Alan Harnum wrote:
C+Cing as I go along:
* * *
Laughter obviously hadn't been in Lethiaphan's design, but
it was making do. Unable to vary pitch and inflection beyond the
necessity of its monotonic pronunciation, the Demon-God was
simply doing its best with different volumes of the syllable
"ha". They rose and fell over the waves in cold echoes of sound
as passionless as binary code. A parody of emotion; but why was
it laughing?
It had just read congress' latest budget proposal?
"Jinnai probably told it to," Makoto reasoned as he clung
tightly to Afura's waist. "Trying to throw us off guard." The
laughter did share something of the same relentless quality of
Jinnai's.
'relentless'? Hmm. Never thought of it that way myself.
"Just keep quiet and get ready to do your thing. And watch
where you put those hands."
"What do you mean?" Makoto asked as he fondled Afura's breasts again. It
was great. By acting like he had the hots solely for Ifurita, he could get
secret gropes like this and everyone thought it was just an accident. It
wasn't like he and Fatora didn't have the same tastes; he was just smart
enough to hide them better.
the water like a burning stone, and by Miz and Fujisawa-sensei,
who rode the swell of the only wave upon the unnaturally
flattened field of the sea--Lethiaphan wouldn't even see the
third attack coming.
Assuming he doesn't have a multiple targeting system, yeah, maybe.
Afura, airborne, had no difficulty; neither did Miz, who was
easily capable of navigating rough seas. Shayla, however, whose
position even upon the flat water had been only a little less
precarious than that of a skipped stone, was flung headlong by
one massive wave, and dropped below the surface with a strangled
yelp.
Well, so much for that plan. The nincompoops. Even I saw that coming.
The air around them throbbed with green light, as Afura
gathered her power and threw out winds of gale force that
briefly tore the fog into ribbons for a few moments, before it
gathered itself again with a seeming malign sentience.
Hmm, I would think even with Lethiphan's control over water, and
subsequently mist, Afrua's command of the winds would be sufficient to blow
the mists away for longer than that. They are essentially in her element.
The same way if she tried to use winds to part a section of the sea,
Lethiphan would be able to overpower those.
In the
interval, they saw Shayla floating in the water, helpless to
relight her flames, with Lethiaphan closing in fast. Miz and
Fujisawa were on an intercept course; could they get there in
time?
Of course; we still haven't learned Shayla's big secret yet.
"I nailed it," the fire priestess crowed triumphantly.
"Sank like a stone.
Sucker. Like that would take it out.
In mid-sentence, without even time to cry out, she was
dragged below the water and out of sight.
Saw that coming too. In truth, I'm surprised they didn't try to make
landfall first, then attack Lethiphan. Once they realized Jinnai moved
inland, either Lethiphan follows (and away from a large body of water he's
toast) or he lets them go and they stop Jinnai.
But then, that would be too easy. ^_^
Everyone had to be okay, of course. The plan couldn't have
failed that badly. Could it?
Everyone is in the water and at Lethiphan's mercy. Of course they have him
on the ropes. Silly Makoto.
His voice echoed back to him, over and over again. He
waited, called out again--nothing. They're all dead, he thought;
Katsuhiko hates me so much, he had it kill them all, but leave me
alive, because he knew that would hurt me more than my own death.
Makoto: That means I'll only have Nanami to moon over me. WAHH!
Actually, I doubt Jinnai's that perceptive to hurt Makoto that way.
Ahead of him, a narrow ripple ran the length of the ocean as
far as he could see. Shayla and Afura and Miz and Fujisawa-
sensei emerged from the ocean, pale and waterlogged, held in
bonds identical to his.
Miz got taken out that easily as well?
Shayla coughed. The thin, weak sound reached out across the
still waters and reached Makoto's ears like a note of joy.
Shayla lived, and that meant the others probably did, they had to
have lived.
Hmm. I think 'survived' instead of the second 'lived' would be better,
mostly because you used lived earlier in the sentence.
Flat voice: "They live."
And especially with this third one so close to the other two.
And Lethiaphan rose into the space
between Makoto and his friends. They had damaged it; the bladed
arm was held protectively over the pale green flesh of the chest,
as though to hold in the thin and very dark plumes of smoke that
spiralled up from beneath the cover of the arm.
Hmm. Okay. As long as they got some licks in too, that's better.
This close, Lethiaphan's bonded presence felt almost like a
second mind within his, cold and steely like a blade, filled with
memories of old killing and an obedience reaching beyond
fanaticism into something purer, deadly and simple and
relentless. How could human hands have designed something so
alien?
Because only human hands could have designed something that cold and alien.
But Makoto is generally more of an optimist and doesn't view the world that
way.
As though in answer, Lethiaphan spoke:
"Cruelty has a human heart,
And Jealousy a human face;
Terror the human form divine,
And Secrecy the human dress.
The human dress is forged iron,
The human form a fiery forge,
The human face a furnace seal'd,
The human heart its hungry gorge."
