Mark Doherty wrote:
I'm Here to Help
by Mark Doherty(mdoherty@mailbox.uq.edu.au)
Chapter 3
Comments are always good to hear. Especially on an experiment like
this one.
Hey, since no one else is commenting on this, I thought I'd share a few
thoughts.
Previous parts are on my web page(http://www.tass.org/~mdoherty/index.html),
and at the Sailor Romance site. Or you can always e-mail me.
To make life easier for the readers, "journal entries" are marked
with * * * at the start and end.
+++++++++++++++++
Sailor Moon. Sailors Procyon, Formalhaut, and Terra. The ten members of
The Rising Stars, drawn from such diverse countries as Pakistan,
Indonesia, Spain and China. The five member Brazilian team whose name I
have regrettably forgotten. Every member of the Australian team, The
Southern Cross, except for Opal. The Italian girl who liked to dress
like Zorro. That Englishman who used a rapier. And at least twenty other
people with power, one of whom sacrificed herself, just so that I could
continue to fight. And, of course, the ordinary people. Soldiers,
salarymen, husbands, wives... normal people.
Let me ask you a question. Do you read Kurt Busiek's Astro City? (It's
a comic book). I ask because the type of universe building you're doing
hear reminds me of it in a good way. Heck, I'd be willing to read a
story about the Italian girl who dressed like Zorro.
All of them dead, in the last fight to protect the Earth. My friends, my
sister, dead.
And after all that, there, being worshipped like a deity, was Serenity.
It was sickening, to see all the sacrifice forgotten for just one person.
I think there's some transference going on here. Serenity isn't to
blame for their deaths (though whether she gives their efforts proper
credit is another matter.)
Never before had I been so angry as at that moment. It was then that the
plan to 'purify' the people and to make Crystal Tokyo was announced, as
What does 'purifying' the people entail exactly?
- Entry in a small, half-burnt diary, which had been left in the
ruins of Osaka. Dated, with an accuracy surprising for the time,
2373.
You keep mentioning ruins and burned out buildings. Yet at the same
time it seems like Serenity rules the entire world. Is she just letting
everywhere except Crystal Tokyo go to hell?
* * *
"I don't suppose you remember which horses won at the track in the
next couple of weeks? Just imagine the bets we could make..." he said to
the crystal hidden underneath his shirt. After a small pause, he harumphed,
I'm really getting curious as to who or what this crystal actually is.
other 'important' news. Ah well, the world shall have to take notice soon
enough. At least for now, people still have their blinkered innocence."
'Soon enough' being within the next decade or two. This is from the
standpoint of an immortal.
He closed the paper, and was about to toss it back into the bin, when he
noticed the date. He blinked, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked at the
inked page. "Something..." he muttered, looking around. He found what he
was looking for, a digital clock set in a store's display, and frowned.
"Two hours... Two hours to..." he shook his head, and tossed the paper
into the bin, striding for the nearest place away from the public view.
+++++++++++++++++
His eyes roved the area, constantly searching for danger. His eyes stopped
wandering when he spotted a boy of about fourteen or fifteen years. The
boy, who had short black hair, was dressed in one of the local school
uniforms, and was currently smiling nervously, was walking towards an
empty park bench that was sheltered by some well-kept bushes.
"Gods." the man breathed as he caught a glimpse of the boy's light brown
eyes. "Was I ever that young?"
So he doesn't have any problem recognizing himself, then.
He pushed away from the tree, his eyes never leaving the boy. His right
arm reached up, ready to catch the boy's attention. "I could tell him,
my friend. About you, about me, about what's going to happen. We could
warn him, set him down another path. He doesn't have to turn into me."
He sighed, shook his head, and lowered his arm. "No, you're right. If
not me, then whom? There is no-one else to stop the madness of Serenity.
I cannot afford such selfishness." He leaned back against the tree again,
After a thousand years he still fights alone, eh? Has he given up on
recruiting others or does no one else have any problem with Serenity?
his eyes once more searching for the expected danger, although his gaze
constantly wandered back to the younger version of himself, who was
sitting on the bench, apparently waiting for someone.
The man blinked when a small, black-haired girl, the same age as his
younger self, and dressed in a school dress, walked over to the park
bench, and sat down next to the boy. The two teenagers talked, and then,
nervously, held hands, relying on the bushes to hide them from the public's
view while still getting the view of such a public display.
The man watched, as the couple kept talking, until the girl placed a
finger on the boy's lips. She looked around for anyone watching, completely
missing the one spy, before she turned back to the boy, removed her finger,
and kissed him lightly on the lips. Then, she smiled, said something to the
shocked boy, and ran off, giggling.
