On Tue, 20 Apr 1999, Ranma Al'Thor wrote:

	Serenity had sent Elder Mars for help to Mars 

had sent Elder Mars to ask for help from Mars (or, preferably, "from the
Martians")

        "Even you, my friends, will be destroyed one day.  No 
man, no woman, can make something immune to time.

	Dreams.

	The phone rang, so she grabbed it.  "Minako and Himeko's Secret
Base.  Dr. Aino, future world conqueror, speaking."

	"Hey, this is Ken.  

	"Who?"

   	Setsuna winced for no discernable reason.  

	I'd say the reason is clearly discernable.

        "Thanks to an enterprising young future journalist, one Hikaru
Hibino,

Hibino Hikaru

	"The Dorm Mother already chewed you out for 'wearing Vulcan ears'
in violation of the Dress Code, Minako.  You want to get in MORE trouble?"
It wasn't just the ears either, Steven thought. Steven thought. 

He thought, and thought, and thought a lot!

        He was mostly right, she thought when he told her, 
but you're likely going to have a few embarrassing 
moments with the wrong ones.  

	Either:

	You're mostly right, she thought when he told her, but you're likely
going to 

	Or:

	He was mostly right, she thought when he told her, but he's likely
going to 

	"Why do you think I am omniscient?

	"Because you act like you are!"

        "Dead."  Neptune said flatly.  "They died the day I 
became a Senshi when the boat we were on sank.  I killed 
the creature that did it, but..."  She sighed.  "My family 
was very rich, and so I won't ever have to worry about 
money.  It's ideal for being a Senshi, really.  I have the 
money and time to travel, no relatives to take hostage, 
.."

	Extraneous comma.

     	"She's berserkly Catholic and he's a Shinto Priest."  
Mars sighed.

	Berserkly looks terrible.  Another adverb, suggest "violently" if
you want to maintain the image.

        The fisherman shook his head.  I thought you had to 
have taken LSD to have an LSD flashback.

	If this is who I think it is ... he doesn't.

   	On the screen, a group of men in steam powered plate mail were being
wiped out by what looked like a mob of angry mimes in French Revolutionary
army uniforms.  Meanwhile, it kept cutting back and forth between this
scene and some woman in a huge dress with a skirt large enough to hide her
own army of mimes.  She was sitting by the bedside of one of the major
characters, William Pitt the Even Younger, who had been injured in a
previous scene when he had tried to fight a duel of Proust quotations with
a French officer during the siege of Amiens. 

	... you know, every now and then I say to myself, "Self, I'm not
going to be fazed by the strange and bizaare images in John's fics anymore."
Will I never learn?

     	"You have to save Clark!"  she gasped.

        "How can you date someone as obnoxious as him?"  
Jupiter asked, unable to stop herself.

        She laughed a little hysterically.  

"Is now really the right time to be asking questions like that, young lady?
Couldn't you just ... WHY AM I TALKING CALMLY?!?  SAVE HIM, WENCH!"

        Turning her head, she could see the bank of TVs 
was just showing reruns of 'How Low Will You Go?'

	Pretty low, obviously.

	Memories stirred vaguely, along with one clear one of being in the
bed with Minako and Kunzite and Zoicite.  Then the image shifted to the
two of them with her current boyfriends.  Ami got about as red as she
could get without someone spilling paint on her.  

	Or as ... hm.  Who had she known with hair that colour?

        "A ruined city?"  Setsuna asked.  "Probably Mons 
Olympus, an extinct volcano in which Vulcan's Forge, the 
capital of the Kingdom of Mars, sat."  

in which rested Vulcan's Forge

      	"I am not all knowing.  

And don't say that I act like I am, because I'm getting very sick of having
that thrown in my face, all right?"

        He got up.  "You can't even figure out the cabinets 
are organized in alphabetical order.  

	"In whose alphabet, smart guy?"  So Mars used the same alphabet
everyone else did.  He didn't have to know that.

	"I hope you're right.  She's usually not a complete idiot like
that,"  Yuki said.

