I think I can support the claim that this was indeed copied with an
exerpt from the FFML post.

  "A man," Crow said. "A good man." He looked
at Slate, and the the Martial Artist saw hatred in
his expression. "I'll tell him you're here." 
  The elevator opened. Ranma stepped into the
cab, alone. "Level H," said Crow. "Follow the
signs." As he walked away he said, "And be
ready."

   Notice that the person transcribing this from the book accidentlly
left in the name 'Slate' in this first paragraph, but switched back to
'Ranma' in the second.  This puzzled me at first, as I am unfamiliar
with the book, but upon seeing the original character name listed in the
message to which I am replying (attached below), I immediately
remembered this scene.
   Out of curiousity, what was the title of that book again?  I think I
would like to read it.

Sincerely,
Akihiro
Akihiro@webtv.net

Shunsuke writes:

Hi,

On Sun, 9 Aug 1998 19:17:06    Reid Carson wrote:

    I thought this seemed familiar from the first part, but the second
confirmed it. This is nothing more than the first couple of chapters of
"Legend of the Duelist" by Rutland Etheridge, with the character names
changed. Nice try.

You might want to be careful in hurling accusations 
of plagiarism at someone, I made the mistake of doing 
so last year.

In this case, I don't know the story to which you're 
referring, but the author may well be innocent, so 
you should talk to him to check the facts.  (There's 
nothing that can kill your ego like having to 
apologize. ^_^)

   Believe me, I'm sure. I checked the book, which I happen to have a copy
of, and the fic is an exact, word-for-word copy of the first two chapters.
The ONLY differences are some of the character names (Ranma Saotome for Ben
Slate, for example) and a variety of misspellings.

Reid Carson
rcarson@mnsinc.com