Okay, it's been a while since I've had even a spare moment
to do any C&C at all, so I picked this story at semi-random
to try to get back into the swing of things.  Here goes...

	Redheads

	A Ranma 1/2-Slayers crossover

	(A note-- the following story takes place in the same somewhat
altered universe as my "Girl Days" series, and can be considered a
sort of peculiar sequel.)

All right... haven't read much of "Girl Days," which might explain
some of the things I didn't get about this story.  I'm trying to keep
that in mind as I go.

regularly practiced.  As evinced by the blue minidress and black
tights she was wearing now under her winter coat.

"evidenced"

I'd be careful with the sentence fragments.  If properly used,
they can establish the sort of conversational narrative tone
that you seem to be trying to achieve.  However, the last 
sentence there looks more like clunky grammar than anything
else.

I think I'm going to stop spellchecking at this point, but there
were a few errors along the way you can probably clean up
with a normal spellcheck program.

	Akane giggled.  It had been a peculiar thing, that the female
training had caused the two to get along better no matter which
gender Ranma was.  He or she was more careful in speaking, less
insulting, and understood girls a lot better.

	Then again, Akane had learned a lot about Ranma, and didn't leap
to conclusions the way she once had (at least not as often), and was
willing to listen to her.  She'd learned that Ranma really DID have
things happen to her that just didn't happen to anyone else.

This is fine... to an extent.  But I feel like you take it too far
in this story, at least from my personal perspective.  More on
that as we go.

or add the fact that when things made her
nervous for no apparent reason really really bad things tended to
happen, the dark-haired girl had gone inside.  

When does Ranma get nervous for no apparent reason before
something bad happens?  Normally, he assails new problems
with pure confidence and bravado, fueled by the inner certainty
that there's nothing he can't handle.  I don't get this.

yourself."  The voice remained flat as a laser.

"Flat as a laser"?  An odd choice of metaphor...

	The gaunt man blinked.  "Um... excuse me.  I said strange lands
of adventure and wonder.  People usually leap at the chance.  It's
exciting."

	"Yeah, yeah, I heard.  Me, I'd like a shot at dull for once.
AKANE!"

	The shopkeeper's voice began to lose it's flatness.  "Are you
saying that you DON'T want a magical and thrilling adventure?"

	"You got it right on the head, mister.  I definitely don't.
AKANE!!"

	"This isn't right.  You're supposed to leap into this heedlessly,
following your innate heroic nature."

I find myself in some agreement with the shopkeeper.  What happened
in "Girl Days" to kill Ranma's adventersome spirit and make him desire
a dull life?  I can understand him being skeptical or wary in a situation
like this, but terrified by the idea that he might get in an adventure?  
Ranma has become a bit of a hobbit.  Perhaps as a service to those of
us who have not read "Girl Days," you might throw in a descriptive line
or two as to why Ranma has become this way.  

	"Gourry, I'm bored."

	"Huh?" the man said, who we can only suppose is Gourry.  Which
strongly suggests that his companion is You Know Who.

	"Nothing's happening.  No quests, no great adventures, nothing.
Just bandits, bandits, bandits.  I'm falling into a rut."

	Gourry nodded.  Personally, he was fine with things the way they
were at the moment.  But he didn't like to see Lina bored, partly
because he liked her better when she was happy and partly because a
bored Lina could be a dangerous Lina because she would try to do
something about being bored.

	"I wish something would happen to liven things up."

Here's a thought.  Starting off with the "Lina is bored" motif is 
understandable, but I think you could have a little more fun with it.
Normally, Lina Inverse's life is one manic adventure on top of 
another.  When she's not actively seeking trouble, it falls into her
lap.  So you might get some humor milage out of a Lina who is
really creeped out by the fact that nothing is happening around
her.  She waits all day in a tavern and... nobody weird wanders in!
Nobody tries to hire her!  A fight doesn't break out!  Okay... fine...
sometimes it goes like that.  But none of the small towns she's
gone to has been threatened in any way by any threat.   It's all
so peaceful... so agonizingly tranquil... that it's starting to freak
her out.  She's jumping at shadows because she just KNOWS
something has got to happen soon, and the suspense is killing
her.

Gourry, of course, picks up on none of this and wonders what
the heck is the matter with Lina.

Something to consider.

	Right now you are probably going half mad wondering where you
are.  That I can tell you.  But you are going to have some difficulty
believing it.

	You are both familiar with the animated series and manga volumes
of a fantasy adventure known as Slayers.  Well, that's where you are.

Ugh.  If I'd just been reading this story rather than C&Cing it, this
is the point at which I would have hit the delete key.  This is not
to say that the story is without its strengths or funny moments, but
I really suggest rewriting it so you don't have Ranma and Akane 
know that they're in "the world of the anime/manga Slayers."  That
is about the clumsiest way to handle a crossover that I know of,
and I find that it leaves me very, very cold.  

