History FanFic / ImHereToHelp

* ForWantOfANail: It is heavily implied that in the original timeline, [[spoiler:Emerald would have become [[EldritchAbomination Wiseman]]. Pluto's "If you knew your original fate, you would have thanked me" line cinches it.]]

%%* BadassBoast: All the freaking time.

What seems to be a typical "BigBad wants to [[TerminatorTwosome change history]]" plot upon first reading quickly becomes much, MUCH more.

* BadassBoast: All the freaking time.

->''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.''\\\

''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3337074/1/Im_Here_to_Help I'm Here to Help]]'' is a ''Anime/SailorMoon'' fanfic mostly written in 1998 (but finished in 2007) by Mark Doherty. What seems to be a typical "BigBad wants to [[TerminatorTwosome change history]]" plot upon first reading quickly becomes much, MUCH more.
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* AntiHero: Emerald himself, though he has noble goals, his lack of manpower and resources means he's willing to resort to questionable means to accomplish them, especially since he's privately admitted to himself that his fight is probably already ost. He tones it down once he arrives in the past.

-->''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.''

* AndIMustScream - What Emerald ends up being subjected to when he was frozen in the Great Ice. Specifically, while almost everyone else experienced it as a sort of "bad dream" with varying degrees of consciousness, he was fully aware the entire time for over 300 years before he managed to free himself, [[{{Irony}} (less than an hour before Serenity freed the rest of the world)]]. Naturally he comes out of it rather shaken and leading to his IdentityAmnesia. Beryls "Eternal Sleep" punishment is also along these lines, Emerald even directly compares it to being frozen in the Great Ice.
* AntiHero - Emerald himself, though he has noble goals, his lack of manpower and resources means he's willing to resort to questionable means to accomplish them, especially since he's privately admitted to himself that his fight is probably already ost. He tones it down once he arrives in the past.
* TheAgeless - Emerald and the Sailor Senshi are this by Crystal Tokyo's time.
* AssimilationPlot - What the "purification" supposedly did to the majority of mankind. The few that were strong enough to reject it or otherwise weren't affected are regarded as enemies by the Senshi, according to Emerald.
* BadassBoast - All the freaking time.
* BadFuture - Whether Emerald is ''averting'' or ''creating'' one is up for the reader to decide.
* [[BadPowersGoodPeople Bad Powers, Morally Ambiguous People]] - Emerald notes that all of his powers are pretty much stereotypical villain powers. [[AllTheOtherReindeer He also mentions that he's been treated with suspicion by a number of people with more traditional "good" powers even before the Great Freeze while he was fighting for the Earth and that afterwards the survivors weren't surprised by, or were even expecting, him to fight against Crystal Tokyo.]]
--> [[TeleportersAndTransporters I could teleport, yes,]] [[ShadowWalker but only from the shadows.]] [[EnergyAbsorption I could draw energy from the elements, yes,]] [[VampiricDraining But not as quickly as I could drain it from youma.]] [[LetsFightLikeGentlemen I could fight in the open, yes,]] [[InTheBack but never as effectively as when I struck from the shadows.]]
* BewareTheSuperman - Emerald asked why the Senshi should rule the world just because they had powers instead of making it better in one of his diary entries.
* BigBad - Neo-Queen Serenity, and the (future) Senshi. To Emerald, Beryl and even ''Metallia'' are not worth the time.
* BittersweetEnding - [[spoiler:Emerald never gets to fully enjoy his victory as he's erased from time moments later, but his younger self will not have to go through the pain he did.]]
* BlatantLies - Emerald's "past lover" story. Also the lie to Queen Beryl that he served under Jadeite, but she doesn't believe him.
