Help the Senshi
by Mark Doherty (mdoherty@mailbox.uq.edu.au)

This is a run-through fic, written on the fly. It fits into the universe
expounded in I'm Here to Help, and it offers a different view on certain
things. This won't be the only one I do from another's view, probably.

This is basically standalone, but go read I'm Here to Help first, the
story is built on events portrayed there. 

Sailor Moon and associated characters/background were created by
Naoko Takeuchi. No disrespect is intended in their use.

C&C, please.

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

The Great Ice was... horrible. It was like a slow-motion dream, thoughts 
and feelings warped to a terrible slowness, as cold seeped, seemingly
permanently, into your limbs. When Serenity freed us from that, it was 
something... a deed for which I can't even begin to describe how grateful 
I was. She had a vision of a future, a better future, free from monsters such 
as the ones that had brought about the Ice in the first place.

She was... she is incredible. So calm, so wise, with a quiet power that
speaks to us all. She was a creature of peace, of love, and she had a 
bright hope for the future. All she needed to do was to drive out the last
of the darkness from our tainted Earth, so that we could all make peace in
a new, bright world. 

I was one of the paranormals, one of the ones the press liked to call the
"Sailor wannabes". One of the girls who admired, respected the work and
cause of the true Senshi, who believed in their courage and strength enough
to try and emulate them. Because of this, I came to the attention of Neo-Queen
Serenity, and the surviving seven Senshi. They contacted me, two days after
we came out of the Ice, and asked me to help with organising relief teams for
the tens of thousands who were still in shock from the trauma of the years
of the Ice.

I was surprised... thrilled, really, that they even knew of me. It was a heady
feeling, to actually talk to the women who had inspired me to do some good,
instead of wasting my life away doing nothing. To actually be helping them
to help people was... it was so _exhilarating_.

Apparently, Sailor Mercury had known one friend or another of mine from the
university I had been going to, and that was how they had found out about me. 
They had talked to me, they said, because I'd had some experience with 
psychology, having dabbled in it a bit while studying for my medical degree.

Just two more semesters and I would have got it, too. 

So, I was asked to be there for the people, a soothing reminder of the 
protecters of the city, giving whatever help for their minds that I could.
It was exhausting work, with periods of intense emotional pain, from seeing
so much suffering so close-up. But it was so fulfilling too, I was doing 
something to help those in need.

Just over a month after the ice had receeded, I was walking between the
encampment that housed the Senshi and a lot of other people, and the
broken buildings that contained a lot of the people who still refused to 
leave their homes, the people who took comfort in the only thing left that
was familiar to them, the posessions in their ruined abodes.

I was strolling down a rubbled street, having planned to visit a widower and 
his young daughter, both of whom had taken the Ice worse than most, when I
noticed that the street was filling with a dark, heavy smoke. At first,
I was calm, thinking it to be the result of someone making a bonfire. Many
suffering from the psychological impact of the Ice had taken to staying around
fires all day and night, no matter how warm it was.

Then, when I caught a glimpse of my fuku skirt's edge, ruffling towards the 
smoke as the dark cloud roiled in my direction, I realised that it couldn't be 
normal smoke. Normal smoke didn't move against the wind like this.

Out of the acrid smoke, like shadowed angels of death, they ran. Men, women,
beasts, united together like some sort of wolf-pack. All of the humans,
a truly motley bunch, wore the same insignia, a black, upside-down crescent
moon. Some had it painted or tatooed on their foreheads, others had it 
sewed into their clothes, and some even wore it on battle flags attached to
their backs. The black moon sent a chill through my spine, such a symbol
could not possibly be meant as a good thing.

I think the most terrifying thing about them was the silence with which they
moved. They moved with the stealth of assassins.

Assassins... I looked at them, and realised that they were going in the
general direction of... the encampment.

The Neo-Queen. The grim looks in some of their faces... they were going to 
attack, going to try and kill the Neo-Queen! Damn them, why? She'd saved us 
all, and now they repayed her like this? I'd heard the mutterings about some 
people being discontent with the idea of a queen, but this was taking things 
too far. 

I let my powers show, gathering a blazing corona of multi-coloured, searing 
light around me, hoping to scare them into backing off, or at least 
hoping that the light would alert others.