It's not too hard to handle it another way.  If your shopkeeper is so
keen on shoving them into this particular adventure (for whatever
reason), he could write some deal about how "you are in a world
where magic is wild and strong, whre monsters roam the countryside,
blah blah blah" and tell them to seek out the sorceress Lina Inverse
if they want to go home.  

	"He called me an UNCUTE demon from hell!"

	Ranma nodded.  That was never a good thing to call Akane.

It was about at this point that I started to get kind of frustrated
with this portrayal of Ranma, especially with regards to his 
relationship with Akane.  Has he really changed so much that
he won't even tease her?  The dynamic of the Ranma/Akane 
relationship hasn't just changed, it's been completely transplanted.
I don't mind stories in which they grow to get along... but it
has to be handled in a convincing way.  I'm not sold on this
version.

Akane is nice and sweet and understanding.  She's not insecure
and she doesn't misinterpret things.  Sure, she beats the bad
guys up, but that hardly constitutes even a bad temper in this
sort of situation.  Ranma seems like he's just this swell person
to whom strange and bewildering things happen.  He's an innocent
at the mercy of fate.  Neither of these characterizations are very
convincing to me, or very interesting.  

Perhaps the transition is more understandable in "Girl Days,"
but it seems like an awfully extreme change of character for
both these two over what is a relatively short period of time.

	"And she has MUCH bigger-- OWIE!  Why'd you hit me?"

	"Because if you'd finished that sentence I would have had to kill
you.  This can't be a coincidence.  We're going to have to arrange
for a meeting with this girl..."

I like your Lina/Gourry interactions much better than your Ranma/Akane
ones.  You don't go over the top, but the basic personalities come 
through just fine.

	"You've heard of her?"

Amusing line suggestion:  Gourry leans over to whisper to Lina - "Hey,
this is weird... they've heard of you, but they aren't running away in
terror."

Lina has a number of appropriate responses available to her for such
a situation.

	Ranma sighed.  By now she could tell the tale of Jusenkyo in her
sleep.  While gagged.

I don't know about that... in the manga, Ranma hardly ever tells the
tale of Jusenkyo to anyone.  Even when he wants to explain his curse,
he typically just applies some water and says "Now have you figured
it out?" or something to that effect.  You might consider making Ranma
try to avoid it more and have Lina pressure him into giving details, or
maybe Akane is the one who fills in the blanks.  

	"My name isn't nice?  Why?"

	Lina explained, blushing.

	Ranma boggled.  "It means all THAT?  INCLUDING the melon?"

This bit is pretty amusing.  Congratulations.

	Ranma was leaping around like she was using some sort of
stuttering Raywing.  Akane wasn't leaping quite as much as Ranma, but
that only meant that she was hitting twenty feet to Ranma's thirty.
The grunts of discomfort of the dark-haired girl when the redhead
punched her were matched only by her sheer giggles of delight. 

	And both were considerably faster than should be possible.  Akane
was at what Lina considered the limits of human quickness.

	Ranma was... she couldn't think right off of an appropriate term.
The girl was at times a blur.  Insanely fast.  Inhumanly fast.  Fast
as, well, something very very fast that should not be as very fast as
it was.

My opinion upon reading this (and other similarly written) parts of this
story is that you are really overplaying this angle.  To have Lina be
impressed and even surprised by some of the techniques which Ranma
and Akane exhibit is one thing.  To have her completely floored like this
by everything they do is going too far.

You seem to be taking the approach that "using Chi" is something
really wild and esoteric that Lina has never seen before in her life
and that really rocks her world.  That seems to me to be a very poor
interpretation of the "Slayers" continuity.  

There's nothing terribly mystical about Chi.  You "use your Chi" 
every time you take a breath.  It's a source of energy which Lina
would not find, in and of itself, to be anything unusual.  The application
of it, as Ranma and Akane employ it, might impress her.  But
it's the difference between being impressed by somebody with 
a new idea as opposed to being impressed that the person is
capable of thinking of ideas at all.  See what I mean?

And I put it to you that Lina has seen most of what Ranma and
Akane are capable of doing on a routine basis, though the 
techniques are a bit different.  Take, for example, Gourry.  
Gourry doesn't use magic, except when he calls forth the Sword
of Light.  Under normal circumstances, Gourry's blade is even
just a mundane piece of metal with a sharp edge.

But Gourry makes incredible leaps all the time (Lina herself can
get pretty airborne... Amelia can too, though landing is another
matter).  Gourry can take a bunch of acorns and flick them at
bullet-like speeds.  He can cut through trees and rocks with his
normal sword.  He can block arrows and magical projectiles in
flight.  And on and on.

In the first episode, no less, we saw Gourry throw a guy in the 
air and then cut his clothes to ribbons without leaving a mark on
him.  If Ranma's faster than Gourry, it isn't by a big margin.  

And how does Gourry do all this?  Advanced application of Chi.
It doesn't matter if he's never heard of it (or if he calls it "Bob")
or if he isn't aware that he's focusing it.  It doesn't matter if his
training path is different from Ranma's.  A pro-football player 
uses Chi.  An Olympic sprinter uses Chi.  A 3-day eventing horse
uses Chi, and it sure as heck doesn't know what it's called. 
The concentration, the focus, the drawing on inner power to 
transcend your existing physical limitations and do amazing
things... that's what it's really all about.  

