Well, it's been a while since I've been able to even LOOK at fanfiction
(anybody else's or my own), so I'm catching up on my C&C. Better
late than never...
HEARTS AND MINDS
PART FOUR (first half)
Ranma 1/2 manga fanfiction
by Gary Kleppe
"A bold promise. Are you certain you have the necessary power to
fulfill it?"
"Don't underestimate me, 'General.' I may be one mere human
being, but I'm an elder Amazon warrior. And unlike your major, I know my
opponents. He might fail, but I won't."
Don't know if I remember you hinting that there's something
supernatural going on here before, but it's pretty clear now.
Makes it more intriguing.
back. He turned to face her, and her voice lowered, becoming the hiss of
a venomous snake. "It wasn't my decision. If it had been, I'd have
killed you. If I get a chance, I still will."
This is actually kind of foolish of Shampoo. Not a good thing to reveal
to your enemy that there's disagreement in your chain of command.
Maybe that will bounce back at her?
"His hair. I smelled some kind of 'essence of flowers' stuff on
it. A guy wouldn't use that junk unless he was trying to impress a
babe."
Love that 411. Turns any date into a blind date! Forget your
worries!
Ranma didn't notice, until Akane elbowed him. "Huh? Oh, hey,
Gosunkugi. What's up?"
"Er, well, I was just wondering what my job was. That is, if
there is one that I can do. I mean...."
"Um... sure, I've got something really important for you to do."
Ranma paused, his eyes rapidly scanning the area. "Oh yeah! You're gonna
be Ti Pi's assistant."
Shouldn't he be spying? Or setting bombs or something? It seems
that Gos actually has the most useful skill in the entire bunch, for
what they're doing at the moment.
Akane stepped across the dirt and grass towards Ti Pi. She felt
pretty rotten, and the Mongol soldiers would be the perfect people for
her to take it out on.
Sounds like they've got a career once they get driven out of
China. "Feeling down? Angry at life? Come pound on us!
For reasonable hourly rates, you can smash your troubles
away by beating the stuffing out of us! Some restrictions
apply."
*Oh, good one, ya bonehead,* Ranma thought to himself. *You
spend half an hour coming up with that really cool speech, and never
once does it cross your mind that the guards aren't going to understand
Japanese.* Oh well, no big deal. He could still do what he'd come for.
He spent half an hour on that speech? Now we know why Ranma
is a martial artist, not a writer.
The soldier cocked his rifle; it made a loud ka-chunk sound,
like a railroad switch being thrown. A bullet whizzed through the air.
Ranma leapt out of its way easily. The bullet crashed into the front
grille of a truck, from which water sprayed out.
"Your aim ain't the greatest, is it, pal. Try again?" Okay, the
guy couldn't understand the words, but the meaning had to be pretty
obvious anyway.
This is somewhat comforting. Your handling of the "Guns vs.
Martial Arts" problem (which is something that generally turns
me off of a fic entirely, though this one is an exception) is a lot
more balanced than some people have portrayed. A lot of
writers have basically given it a no-contest approach - whoever
has the gun wins. Even in real life, this isn't the case. Check
out the history of the Boxer Rebellion if you want some historical
proof. In single combat or small melee, a good martial artist (or
a group of them) can expect to have a very good chance of
victory. When you get to larger military actions, the superiority
of firearms becomes evident, certainly. But in these close-
combat situations? Different story.
Especially with exaggerated skills like Ranma's. I have seen
a fair number or stories where some thug or mugger draws a gun
on Ranma and suddenly he's helpless as a lamb. Generally,
that's a cue for the delete key. Anyway, my compliments.
The Mongol soldiers were running around like the proverbial
decapitated chicken, guns clutched securely in hand as voices blared
Should that be decapitated chickens?
"Maybe." And he could call it the Bakusai Tank-ketsu, Hikaru
AAARGH! Gos made a pun. Internally, anyway. I like
it.
better answer. This wasn't anything new for him, of course. Inadequacy
was practically his middle name. He was fully used to not having what
Pretty sure that there aren't middle names in Japanese culture. I
could be wrong, but I've never heard of it.
"Oh, no," she said. "I know how not to be seen when I don't want
to be." Did she wink at him? Or was it just his imagination?
This leads to a strange question about whether she's learned
the same horniness-based technique. It seems so unlikely,
but you never know with these quiet types...
"One who's a ringleader of sorts is Saotome Ranma. A martial
artist who runs a dojo in Japan. From the description I got, he's our
boy from the motor pool incident. Some of the locals claim that he's
Shan's ex-husband, while others say that they're just old friends, or
that she used to chase after him but he wasn't interested."
There's an old copy of a newspaper running around from a neighboring
village which claims he's a weakling, but perhaps they wouldn't
have seen that one.
Of course he did, Shagdarsuren thought. It was the age-old
story. As long as they'd existed, the job of bureaucrats and politicians
had been to get in the way of people who were trying to get a job done.
If they had any sense, they'd simply decide what they wanted done and
then step aside. Let the military men -- the men who had spent their
lives in combat instead of pushing papers -- have free reign to decide
*how* to achieve their goals. They were the ones who were good at it.
Normally that argument is used when the "bureaucrats" are making
stupid decisions, not necessarily merciful ones. A good touch to
see that line of reasoning twisted around like this.
Against one wall stood the ancient blue urn that
Great-grandmother had bought nearly a hundred years ago. Across the
room, the Ke family tea set rested on the small wooden table, the gold
inlaid designs on the ceramic cups and pots highlighted by the glare of
This is a tiny point, but you are describing things based on color
a lot right now, and Shampoo's color vision is going to be somewhat
different in her cat form. I know that cats aren't actually colorblind,
as is commonly assumed, but the bandwidth of visible spectrum they
can see is narrower than ours.
"Surprised me when I spotted it," Private Martinez said. "I
ean, who'd've thought a traveling circus would be out here in the
middle of--"
Skipped a letter...
The two Mongol soldiers walked off. Concealed in the shadows, a
duck watched. The camera hanging by a strap from its neck bobbed back
and forth as it lifted its head. And to the extent that a duck can
smile, this one did, knowing that everything was going according to
plan.
For some reason, this gives me a serious Far Side flashback.
Sorry I don't have a whole lot to add on this one, but the writing
is very polished and there aren't a lot of cracks. One of the issues
you're dealing with here is Ranma and company's willingness to
kill in this situation. There are some very interesting studies
about how people react in combat situations, and the depth of
our unwillingness to kill one another even in war. I can drone on
a bit more about those if you're interested, though you probably
have a good grasp on that already.
Hope to see more of this when you have the chance...
Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html
Grayson Towler
http://www.rigroup.com/~grayson/relentless