Notes:

So, why a rewrite of something I wrote back in October of '97?

Well, a few months back, I discovered, (much to my embarrassment,)  that
people still read this thing.  So I decided to take a look at it and

cringed

at what I saw.  The grammar was horrible, the story was a poor mix of

prose

and script, there were several gaping plot holes, the characters were

hardly

IC, and the ending, quite frankly, sucked.

Good enough reasons, I suppose.  So sit back, relax, (and hopefully,)

enjoy.

Thanks to Sean Gaffney for prodding me and Donny Cheng for prereading.

Any and all C&C accepted, (and desired, really.)  Even if you flamed me

the

first time around, feel free to do so again.

Welp....

Let me start off by saying your writing has _really_ improved, Anand.

As for the characterizations, having recently re-read the Tribe of One
series from TSR, I'd like to make a suggestion - one you'll probably ignore,
but I think it is valid:

Instead of using the same Tribe as in TSR's books, how about coming up with
something completely new?  I mean, Neko instead of Beast was a cute touch,
and assuming you don't change Master much it was a nice idea, but perhaps
something a bit more...Ranma-esque?  How about a pure girl personality like
the one Ranma "became" when he was knocked on the head one too many times?
Or instead of making Shade merely survivalistic, how about giving him a bit
more of an...evil aspect?  A bit of cruelty and the like.  Hell, how about
having something suitably Zen come out of Master's mouth every once in a
while?

As for your ending of the original...well, while it was unsatisfying, it did
have a certain charm.  I'd be careful in tossing it completely, IMO.

Good work on the re-write, looking forward to more.

--
Christopher Angel, B.E. (almost), B.Sc. (almost)
cja124@mail.usask.ca