"Oh yeah?" Makoto said. "I can do poetry too."
"There once was a young priestess from Muldoon,
Whose breasts were so big, you would swoon.
And to me she did say,
'Would me, you please lay?'
To which I replied, 'If Ifurita finds out, I'm doomed'."
Finished its
Finished with its
monotone recitation, Lethiaphan bowed, one arm
still pressed against its dark-smoking chest.
Odd. He's never displayed that level of style before now. It seems out of
place with all we've seen of it before.
Makoto struggled
to reconcile this inconsistency with his previous experience of
Lethiaphan,
Oh. Well as long as the characters within the story are reacting the same
way, it's fine. As long as you're aware of the seemingly odd behavior.
Abruptly, the cold manacles upon his wrists fell away, and
his hands were free. They flopped limply, full of the pins and
needles of pinched nerves; as
I think I'd make those two sentences there. The semi-colon just doesn't
feel right used there.
the feeling slowly came back to
them, he chafed
I'd use 'rubbed' instead of 'chafed'. Yes, I know chafe can also mean to
warm by rubbing hands, but it can also mean to irritate or abrade, both of
which are the first definitions that come to my mind when I hear the word
used.
Boy, you must be a damn good writer if this is the best I can come up with
in the way of grammer commentary.
"Prick your finger, Makoto Mizuhara," Lethiaphan ordered.
"Upon the tines. Bleed for me."
If he's smart, he should try to take him over the instant he touches the
tines.
Cryogenic coldness of Lethiaphan's xenolithic presence in
his mind bringing back childhood night-terrors, the creak of a
closet door opening due to a faulty latch sending him scurrying
under the covers, unable to stare through the darkness of his
room at the gaping maw within the wall that wanted to swallow
him down... his hand came up as though in rebellion against his
own will, stretched out,
Oh? Lethiphan is taking him over?
and the black dancers in the shining orb
flared somehow hungrily for blood warmth light for an opening of
the veins for an opening--
Nice passage, BTW.
"They're rusty."
His hand stopped.
"I might get tetanus."
Heh.
Play for time...
"Bleed."
Makoto: I don't have time to bleed.
"Don't you have something cleaner?" A wheedling note in his
voice would do it, yes, all
yes. All (would look better to me, a minor nit to be sure.)
those days in the Shakespeare Society
of Shinanome were paying off, he'd seen Jinnai do Caliban two
years ago,
Eww. I thought this wasn't a lemon, Alan. ^_^
The tentacle holding Shayla lifted high, higher than the
others, and seemed to stiffen; the threat was implicit in the
singling-out: bleed for me or watch her die.
Lethiphan: Umm, actually if he doesn't do it, I was just going to hold her
higher. And if that doesn't work, I'll make him sit in the comfy chair. No
one can withstand the comfy chair. Muhahahaha.
Voluntarily this time, he raised his hand. And snapped his
fingers. A cannon-shell, glowing red-hot, smashed into
Lethiaphan and exploded thunderously, engulfing it in a cloud of
smoke and roaring flame.
Makoto's the man.
Alielle's voice sang out from across the waters. "You
forget
forgot
Backup plans were always good, Makoto thought. As the
water-tentacles began to loosen and dissolve, the obscuring smoke
vanished. Suddenly exhausted, Makoto splashed down into the
water as his bonds released; before he did, though, he saw that
nothing was left of Lethiaphan but a smoking patch of ink-dark
fluid upon the surface of the sea,
Oh yeah, like that took him out.
* * *
For nearly three seconds, Ifurita
Ifurita? Wow! It's been a while.
"At the siege of Zalambar," she replied. "You escaped
before I could destroy you."
"As you did poor Mardruk."
Or almost.
"You seem different, Ifurita."
Ifurita: I dyed my hair and got a boob job.
Ifurita stared at the head flatly. "You do not seem to at
to, at (I think. Not sure about that one)
"Ten years? Were you not sent here by the Eye of God?"
Osilis: Nope. Took the 10:30 train out of Timbuktu. Easier that way. Don't
have to bother with all of that priestess and royal family crap.
She
had learned very little of the intervening three thousand years
since her sleep and her awakening, but the logic seemed sound;
this was the home dimension of the Phantom Tribe,
Hmm, again this is an assumption on her part without much in the way of
evidence to back it up.
and they had
been brought here by the first firing of the Eye of God--or so
Gallus had claimed.
Wait, if she thinks this is their home dimension then, why is she thinking
'they had been brought here by the first firing of the Eye of God'? Either
you mean' they had been taken from here,' or 'been brought from here.' I'd
go with the former myself.
In Makoto's memories, she saw him, standing
on the Eye of God as the darkess gathered in the sky, cursing
El-Hazard bitterly, the hate dripping from his lips...
Complaining how he wasn't going to get any until he found Ifurita again.
Ifurita's arm blurred with speed as she reached for Osilis.
