It's been a while, so for what it's worth, take my advice with a grain
of salt. ;)
Let's take another crack at this without the accompanying data-eating crash....
On 5/25/05, DB Sommer <sommert@connecttime.net> wrote:
The large figure did so, lowering its hand. Not sensing any impending
violence, Ryouga turned to confront the speaker. Crone was the first
word that came to mind, like some refugee from a Grimm fairy tale. She
was dressed in a frayed purple cloak, old, but not in the state of
disrepair that the clothing of the other figure was. Long wisps of thin
white hair, many standing up on the top of her head, flowed down her
back, and her face was a crag of crinkled lines. Rummy eyes gazed at
him, and as she opened her mouth, only three teeth, two on the top and
on the bottom, were visible.
Rummy? Do you mean "rheumy"?
Kenny shuffled over to his mother, waiting at her side like an obedient,
mute dog.
Which happened to be three meters tall.
A sound came from one of the holes. Kenny moved surprisingly swift for a
man his size. He peeked down the hole, and then drew back.
I'm not sure if it's actually incorrect, but somehow, "surprisingly
swift" doesn't quite flow.... Then again, it could just be me.
Maybe this was Kenny's living chamber. If so, he needed a bath in the
worst possible way. Ryouga continued walking until something snapped
under his foot. He cursed both the darkness and his clumsiness. He hoped
it wasn't something valuable of Kenny's he had broken. Not that Kenny
looked like he had anything valuable. But one never knew.
I've never read any of the original comics, but I think I see what's
going on here....
He didn't know it was a mermaid, not with its top missing. Wasn't right
Hm. Is this ... Mermaid's Tear, or an American comic?
Kenny allowed the soldiers to slump to the floor, then charged Ryouga.
Even he was startled by the burst of speed from someone so large. The
top of the cloak fell away, revealing the face of Kenny. It was hideous,
large and lumpy, with scales, large fish eyes, and a hole where his nose
should have been. Not a strand of hair was left, on his head, and only
hunger existed in his jaundiced-colored eyes.
Decapitation or fire, then. Imortals are annoying to fight, but
generally, much squishier than expected.
Ryouga only had a chance to take a half-step back when the cursed-human
was upon him. Kenny said nothing, given the shape of his head and neck
perhaps he was incapable of creating human sounds. His mouth worked
fine, though, as he opened his maw so large it appeared his jaw must
have dislocated. Two rows of centimeters long teeth were revealed, and
sank deep into Ryouga's shoulder, causing him pain like nothing else
ever had. He roared in agony.
nothing, given --> nothing; given -(or)-> nothing, but given
revealed, and sank --> revealed, and sunk (I think. M-W says both are
valid, so you can ignore me more freely than usual.)
And it's probably just me, but I'd say "nothing he remembered ever
had", because Hulk's been through a lot. Possibly more than Ryouga,
by now. :p
Then she saw something peculiar. Kenny had stopped for some reason.
Usually he would have bitten through the boy's shoulder and worked his
way up to the torso. He had wonderful teeth. No need for a dentist, not
for him. But instead he ceased chewing for some reason.
up to the torso --> down to the torso
;)
"But instead" of what? Oh, of chewing. Coming just after reflections
about dental hygine, threw me for a bit. Maybe throw in one last line
to bring her mental train back on track. Something about what his
teeth had gone through before, maybe?
I'm not sure.
Then he started to rise up. Yumi wondered what was going on when she
realized he was rising up until his feet were dangling off the floor.
Then she saw it, the huge green hand reach up from under his arm to grab
Kenny by his neck. The arm was huge, even bigger than her Kenny's, and
the cries from the boy became deeper bellows of rage.
It sounds from this description like Kenny is lifted up off the floor
before he's grabbed.
The arm pried Kenny from his perch on the boy, and Yumi saw the huge
green beast that now had her son in its powerful grip. Her heart
trembled, just like it had when she realized what her son had eaten on
that windswept beach so many months ago.
Oh, okay. Now I get it. He was hanging on with his teeth.
...note to self: coffee.
The beast roared, "You try to eat Hulk! You hurt Hulk! You make Hulk
bleed! Now Hulk will make you bleed!" He threw Kenny across the length
of the room. The cursed boy's body collided with a pillar that buckled
under the force of the impact.
Er. Which cursed boy? The one with the Takahashi curse or-- Oh, right.
