Okay, that's just weird.

Not only did the list devour my original take on this chapter, it has 
apparently chosen to eat my response to your C&C of it. I can only conclude 
that it just doesn't like this chapter. Personally, I'm rather fond of it. 
^_^

I was not entirely satisfied with my first take on
Chapter 5, and when the FFML decided to have it for a snack instead of 
post it, I took that as a sign and went back to the drawing board.

It's cool. Shit happens for a reason.

Yeah, I agree. I'm actually very glad that particular chapter disappeared 
into the aether. The original chapter was a bit slow and meandering, so I 
cut it down and inserted a lot of extra scenes to keep things flowing a 
little better. For one thing, I inserted the scenes with Touma and Shuten 
because I didn't want to leave them hanging for so long. :p

Hyperion had politely disagreed. At his command, Prince Endymion
and the armies of the Earth were dispatched to aid their comrades in the 
land of dreams. Prince Orcus

Will you look at that? Touma the supporting character has quite the 
influence in this story.

You're quite right: Touma will be very important to this particular story. 
However, I should mention that Prince Orcus is not Touma. Touma's previous 
alter-ego was Prince Klarios, the ruler of the heavens. Orcus is the *third* 
brother, who ruled the land of dreams. ^_^

I approve of your use of supporting characters in the proverbial 'main 
event' scene. We certainly don't need each and every last major role cast 
by the original protagonist Ryo, after all.

Yeah, Shin and Touma in particular are going to be much more focal to this 
story than some of the other Troopers. Ryo is still *important*, but he's 
not exactly the main character of this arc to quite the same degree he was 
in the anime proper.

Although in their defence, YST was much better about giving other people 
screen time than SM was. Each of the other Troopers got a few solo episodes, 
and they all got their own solo adventures in the form of their drama CDs, 
too. That's not too shabby.

and Prince Endymion had based their armies
in a gleaming ruby palace that they had

Hmmm. Three sons. I'm counting two. One's missing... I wonder who?

Well, the sons of Hyperion were Prince Orcus, Prince Endymion, and Prince 
Klarios (in descending order of age). Hopefully everyone knows by now who 
Prince Endymion grew up to be, and Toshitada Koma implied a while back that 
Touma might be Prince Klarios. So that really just leaves Prince Orcus to 
track down in the modern day.

Rest assured, I know exactly who Prince Orcus will end up being. Hopefully 
it will all make sense in the end. If not... well, I'll write a sequel, or 
an epilogue, or something. ^_^

The east had been the domain of Jadeite, the
youngest and least experienced of Endymion's centurions.

Jadeite: (frowns) HEY! Fic, you've broken the pattern of the paragraph! I
should be described at length as a great general as well!

Hehe. Jadeite was just starting out back then, so he didn't have quite the 
reputation he has now. Besides, Jeddy is a fairly modest guy when push comes 
to shove - I doubt that he would be willing to go on in great detail about 
how awesome he is.

Jadeite: "I let my results speak for me. Why waste time describing the 
obvious?" ;)

"Nise Suiko," Badamon hissed, his voice rasping through the
darkness that enveloped him. Like a wraith, the crimson armoured youma

crimson-armoured youma (compound descriptors should be hyphenated)

Right - will fix. ^_^

Too bad that Nise Suiko's under Mum-Ra the Ever Living. It violates all 
things badass about him.

Yeah, Nise Suiko does lose a few points on the "cool loner" scale for 
hanging around with the mummified old freak, doesn't he? If it makes you 
feel any better, he doesn't do it by choice. ^_^

back is aching from carrying your weight -as usual- but at least I don't 
irritate the cosmos by complaining about it!"

Yeah. You're more of an introspective whiner.

Very true. Toshitada is downright maudlin inside his own head. He just 
wishes everyone else would keep their feeling locked up inside, too. That 
way he would not have to listen to them.

The up side is that you're not
bothering the cosmos; the down side is that you're bothering the reader who 
has to read about your angst.

