"Michael Noakes" <noakes_m@hotmail.com> wrote:
It ended abruptly, in a mottled ridge of hardened tissue. Ranma Saotome
shifted this way and that, examining the fresh scar in the mirror, and
estimated it to be nearly forty centimetres long. A scar, he thought, not
entirely displeased but rather surprised, I've never had one before. I
Run-on sentence.
surprised. I've
or
surprised; I've
wonder what Akane will think of it.
RANMA: Oh yeah, wasn't she in some incredible danger or something because of the
end of the last chapter? Oh well, I guess I can ask someone else.
He sneaked into his parents' room with all the subtle prowess that his own
father had taught him. In the empty quiet and pale darkness of the very
early morning, Ranma Saotome crept soundlessly across tatami as he
approached Genma's supine form. The spring air was cool, its scent fresh,
the slight breeze an exhilarating backdrop to his subterfuge. His mother's
form was all but hidden behind his father's massive bulk. Neither stirred
as he knelt next to their shared futon; Genma's deep human snores didn't
lessen. Ranma knew that snore well, he had lived with its nightly snorts
well; he had (run-on)
for more than a decade. How many times had he lain awake in the pre-dawn
dusk on some foreign soil, listening to those rumbles, reassured by their
continuance?
GENMA: Not that many. We did most of our training in Japan.
RANMA: It was a rhetorical question, okay?
The Saotome patriarch released his son's fist and glanced at the alarm
clock at his side. His eyes widened in surprise. "Ranma, it's only four
o'clock! What the hell are you doing here? I thought you stayed the night
at Soun's."
Suggest "at Tendo's." (because that's what Genma calls him)
But, no, he told himself, no excuses. The Art before all else, that's
what Pop taught me. Train hard in times of health; when sick, train to get
better. Train hard when focussed; when troubled, train to dispel the
distraction. How to remind his father of this? Would the old hypocrite
even listen?
GENMA: No.
RANMA: Dammit, Pop, do you even understand what "rhetorical" means?
Ranma faced his father, and concealed his happiness at Genma's arrival
behind a scowl. "Yeah, whatever. I've got training to do, so if you don't
mind. . . I don't got time for old men." Turning away he began the first
away, he
"So you've still got some fight left in you, eh, old man?"
"I'll show you just how much I've got left, Boy!"
boy!" (no caps, IMO, since it's a description rather than a name)
Ranma almost skipped along as he made his way towards his fiancee's house.
In a moment of weakness he even whistled a nameless happy little tune. He
threw a few cheerful punches at an unseen opponent, danced around imaginary
attacks. Catching a few odd glances, he smiled in return and slipped back
into a normal walk.
Ranma seems rather unconcerned so far. What about the warnings of doom in the
last chapter?
Not entirely happy, Ranma reminded himself. For at the end of their
sparring session, Genma had levelled a serious expression at his son and
demanded an explanation.
"An explanation?" Ranma had asked, reaching for his shirt.
"The scar."
RANMA: Well, you see, when flesh is damaged....
"I like taking pictures in the early morning. It's quiet. And honest.
Real."
^^
Extra spacing.
Ah, geez, he though, grousing silently. I'd forgotten why I hated it
when weird stuff happens around here: the guilt trips. Soun's half-angry,
half-tearful glare; Nabiki's knowing smirk; and worst of all, Kasumi's
understanding smile. The only thing missing is Akane's angry ranting.
"Um," he said, looking around, "Where's Akane?"
"She's dead," Nabiki said, flatly.
"Nabiki!"
"Just kidding, Kasumi."
"That wasn't very funny."
"Really? Personally, I think seeing Ranma go into spastic shock is
_very_ amusing."
Heh. That's Nabby's sense of humor, all right.
"Things?" Her voice wavered. "Like last night?"
"I don't know. He just said things were coming." Ranma didn't add
that Gabriel had also said that they couldn't be stopped. Because he
refused to believe that. If things really were coming, he would stop them,
no matter what they were: this, Ranma swore.
The "this, Ranma swore" sounds a bit cliche to me. You could probably just drop
it and let the rest of this bit stand on its own.
"Not bad," Nabiki said, appearing behind him. "Impressive enough, and
it's got a cool story behind it, so that's worth something." She traced the
line with one finger, and smiled as he shivered. "Not very aesthetic,
though. Doesn't have the panache of a, Kenshin, say."