Eyes rimmed in red from pain and rage, the Hulk drew back his fist and
struck the incoming mass of flesh hard in the stomach with an uppercut.
The blow sent Kenny sailing back where he had originally been tossed,
this time impacting with the ceiling. He bounced off and back to the
ground where he lay motionless for several seconds. Then he began to
rise again.
Hmm. It's probably going to be a while before Hulk can pop this
thing's head off.
It was not to be as the combination of the loss of pillar and impact to
the ceiling proved too much for the ages old structure to bear. Three
quarters of the ceiling came down upon Kenny, crushing him under tons of
rubble since that part of the basement extended to a fallen in part of
the warehouse. Metal rods and concrete stuck up from the pile of debris,
but there was no movement other than the slow settling of dust.
ages old -- ages-old (I think.)
"Kenny!" Yumi shouted, running over to pile of concrete debris
Repetition of debris. Suggest ... rubble?
The Hulk watched the pile of rubble intently, wanting to smash the
monster that had hurt him so severely. Though only with his good arm,
since the wounds the monster had given him were still bleeding. He
looked down at the holes still there. Never had he been hurt like this
before. He wanted to punch the creature again and again until there was
nothing left.
Okay, maybe not. Drat.
So intent was the Hulk on wanting revenge that he was unaware of the
activity on the surface until lights shined down upon him. He looked up
and was perplexed by what he saw. Six giant armored figures, each nearly
four meters tall, looked down on him from edges of the hole. The figures
had oversized forearms and lower legs, and cables led from those parts
into a huge hump on their backs, though they remained upright. They
weren't robots, however, as each one had a clear faceplate, and behind
them were the faces of men.
"Hulk smash puny man-machine hybrids!"
"We see it. My god, we see it," Ross said.
Since no one else has asked, and I don't know ... I assume that this
is also tying into a similar story on the comic book side. So ...
what is that story? :p
The major jerked slightly, his beam moving across one of the Hulk's
shoulder. The beast stopped moving forward and roared out in pain. It
took Talbot a moment to realize why his beam had affected the Hulk when
none of the others had. "He's wounded in the shoulder, men. Concentrate
energy weapons on that shoulder. Rapid fire!"
Oh, yes. That'll work.
They disengaged the heat beams and went with the more powerful energy
weapons built into their hands. Every Mandroid opened up with everything
they had. Now the Hulk was put on the defensive, trying to protect his
injured shoulder from the raging fire. But the wound inflicted by
Kenny's mouth was too wide for even the Hulk's large hand to cover, and
several of the discharges hit the cuts directly, causing him to become
dizzy with pain.
Well, free sterilization of the wound. It's probably better, all
things considered.
This snot-nosed punk's attitude rubbed Talbot wrong in every way
imaginable. Where did he get off thumbing his nose at authority,
especially when Talbot and his men were armed to the teeth while he was
just some glorified acrobat with a shield? A quick look showed the major
that his men had recovered from the Avengers sneak attack. Now the fight
would be on even ground, and Talbot had faith in the state-of-the-art
technology Tony Stark had provided.
Of course, Talbot. When it was 6:1, you were holding your ground.
Now that the odds are a much more reasonable 6:5 (or is Mousse here,
too?)....
Darting and weaving through the unrelenting fire, Captain Japan was
suddenly standing in front of the Mandroid, bringing his shield up in
front of him. Like some hunk of metal that would stop a full power
energy blast. The youth was a century too late. Maybe destroying the
shield would convince the hero he was totally outclassed.
Hmm. A lot of your villains have this mindset. I guess it makes it
clearer that they're evil (and hence take double damage). Waaait....
That's not you; it's the original comic books again, isn't it? 'Owl
Man' indeed....
Captain Japan smirked at the man behind the faceplate. "Sorry, Pal, I
gotta do it." He placed one arm against the armor and pushed.
The Mandroid fell over with an audible thump.
Meh. He's less likely to take peripheral fire from there....
...And more likely to get peripherally stomped on, but nothing's perfect.
Unit 6 found himself facing off against the Goddess of Thunder. Now this
was a chick he'd love to go hand-to-hand with, and do a whole lot of
other things to as well. "You'd better give up," he warned. "This unit
is designed to withstand lightning strikes. There isn't anything you can
do."