* BlessedWithSuck - Emerald's view of immortality, after many years of suffering and fighting.
* {{Brainwashed}} - ''Everyone'' in Crystal Tokyo and the rest of the Earth, except Emerald and those exiled. The result of [[AssimilationPlot purification]], and ''the'' main reason Emerald wants to change the past.
* ClarkKenting - Due to the Senshi's disguise magic changing even their auras. It takes Emerald a long time to figure out Sailor Moon and Serenity are the same.
* CrapsaccharineWorld - Crystal Tokyo according to Emerald.
* CruelMercy - How Emerald sees his planned punishment after being defeated in the first rebellion, mainly banishing him from the planet. More accurately, he's not so much angry at the punishment itself then the fact that everyone at his trial acted like this was being magnanimous of them.
--> 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.
* {{Determinator}} - Emerald. He's been fighting against Crystal Tokyo just by himself and with his small sentient crystal for centuries, always dragging himself up to try again whenever he fails. [[spoiler: This does take its toll however, and when he finds out that Serenity has ResurrectiveImmortality he decides to go for a PyrrhicVictory by stopping the Purification whilst he was in the past.]]
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything - When Emerald is draining youma to regain his energy, he is only shown hunting female ones. While this can be attributed to the fact that most Youma in the series seem to be female, he corners them in ways that can be seen as reminiscent of assailants (he catches his first by breaking into her apartment as she comes home from work and gets another by luring her to an alley and tossing her down it, before going after and coming out saying how "easy" it was), which to be frank, is in fact what he is technically doing but not for the [[VampiricDraining reasons]] normal people would think.
* DramaticIrony - The protagonist is unaware that Sailor Moon is Queen Serenity.
* EnemyMine - One of Emerald's off lines mentioned a brief alliance he had with the Sailor Senshi against an intergalactic conqueror who controlled his entire army through brainwashing. It lasted less than an hour and was described as ending in disaster. He also has a brief and unintentional one with Sailor Mars during one of their last battles when they work to save a child who gets caught in the middle. It leads to a brief moment when they both realise just how meaningless their battles have become. [[spoiler: It's also implied that this event was what directly lead to Emeralds plan to travel to the past and prevent Crystal Tokyo from ever being born]]
* EnergyAbsorption - Emerald needs to do this to get stronger, he can do so through a variety of ways and can even drain energy from the elements around him
** VampiricDraining - ...but in the end he does it most effectively by draining other living creatures, mostly youma to the point where they die and turn to dust.
* ExactWords - [[spoiler: Sailor Pluto]] sees Crystal Tokyo [[spoiler: prevented from coming into being as it existed ''through no act of her own''. Meaning by arranging events so Emerald be forced to go through with his fallback anti-Purification plan, and being in the right place so he could defeat her and feed off her energy, Pluto could prevent the future she didn't want without breaking her oath to Queen Serenity.]]
* FashionVictimVillain - Emerald described the Senshi as "girls with interesting powers in silly suits. As opposed, of course, to women with horrifically intense powers... in silly suits." [[invoked]]
* FirstPersonSmartass - Whenever Emerald isn't being introspective, his narration tends to be this.
* ForWantOfANail - It is heavily implied that in the original timeline, [[spoiler:Emerald would have become [[EldritchAbomination Wiseman]]. Pluto's "If you knew your original fate, you would have thanked me" line cinches it.]]