And Gourry does all this, at levels quite comparable to what
Ranma and Akane can do.  Then, of course, there's Prince 
Phil...

This is not to say that Gourry and Lina would not be impressed
by the techniques that Ranma and Akane use - the fighting
style is different from what they know, and that's pretty cool.
This is not to say they wouldn't be impressed by the level 
of achievement that these two youngsters have reached in their
technique.  And when Ranma does get around to the really
flashy stuff like Chi-blasts, that's bound to do more than raise
an eyebrow.  

But this jaw-dropping awe that Lina feels whenever she sees
Ranma and Akane doing anything even remotely related to 
martial arts is way out of proportion, I think.  

	"Hardly relevant, I think.  At any rate, if the person who
'balked' you was not the famed Lina Inverse, then she was someone who
could conceivably be just as much of a problem.  You did say that
this person and her companion attacked you without weaponry?  Only
bare hands and feet?  Inconcievable."

Well, Lina pretty much did that in one of the early Amelia episodes,
as I recall.  "Fast mouth and faster hands," I believe was how the bandit
described it, before they ran away in horror and then got blown up by
a Dragon Slave.  

	"Well, I suppose I can teach you some Kempo... and the first
thing you have to learn is how to fall."

	"There's something hard about falling?"

	"Yeah.  It's called the ground."  Ranma smirked.

Cute line.  

	The Chief sighed.  "I am surrounded by imbeciles.  At any rate, I
find the idea that there are TWO of her impossible.  Indeed, I find
the existence of just one to be an affront to my sensibilities, but
two of that Enemy of All Who Live?  Inconceivable."

Hasn't seen the OVA with the duplicating-mirror thing, I guess.

	"He called me uncute!  That's the worst thing you can call a
girl!  He DESERVED that Flare Arrow!"

	Akane nodded.  THAT she could agree with.

	Ranma held her peace.

sigh.<  A Ranma that is constantly holding his peace is just

not as much fun to read, for me.  You have a little bit of conflict
in the dialogue after this, but I still don't have much feel for this
version of Ranma and Akane.

	Lina turned to the others.  "I have a problem here.  One of those
guys is a low-level magus.  He's got a detection crystal, which means
the instant I try to charge up a fireball or anything like that it's
attack in force time.  Ranma, how big can you make those chi-things
of yours?"

My suggestion here is to have Lina and Ranma be more competitive
rather than cooperative.  Lina opines that, because of this detection
crystal business, she probably can't take these guys out without 
causing some collateral damage to the inn.  Ranma then sees an
opportunity to one-up her and steps in to show off his stuff.  A little
tension and conflict in the group could spice things up.

	Chief stared as his men were beaten, kicked, bladed, magicked,
and generally insanely outclassed in less than ten minutes.  He

Ten minutes?  Seems like a rather long battle by Inverse
standards.

	"This is bad.  We can't touch him, my magic won't affect him,
he's WAY stronger now... Ranma, Akane, what's so funny?"  The two
extradimensional travelers were... laughing.

Lina takes this guy's word that her magic won't affect him a
little too easily.  I mean, she's encountered more than her share
of losers who think they have an ultimate last resort before, and
generally it turns out to be a dud, so...

	"That was incredible..." Lina kept saying.

Again, "kept saying" indicates that Lina has been saying this
numerous times.  Even when she is impressed with someone,
it's not like her to fawn over them.  

And I caught this little bit in one of your other postings, so...

	(short snip of a future chapter)

	"That is a... Sec-urk."

	Xelloss was a Mazoku of no small power.

	Xelloss was a powerfuly capable mage.

	But Xelloss had NO idea how to deal with the angry hand that was at 
the moment strangling him, powered by something that was a lot like magic but 
wasn't, and that was, well, faster than even he could dodge.

You mean apart from teleporting out of Ranma's grip?  Or changing
shape so it didn't matter?  Or simply ignoring it, because choking
a being that assuredly doesn't have to breathe is pretty much a waste
of effort?  

Again, I think you take it too far.  The idea that Ranma could pose
a genuine threat to Xelloss seems like a real stretch to me, his
Chi techniques notwithstanding.  Perhaps a chi-blast might catch
Xelloss off guard, but to have Xelloss so badly thrown off by Ranma
just reaching out and grabbing his neck seems way out of 
balance.


 - - - - -

So all in all, it was a fairly entertaining read, but I would suggest 
going back and making some changes.  If you have a greater plot
in mind (like there's some reason Ranma is there rather than just
a quirk of destiny), I might suggest putting more hints of it in the
earlier portion of the story.  The interaction of the characters from
two different series is the focus of most crossovers, which is fine,
but without a real plot to draw it all together it feels like the story
spins its wheels a bit.

Best of luck with future chapters and versions of the story,

Grayson Towler
grayson@rigroup.net

http://www.rigroup.com/~grayson/relentless