And since the reader is basically the cosmos anyway, it doesn't really help 
anything. But Toshitada is a firm believer in doing what he says, as opposed 
to what he does. :p

Was he becoming real again? The idea was disconcerting, to say
the least. What did it mean, when the dead began to take flesh once more?

Kikyo: (opens her mouth to speak, but reconsiders)

Wise move. But point taken - even Toshitada knows that something like this 
is no reason to be happy for himself. People randomly coming back from the 
dead is never a sign of something good in the works.

After all, her academic success is as much a reflection on me as it is on 
her - if she fails Physics, I will lose face as an educator!"

Flimsy excuse.

It's all he's got right now. ^_^

Given what a rough time Toshitada is giving him about being stupid enough to 
chase after Makoto, Touma will take any excuse he can get to make it seem 
like he has a valid reason to be doing this. He doesn't, of course, which 
only makes this harder for him.

"Hi," Ryo said cheerfully. "You're... Ami, right? I was just in
the neighbourhood, and I thought I'd stop in and see how you girls were 
doing. Can I come in for a minute?"

Aw. They've revealed their secret identities and shit. They're, like, 
super-close now!

Well, they would be, except that Ryo doesn't actually *have* a secret 
identity. Sometimes it seems like the various monsters and demons of the 
world can track him down without even having to try.

Mukala bounced all the way from AFRICA to find Ryo. Not only did he manage 
to narrow it down to the right street, he was even able to pick the guy out 
of a swarming crowd of pedestrians. And it's not even like Ryo was at home, 
or anything - he was just randomly wandering the streets of Shinjuku, and 
they *still* got him!

I figure when your enemies can find you that easily, there's really not much 
point in hiding your identity from anybody. :p

Wordlessly, Ami forced her head to move up and down in a close
approximation of a nod. Clutching her textbook to her chest, she stepped 
aside and let the boy enter her hotel room. Ryo nodded
graciously and wandered over to one of the beds.

Heh. That last collection of sentences, if Ami were to realize it, is 
blush-inducing on its very own.

Thankfully for all of us, Ami is a little slow on the uptake when it comes 
to situations like this. Otherwise, she might have panicked and locked 
herself in the bathroom until he went away, and then this chapter would be a 
lot shorter.

Sweet merciful gods, Ryo Sanada was in her room. The realisation
hit Ami like a bucket of cold water. There was a boy in her bedroom! Well, 
her hotel room, technically, but it still had several beds in it.

Actually, since it's a hotel room, that's several degrees worse than a 
normal bedroom.

Well, Ami doesn't mind it as much because it is less personal. Sort of like 
the way in which she doesn't mind wearing her sailor fuku when she's on 
business, but gets all prudish when she's deciding how to dress on a 
day-to-day basis. It's okay for her to dress in a short skirt and a leotard, 
as long as it is her official uniform. Any other time, she would not be 
caught dead wearing something so revealing.

By the same token, it's more acceptable for her if Ryo is in her hotel room 
(since she is staying out of town, and has nowhere else to entertain 
visitors), than it would be if she were to invite him into her own private 
bedroom (where there would only be one reason for her to want him there, if 
you follow my drift).

Personally, I agree with you completely - and so does Ryo, which is why he 
gets out of there as fast as possible once he realises that they are alone. 
He had been assuming that there would be other people there, making it okay 
to hang out. Spending the night alone with a girl in a hotel room, on the 
other hand, is just asking for trouble.

it was a musky, smoky smell, like damp cedar
boughs smoldering on hot coals. She thought she detected a bit of
sandalwood, too: the scent reminded her of incense, and campfires,

(waxing nostalgic of the scent-centric themes found in Rurouni Kenshin 
Kenshin-Kaoru 'ship fics) Riiight. Sandalwood scent. Of course. It's only a 
coincidence (or perhaps in parody) that I regularly see this fic meme in 
many a romance fic.

If it helps any, Shin always smells vaguely like he's been out on the ocean 
all day. It's one of those things where their element of choice is leaking 
out into their overall auras. Ryo smells like fire, but in a good, warm, 
non-threatening way. Plus, a large amount of attraction is based on scent, 
which is probably why so many romance fics use it.

