, facing the masked man behind them. "What did *you* want to know?" He could tell by her voice that she wasn't in the mood for a list of questions so he narrowed it down to two of the most important ones. "Why are we here, at the temple, and how is it that those two cats can talk?" Venus considered his question for many minutes and debated on what to tell him, not exactly knowing the answer to the second question herself. "To answer your first question, we are here because this is where all of our scout meetings are held... The temple preistess knows this. We always tell her what's going on and because she has strong powers herself she can often help us.... But as for your second question, I'm afraid you'll have to ask them yourself." She gestured to the still talking white and black cat and with a short nod Tuxedo Mask stepped in front of them, blocking their view of the scouts and filling it with himself. The two cats reacted the same way they had with Venus, by snapping their mouths shut, stepping backwards, and going silent. The scouts all sighed in relief. "Sailor Venus here tells me that to know how it is that you two cats can talk I have to ask you myself, so... I'm asking." Jupiter smiled slightly at the tone he used with the two guardian cats. One that was not in any way demanding, but one that said he was not going to take more silence as an answer. And the scouts were also curious how it was that Luna and Artemis could talk, but they had never asked before. And now that the quesion had been brought up they wanted to know the answer. "Yah, come on Luna." Mars said enjoying the looks on the two cats faces. "We want to know ho-" "Luna!?" Tuxedo Mask cried, shock and astonishment washing over his face like ripples upon water. The five occupants of the room, cats and girls alike all turned to him in surprise. "Yes." Luna said at last. "My name is Luna. Is there something wrong with that?" Tuxedo Mask could only stare at her, his mask hiding his eyes, and therefore the look of extreme surprise in them. "Well... Yes - I mean, no, of course not. It's just, well.... Is your owner named Serena?" He asked bluntly. That was what had shocked him so much, the fact that he only knew of one cat in all of Tokyo that was named Luna, although there could be more, and the person he did know who had a cat named Luna was Serena, and she was always making all those strange remarks about Luna bugging her about her homework, or being late, or getting bad grades, and then there was of course all those times he had thought he'd caught her talking to herself.... But what if she hadn't been talking to herself, but to her cat? The shocked looks on all the scouts faces confirmed his suspicions. "You... you know Serena?" Mars asked, her eyes ready to burst from her head as he nodded in the affirmative. "How?" Luna asked. Tuxedo Mask hesitated, unsure of how to explain his friendship with Serena, if they even had one, without revealing to the scouts who he really was. "We've met before." Was all he said, when he finally spoke again after the long silence that had ensued when the topic of Serena had come up. Although, the scouts had been silent for altogether different reasons than Tuxedo Mask. He quickly moved back to the subject at hand. "So, how is it that you can talk?" He asked again, raising his eyebrows at the two cats in front of him. They both looked to each other for a moment, shrugged, and pronounced simultaneously, "We just do." Tuxedo Mask didn't like that answer, but he went along with it. Who'd ever heard of interrogating cats anyway? "So," Venus began again, taking charge of matters. "What do we do about Sailor Moon?" ______________________ What they all eventually did decide to do about Sailor Moon was not to hurt her, but to trap her. She would not be harmed, on the contrary, the wanted her alive and well, but they were going to capture her and bring her back to their side. They all thought that Sailor Moon had been brainwashed somehow and forced to join the Nega-verse, and they wanted her back on their side, so they were going to try and capture her, and then contain her until they could find out what to do with her. There was of course the possibility that Sailor Moon had chosen to betray them but they prefered not to think about that. They didn't want to. Mercury had not been present in any of the discussions because she was still totally out of it and the scouts were beginning to really worry about her. But there was nothing they could do so they continued to discus how to go about setting up their plan and tried to take their minds off their injured comrade. Perhaps if they had known that it was in fact been Sailor Moon's own decision to join the Nega-verse, and if they had known that she had gotten much more powerful since they had last seen her before she was a general, then they would have re-evaluated their plan a little. Probably a lot. But they didn't, and that's why their plan didn't exactly work out the way they wanted it to. But now was the time to dicuss the matters at hand, and one of those matters happened to deal with Sailor Moon's family. This was where Venus made her first real mistake of the night. "Well," She began, moving on to other matters now that they had settled on capturing and containing Sailor Moon as their plan. "What are we going to do about Serena's parents?" She had made a mistake in using Sailor Moon's real name, but it had been a long night, and they were all tired, plus, Tuxedo Mask was the only one who did not know who Sailor Moon really was and he seemed to have melted into the shadows of the temple, rarely talking, and keeping to himself a lot, and Venus had all but forgotten he was there. Actually, she *had* forgotten he was there. But from his spot in the corner, near the sacred fire, Tuxedo Mask looked up curiously as Serena's name was mentioned