Hello everyone! I am very glad that so many people have e-mailed me concerning this fic. I am honored by all of the gracious mail from other writers, and by all of the wonderful ones from everyone who has taken the time to read this work of mine. No one has said anything even remotely mean or rude, but please do not hesitate to write with criticism. I would like to thank Jenn for always being there and being totally wonderfull in helping me with plot, and Lianne who is always inspirational and entertaining. I would also like to thank my good ol' twin, Adam, for proof-reading all of my chapters (so any mistakes that I don't catch I can blame on him-just kidding Adam.) (^_^) If you like Star Trek at all, you are hereby invited to read Adam's fic which is a Star Trek/Sailor Moon cross over. (or if you don't like those, you are invited to read it because it is well-written.) (^_^) Well, anyway, I guess that is enough advertising. Thank you all for continuing to read this, on with the story! (^_^)(^_^)(^_^) -Sailor Charon Ancient History Chapter 7 The room was dank, musty. It seemed to close off her throat from her lungs, making her gasp for air. She felt dizzy and light-headed and she struggled to sit up on the cold hard floor. Her eyes refused to focus as she fought nausea. Lifting her head up slowly, she looked around, trying to force her eyes to see through the murky darkness. A flash of white to the side. Serena kept her eyes locked on that bit of white, the only thing she could see. Her head throbbed and she swayed as her body attempted to shut down again, but she held fast, clinging to consciousness with all her strength. Vision gradually came clearer and Serena saw Darien lying several feet away from her, his white light glowing slightly in the dark illuminescence of the cell. "Darien?" Serena crawled over to him, her body shaking frantically. Oh my oh my ohmy ohmy ohmyohmyohmyohmy. Serena's thoughts blended together in her fear at the moment. She reached Darien's side and put her hands on his chest. She felt a heart beat. Oh Kami-sama thank you! Serena began to cry with both relief and despair at the knowledge that she wasn't alone, but she was still in deep trouble in a place she didn't know. Darien stirred under her hands. "Darien!" Serena's voice was high pitched and dry, both from fear and unuse. Darien sighed and rolled his head over toward her. He opened his eyes and took a few seconds to focus on her face. "Serena." He rolled up into a sitting position to face her. Immediately regretting the sudden movement, he rolled back down again. "Darien?" Serena was very scared to see him lie down again. She wanted to be moving forward, to be moving out of there, but Darien seemed not to be able to. "It's okay Serena. I'm fine, relax." Darien looked around their cell. It was stark, completely made out of light gray metal with no cracks or seams or edges of any kind. It seemed to be one smooth, flowing surface along all of the walls, ceiling and floor except for in the front of the cell. There a huge clear pane of something that made up the entire wall. It was like being in a zoo, with that clear window being where people could observe the specimens. Darien looked up at Serena again and saw the desperation in her eyes. He nodded to himself and slowly rolled up again. Gaining a tentative standing position, Darien walked over to the window and placed his hand against it, trying to measure it's strength. He was immediately hurled into the far wall of the cell by a large electric surge. "Darien!" Serena ran over to him as he struggled to sit up. Smoke came in wisps out of his clothing and his face had gone pale. "Darien!" "I'm fine Serena." Darien looked tenderly over to Serena as she held onto him tightly. She was getting very upset from the stress of the past couple of days. A few stray strands of hair fell in front of her eyes, and Darien, totally disconnected with the situation, brushed the strands out of her face. He smiled reassuringly and stood up again, gently pulling her up with him. They walked back to the clear window again, more cautiously this time. Standing about three feet away from the opening, neither Serena nor Darien was surprised when Prince Epsilon swaggered up from out of view to the window. He stood facing the two for a moment, and Serena, uncomfortable under the scrutiny, pushed herself further into Darien's protective warmth. Darien brought his arms up to envelope her in a reassuring embrace. Epsilon sneered at this. "Well, I see that you have both made yourselves at home here." His voice dripped with sarcasm. "I also see that you have made acquaintances with the force field. I warn you not to attempt to breech it again, it's voltage is increased after each touch with a biological entity." Darien's eyes narrowed. Serena looked slightly baffled, partly because she was confused what Epsilon meant, and partly because she couldn't completely come to terms with her situation. She didn't couldn't believe that all this was happening. She began to tremble slightly, then she felt Darien's arms tighten around her and was slightly soothed. She rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes, hoping to reopen them and find that this was all a dream. . . She reopened them and was still in the cool sterile cell. Epsilon was looking