	Minako sighed in relief.

	"She's usually just a partial idiot."

	"Simple observation,"  Yuki said.  "I'm good at looking at things
and making deductions like Sherlock Holmes.  The way I can tell Minako is
moping because she's a Sailor Venus fan, and I've been talking about how
Sailor Venus messed up.  Or she wouldn't be so quiet."

	"Yeah," Minako muttered.  "That's the ticket."

	Yuki laughed.  "It's easy.  I've been learning ever since I was
five years old, after I dreamed of being a great archer, and decided to
make my dream real.  I haven't quite figured out how to make the other
part of it real, but..."

	"That's a wonderful dream," Hotaru agreed.

	They were immediately set upon by the Dead Moon Circus.  Tragedy was
averted when someone pointed out that the Dead Moon Circus didn't exist in
this timeline.

        Ami smiled.  "He says he was glad to help Princess 
Manami of Earth and her page girl."

        "PAGE GIRL!?"

	"Oops, sorry.  He didn't say page girl."

	"Good!"

	"He said page three girl."

        Even after he did so, Tethys had nightmares about 
Sailor Uranus going into a Youma village and disfiguring 
every youma in a unique way.  She prayed it wasn't a 
prophetic dream.

Post-Erinyes Sheila: Not a bad idea ...

	The next morning, Hikaru went to copy her new tape; this would
likely sell for a mint.  Except for the fact that instead of getting that,
there was only static.

Except for the fact that instead of what she expected,

	From a distance, it was a Lovecraftian nightmare, 

	Suggest just "nightmare".

        Neptune looked over at Obsidian, who nodded.  "As 
safe as anywhere in Mons Olympus is now."

	Should this be punctuated as with the rest of Obsidian's
dialogue?

        "My task is to gather lore and analyze it.  Many kinds 
of lore.  We have tried to defeat Haephestia before; 
this..."  She shuddered.  "This is a travesty, a nightmare.  

We have tried to defeat Haephestia before.  This ..."

       	"..."  Mars said.

       	"She was adopted?"  Neptune said in surprise.

	"Evidently not," Virgo muttered.

        Mars wanted to punch Obsidian through the wall.  
"What she said...about the Star Kingdom."

"What she said about the Star Kingdom!"

   	Sailor Mars was not happy.  The lock on the 
wardrobe looked suspiciously like a LeMarchand 
configuration.  If Pinhead comes out of this closet, I'm 
not gonna be a happy camper, she thought.  

	Ahem.  Now who asked me if Wes Craven was well-known in Japan?

        "I did it for the good of my people!"  Haephestia 
shouted.  "I didn't know they would all die!  I thought a 
remnant would be saved!  The Things were going to kill us 
all!  It was the only way to stop them!  You would have 
done exactly the same thing!"  Her hair was white now, 
her face wrinkled, her remaining hand paralyzed by 
advancing arthritis.  The flow of black from the severed 
hand had dimmed to a trickle; as it diminished, she 
slowed.

     	Neptune was silent.

	"Perhaps.  But I didn't."

        Usagi yelped and ran over to them.  "Rei-chan!  
Michiru-chan!  SAY SOMETHING!"

	-san.

        I didn't mean this episode to be so long.  Really.  It 
just sorta snuck up on me.  Rei doesn't even get to Mars 
until page 64 of 97.

	I think you could possibly save the Ami and Mako subplots for
another day ...


  There's a few obscure cultural 

references in here.  The planet names and the Eldils 
(mentioned by Steven) are from C. S. Lewis' Outer Space 
Trilogy:  Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That 
Hideous Strength.  John Carter is the Warlord of Mars 
from the Edgar Rice Burroughs series.  "Escape from 
Gotham" is a reference to the planned 1999 Batman 
comics storyline 'No Mans' Land', which one Internet 
critic promptly named 'Escape from Gotham' for reasons 
too long to go into here.

	"because the premise is a rip off of the films `Escape
from New York' and `Escape from Los Angeles'" is too long to
go into?

Chris Davies.