The farrier

(blinks) What's a farrier?

A farrier is someone who specialises in the care of horses' hooves and feet. 
They trim hooves, pry out stones and other detritus from the instep, forge 
and shape horseshoes, and so on. Back in the old days, the term "farrier" 
and the term "blacksmith" were used interchangeably, since farriers would 
also often use their skills for making tools and other useful things in 
addition to horseshoes.

it was my girls and I who killed them! I held Sailor Mars' broken
body in my arms - I crushed Sailor Mercury with my own hands!

(nods) And I do believe that little stunt you people pulled was, to say the 
least, a turning point in the Sailor Moon series; a turning point to the 
droll, monster-of-the-week formula of the anime, at least.

Yeah - too bad that the "let's kill all of the Senshi except Sailor Moon for 
the final battle" plot point has been turned into a cliche all of its own. 
And for the all the part they had in starting the trend, the Doom and Gloom 
Girls are lucky if they even get recognised in most SM villain lineups. :p

Resolution of plot is a _good_ thing.

I agree with you completely. ^_^

Typically, whatever they had been fighting about was apparently not
important enough to keep them all from ganging up on her. That was just 
one of the many perks of being a Sailor Senshi: always bringing people 
together.

LOL. Indeed, though I find prose that reads suspiciously like a standup 
comedian's act suspect, I do believe this natural and humorous digression 
is naturally segued into Makoto Kino's mind. Congrats on that.

I try to keep the overly "funny" bits to part of the narrative that are 
being done by characters that would have that kind of view on things. Minako 
and Makoto are the two most obvious suspects for finding a joke (however 
sarcastic or wry it may be) in their situation.

the tactical advatage

advatage --> advantage

I am astounded by the consistency of your spelling errors.

I switch keyboards a lot, so that probably helps. :p

The lingering
aroma of ramen and the jangling of his bell trailed after the boy as the 
crowd parted to make way for him and he veered around the corner, still 
pedalling as fast as he could.

(shakes head) Is it me, or are your favorite words 'pedal' and 'barrel'?

Well, I call fair use on this one, since I am describing someone on a 
bicycle. I've never really looked into it, but I suspect you may be right. 
Everyone has certain words they just fall back on in a pinch; my problem is 
making sure I don't use those same words too regularly. Sounds like I'd 
better be more alert for that in the future.

Unless maybe he had, in fact, been asking her out. In which case,
that would mean this was, indeed, a date. From which one could reasonably 
conclude that she and Ryo were, at the moment, 'dating'. But only if you 
wanted to go by the most technical description of the word, of course.

Hehehe. At this point, she's Mojo-Jojo-ing her thoughts. This is one of the 
few instances where redundancy is acceptable and doesn't muffle the 
sentence's impact or detract from the story.

What a relief! This is one of the few times I did it on purpose. ^_^

The Terra Twins were the first to rise from the table, their slim
forms blurring as they dove into the earth as if entering a swimming
pool. The large sawblades

Suggest: saw-blades

See, I would have thought "sawblade" was an actual word. Seems that even 
though some people use it that way, it is not dictionary-verifiable. Guess 
you learn someghing new every day.

Also: bladed saws

As opposed to what? Blunted saws? ^_^

Nise Suiko laughed madly, and swung his trident as though the
massive polearm weighed nothing at all. Spinning the weapon in a complex
and intricate series of loops, he created a sheild

Suggest: polearm --> pole-arm

I'm pretty sure that "polearm" is a word. Like "firearm", or "poleaxe". And 
there is no denying that Nise Suiko's weapon is a polearm: it consists of a 
bladed device on the end of a long pole. Of course, what *else* it is 
remains a topic of some debate.

No, seriously - the canonical term for the weapon is the Suiko Yari, which 
would imply that it is supposed to be a spear. The overall shape, however, 
is more like that of a trident, which most people figure is what it is 
supposed to be (what with Shin being the Warrior of the Waters, and all). 
Then there is also the annoying fact that Shin can make the outer blades of 
his weapon close like pincers and "catch" people by the arm or neck. That 
makes his weapon seem more like a mancatcher, even though he used that 
particular ability only a handful of times.

I have no idea why the Samurai Troopers can't just pick one weapon and be 
happy with it. Shuu Rei Fuan is just as bad - he has a tetsubo that breaks 
into a three-jointed staff, can be wielded like a pair of nunchaku, and is 
bladed on one end like a halberd.  The whole thing is just really hard to 
describe in text. >_<

"What?" Nise Suiko threw the dying youma off of his claws and
spun around just in time to see Quartzie hurtling towards him with her arm 
outstretched. With a fierce cry, she slammed her wrist into his throat and 
sent him to the ground.

Makes sense, since the girls did kill the senshi and all.

Yeah, these girls are actually pretty high on the food chain. Quartzie may 
seem like an airheaded ditz when she's being all giddy ove Jadeite, but 
she's got a lariat that will take your head clean off. :p

He was barely able to get back onto his feet
before Garnet pounced on him. Leaping over his head, the red youma wrapped 
her arms around his waist and used her weight to send him flipping into 
the ground head-first.

Wow. Garnet used the Canadian Destroyer on him.

Oh, thank God! I described it correctly. ^_^

It's also called a "front flip piledriver", when someone other than Petey 
Willaims is doing it.

Quartzie walked up behind her purple partner. "All right! Great
job, Anthracite! Let me play, too." Her hands flexed, and split into two 
thick clusters of wriggling pseudopods

Suggest: pseudo-pods

Nope, "pseudopod" is an actual word. Specifically, pseudopods are the little 
wiggling bits that simple creatures like amoeba use to either move about or 
capture prey. The word comes from the Latin words for "false foot". It's 
basically another way to say "tentacle" without spooking all the schoolgirls 
in the audience. ^_^

The major difference between a pseudopod and a tentacle is that a tentacle 
tends to be more permanent - most creatures with pseudopods can extend and 
retract them at will from whatever parts of their body they feel like. The 
very nature of a pseudopod is to be temporary.

Upon seeing Nise Suiko, he snarled and
extended one hand in the armoured youma's direction.

Nise Suiko gasped as he felt his own armour beginning to buckle
inwards on him.

Wow. Nifty trick, that.

Yeah, Jadeite is not exactly a pushover. He was able to stop Sailor Moon's 
most powerful attack (at the time) dead in midair when she tried to use it 
on him, and in their final battle with him, he was moving entire passenger 
jets around the tarmac with nothing more than his own will. Toss in his 
teleporting, illusions, and so forth, and he has a very impressive array of 
powers.

If he wants the throne, I will be more than happy to help
him get it: Lord knows I don't want the
cursed thing. But you have come into MY camp, and you have attacked MY 
people, and for that you must be destroyed. Good-bye."

Aw. Please don't, Jadeite. Nise Suiko's the best thing going on in this 
fic.

Heh. Thanks - speaking of minor characters who are getting more screen time 
in this fic, Nise Suiko really is getting the star treatment for once. The 
poor guy gets no attention whatsoever in any of the other YST fics I have 
seen out there. Even the Masho are largely overlooked, except to step in 
long enough to be wowed by the sheer power of whatever Mary Sue is inserting 
herself this week. :p

Everything after that had been a whirlwind of fried won tons,

Methinks it's 'wontons' (though I could be wrong).

Beats me. I've seen it both ways. If you think it works better as one word, 
though, I am more than happy to accomadate you. It's the least I can do, 
after the fuss I raised earlier over "polearm" and "pseudopod". ^_^

Hmmm. Six grammar rules broken. Not bad, considering your worst record is 
eight and your best record is five.

I still intend to work on that, mind you. One of these days I hope to get 
below five. :)

As for the story itself: As per usual, it was a barrel of laughs. I
particularly liked your kind of humor, and I especially loved the way it 
was incorporated in the story such that it didn't at all read extraneously.