* GambitRoulette - At the end, it is revealed that [[spoiler:Sailor Pluto was the true mastermind behind the plot to prevent Crystal Tokyo (or at least the "purified" version described) from coming into being. She spent "thousands of manipulations over thousands of years" working towards the goal "Only to realise only after [she] got it that it wasn't what [she] thought it was." After that she started secretly working towards getting Emerald to change things.]]
* GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul - The Purification is described as something like this, not so much forcefully making everyone happy so much as severing every "negative emotion" and leaving only "positive emotions." Emerald himself scoffs at this black and white view on emotions [[spoiler: and he also sees his inability to prevent this from coming to pass as [[MyGreatestFailure his greatest failure]]]]
* GoOutWithASmile - [[spoiler: Emerald ultimately dies this way, erased from casting his Anti-Purification due the paradox he created, content with finally achieving his goal.]]
* HeroicBSOD- After Emerald finds out that [[spoiler:Sailor Moon is the Serenity he has been looking for all along.]]

--> What you will become is not about what you are, or who you are, or who are thought to be. My life, like anyone's life, has been a series of choices and consequences.
--> After the rebellion, it came down to this:
--> If I had done nothing, I would have lived - albeit in exile. If I fought the Senshi directly without allies, I would have died. And if I fought from the shadows, then one day it was possible that I might get my lucky shot and win. That, then, left me a clear choice - to do nothing, or to do what I can.
--> Destiny be damned. [[IAmWhatIAm I choose to do what I can]].
* IdentityAmnesia - Emerald cannot remember his own name or much of his past. [[spoiler:His true name is revealed to be Yukio, by Pluto.]]

* TheImmune - Emerald notes that his and Serenity's energies naturally repel each other. This effectively renders him immune to the Purification. [[spoiler: He eventually casts an Anti-Purification when in the past after draining Pluto's energy that renders everyone on the planet this.]]
* InTheNameOfTheMoon - Emerald thinks it's over the top and at one point interrupts Sailor Moon during one such speech. It's noted by Pluto that this isn't the first time.
* MeaningfulRename - The original group of rebels (who, in this fic, would come to inspire the Black Moon Clan) named themselves after gems and stones to reflect the fact that they were fighting for the Earth, Emerald was actually indifferent towards the idea since he saw little importance in names but did so anyway because everyone else urged him to.
* MeaninglessMeaningfulWords - Emerald's journal entries are full of his fauxlosophical thoughts. At least some of it is written down deliberately to taunt the Sailor Senshi.
* MyGreatestFailure - [[spoiler: Emeralds was his inability to prevent the Purification from coming to pass. This is due to him being [[TheImmune immune]] to Serenity's power, had he released and bathed the planet in his energies first, he could have prevented the Purification from having any effect. Although, on an intellectual level, he notes that, at the time, he had neither the control, the knowledge, or the power to actually pull it off, the fact that he had the potential still caused him endless guilt. This eventually comes into play at the end when he does this whilst in the past.]]

* NeverHurtAnInnocent - Emerald was tempted to drain Naru of her energy after seeing how much she has but ultimately refuses due to this.
* OneHitKill - Emerald does this to one of Kunzite's youma, with Kunzite himself standing there. [[spoiler:And then to Kunzite himself later on, as well as many more Dark Kingdom fodder.]]

* PowerCrystal - Emerald's green crystal that he keeps around his neck by a leather chain, though he's quite powerful enough without it. It is also sentient.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld - Emerald is nearly a thousand years old, but appears to be no older than a young adult. Same with all the Crystal Tokyo Senshi, and the King and Queen.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong - The whole motivation of Emerald's life, as written in his journal entries. [[spoiler: He succeeds.]]

* TimeTravel - From the 30th century, to the time the Senshi first reawakened in the late 20th century (Dark Kingdom Arc).
* UnreliableNarrator - Almost everything we learn about Crystal Tokyo being a BadFuture is told to us by Emerald, who, it must be noted, has a very deep-set grudge against Neo-Queen Serenity. The fact that barely any of the fic actually takes place in Crystal Tokyo means we don't have much choice but to take his word for it, or reject it. [[spoiler: Of course since part of this was implemented by Sailor Pluto, it really calls into question how right or wrong Emerald was.]] WordOfGod is that this was done deliberately.
* UnrequitedLove - Emerald and Rei in the future, due to them being [[ArchEnemy Arch Enemies]] on opposing sides trying to kill each other. After journeying to the past, Emerald doesn't understand why he seems so willing at times to aid the younger Rei. [[spoiler:May be possibly subverted at the end with the "present" versions of themselves.]]
* WhatMeasureIsAMook - From chapter 1:

* WeWinBecauseYouDidnt - [[spoiler: Emeralds ultimate plan. He breaks through the timeline to attract Sailor Pluto's attention and drain her energy. Afterwards he casts his Anti-Purification spell whilst using Pluto's energy to prevent a paradox from occurring and effectively preventing the Crystal Tokyo he knew from existing.]]