directly at her, and she raised her eyes unsurely to stare into his. "Well, Little Princess, you do make a charming picture here with your prince don't you? You do understand that neither of you are going to leave this place the same, don't you? You will not see your home again, your friends again, or live your pathetic excuse for a life again. No, Little Princess, now you shall face your existence as a creature of the nega-verse, my master has plans for you." "NO! I don't believe you! We will get out of here, and when we do, you're gonna be sorry you ever messed with the senshi! You'll see!" Serena's voice didn't come across as very threatening, because tears clogged in her throat, and her voice came sobbing, not defiant as she would have liked. She turned her face into Darien's shirt. "Oh, very brave words, but not intent, eh Little Princess?" Epsilon's voice became more syrupy with each comment. "You are a pathetic excuse for a warrior, your power is going to waste inside you." Serena didn't flinch this time, she looked back to the adversary, anger glittering in her eyes. Epsilon looked taken aback when her saw her face. "My my, Little Princess, you do look lovely when you're angry, do you not?" He stepped closer to the force field, the energy of it ruffling his clothing and raising his hair. "Yes, my dear, you are beautiful . . ." "You stay away from her!" Darien's voice cut through the air like a dagger. He held Serena even tighter to him, afraid of what this insanely corrupted version of his brother would do if he got the chance. Now that he had gotten over his initial feeling of seeing his brother and remembering a bit of his childhood so long ago, Darien had begun to accept the facts: that this Epsilon was not the brother that he had loved, that he needed to be treated as any other enemy before him, that if he harmed one hair on Serena's head that he would be annihilated. Darien had no trouble accepting the last fact, but the others . . . He didn't really want to believe that his Eppie was gone forever, and this was it, and his last happy memory of sibling love would be a skirmish in the meadow's tall grass a millennium ago, and that he would never feel that again, and that that was it, the end of the story, forever and ever . . . Darien shook his head as his thoughts became muddled with emotions. "So, the young would-be-ruler-of-the-world has a voice after all." Epsilon gazed at Darien with a smug expression of haughty superiority that could only be accomplished by something very evil. "And it seems that I have upset him, oh dear me," he said in a sarcastic falsetto, swaggering over to the side a pace so he was directly in front of his brother, staring into his eyes. "Who ever will save me from his wrath?" He giggled and then continued his taunting. "What are you going to do, oh high and mighty Tuxedo Mask-sama? Throw a flower at me? Hmm?" He laughed again, and this time, Darien loosened his grip on Serena and took a step toward the force field. "Uh, Uh, Little Prince. Don't try anything stupid, I know it is hard, but try to be intelligent for once and just stay put. Maybe you won't get hurt." Darien growled deep in his throat, then retreated and turned his back toward the window and Eppie's mocking face. Serena turned also, and walked over to his side, albeit a little less confidently than she would have liked to have portrayed. Epsilon laughed once again, and walked away, giving one final glance over his shoulder with a warning that everyone broke sometime, and soon they too would as well. "Darien?" Serena spoke softly. Darien looked up into her eyes, raising his head from his hands. Darien had sat down on the floor cross-legged immediately after Epsilon had left, butting his face in his hand without a word, and staying still and silent afterward. Serena had sat down next to him, also not speaking, letting him feel what he would, but eventually it came to the fact that Serena could only take so much silence before needing to break it. "Darien, I know that this must be hard for you, and I can't pretend to understand what it is you are feeling after all of this. . ." She took a breath to gather herself before continuing, "But you can't let him get to you this deeply! This isn't you, to sit in a corner and take this kind of thing. You have always been strong for me, Darien. You have always been there when I needed you. Well Darien, I need you now more than ever! And you may also need me. Don't shut me out because of this. Let me be here for you too." Darien looked off to the side, unable to keep her gaze. "Let me be here for you," Serena repeated, and she put her had over his and squeezed his fingers comfortingly. Darien looked up into her eyes again, and smiled. His eyes shone with such love as he gazed at her, drinking her support, that it was all Serena could do not to blush deep red. At that instant the force field went down and three youma entered the cell. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% The senshi stood in a circle outside Raye's temple. They were all agitated and fidgeted on their feet as they contemplated what to do about the latest events. "I'll tell you what we do!" Lita came to life. "We find out where this Epsilon guy took them, and we bust in there to get them back!" A couple of the girls nodded in agreement, buy Amy spoke up. "We can't do that. We couldn't just run in there and start fighting, even if we could determine where Serena and Darien have been taken. We don't know what forces are driving this new enemy, but judging from our first encounter with him, we are going to have to prepare a lot before we face him again." She thought for a moment. "And besides that, we can't go anywhere until we do find where they are! I have already run a complete computer scan of the North Pole, and there is no life there at the moment. I am in the process of expanding the search, but I'm having no luck as of yet." "Amy's right, you guys." Raye spoke with confidence and assumed leadership. "We need to think this through before we go charging in and getting everyone killed. We need to concentrate on finding Serena and Darien, then we can determine how to proceed from there." The rest of the girls nodded in assent. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Serena and Darien scrambled to their feet as the huge youma came into their cell. They were totally green, Serena noticed, with no identifiable skin or fur. They seemed to gleam as if made from solid green metal, and they stood at least seven feet tall. "Darien, what do we do now?" Serena's voice shook slightly as she lost all of her gained resolve in the face of three youma. "Now you, human come with us." One of the youma intoned, in answer of Serena's question. The monster pointed at Darien. "I don't think so." Darien attempted to sound confident for the sakes of both Serena and all three youma. He took a defensive stance, blocking Serena with his shoulder, just in cast the monsters tried something. They did. All three youma came in quickly and attempted to pin the two humans, one grabbed Darien by the shoulder with a grip of iron. This galvanized Serena into action, and with a shout, she raised her hand heaven-ward and transformed into Sailor Moon. "Hey, you! Uglies! I don't know what you want to do with him, but I'm stopping you! Right now!" Sailor Moon raised her hand above her head and called for her scepter to vanquish these villains, but before she could raise it into firing position, one of the youma swung around and batted it out of her hand. Serena held her wrist where the youma had made contact. They felt like they were made of solid metal too! Darien took advantage of the momentary distraction to transform into Tuxedo Mask. He then charged at the youma that had hit Serena, shrugging off the arm of the monster that held him. He got about two feet. The youma raised a hand and electric energy roared out of his palm to make contact with Tuxedo Mask. Serena gave a yell as Darien was hurled into the wall of the cell. The same youma grabbed Serena's wrist, and sent energy coursing through her body. Serena whimpered as every nerve in her body screamed. She then slumped to the ground, dazed. All three youma surrounded Tuxedo Mask and two grabbed his wrists and the third put his hand to his chest, filling his body with energy. The transformation slipped away, Tuxedo mask fading into Darien. He slipped into unconsciousness as his body gave out. The youma dragged him out of the cell. In the open doorway, Epsilon stood, quietly measuring the scene after the youma had left. He walked over to Sailor Moon, who was struggling to sit up, and took her chin into his hand. "You know Intended, you really put up a bit of a fight there, I do believe. Nice try, you just aren't a match for us, but don't worry, you will be with us soon." Sailor Moon's eyes flicked up to Epsilon's face. "What do you mean by that? And what have you done with Darien?!" Sailor Moon's eyes burned and she tore her face away from Epsilon's fingers, trying to distance herself from him. "Why I simply mean that you will be turned to the nega-force. It is that simple, neither you nor your little boyfriend can thwart the power of the negaverse. Then, as soon as you have found your rightful place with us, you and I will get married, as it was meant to be so long ago, Intended." Epsilon smiled then. "Never!" Serena was utterly repulsed. She scooted away from the offender, but he grabbed her wrist. Sailor Moon winced. "Never say never, Little Princess, my intended bride. Your prince is at this moment being "persuaded" to join our cause. We couldn't have him around to interfere when we turned you, so he will be turned first. Then, in a very short time, you will join us as well." Epsilon's voice was ominous and foreboding. He then abruptly stood and walked toward the door. "Wait!" Epsilon slowly came to a stop and turned again to acknowledge Serena. "Don't you care at all about any of this?" Serena's voice became high with emotion. "Doesn't it mean anything to you that your brother was just knocked out and dragged out of here to be forced to submit to an evil force? Doesn't it disturb you in the least that if he resists this conversion, you could end up hurting him? Doesn't it mean anything that if you can't convert him, or me, that you will have to kill us both? How will it feel to kill your brother? Does it mean anything to you?" Serena's voice grew desperate. "No, it does not mean anything. I gave the order." With that, Epsilon walked out of the room. And just as he turned, a glimmer of something wet reflected from the corner of his eye.