Alan Harnum <harnums@thekeep.org> wrote:

    The pinpoint of light at the end was slowly expanding.  Had
she been running only for a few minutes?  It could not be that 
little.  
    

could not have been that

    Another step, a long stride that brought him to tower over
her where she lay dazed.  The flame from the silver dragon in his
hand burnished his hair into spun gold.  "<What you called 
Asakazu is but a fragment of me,>" he intoned sardonically.  "<As
is this body, which now is called Ritter and before was called 
other things.>"

"You star in 'Three's Company?' You is EVIL!!!"

    "<Who are you?>" Flight was futile.  He could kill her in a
second - the sword wavered in his as if he read her thoughts - 

in his... what? grasp? hand?

    From the darkness, the sword in his hand swelled with silver 
fire.  The inner edge of the flame was an inversion of light dark 
beyond black, and the roots of the tunnel lashed out as one single 
thing, and Shampoo forced herself to her feet through pain and
loss of blood and ran.  Behind her, cold light burned from the
sword, and a figure wrapped from head to toe in writhing ropy
fibres of roots howled with rage and blindly swung his blade from 
side to side.  Where it cold steel touched roots, they withered 

its

    "<Far enough come, Maiden,>" he said.  His voice was a deep,     
rumbling bass, yet so pure it was like music.  "<Thus so are the 
old compacts fulfilled.  By all those that have come before me, I 
swear this one shall not harm you.>"

    Eternally grateful, Shampoo finally allowed herself the
mercy of passing completely into unconsciousness.

"<Hah. She bought it. Hey, Serpent! Over here!!>"

    "<Do you perhaps wish there was?>" the sentry asked with

'wish there were' would be grammatically correct.

genuine interest.  The Serpent did not answer.  "<Walk away from
this, Yan.>"

    "<That is a name I have not heard in a very long time,>" 

"<Not since I did that cooking show, in fact.>"

    "<So be it,>" the Serpent agreed, but a vague fear gnawed at
his being.  "<It is not my time to die yet, and your people do
not have minds well-suited to battle or to killing in any case.>"

    "<We do not,>" the sentry said, with both pride and sorrow.  
"<Such was our downfall, for knowing not of the Dark we had no
defence against its capture of our souls.>"

    "<Then stand aside.  Or die.  You do not die easy, I know.
But you can die.>"  The Serpent edged forward slightly.  "<I have
proved that before.>"

Okay, this was really good, up until Shamps got knocked out. But the
part between these two guys is just too talky. It's like, "Right, we're
gonna fight! Right now! I mean it! Be very afraid! Enough talking! We're
really, really gonna fight right now! Etc. etc."

    Akane woke up with tears in her eyes.  Aches and pains 
competed for possession of various parts of her body - ribs, 
leg, stomach, head.  Currently, the head was in the lead, but 
the others were close behind.

Um, I know this is only a metaphor-thingie, but are the aches competing
for the body parts (as it says), or are the body parts competing for the
aches (as it sounds like in the last part)?

    Someone snored softly in the darkness nearby; the sound
startled her, but as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she
saw Ryoga half-curled in a ball in one corner of the large 
brick-walled room.  Moving over on her knees, she shook him by 
the shoulder.  "Ryoga?"

*snore* "... Oh, Ranma... " *snore* "... please don't tell Akane I'm
P-chan..." *zzzzzzzzz*

    "I do not think," Wiyeed said coolly.  "That you could avoid

coolly, "that

    Silence.  The rattle of a key in the lock.  Akane stepped
back and shifted into a fighting stance, bringing up her 
half-clenched fists before her.  When the door opened and Mousse
stood revealed on the other side, she sagged with relief.

    Then she took in how he looked.  His skin was pallid, and
his eyelids were closed.  The robes, usually white or pale blue,
were deepest black, the contrasting geometric symbols picked out

Ah, so does that make him a Chocolate Mousse?

    Mousse touched the point of the spear to the door's handle.
There was a click, and it swung open.  "Inside."  As they walked
into the front hallway, Akane swung the door closed behind them.
Dimly, she realized that under other circumstances whatever had
happened to Mousse would have cause her much greater concern than

caused

    Rouge met them in the passage between hallway and sitting
room, red-rimmed eyes going from wary to relieved in an instant
when she realized who it was.  "Oh, Akane, I'm glad you are
well," she said effusively.  "I had no idea what was going to
happen to you.  I tried to talk to people, but none of them would
listen, and Shampoo's father said I had to come away.  They're so

Aarg! Can't the poor guy get a name?! At least she should call him "Mr.
Shan." When you know somebody, you generally call them by a name, not by
their relationship to someone else.

    We are going towards the strongest enemies we ever faced,
she thought with a dim sense of foreboding.  To the Phoenix Tribe
and their child-god, who nearly killed Ranma and I.  To do what?  

killed Ranma and me.

    "Gao Chao, Akane," he replied even more softly.  "Name is
Gao Chao."

Ah, there we go. 'Bout time. Wonder why Rouge didn't bother to ask....

    The monster - Shouzin, it had been called - seem to realize

seemed

that.  Thank the gods that nearly everyone else was asleep, and 
that the few guards awake were far from here.  Shouzin did not 

'that the few awake guards were' seems like it'd be better

    On the ground below, Ranma walked.  It had been her hope
that he would fly with her, for she could have shown him how it
was really done.  But, stubbornly and predictably, he had chosen
to plod along on the ground.  Well, not plod, really - he moved
in the long run as fast as she did, despite having to climb high
dunes of shifting sand.  She laughed again - if he wanted to be
landbound, let him - and it was, like all her laugher, lost in
the wind.

Walking? If he's going *that* fast, it'd have to be running, I would
think -- unless he's developed mile-long legs....

    He nodded.  "There ain't nothing but me in my head here."
    
    The words disturbed her, though she could not say precisely
why.

Maybe it was the time she had spent teaching grammar and syntax.... :-)

    Akane winced for the umpteenth time.  Rouge's complaining
and lack of fitness compared to the rest of the travelling party
had made the long night-journey slow, and even now that dawn had
cracked in the east and come spilling over the mountains, it
wasn't getting any better.

Hey... it could've been worse. At least this group doesn't have
Gosunkugi with 'em....

    "I know," Akane replied.  And it went even deeper than that;
Kima had stolen her very body, a theft of a magnitude so great it 
was almost incomprehensible.

Actually, she just kinda made a Xerox of it....

Once again, good stuff. Looking forward to seeing how this all comes
together.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics