At 08:11 PM 22/10/97 -0400, Matthew Campbell wrote:

Mark Doherty wrote:

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

Chapter 3

Hey, since no one else is commenting on this, I thought I'd share a few 
thoughts.

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

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.

I haven't. Two other different people have recommended it to me now, the 
most recent when I started buying Thunderbolts(and I started buying that AFTER
the second chapter was released, BTW). I guess I should check it out, the
way people keep mentioning it to me.

It's just a little way of building the universe. Just for the hell of it,
I'll try to fit any Sailor Moon fic I do into the one universe, so there's
always the possibility that these characters could be used. But for now,
they serve to paint a backdrop.

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.)

True, there is some transference, but it's mostly anger at the 'godlike'
way she rose from the remains of the ice that angered him.

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?

Hmm... I think I have a journal entry up my sleeve explaining this one.
Wait and see, he... er... 'explains' it soon.

"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.

And I'm not going to tell! Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!

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.

Well, yes. ^_^

"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.

Hey, he's not COMPLETELY incapable of recognising people. Just Serenity.

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?

All the hardliners got exiled in the initial fights after the ice withdrew,
to form the Black Moon clan. Anyone left was either on the other side, or
else a normal mortal, and not really worth recruiting.

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.

There does seem to be a bit of an inevitability to his defeat, doesn't there?
Perhaps because he just can't cut a break, and win one.

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.  

The pay's great, but the retirement plan stinks. ^_^

'Nameless' paints 
this horrible picture of Serenity, and without anyone to contradict, we 
readers will assume he's totally correct.

Chapter 5 has other POV journals. Hey, what can I say, most Sailor Moon 
stories paint the bad guys into a corner as far as evil goes, why not do 
the same for the other side?

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.

And I'm not going to tell! Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!!! Cough, cough. 

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?

It's a symbol of how he abandons everything, his life, his memories, a
large deal of his humanity, all for his quest to destroy Serenity. He
writes the journals because his memory is seriously shot, he leaves the
journals because, in the end, they don't matter. Nothing matters. Except
Serenity.

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.

Everyone has regrets. Besides, it puts doubt into people's minds about what,
exactly, is going to happen to him, and what he will do. There's a journal
entry that was going to be at the end of this chapter, that I moved to the
end of the next one, that sort of sums up the way the man slightly changes 
over the centuries.

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.

'Tux-boy' has been used by too many others. ^_^

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!

It's the personality, more than anything else, that has made the man not
realise the connection between Moon and Serenity. While Serenity may 'still
be Usagi', there are definite differences, in poise, attitude, and bearing.

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?

Possibly. I haven't finalised the chapter 5 Senshi journals yet, I may
mention it there.

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 has something personal against practically everyone from Crystal Tokyo.
But he definitely doesn't think much of Endymion either.

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."


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?

Not telling. ^_^ Perhaps she gets nothing, but she still knows Tux isn't
hiding his aura, while it's obvious with the killer because it's more of
a 'null field' type effect.

"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?  

Well, no, not really. More a dig at Mars than any specific fic which pairs
a fighter to her. It was too good an opportunity to pass up, after all...
(I'm sure if the two characters were set in the same universe that the
shieldsman would have a few things to say to the crystal guy. Not that 
the killer would be too worried, of course, but it would be a curious
meeting.)

'Nameless' is definitely one of the best new 
Sailor Moon fanfiction characters to be created since Dark Kingdom 
Renagades.

Thanks.

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.

It's a convention because we like to annoy the hell out of her. It's
so much fun. ^_^

We get on like a house on fire. Screaming, casualties, lots of damage to be
cleaned up afterwards.

Ooooooh.  Nice metaphor.

It seemed appropriate.

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.

The best way to describe it is that they have been enemies for so long
that they could be friends. They seek each other out to fight(he went for
her in the rebel's battle), but there isn't that hate that there is from him
to Serenity. 

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.)

Er... next chapter, things come to a head regarding the relatively gentle
way he's been acting.

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

"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.

Heh.

"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?

She should, but I didn't really think I needed her. Maybe I'll add her.

"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.

I guess I should add the little cat, I'll think about it.

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.

The youma killer is almost defined by the way he conserves every drop of
energy. It would only be natural that he would look on the expenditure 
required for a citywide illusion, and moving around those planes, as
foolishly overspending energy.

And he's not finished with thinking about Jadeite just yet, don't you
worry.

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.

There will be an attempt by the killer to rationalise the energy waste
by Jadeite, in the next chapter or two.

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?  

It is for him. ^_^

Say if he's still performing heroic deeds like 
this in the future, how can the Senshi convince themselves he's so 
totally evil?

Because they're not there to see it? Pluto and Serenity are the only ones
with any high chance of knowing more about the man than the others. You
might have noticed that Pluto hasn't done anything yet, even though there's
a killer loose in the past.

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.

They can join the back of the queue. ^_^

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.

Have energy, will drain...

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's not a complete bastard, just a bastard. ^_^
Likeable scum, as I've said before.

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.

Not if I finish it at the first part, no. If I decide to continue beyond,
there's at least a good chance, though. Certainly, the question is there:
what would he think of the Nemesis clan, especially _PRINCE_ Demand?

And what would the clan think of seeing one of their legendary heroes
alive?

	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.  

Wahhh! I thought I'd had him give plenty of reasons. Oh well, there's one
left, and it's covered in the next chapter. The Purification.

Also, is he the only rebel left in the future?

The only one not on Nemesis. Again, there is a journal entry which basically
says he's all alone, in the next chapter.
  

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.  

Yep, other POV's are definitely needed. Chapter 5.

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.

Sometimes, right and wrong are merely a matter of perception. He hates
Serenity for legitimate reasons, the Purification being top of the list,
her becoming a 'benevolent tyrant'(first chapter), a close second.

Thanks for the extensive C&C, much appreciated.

************  
Mark Doherty  -  mdoherty@mailbox.uq.edu.au
The Weekly FFML Synopses Lists are at:
http://www.uq.edu.au/~zzhdoher/list.html
My fics are back - 
http://www.tass.org/~mdoherty/index.html

"Time grows short, but I remain tall."