The boy sat there, blinking, for a few moments before he shook himself
out of his coma and ran after the girl.
The man blinked, watching the dwindling figure of the boy. "Not an attack."
he whispered. "Not a death or a horrible wrong. So much I have forgotten,
so much I wished I could forget. And yet, after over nine hundred years, I
still remember the time and place of my first kiss."
I really feel for poor 'nameless' here. What do you say you let him
win and kill Serenity. Yeah, that's it. Do the unexpected and have
him actually win. Time paradox? He's not worried about some steenking
time paradox.
He clutched his arms together, and bowed his head, shutting his eyes. "No,
my friend." he whispered to his crystal. "No, I am not alright."
He shivered slightly, before clutching his arms tighter to his body. "I
haven't been alright for a long, long time."
+++++++++++++++++
* * *
The rebellion was over. My fellow rebels were either dead, exiled to space,
or, like Onyx, simply gone. Exile seemed to be my destiny too, after my
defeat at the final battle.
But I was too angry to let myself be exiled from my planet, after all that
had happened.
To think that at the mockery that was my 'trial'(more a public audience
with the 'Neo-queen'), they dared to act like exile was awe-inspiringly
merciful.
If being thrown off the planet that had born, raised, and supported you, if
being thrown off the planet that you fought time and time again to save and
protect, if being thrown off the planet that people died, DIED to help you
protect, if being thrown off your home planet, the planet you love is MERCY,
then by the GODS, never, EVER show any mercy to me AGAIN!
There's no mercy in planetary exile, none at all. To rip something as
precious as one's home from you is, as vulgar as the analogy is, like
rape of the soul.
It's the sort of thing I've come to expect from Serenity.
You *really* need to get someone else's POV in here sometime soon. At
this point, I'm ready to join the rebellion myself. 'Nameless' paints
this horrible picture of Serenity, and without anyone to contradict, we
readers will assume he's totally correct.
Exile? I wasn't going to accept that. And so I escaped.
It wasn't easy to do so. But their mistake was in thinking that if I was
drained of energy and away from my crystal, that I couldn't do anything.
They obviously didn't know what the crystal truly was. If they had, they
would have put more guards on it than they did on me.
SO WHAT IS IT! Arghhh. This mystery is killing me.
Such a pity that, for them, no?
- Part of a set of journal entries kept in a small house in Western
Europe. Dated from the late 2400s/early 2500s, the journals were
severely age-damaged when found in 2761.
Is there some particular reason he abandons his journals everywhere? If
he wants people to read them, just post some honest propaganda on the
internet. If they're just for himself, why doesn't he store them
somewhere safe?
* * *
+++++++++++++++++
The man knelt in an empty part of a cemetery, and stared at the well-grassed
ground.
"Mother. Father. Sister." He bowed his head, and sighed. "I know, I know.
None of you are dead yet, not in this time. But I don't think I could face
you all, alive and breathing. Not after so long. I can barely face you all
like this."
He slowly took off his sunglasses, placing them in his shirt's pocket.
"That was one of the few advantages of my long life. Not having to face
you all in the afterlife, of seeing the shame in your eyes..."
I'm not sure he should doubt himself this much. A fanatic feels
absolute certainty in his cause, and thinks others should agree with
him.
The man rested his hands on the grass. "We all do what we feel we must. And
I must do this, I _must_ kill Serenity, I _must_ ensure Crystal Tokyo is
never built. I must stop her. But that doesn't mean I don't have regrets."
The man bowed his head. "Momma, Poppa, Sis. I'm sorry."
+++++++++++++++++
The cloaked man leaned on the building's edge, looking down at the three
Senshi, Moon, Mercury, and Mars, who were facing a youma and Jadeite.
"Oh look, there's Mr Swank." he noted as Tuxedo Kamen made his entrance.
'Mr. Swank' Hee-hee.
He sighed when he saw Sailor Moon's lovelorn gaze. "Gods, girl, you
were infatuated with him this early? It's sad, really, to see such
puppy dog devotion to a man like that. Huh, it didn't take Endymion long
after her death to get all cosy with Serenity."
This is interesting. He doesn't recognize Sailor Moon as Serenity, but
he recognizes Tuxedo Mask as Endymion. TM is the one who wears the
mask!
He paused, and then glared down at his crystal. "Those centuries in the
ice don't count in this!" He looked back up, and winced. "Looks like
this Jadeite man has some sort of personal grudge against Endymion, from
the way they're fighting." He shrugged as the Dark Kingdom general and
At some point are you going to reveal exactly *why* the Senshi chose to
reveal so little about this period to the history book writers?
the tuxedoed fighter slightly drew away from the main battlefield. He
owed Jadeite some pain for that youma's ambush a while back, but it wasn't
overly important to him who gave that pain.
The Senshi on the other hand... He looked back to them, and growled when
he saw the girls being blasted around by the youma.
"Ah... curse it! They're fighting like amateurs! Without them, I may not
find Serenity until the Ice. I'll have to help, just in case something
goes wrong." He stood, brought his right hand up, and threw a small beam
of green energy into the ground, right before the youma. Everyone, including
Jadeite and Tuxedo Kamen, looked up at him.
"Evil agents of a cursed realm, cease your destructive ways immediately!"
The man paused for a moment, trying to think up more things to say,
before inspiration struck. "Sailor Moon, I told you I would be here to
help! But as long as you are confident in your own abilities, your own
inner strength, and the strength shared with you by your comrades, _you_
are the only help you will ever need!"
The man winced, and whispered to his crystal "Gods, what a bunch of stupid
rubbish. Perhaps I should tell them to 'believe in the spirit of love' or
that 'good always triumphs over evil' while I'm at it. Still, what do you
think? All I need is some snappy clothes and a frontal lobotomy, and I
could be Endymion."
Hahahahahaha. :) I love this guy. Does he have something personal
against Endymion, or is he just unable to respect someone calling
himself Tuxedo Kamen.
He raised an energy shield as the youma fired an attack at him. Flashy,
energy draining, and probably unnecessary, true. He could have dodged, but
would that have impressed the Senshi anywhere near as much? Probably not.
"Come on girls." he whispered. "Big, bad youma paying all her attention to
poor little me. Perfect opportunity to--"
Sailor Mercury blanketed the area with fog, blinding the youma for Sailor
Mars' follow up, her fire attack.
"Ah yes." the man whispered, dropping the energy shield. He couldn't see
through the fog, not normally anyway. But his energy senses could penetrate
the murk, he could see the energy trail of Mars' attack, see the auras
of the Senshi, the youma, and Kamen. Jadeite had retreated, by the looks
of it. "Now, as always when she was alive..."
Sailor Moon threw her glowing tiara, disintegrating the youma.
"Huh, and they thought they had moral grounds to call me a killer? Still,
Good point.
the seeds of the future are there. The fight is in their blood. I suppose
that, at least, you have to respect, if nothing else."
+++++++++++++++++
Sailor Mars watched the man in the tattered cloak jump down in front of
Sailor Moon. Her eyes narrowed. This wasn't right, normally when she saw
someone, she got at least some vague sense off of them, some indication of
their nature, or their life. And when she didn't it didn't feel like what
she saw when she looked at this man. Instead of seeing nothing, it was like
she was looking at a... well, some sort of a null-spot. Like he should be
generating a huge aura, but he was somehow masking it.
And what reason did he have to mask his aura, if he was a friend? For that
matter, _how_ could he hide his aura like that?
She saw Sailor Mercury using her computer to scan the man, hiding her
motions behind Sailor Moon as she did so. Mars smiled, at least Mercury
had enough sense not to trust some stranger.
Yet they trust Tuxedo Kamen. What aura does she get off him?
The man said something to Sailor Moon, glanced at Sailor Mercury, and then
spared a look at Sailor Mars. He grinned as he looked at her, and then
turned back to Moon, saying some sort of goodbye.
The man walked back towards the building he had jumped down from, tensing
his muscles, ready to leap.
"Wait!" Sailor Mars cried out, in an authoritative voice. "Who are you?"
The man paused, and relaxed his tensed muscles. He turned back to the
Senshi, cocked his head for a moment, and then said curiously "Tell me, do
you believe that you are reincarnated warriors from a Moon Kingdom?"
The Senshi gasped.
"How... how did..." Sailor Moon stuttered. She closed her mouth, and
looked at the other girls.
"Please, just give me an honest answer." The man said. "Do you believe
that?"
"Yes." Sailor Mars admitted. "I suppose we do. Why?"
The man was silent for a few seconds. Then, he reached up, drew back his
hood, and took down his goggles so that they hung around his neck. He ran
his left hand through his green hair, before he looked at Sailor Mars.
The girls blinked, all of them except for Sailor Mars was slightly
blushing. Hiding underneath those rags was someone who looked like this!?
Sure, he looked a bit serious, but besides that, he was quite handsome.
"Mars." he said quietly, softly. She looked into his strange eyes, and
blinked. "Rei-chan." The girls gasped when he said her name, and Mars
paled. "Don't you remember? Back in the..." he paused, desperately
searching his memory for the right name. He stepped forward and took
Mars' hand to cover his pause; she was too shocked at his using her real
name to protest. "...in the Silver Millennium, you and I... don't you
remember? We were lovers."
