It's In The Cards

It's In The Cards is the 29th episode of Sailor Moon S. It was preceded by Heightened Hazard and followed by Goodness Eclipsed.

Plot
While Rini and Hotaru are in Hotaru's bedroom playing cards, Doctor Tomoe leaves his lab to buy some snacks under encouragement from Mimet. However, once he leaves, Mimet throws as many board games as she can into the Heart Snatcher oven in hopes of creating a Daimon that won't be a flop like her previous ones. However, she causes it to overload and trap Tomoe's house in another dimension, a warped up dimension where the doors lead to different places, while she flees to avoid getting in trouble when Tomoe finds out about what she did. Rini and Hotaru become trapped as well. Rini calls the Sailor Scouts over. They meet Doctor Tomoe in person for the first time (though unaware that he is the leader of the Heart Snatchers) as he tries to break the door down. Sailor Mercury says the house is in another dimension and will permanently disappear in an hour. To avoid breaking the house and disrupting the balance of the dimension, the Sailor Scouts do a Sailor Teleport inside, while Tomoe realizes the irony that he is depending on the Sailor Scouts to save Hotaru so he can continue his own plans, and immediately realizes Mimet must be behind this, annoyed at having been duped in leaving the lab while she was still there and plans to punish her for her actions once the Scouts deal with saving Hotaru. He remains outside to snack on what he brought home from the grocery store alongside Luna and Artemis while waiting for the Scouts to fix the house and rescue Hotaru.

They keep switching between dimensions (Sailor Mercury is soon able to predict it) until they find the place where Rini and Hotaru are, after Rini nearly falls over a cliff and is hanging on for her life as Hotaru struggles to pull her up, before both go over the cliff. Sailor Venus saves them with a Venus Love Chain Encircle. While hunting for a way out, they enter a room and meet Ikasaman, the Daimon created from Mimet's lab accident with the Heart Snatcher oven and who warped the dimensions. Ikasaman is a game master, and tells them she will not let them escape until they beat her at any game.

The Sailor Scouts get to choose which game, and it is pretty simple: Win, and Ikasaman lets them go and returns things to normal. Lose, and Ikasaman takes them prisoner for failing to beat her and become her playthings. Sailor Jupiter picks roulette, but Ikasaman changes the number to make her lose, and traps her on a glass card. Sailor Mars picks Jenga, but Ikasaman rigs one of the pieces so she pulls on it with a string to make it fall over so Sailor Mars loses. Sailor Mercury naturally chooses chess, but Ikasaman makes her chess piece explode to beat her. Sailor Mars and Sailor Mercury both end up trapped on glass cards. Sailor Venus and Sailor Moon choose the arcade racing game, and race against Ikasaman in a two versus one match, but once again she cheats, making their cars collide. Ikasaman traps them both on a glass card.

Then, Rini and Hotaru challenge her to a game of cards, which she is unable to cheat at, easily being duped by Rini's excellent bluffing. She underestimates Rini and loses, so she challenges Hotaru to a 1 on 1 card game. She tries to trick Hotaru into picking the Joker, but Hotaru eventually chooses the Ace of Hearts and wins. Ikasaman is a sore loser and decides to keep everyone there to her own malicious pleasure. When Hotaru collapses, Rini, in anger at Ikasaman's cruelty and dishonesty, transforms into Sailor Mini Moon and uses Pink Sugar Heart Attack on Sailor Moon's glass card to set her free. Sailor Moon uses the Purity Chalice to transform into Super Sailor Moon and destroy Ikasaman with Rainbow Moon Heart Ache. With Ikasaman's Daimon pod cracked and its energy dispelled, the house is returned to normal. Super Sailor Moon suggests that Sailor Mini Moon change back into her civilian identity so Hotaru doesn't discover Rini is a Sailor Scout when she wakes up. Hotaru is reunited with Doctor Tomoe, and the Scouts are none the wiser to Tomoe being the one responsible for the Daimons as he plans to pay them back dearly for having gotten in the way of his plans one time too many already.

Trivia

 * This episode does not feature any evil plans to steal Pure Hearts. Ikasaman does not even seem to be working for Mimet, who created her.