Thanks, again. I'm glad to hear that you were enjoying it.

But
jeez Louise, there are a lot of people here in this fic. It's like a Ranma 
1/2/Urasei Yatsura Summer OAV with all sorts of characters
popping up left and right.

That is becoming more of a problem, I will admit. Hopefully once more of my 
main cast are all in the same place and some of the upcoming plot points 
have been cleared, that little difficulty will take care of itself.

I guess the increase in baddies is there to balance out the small group
of vigilante good guys running on the loose in the last chapter.

Pretty much, yeah. That, and I really do love foreshadowing. Some of the 
people I brought out in this chapter have larger roles to play later. 
(Oniwabandana comes readily to mind)

No biggie, since they _do_ present a lot of potential in making this story 
quite, well, exquisitely fleshed-out and fairly epic, and you're generally
in the right track in getting to that 'epic' goal.

I certainly hope so - I intend this story to turn into quite the little 
epic, indeed. Part it is that a lot of events and such that were originally 
spaced out over several different tales are now being condensed into one 
story. A bit of widening is to be expected. :p

Hell, Nise Suiko's cementing himself in
becoming the resident badass that's not overpowered; he was able to face 
Jadeite in a respectable, no-god-moding, non-eye-rolling-inducing
match, even. Very good.

Glad to hear that he didn't come across as overpowered. I was a little 
worried that having him march through that many youma at once might have 
seemed a little too much like god-moding. The truth is that they were just 
stupid, and he was just better than they were. The DGG came very close to 
killing him at the end, there, and Jadeite was able to match him without 
even really trying.

What else can I comment--Oh yes. Your penchant for long, dragging fight 
scenes isn't seen here, because the 'Nise Suiko vs. Everybody that loves 
Jadeite plus Jadeite himself' fight had wonderful pacing and was genuinely 
exciting

Yeesh. I, uh, almost hate to bring it up, but I don't think you're going to 
enjoy my recent stuff quite as much, then. The whole thing is basically a 
series of protracted fight scenes split up across two chapters. I only hope 
that each individual fight was kept short enough not to bore you.

If you were to push me into
finding a plot hole or criticism, the most I would come up with is the 
'cloying romantic subplot between Ryo and Ami.'

Cloying? Yeah, I guess a little bit. Things are going pretty smoothly for 
them, all things considered. I just can't bring myself to get them overly 
angsty over their relationship (or lack thereof) when other people have so 
many better things to be worried about. :p

Cloyingness is truly the bane
of the non-angsty, chick-flick-like, teeny-bopper romance scene.

Well, it can't all be misery and heartache, or nobody would bother doing it. 
^_^

On that note,
let me congratulate you on _not_ making Ryo into a ball of crying, 
whimpering
angst during the time he mentioned Luna's death in passing;

Yeah, I was tempted to go with him, but all jokes aside (Ryo cries about as 
often as Vash the Stampede), Ryo just didn't seem like the type of guy who 
would fall apart every time he mentioned an old flame. He's the more the 
type to use that kind of thing to spur him on to greater acts of heroism and 
vengeance than anything.

He can be prone to depression when he slows down and starts to contemplate 
his life, though, which is one of the many reasons Shin and Shuu decided to 
get him out of his cabin and down to Yokohama so that he could get his mind 
off of things. So far, it seems to have worked. ^_^

indeed, he has
earned my newfound respect for him. He may seem like the stereotypical 
protagonist at times,

Yeah, not much we can do about that. Ryo Sanada didn't just read the Anime 
Hero Handbook, he can quote it chapter and verse. The guy was stamped from 
the same mold as freaking Gatchaman, if you ask me: he's strictly old school 
as far as being a protagonist goes.

but he's nevertheless a well-rounded and
three-dimensional protagonist. Keep on writing and churning out these 
high-quality fics.

I'll keep trying to, at any rate. Can't really promise anything more than 
that. ^_^

Later!

-Morgan Hudson

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