Akane nodded in agreement. "Or a Kenshiro."
"Captain Harlock's. . . ."
"Manji's."
"Oh, and Sagat!"
RANMA: Are you kidding? "America's Funniest Home Videos" really sucks.
"I found him wandering around the living room," Kasumi explained, "so I
thought I'd bring him to you. It has been awhile, hasn't it?" She gently
scratched the pig beneath the snout and laughed as it blushed. But Ranma's
transformed rival, and Akane's occasional pet, kept his eyes fixed on Ranma,
Suggest removing the commas surrounding 'and Akane's occasional pet'. Doesn't
really look right to me as written.
"What," said Nabiki. "Sorry, but daddy dearest wants to have a little
Daddy (caps; perhaps caps on 'dearest' as well if the whole thing is meant as a
name)
"Is that so?" he replied, inquisitiveness losing to anger. "Is that
so? I'll show you, Ranma! I've been wrestling sumo-pigs for the last year!
Working hard on the farm! Training in the furthest reaches of Hokkaido!"
"Lost in th furthest reaches of Hokkaido is more like it," muttered
the, or th' if Ranma is using dead-end-kid speak.
"I'd like to see you. . . Akane!" He jumped to his feet, Ranma slowly
joining him, as Akane returned to the dojo.
"Ryoga!" she exclaimed upon seeing him. "It's so good to see you!
It's been too long."
RYOGA: See me? How did you know how l-- aaaaa! I forgot to put pants on!
The brief glimpse he had was enough; no, it had been far, far too much. The
girl's body was mangled, mauled, long jagged strips of flesh torn away,
entrails bulging out through the gaping flesh. Blood, far too much of it,
sprayed and splattered everywhere, staining the asphalt and alley walls red
and black. Limbs were snapped backwards like twigs, splintered bones poking
through skin, and the back twisted wrongly in the loose confines of the
shredded school uniform. Empty eyes stared blankly at the rising sun, and
somehow conveyed final moments filled with pain and terror.
The police were doing an excellent job of concealing the carnage from
the public, but they hadn't anticipated observers from above. From his
perch on the roof, Ranma Saotome pulled back, turned away, and silently
retched.
RANMA: This was no boating accident!
The thin, awkward student had looked even paler than usual. "Don't
bother," he had said, trying to push past. "There's nothing. . . they've
blocked it off. . . you don't want to see."
"See what?"
"She's dead," Gosunkugi whispered. "She's. . . dead." He had rushed
off without another word.
And Gos is there ahead of time? Suspicious, that....
Was this the threat of which that man, that Gabriel, had warned
against? If so, then why attack this helpless girl? The mental image of
the girl's body reared up once more, and Ranma suddenly wondered if this was
the fate that awaited Akane. No way, he vowed once again, leaping back to
the ground and resuming, at a hurried pace, his way towards the Tendos'. No
way will that happen to Akane.
Of course, it could be Akane who's doing the killings.... :)
He glanced at Ryoga, who stared blankly back. "Um, sure, Akane.
Shoot."
"In private," she said. "No offense meant, Ryoga."
The bandanna'd boy shrugged. "None taken."
Rather mild reaction, considering the story's assumption that he's still
somewhat hung up on Akane. Something like "Huh? Why, of course not!" followed by
awkward laughter would be my guess.
A walk through the park. A quick stop for a few chili burgers at a
convenient Mos Burger, and a drink at the kissaten next to it. Then, at
Akane's insistence and to the detriment of Ranma's wallet, a few rounds of
print-club. He pulled the sheet of picture-stickers out and had to admit,
despite himself, that they were worth the discomfort. Various poses, him
and Akane side by side, smiling and blinking and making funny faces and
peering through the different cutsy frames she had chosen. One in
cutesy
RANMA: Ow! My hand's bleeding in *another* place. Stupid sharp edges!
AKANE: Oh, don't be such a wuss!