I should have known that if they could make smoke like that, smoke which
they didn't choke on, that they wouldn't be normal humans.

Three varied power-beams, five thrown projectiles. Those are the ones I
felt, before I fell, the light of my prepared attack sputtering into
darkness as I collapsed in pain.

I blacked out for a second, only my determination to get away, to warn the
Senshi bringing me back from the cold void. I managed to crawl a few feet
away from my attackers, before a young man knelt down before me, blocking
my path.

I looked into his eyes, strangely shaded green orbs, and my instincts 
screamed despair at the finality of the sadness in his eyes. Sadness for
me, for my fate.

"I didn't want this." he said, his voice soft and laced with a pain beyond
any I had heard from the other survivors of the Ice. He put his hand on
my left shoulder, the one that wasn't covered in my own blood, and he 
began to glow.

It was when I tried to gather the last of my energy, to throw one last
defiant blast, to at least kill one of the killers, that I realised, horrified,
what he was doing.

He was draining me. He was taking my energy, my life. He was killing me.

"None..." he paused, shook his head, and grimaced. "_Many_ of us didn't want
this. But, in the end, this was unavoidable. She wants to rule the world,
to destroy humanity's right to choose between good and evil, to destroy
what it is to _be_ human. All for 'good'. No, no this was inevitable. We
fight for what's right. I am sure you could claim the same. Go on to peace,
warrior, and know that we are sorry. Goodbye."

With my death reflected in his green, glowing eyes, with my limbs numb and
my heart slowing to a stop, I cursed him. Not with my voice, in those last
seconds, I had no strength to speak, no breath to blow out to make sound.
But I cursed him, swearing, raging in my mind that I would wait for him, wait
for his death, that I would be waiting for him. He had killed me, _killed_
me, and acted like it was ok if he was sorry? He was about to attack a woman
who had saved us all, and he was SORRY!?

I died. And my curse came true, as I hovered over him, my spirit attached to 
his destiny.

I'd have to make that sort of vow about an immortal, wouldn't I?

How was I supposed to know that he'd still be alive six hundred years later?

Time and time again, my hopes raised as he fought the Senshi, or a particularly
nasty monster, or even the Neo-Queen herself. How, HOW can he still be alive,
after the amount of times he should have died? How can he escape whenever the
odds turn against him? Why hasn't Serenity hunted him down?

Why is he still alive?

Why can't my vow come true?

Why can't he just die...?

Why... why can't he just die?

There he goes, writing down his thoughts again. Perhaps that's the worst thing
about this miserable little vow of mine. With his poor memory, when he finally
dies, will he even remember me?

Hmph, probably not. What's he writing this time? I don't see why he does it,
he almost never rereads what he writes anyway. If he did, he'd be a lot less
trouble for the Senshi. Let's see...

Sweet lord... no. No, he couldn't...

He must be mad from desparation. Sailor Pluto would stop him for sure, time
was her domain, not his. Maybe he'd finally die, somewhere in the Gates of
Time. And I wouldn't even know if he did.

I have learned things, over the long years, about what I can and can't do as
a spirit. I have talked to the other dead roamers, and I know. I know I can't
follow through the Gates of Time, I simply don't have the power. He'll be in
the past, doing only the devil knows what, and I won't even know.

If he succeeds, if he gets back, he'll win. What chance does a babe, or a child
have against a killer with power and experience like him? None, less than none.

I have missed many things, from being a ghost. Eating, sleeping, human 
contact, being able to make a difference, the simple pleasures of life. 
But right now, more than anything I have missed, I missed the ability to cry.

If Pluto wasn't there, if he made it, he was going to kill Neo-Queen Serenity 
before she was the Neo-Queen. That monster was going to kill her. Crystal 
Tokyo would never be. He was going to destroy it, destroy a happy, peaceful 
city.

He was going to destroy the greatest good on this planet, I could do nothing
about it, and I couldn't cry.

I couldn't even cry.

************  
Mark Doherty  -  mdoherty@mailbox.uq.edu.au
The Weekly FFML Synopses Lists are at:
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"Time grows short, but I remain tall."