ROTFL. This guy is great! Is this a dig at a certain fanfic by a
certain Christopher Angel? 'Nameless' is definitely one of the best new
Sailor Moon fanfiction characters to be created since Dark Kingdom
Renagades.
What little blood that hadn't already drained from Mar's face escaped,
leaving her as pale as a sheet. Then, all the blood rushed back, as she
blushed beet-red.
"I see, it's too much, too soon." the man noted, letting go of her hand.
"I shall go, and see you another day. Goodbye, Rei-chan." He turned, ran
five steps, and leaped to the top of the nearest building, leaving two
Senshi staring at their third member.
+++++++++++++++++
* * *
Sailor Mars. Through one of those vagaries of chance, I know her true
first name: Rei. I always make it a point to call her that, it annoys her
no end when we're trying to kill each other. She usually retaliates in
Why is that that a fanfic convention, anyway? In several crystal tokyo
fanfics, Rei dislikes people calling her by name.
kind; when you've fought someone as long and often as we two have, you
tend to learn each other's 'buttons to press', so to speak. We try to
press them all, every time we meet.
She was the first Senshi I ever encountered. I was fighting some strange
birdlike monster, and I was losing. It was only my second fight, I was
inexperienced in combat. Mars pulled me out of a tight situation.
She never let me forget it too.
We get on like a house on fire. Screaming, casualties, lots of damage to be
cleaned up afterwards.
Ooooooh. Nice metaphor.
We never really did like each other much, and once it was clear that we
were on opposite sides during the rebellion, we moved on to hostile enmity.
And then, when she discovered the hate I had developed for Serenity, things
turned... bitter.
* * *
+++++++++++++++++
He couldn't stop laughing. He sat in the shadows of a building's roof,
letting the humour wash over him. "The... the look on her face!" he gasped,
between chortles. "Oh mercy, I haven't laughed like this in centuries!
Hahaa! Let's see her find a way to get even for this one!"
He really doesn't hate Rei, does he? He hates Serenity and fights Rei
out of necessity, but he really doesn't hate her.
He pulled the crystal up to his face, composed his face into quiet
seriousness, and calmly said "Oh, Rei-chan."
His serious facade crumbled, as he shook from trying to contain the
laughter. Finally, he gave up, and went back to laughing.
How can you not cheer for this guy? We have yet to see him do anything
really horrible (Killing youmas doesn't count since the Senshi do that
too.)
+++++++++++++++++
"Would you two be quiet!? I'm TELLING you, I've never seen that guy before
in my life! I've got some wacko with weird eyes out there who knows who I
am, and all you two can do is swoon!?" Rei crossed her arms, furious,
still blushing. After the battle, the other two Senshi had followed her
back to the temple, and they had proceeded to pelt her with questions
about the man.
She's got a crush a mile wide. She just doesn't want to admit it to
Usagi.
"Don't be so mean to me Rei!" Usagi wailed.
Ami cleared her throat. "He did know who you were. And remember, he did
say it was back in the Silver Millennium. I know I can't remember much at
all about that time. Practically nothing, in fact. Is it hard to believe
that you can't remember your..." she blushed, "friend from back then?"
"What about him knowing my name then? Don't tell me I had the same name
back then too? And how can he remember, if I can't!?"
Shouldn't Luna be here to make some comment on this?
"Maybe he just got lucky, and remembered more." said a recovered Usagi.
"And then, maybe he remembered his lost love, torn from him by the cruel
hands of time. And so he searched, and finally found her, working as a
simple..."
"Hey!"
"...temple girl. He starts to approach her, but no! First, she whisks
away to fight, and he follows, ready to defend her from harm, finally
doing that duty tonight." Usagi gasped from her long supposition.
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, Odango-atama!"
"Actually..." Ami interposed quietly, "it sort of makes sense. It's one
way it could have happened, anyway. If he did remember you from this
Moon Kingdom, he might have just found out your name by finding you.
And that may have been why he met Usagi those times she told us about, so
that he could be sure he was on the right path."
"It's true love, drawing a couple together." Usagi sighed, as Rei's face
started to turn purple. "Sort of like me and Tuxedo Kamen."
I've never been a fan of 'true destined love' stories, so I just love
this part. You really need to have Luna there, as well, though.
+++++++++++++++++
The man watched as a gigantic illusion of Jadeite appeared over the city,
challenging the Senshi to a fight at Narita airport. "Gods. That has to be
the stupidest waste of mystical energy I've seen in centuries."