again. What did Serena have to do with anything? All the other scouts shrugged, and Venus went on, saying more than she should have, and only out of habit. No one besides the scouts and the cats had ever come to a scout meeting before and Venus knew that. "Well, we have to think of something. We can't very well tell them that their daughter is the leader of the sailor scouts, a defender of love and justice, and that now she's gone off and betrayed us all to the Nega-verse. I think we'd give Serena's father a heart attack!" The scouts all chuckled to themselves at the small joke, they knew how protective Serena's father was of her and how he would react to knowing she had been out battling monsters everyday for the past year or so... but their laughter was cut off abruptly as a choked gasp came from the corner of the room, from where Tuxedo Mask was standing, so pale he was the color of his tuxedo shirt, and his eyes so wide they looked as though they would burst from his head any minute. For a full minute there was absolute silence, and the tense atmosphere was only broken by Venus's quiet, "Oops." When her small voice broke through the air Tuxedo Mask finally seemed to regain his voice. "You... you mean to tell me... that... *Serena* is... Sailor Moon?!" He didn't know whether he shouted it or whispered it, but it seemed like both to him, and he felt as though he'd been struck by lightning as every person or animal in the room slowly nodded their heads yes. He should have realized it sooner. They two of them were so alike. The hair, the eyes, the personality, the antics, the voice... the tears. "And," Luna spoke up quietly from her spot beside Artemis, close to the fire. "There is one more thing that I think you all should know. Something about Serena, Sailor Moon, that I failed to tell you all before." All eyes turned to her, even Artemis's, and Luna continued in a slightly shaky voice. "Sailor Moon in her most powerful form, when she reaches the very height of her power, will literally be able to kill us all within an instant. She could destory us all on a whim, without even trying to." Everyone and everything in the room went dead silent, and for a moment Luna seemed to be on the verge of collapse as she continued to whisper quietly, "And if she ever does reach her most powerful form there will be no stopping her. *We* could never stop her, and neither could anyone else... and with all her power, and all her knowledge of how to use it, it is conceivable that Serena, even without her sailor powers, could easily destroy this whole planet... with a single thought." The scouts just couldn't take it anymore and they all collapsed in a dead faint while Artemis stared at Luna in shock and Tuxedo Mask fell to his knees with this new revelation. If Serena ever did get that kind of power, the scouts knew that there was no way in Hell that they could stop her, unless she stopped herself, and they couldn't trust her to do that right now.... There would be no stopping her.... she would be unbeatable... and this planet and everyone on it..... would die. ______________________ Crystal silently screamed at herself, totally unaware of the scouts conversation about her at the moment. She paused for a moment, amending herself, before going on ranting to herself about her foolish, idotic, *humiliating* behavior. But that particular though was rather weak and Crystal felt as though she were trying to convince herself of that thought rather than stating it. She paused in the middle of her silent ranting as she heard voices coming from behind the throne room doors which she had been passing. She recognized one as belonging to Zoisite, and the second sounded like Queen Beryl. Crystal only hesitated a moment before putting he ear to the door and straining her ears to hear what was being said. She felt slight guilt at eavesdropping, but so slight she didn't even realize it was there. "....want you to watch her carefully." Beryl finished and Crystal cursed silently for not hearing the first part of her words, although, she had a strange feeling the two of them were talking about her. Zoisite responded with a, "Yes my queen." and then headed towards the door which Crystal was standing in front of. She moved back in a hurry and quickly headed down the hallway, towards her quarters. She reached her rooms doors just as Zoisite stepped out and she entered them before Zoisite even noticed her presence. Sighing quietly to herself Crystal yawned and walked over to her bed. The pillows were black, the color of ebony, and a deep purple, very close to black, curtain shielded the bed from anyone watching. The thick silk comforter that lay atop the bed was black, like the pillows, and the inner side of it was purple to match the curtain. The whole room, as one, was very nicely furnished, somewhat like Kunzite's room, only darker in colors. Most everything in her room was black, purple, and even had a touch of navy blue here and there, while Kunzite's room had reds, and blacks, and a few personal belongings that were green in color. Probably Zoisite's. Moving aside the curtain of material, and collapsing on the soft blankets and mattresses, not even bothering to change or remove her shoes, Crystal feel asleep immediatly, her energy drained, more from the emotional battle she'd been fighting within herself than anything. And because of this she failed to see the pair of scarlet red eyes watching her from across the room, seeing easily without the curtain to block it's vision, and knowing that the figure it watched, the figure it saw, was indeed very powerful, very skilled, very important, and a great asset. But despite her sleeping state Crystal still felt their power, and their evil, but she could not, and did not know who it was that watched her. And the red eyes, peering at her in the dark, laughed. TO BE CONTINUED.....