"Thou thinkist the tinkerings of man can overcome the full fury of the
storm? Think again." Thor tapped her hammer to the ground. A lightning
bolt five times greater than any normal one struck the Mandroid in the
top of the head. When the flash of light cleared, all could see the now
smoldering singed black remains of the giant, inoperable hunk of metal
with its pilot now trapped inside.
Somehow, I expected Thor to just shrug, and knock off the power core
with a hammer.
Unit 3 squared off with the Iron Rose's new streamlined armor that was
hovering before him. "Get ready to have your ass kicked, Avenger. You're
dealing with a twenty million dollar, top-of-the-line power armor built
by America's greatest mechanical genius. There's no way that rice burner
you're wearing can stand up to it."
The first sentence is a bit stiff. You may want to try rewording it
for a better flow.
as though she were testing out their capabilities, on him. Within
minutes his armor was reduced to a useless hunk of metal.
Astute readers will note that it wasn't much of a reduction.
Blinded, Unit 5 was unaware of the archer that had made her way behind
him until four blast arrows impacted at his shoulders and knees,
disabling all of his limbs, leaving him to collapse on his stomach,
unable to move or see.
And on fire!
"I have no interest in wasting the taxpayers' money in trashing this
armor." He held his hands up in surrender.
#4. The smart one.
While the others had squared off against their opponents, Talbot had
decided to continue with his primary directive. The Hulk was wounded,
and if he was killed, the Avengers would lose their reason for fighting.
He had to finish the Hulk fast on the offhand chance his men were
defeated and the entire roster of the Avengers fell upon him. Deciding
to risk it all, Talbot disengaged the safety limiters on his Mandroid
armor. It would flood all of his systems with a hundred and seventy-five
percent of their normal power, but any amount of time over five minutes
would overload the armor, rendering it twenty-million dollar
paperweight. But stopping the Hulk was all that mattered, and Talbot
knew he could finish him off under the time limit.
it twenty-million -- it a twenty-million (?)
"No!" The Hulk cried out, a fist smashing solidly into the armor. Rage
and pain fueled the blow, and the blade broke off in the Hulk's skin as
the Mandroid was sent sailing through the air like a missile, slamming
back first through the wall of one of the many deserted buildings in the
area. Mortar and concrete weren't enough to stop his Hulk issued flight,
only to deflect it as the armor shot along the ground, leaving a huge
groove in its wake as it peeled off the first six inches of soil until
finally coming to a halt.
until finally --> before finally
The matter of the Hulk was finished, at least as far as Banner was
concerned.
That part I not only got, but thought it was awesome. Nice work, Mr. Sommer.
"If Hulk gets scab, Hulk won't pick at it," the green giant promised.
"You're a good patient," Giant Man said cheerfully.
That's hilarious. Also, Giant Man partially blew his cover. Will
anyone notice?
"Well, we barely managed to avoid quite the incident there. Imagine,
mistaking someone who stopped a serial killer for being the serial
killer, and after he saved two of our own men. That would have looked
exceptionally bad, you must admit. It was a good thing the Avengers
prevented us from making a horrible mistake." Though it sounded like
Irie was talking to no one in particular, it was obvious he was actually
talking to everyone.
I don't recognize Irie and Narusawa. Are they original?
Ross grumbled under his breath, but ordered his men to begin dismantling
all of the equipment for shipment back to base.
Doesn't really seem like something to grumble about. I realize that
Kang's goal is to get the Hulk killed, but that doesn't mean it's
Ross's, too. I'd expect him to be generally satisfied that in the
grand scheme of things his country was just given a "get out of
political hot-water" card, AND he got out of doing a bunch of work.
Then again, he could be established as a workaholic character in the
comics and I just don't know that yet. o_o
Kaori had mixed feelings about it. While it was good to know that the
missing persons' case had been solved, it was a bitter fruit to swallow
knowing the truth became known only because of some annoying
superheroes. And she had been looking forward to seeing the Hulk taken
care of, either being wrapped up and shipped off to the U.S. or
destroyed outright. Either outcome would have been acceptable.
Case or cases? Fruit? I had thought the turn of phrase was pill.
"I will," Kaori shuddered. She'd prefer a date with both Saeba twins
then spend one minute longer around Irie Soyozoh. Worse, she had a
terrible feeling she'd be meeting him again whether she wanted to or not.
Hmm.
[End fic]
I liked it. It flowed very well, generally, and it was amusing to
find out that living hill thing actually came up. Not sure what I'd
advise in general, aside from my specifics above. Use them if they
help, ignore them if they don't.