I'm Here to Help
by Mark Doherty(mdoherty@mailbox.uq.edu.au)

Fragment version

A Sailor Moon fic. I don't believe it, I'm actually writing a Sailor Moon
fic. This is not a good sign. Anyway, I'd like to hear opinions on this so
far, Sailor Moon is not something I normally write. Not that I really expect
that many comments, this is really not very long and doesn't project much of
what I plan for the story.

For the moment, this is just a writing exercise to get me over my writer's
block for 100%

+++++++++++++++++

Crystal Tokyo.

Crystalline structures, delicate spires of magic reaching to the heavens
like angel's wings.

People laughed, people smiled, people almost never cried. Why would they?
They lived in Utopia.

I hate it. I hate them. I hate her.

Serenity. 'Neo-Queen' Serenity.

They call her a goddess. The gods know she is worshipped as one in that
pristine, soulless hell.

I call her the devil. She is the culmination of everything I have ever
fought against: she is a tyrant. Oh, to be sure, she is a benevolent one.
Certainly, within the walls of her antiseptic little community, you'd 
never hear a word of protest about their 'noble queen'.

I bet the trains run on time there too. Or whatever form of transport they
use these days. It has been a while since I've gone near this sterile pit,
after all.

I fought Mars a decade ago. That day cost me more in energy drain than
the previous three centuries. But it had been almost worth it, almost worth
it to be able to fight a senshi for as long as I did and not die... but
then she called me evil.

Evil? Evil was to live in a world of black and white, and to think you are
the white. Evil was to say 'You are evil, I am good.' Evil was to view the
world in absolutes. Evil was a lie.

And so was this city.

But what could I do? Power? I have power. Some of it's even mine. I've even
almost matched the senshi in my rare encounters with one or another of them.
But there is power, and then there is Serenity. Many a fool hasn't lived
long enough to learn that mistake.

But... but, but, but there is a way. I don't know if I can do it, I don't
know if I have the power, and I certainly don't know if I can get past the
legendary guardian, but it's worth a try.

Time is the key. With time, I can set things right. I can find peace.

I will do it. Perhaps I will die. Perhaps I will have never existed at all,
perhaps I shall be wiped from the time stream. Perhaps nothing at all will
happen. Somehow, I don't care. After over nine hundred years, I just don't
care.

Grant me an end to this. Grant me the death of the one who started it all.
Grant me Serenity.

And grant that my soul is long since gone, lest it be sent to hell for what
I have become.

And above all... allow me to dream those power dreams. Allow me to dream in
peace. Allow me the dream of my youth.

Because sometimes, dreams are all we have.

    - Last entry in a small diary that was found by scavengers near
      Crystal Tokyo, in the year 2911 AD. When this entry was written,
      and by whom remains unknown.

+++++++++++++++++

Nightime in Tokyo. Crowds thronged the city streets, most putting aside the
concerns of work for a small time to enjoy life. Groups of teenagers
congregated in malls and arcades, having fun and being together, eating and
going to movies and playing the games, like the new one based on that
supergirl over in England, Sailor V.

He staggered through the crowds, ignoring the looks and the way people were
crossing the street to avoid him. Must be the clothes.

Petty, discriminated humanity. One moment full of happiness and love, the
next full of anger and hate.

He smiled. He'd missed this Tokyo. Dirty, crowded, full of people who could
insult you while remaining unfailing polite to you... oh yes, he'd missed
this Tokyo. It was HUMAN, so unlike the brainwashed cattle that occupied
this city in the future.

He stumbled against a wall, before he edged into an nearby alleyway. He
needed rest, he needed food, he needed energy. He needed energy desperately.

Time was the key. But energy was the lock. It had taken all the power he had
to make it here. Back, back so long ago. Back to when the senshi were merely
girls with interesting powers in silly suits. As opposed, of course, to
women with horrifically intense powers... in silly suits.

He edged back into the shadows. The last thing he needed was to be seen by
some police officer or another. He didn't drain himself of centuries of
gathered energy to get here, only to be arrested for vagrancy.

Not that it would matter. Time, apparently, was on his side. He had made it.
He was as weak as a babe, certainly, but he had made it. He had walked the
halls of time, he had done the unthinkable, he had travelled almost a
thousand years without Pluto's aid.

He winced, gently grasping a throng necklace and pulling it out of his
clothes.

"We did it, my friend. We can try for a better world."

He smiled. Only one thing worried him about his journey.

Where had been the Guardian of Time?

+++++++++++++++++

She looked down at him from the roof of the building he leaned against.

To see the lines of time, to see the strings of fate, of destiny, to have to
observe... was it any wonder that her office had not changed hands every
century or so, like the other senshi had in the Silver Millenium? The
chances of finding a girl every century willing to do what she had to do
was slim. Finding one every millenium was a small chance, for that matter.

He was as much an enemy to her queen as the worst of others. He hated her
ruler more than any other she had ever seen, even Beryl. He would, she had
no doubt, destroy all of time to see Serenity die.

She almost pitied him. He was more trapped by time's whim than she.

Pluto blinked. And then she was gone.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What is that it? For the moment, I guess. What's the point of this story?

Simply, a reaction to certain aspects of the future in Sailor Moon, mostly
the exodus of the people who would become the Dark Moon Kingdom(I hope I'm
right about the backstory of how the Nemisis people came to be, or else
this entire fic could be screwed), and how Crystal Tokyo is supposed to be
an Utopia.



************  
Mark Doherty  -  mdoherty@mailbox.uq.edu.au
The Weekly FFML Synopses Lists are at:
http://www.uq.edu.au/~zzhdoher

My fanfics will be back on the web sooner or later.

"Time grows short, but I remain tall."