Rather than attributing Jaedite's actions to stupidity, as so many
others have done, it might have been interesting to see 'Nameless'
present a brilliant rationalization for why Jaedite acted as he did.
+++++++++++++++++
He watched from the shadows of a runway, his cloak merging him with the
darkness, as the three Senshi girls ran away from telekinetically controlled
planes. "My mistake, _this_ is the stupidest waste of mystical energy I've
seen in centuries."
The man shook his head. "That man has absolutely no appreciation of energy
conservation." he muttered. "The fool must be either stupid, glutted on
energy, or only capable of fine control on gigantic objects. Otherwise, he
would have had the sense to animate a couple of trucks or cars or something.
Faster, more likely to hit, several, several tonnes less of vehicle to push
around..."
He turned, and walked away from the fight. "Huh, to see all that energy
being wasted in such an unbelievably crass display of macho desperation.
It's enough to make me want to cry. I need to get away from this foolishness
for a while."
You know, this makes me look back on that episode with a whole new eye.
Why the heck was Jaedite acting like that, anyway. Just saying he's
stupid doesn't cut it.
+++++++++++++++++
Two days later, in a small village in northern Scotland, a green-haired
man approached the mayor, and, in slightly accented but otherwise perfect
English, said "I heard from the papers that you have a werewolf terrorising
this place. I can bet no-one believed you, no-one took you seriously."
"I believe you. I take you seriously. And I'm here to help you."
*This* is a vacation? Say if he's still performing heroic deeds like
this in the future, how can the Senshi convince themselves he's so
totally evil?
+++++++++++++++++
The man calmly tossed the newspaper back into the bin he had taken it
from, back in Japan from his working holiday. "And old Zap-happy makes
'old Zap-happy'? Jupiter fans are gonna kill you.
four. From vague memory, Venus should be the next one to be found, now that
Jupiter's here. How curious that the media are starting to take serious
notice of the Senshi."
He resettled the clothes bag on his shoulder, and looked down at the lump
under his shirt that was the crystal. "I don't know exactly when Serenity
comes. But my guess is that it will be within a year or two. Still, even
with all that time, I have to find more energy, just to be sure of it.
My holiday was very... energising, but I need more. A lot more to be sure."
You know, with all this talking to a rock and writing extensive notes to
himself, he's beginning to remind me of Magnetite.
His gaze settled on two teenage girls, a blonde with hair gathered into
two long ponytails, tied into balls on the top of her head, and a brunette
with wavy, just beyond shoulder-length hair.
The blonde had an interesting energy, with an undeniably impressive, and
vaguely familiar aura. But it was the other one that had screamed to his
energy senses. No normal human could possibly have that much energy within
her.
Osaka Naru, official energy source for the Nega-verse.
He took a step towards the two girls as they walked past on the other side
of the road. He hesitated, started to take another step, and then stopped,
his face set in a grimace.
He couldn't...
He cursed his weakness. She was a mystic battery, for pity's sake! Her
power was rolling off her, the girl's energy was almost swimming
around her! Draining her would be as good... BETTER than draining thirty
youma!
He clenched his fists. No. Not unless he had to. Not because she was
human and not a youma, he had long since cast off such ridiculously
speciesist ideas. No, it was because she looked so innocent.
And gods help him, he couldn't destroy an innocent. Not unless he had
to. He just couldn't help but feel like a hypocrite.
It looks to me like he's retained a lot more scruples than he'll admit
to himself.
He looked at the brown haired girl, overhearing the blonde call her
'Naru-chan'. "So beautiful." he sighed, as the two girls walked off,
his eyes firmly fixed on her aura, not her physical form.
+++++++++++++++++
* * *
+++++++++++++++++
* * *
I read a history book from Crystal Tokyo yesterday. It was heavily biased
in their side's favour, although that's no surprise. Still, I was
surprised to find that they allowed that maybe we rebels weren't
'completely' bad, that 'maybe', 'conceivably' we were actually fighting
because we thought our cause was right.
I suppose there's no way he's going to make it to the four weird
sisters. Too bad.
Let me make a few last general comments. You need to explain
more on exactly why he hates Serenity. Just give some concrete examples
of things she's done. Also, is he the only rebel left in the future?
I'd like to know how he does at recruiting others to his cause. How is
he viewed by those outside Crystal Tokyo. A devil? A hero? Or
somewhere in between. Finally, we really need another POV. I'm
beginning to hate Serenity myself, simply because if 'Nameless' (who
obviously has a large core of decency beneath his obession) hates her,
well there must be some merit to his viewpoint. That's why I'm asking
about the opinions of those outside Crystal Tokyo. They're likely to
come closest to the truth.