* [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Why Did It Have To Be Sailor Mercury]]: Out of all the Sailor Senshi, Mercury is the only one Emerald truly fears. Partly because her [[AwesomenessByAnalysis analytical and strategic abilities]] makes her dangerous to fight and partly because she attacks with [[KillItWithIce ice]] due to [[AndIMustScream his lingering trauma]] in the Great Freeze.
* YouWillBeSpared - Emerald's offer to a horde of youma ready to invade the Earth through a portal... [[TooDumbToLive not that they listen despite knowing how strong he really is]].

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<<|FanFic/FanFics|>>

* PetTheDog: Rescues all the Youma trapped in "Eternal Sleep" on principle due to his distate for any kind of experience similar to being frozen in the Great Ice and reluctantly allows the survivors to feed off his energy to nourish them enough to survive on their own.

* InSpiteOfANail: [[spoiler: Emerald's arrival ultimately changes very little to the Sailor Senshi's battle against the Dark Kingdom, even his rescuing Tuxedo Mask simply activates a dormant spell that teleports him right back. This is spelled out for him by Pluto only for him to subvert it at the last minute by absorbing Pluto's energy and casting his Anti-Purification. Of course, depending on your interpretation, according to Pluto his actions my have inadvertently been critical in actually creating the canon Sailor Moon Crystal Kingdom. It's also shown at the end that his brief meeting with Sailor Mars hasn't been forgotten when TheStinger shows her encountering his present self several years in the future]].

* FutureBadass.

* UnreliableNarrator - Almost everything we learn about Crystal Tokyo being a BadFuture is told to us by Emerald, who, it must be noted, has a very deep-set grudge against Neo-Queen Serenity. The fact that barely any of the fic actually takes place in Crystal Tokyo means we don't have much choice but to take his word for it, or reject it. [[spoiler: Of course since part of this was implemented by Sailor Pluto, it really calls into question how right or wrong Emerald was.]]

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Despite Emerald's antipathy towards the Sailor Senshi, even if we take everything he says at face value at their worst they, at most, come across as this given that they did their best to save the world and try and provide a home for many people who lost theirs in the Great Freeze. Emerald himself is also arguably one of these, given that he's willing to travel through time to achieve his goals.
* [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Why Did It Have To Be Sailor Mercury]]: Out of all the Sailor Senshi, Mercury is the only one Emerald truly fears. Partly because her [[AwesomenessByAnalysis analytical and strategic abilities]] makes her dangerous to fight and partly because she attacks with [[KillItWithIce ice]] due to [[AndIMustScream experiences]] in the Great Freeze.

* {{Brainwashed}} - ''Everyone'' in Crystal Tokyo and the rest of the Earth, except Emerald and those exiled. The result of Instrumentality, and ''the'' main reason Emerald wants to change the past.

* {{Instrumentality}} - What the "purification" supposedly did to the majority of mankind. The few that were strong enough to reject it or otherwise weren't affected are regarded as enemies by the Senshi, according to Emerald.

** InformedFlaw: Not that he shows any actual concern when he faces her ''and'' her ice-based attacks near the end of the story.

* WorldOfCardboardSpeech - In the beginning of chapter 8 Emerald reflects on how [[BadPowersGoodPeople his abilities]] and status as the sole remaining rebel left on Earth pretty much means everyone considers him as the [[BigBad Big Bad]] to Crystal Tokyo and how he still plans on fighting for his convictions anyway.
--> What you will become is not about what you are, or who you are, or who are thought to be. My life, like anyone's life, has been a series of choices and consequences.
--> After the rebellion, it came down to this:
--> If I had done nothing, I would have lived - albeit in exile. If I fought the Senshi directly without allies, I would have died. And if I fought from the shadows, then one day it was possible that I might get my lucky shot and win. That, then, left me a clear choice - to do nothing, or to do what I can.
--> Destiny be damned. [[IAmWhatIAm I choose to do what I can]].

** [[spoiler: In the end, he gives a more low key version to Pluto, summarising what he's been through and what he's learned in the centuries fighting against Crystal Tokyo, as he finishes casting his Anti-Purification.]]