The path was a disturbingly easy one to follow, Ranma noted. Out the back
of the house, across the back lot, through a stone wall, back into the
street: everywhere, displays of intense battle, the wrecked signs of Ryoga
and his opponent's passage. The lost boy must be moving fast and had
boy had to be moving, or boy was obviously moving (past tense)
"To protect your home as well. And to listen to your father. And your
father is telling you that you are _not_ going out tonight." It was rare
that the normally passive Soun Tendo revealed the steel core that had
enabled him to survive Happosai's tutelage. But it most certainly is there,
Normally passive? What about the Demon Head of Doom?
Maybe, wrapped in the book's embrace, whatever force that had driven
the cursed text had received some mental image of its prey: an image of
Akane, incomplete, perhaps, but enough to begin a hunt. But being
incomplete, the thing that had attacked Akako this morning, and been driven
off by his friends, had been attacking the wrong targets. All girls, and
all of them bearing a slight resemblance to Akane. Not just physically,
though: the other girl had died while wearing the Furinkan girl's school
uniform, and had probably met his fiancee more than once. Perhaps it had
some kind of mental imprint of Akane as well -- vague impressions of the
girl, of her clothes, of what she liked.
GENMA: Fortunately, that means we have a perfect decoy to lure out the killer!
RANMA: Well, I pity whatever poor sucker....
** SPLOOSH! **
RANMA: HEY!
"Hatsu Futsu Ha!", he screamed, both hands tightly grabbing fistfuls of
^
Take out the comma; don't double-punctuate.
He blacked out on impact, momentarily; returned to consciousness
seconds later, he hoped, to shuddering vibration as his enemy slowly
approached. He lay amidst branches and splinters, and realized he had hit a
tree, and shattered it upon impact. One elephantine foot stomped down a
tree and (since the 'realized' applies to both parts)
It towered over him and gazed down with black, impassive eyes. Again,
it cocked its head aside, as if in contemplation. To Ranma's surprise, it
spoke:
"You are not her," it said, in a voice that sounded impossibly normal
for such an inhuman creature. Something like confusion or disappointment
underscored the words. "You are female; her scent is stronger upon you than
any other; and you bear her mark. Yet you are not her."
RANMA: And did you think of stopping to ASK before you just went ahead and
assumed? Huh? Didja? Noooooo. Bonehead!
The effeminate-looking ninja quickly scanned him over. "Ukyou sent me
Suggest: The effeminate ninja (I mean, if you look effeminate, doesn't that mean
you are?)
"Yeah, sure, no problem," he said, thinking quite the opposite.
Everywhere throbbed with pain, and he began to feel a curious detachment
from his own body. He tore the tattered remains of his shirt off and tied
it hastily across his chest, which barely served to conceal his feminine
chest. At least the bleeding in his side seemed to be slowing. He tried a
Suggest 'his feminine breasts' or maybe just 'his breasts' (to avoid repeating
'chest')
Konatsu nodded and rose as well, weight shifting to his good leg. "You
go," he said. "I'll catch up." He took a limping step. "Let's finish
this," the ninja said. "For Ukyou."
Ranma nodded, and hurried away, and for a moment, uncertain in the
rain, it seemed that the young martial artist who looked like a girl
answered back, "For Akane."
MOUSSE: For Shampoo!
NABIKI: For ten thousand yen!
HAPPOSAI: For a good time, call....
"Her mark on you is strongest," it said, voice now a wheezing gasp, far
too human sounding for Ranma's tastes. "And we know you now as well.
human-sounding
"No, no, no," Ryoga insisted. "Maybe yours. But not mine. I'm
telling you, I know what I saw. What I fought was nothing like yours. Mine
was short and green and fast. And it got away."
"Well, then. . . maybe it evolved or something, or, like, it's a
RYOGA: Idiot! Evolution requires many successive generations of offspring. A
single creature can't evolve!
RANMA: Don't you read Pokemon?
I don't know if I'll be keeping the part with the car in it; I may have to
revise that part of the fight. As was pointed out to me, it's not terribly
original-flavour. As one pre-reader put it, "having Ranma accept combat
assistance from an internal-combustion engine is darn near as shocking as
having him pick up a bazooka." Which is true. On the other hand, I kinda
liked the images it brought to mind. Let me know what you think.
Didn't really bother me, but I have a relatively high tolerance for out-of-genre
(as opposed to OOC which I'm a stickler against).
All in all, good characterizations, very good descriptive writing, and an
enjoyable read.
See you soon with the next chapter!
Promises, promises. :)
Gary