With a wet and sickening pop like a bone leaving the socket, the
Demon-God's head detached from its host, and scuttled away across
the cavern floor on dozens of needle-sharp spider legs, leaving
her holding only the shoulder of the host body, hand clamped over
the bloodless, fist-sized hole where Osilis had ridden.
I fifty-six word sentence. I'd find a way to slice that at least into two.
Perhaps after. 'host. It scuttled...'
The chanting voices, peaking towards an inevitable
crescendo... Ifurita tore her gaze from the dark and seductive
shadows in the boy's eyes, and began to release her grip on his
shoulder. Tried to; it was stuck fast with indissoluble bondage.
Oh? Now this is a surprise. Might be time to pull hard enough to rip the
skin off.
"Na."
BTW, you forgot to have them say 'Sha' at the start of the song. ^_^
As though it had had fuel tossed upon it, the fireball
roared up again. Go! Ifurita cried, pointing. Burn! The
projectile rose, moved a few inches through the short space
between her and her captor. And stopped dead, to hang motionless
like a tiny sun.
Oops.
Ifurita found, as she atttempted
attempted
The boy's grin spread, until his cheeks tore, and blackness
(no blood) came forth from beneath the flesh, until the skin of
his face (no blood) peeled away like the curtain rising on the
final act (The British Camp, near Dover. Enter, in conquest...
Makoto's memories, oh God, he was stealing them he was taking
everything) and the true face below grinned and laughed and
rolled its eyes at her.
Revealing Jim Carrey. Truly it was the face of pure evil.
"Alielle, she's breathing. She doesn't need you to give her
mouth-to-mouth." Makoto looked down again at Afura. "Now please
check on Fujisawa-sensei."
"I never get to have any fun."
You saved the day. Not bad for a lesser character. Live with that, Alielle.
After Alielle had picked him up, they had pulled the others,
semi-conscious and floating, from the sea. Lethiaphan's
destruction had brought the return of the calm, glass-still
waters Miz and Afura had created, for which Makoto was immensely
grateful; without that, the seas might very well have taken his
friends.
They still really need to get on shore before Lethiaphan recoveres and hits
them again.
"The backup plan worked," said Makoto, shakily grinning.
"Alielle blew Lethiaphan to pieces."
Oh that poor deluded fool. You think he'd have learned by now.
Fujisawa looked up from where he knelt at Miz's side. "And
you're sure it's destroyed?"
Makoto nodded. "I can't feel its presence any more."
That's a little better. At least he had a reason to think it was destroyed.
"I saw the shell hit," Makoto softly declared. "Dead on.
And it's gone from my mind; I can't feel any sort of link at all,
any more."
anymore
"Fine." Trying and failing to keep a calm veil over his
inexplicable agitation, Makoto walked to the edge of the boat and
stared at out
out at
the featureless spot of see
sea
His eyes snapped open. "What!"
Shouldn't that be 'What?!"
Makoto was only halfthrough
halfway
through his explanation to
Fujisawa and the others--those conscious, at least, which by that
point was everyone but Afura--at the point
two 'point's in the same sentence there seems reall awkward, and the Afura
reference is a bit wordy. I think you'd be better off with something like
others--except Afura, who was still unconscious--
or something similar.
"In my dreams, I heard you cry out in fear," the Demon-God
replied. His voice was soft, hard to understand because of
static; in the full sunlight, the four red eyes within the depths
of the white visor covering eyes and nose were nearly invisible.
"By the tremblings of the cord that binds our souls, I felt
Lethiaphan, but he was... changed."
"Changed? What..."
Ah. So now we begin to suspect the truth.
Ifurita might meet his past self, but there was no
guarantee, none at all, that _he_ would meet her again.
Well, only if you didn't see the end of the last episode of the first OVA
series. ^_^
They turned as one, to see a shape standing upon the waves:
vaguely like a man, but covered in bottom muck, tangled seaweed,
the bloody skins of fish; not all was covered, though, and in
patches could be seen torn artificial flesh and microscopically
complex mechanism covered in what looked like thick black oil--an
oil that bled black smoke wherever the sunlight touched it. Atop
it all, the gleaming faceless head; all the hair had burned away
in the explosion that had nearly destroyed the body. Would have,
except for whatever it was that rode Lethiaphan and drove it
darkly onwards.
Time for the finale, methinks. At least for Lethiaphan.
Mardruk stepped into the air as easily as a man ascends a
flight of steps, and walked off the boat. "Head for shore," he
said quietly. "I shall deal with what is left of my brother."
Hmm. I wonder if we'll see mutual annihilation here, or if Mardruk
survives. Hopefully, we'll discover the truth soon. Of more interest in the
Ifurita bit. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how she fits into the
overall story. I can't see her returning to El Hazard, so I'm guessing she
somehow helps out against the origin of Lehtiaphan's true dark power in
what appears to be the Phantom Tribe's home dimension.
Already can't wait for more.
D.B. Sommer