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Despite Emerald's antipathy towards the Sailor Senshi, even if we take everything he says at face value at their worst they, at most, come across as this given that they did their best to save world and try and provide a home for many people who lost theirs in the Great Freeze. Emerald himself is also arguably one of these, given that he's willing to travel through time to achieve his goals.

* [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Why Did It Have To Be Sailor Mercury]]: Out of all the Sailor Senshi, Mercury is the only one Emerald truly fears. Partly because her [[AwesomenessByAnalysis analytical and strategic abilities]] makes her dangerous to fight and partly because she attacks with [[KillItWithIce ice]] which due to [[AndIMustScream experiences]] in the Great Freeze.

--> [[TeleportersAndTransporters I could teleport, yes,]] [[CastingAShadow but only from the shadows.]] [[EnergyAbsorption I could draw energy from the elements, yes,]] [[VampiricDraining But not as quickly as I could drain it from youma.]] [[LetsFightLikeGentleman I could fight in the open, yes,]] [[InTheBack but never as effectively as when I struck from the shadows.]]

* KnightTemplar - All of the Crystal Tokyo-era Senshi, ''especially'' [[KillItWithFire Sailor Mars]].
* MeaningfulRename - The original group of rebels (who, in this fic, would come to inspire the Black Moon Clan) named themselves after gems and stones to reflect the fact that they were fighting for the Earth, Emerald was actually ambivalent towards this since he saw little importance in names but did so anyway because everyone else urged him to.

* MyGreatestFailure - [[spoiler: Emeralds was his inability to prevent the Purification from coming to pass. This is due to him being [[TheImmune immune]] to Serenity's power, had he released and bathed the planet in his energies first, he could have prevented the Purification from having any effect. Although, on an intellectual level, he notes that he had neither the control, the knowledge, or the power to actually pull it off, the fact that he had the potential still caused him endless guilt. This eventually comes into play at the end when he does this whilst in the past.]]

''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3337074/1/Im_Here_to_Help I'm Here to Help]]'' is a ''Franchise/SailorMoon'' fanfic mostly written in 1998 (but finished in 2007) by Mark Doherty. What seems to be a typical "BigBad wants to [[TerminatorTwosome change history]]" plot upon first reading quickly becomes much, MUCH more.

''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3337074/1/Im_Here_to_Help I'm Here to Help]]'' is a ''SailorMoon'' fanfic mostly written in 1998 (but finished in 2007) by Mark Doherty. What seems to be a typical "BigBad wants to [[TerminatorTwosome change history]]" plot upon first reading quickly becomes much, MUCH more.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything - When Emerald is draining youma to regain his energy, he is only shown hunting female ones. While this can be attributed to the fact that most Youma in the series seem to be female, the fact that he corners them in ways that can be seen as reminiscent of assailants (he catches his first by breaking into her apartment as she comes home from work and gets another by luring her to an alley and tossing her down it, before going after and coming out saying how "easy" it was), which to be frank, is in fact what he is technically doing but not for the [[VampiricDraining reasons]] normal people would think.

* UnreliableNarrator - Almost everything we learn about Crystal Tokyo being a BadFuture is told to us by Emerald, who, it must be noted, has a very deep-set grudge against Neo-Queen Serenity. The fact that barely any of the fic actually takes place in Crystal Tokyo means we don't have much choice but to take his word for it, or reject it. [[spoiler: Of course since part of this was implemented by Sailor Pluto, it shows that Emerald was at least partially right in his views.]]

* WorldOfCardboardSpeech - In the beginning of chapter 8 Emerald reflects on how [[GoodPowersBadPeople his abilities]] and status as the sole remaining rebel left on Earth pretty much means everyone considers him as the [[BigBad Big Bad]] to Crystal Tokyo and how he still plans on fighting for his convictions anyway.

* [[BadPowersGoodPeople Bad Powers, Morally Ambiguous People]] - Emerald notes that all of his powers are pretty much stereotypical villain powers. [[AllTheOtherReindeer He mentions that he's been treated with suspicion by a number of people with more traditional "good" powers and that the survivors weren't surprised by, or were even expecting, him to fight against Crystal Tokyo]]