And starting on these, and since this one is shorter:

Another nice installment.  I warn you, though, I'll have to
complain about your treatment of Miyuki and Natsumi.

Since many of the cameos end up being bad guys/antagonists, I fully expected
this.

Not much real advance in the characterization of your heros
or any overall plot, but well-written as it stands.

Do remember this is but the first part. This sets up the action. Since these
next 2 and 1/2 chapters represent the end of the first story arc, things
should move along at a better clip by the second half of this. At least,
that's the plan. Whether or not I successfully execute it remains to be
seen.

but I'd really like to know exactly how is it that I can be
standing in the
middle of an American desert one moment, and then a flash of
light later,
the next thing I know I'm waking up in the middle of China
wearing nothing
but a pair of torn purple pants?  I've never owned purple
pants in my entire
life! Purple pants look stupid! SO WHY AM I IN THEM NOW?!"

"RANMA!  IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!"

(Can't remember if you covered it,

I only posted chapter one like, 3 years ago or so. Don't know why you
wouldn't remember. :)

but this Ryouga still

turns into a two-ton, green boar, right?  So he should still
have a grudge against Ranma.)

It's coming.

"I know somehow this is all your fault, Ranma! Thanks to you,
I'm going through hell once again!"

Oh, HERE'S the grudge.  Still, this kind of negates the "looking
for the reason for it all" tone you had earlier; if Ryouga is
convinced that Ranma is at fault for everything, then that IS
the reason for it all.

But it took him a while to get to it. After all, this blackout and moving
country to country is quite a feat, even for Ranma.

The whole thing worked well enough for me on first reading, but
seems to suffer on a closer look, for what it's worth.  But I
like the close look at the two Chinese peasants and their
thought processes.

Necessary, since it helps sets the stage for the next chapter (not the next
part)

BTW: The idea for the opening here was created in my mind
long before the
events of Sept. 11. Just in case someone thought I wrote that
part as some
sort of reaction to it, this is not the case.

One of the minor fallouts from those events is that terrorism
isn't as funny anymore.  I sort of cringe inside myself when
I re-read my own "Twelve Knights".  A pity, as it used to be
good for a few laughs to depict really clueless or imcompetent
terrorists.

True.

"But we are terrorists," Hasam pointed out.

"Freedom fighters for the homeland," both Fekish and the
Colonel said as one.

I don't suppose you could have fitted a "our worst enemies
are our rival freedom fighter organizations" joke in here,
a la Monty Python's "Life of Brian"?

Been too long since I've seen that. Always been a 'MP and the Holy Grail'
person myself.

All too quickly they arrived at Tokyo Airport, and Hasam was
not any closer to a solution than before.

Minor (I suppose) plausibility nit:  which airport?  Given
that this is an international flight they're trying to
board, that would be Narita, way too far out for most of
the rest of this story.  Haneda, which is not infrequently
portrayed in some anime, is actually in Tokyo but is
almost exclusively domestic flights.

Hmm. Didn't really give it a thought. Oversite on my part.

Suggest:  they're boarding a domestic flight, say to Osaka
on one of those JAL 747s specially modified to seat 600+
by putting people on the cargo deck.  This would be the
maximal way to kill people on a single plane.

Well, they don't want to kill anyone. They really do want to transport it
out, but this was the best they could do on short notice.

"I think that hot looking chick has got to be at least a,"
Ryo Saeba held out his hands in the woman with the tan vest's

Ack!  What's City Hunter doing here?

general direction, and cupped them, squeezing slightly as if
testing the ripeness of a pair of invisible tomatoes. "38-C,"
Ryo concluded.

Good characterization for him, though! ;)

Thanks.

Kyo Saeba looked between the hands and the breasts in the
distance. "Hmm.  Sorry, Kaori. I'm afraid I have to go with Ryo.

He has a twin?

Now. Twice the trouble.

...Pretend for just one second you got your job based on actual
abilities instead of the fact your uncle is in charge of the
force.

I find this disconcerting, to stick in a cameo of a reasonably well-
known anime figure and then vary from the established characterization.
If this is City Hunter, why isn't he pulling out his illegal gun

Not illegal here, since he actually is on the force.

and making some impossible long-distance shot, after a sudden personality
shift from lustful idiot to James Bond?  If this is NOT City
Hunter, why name him that way?  (Nobody who knows City Hunter
seriously wonders "why" he got any given job; only those who are
just meeting him for the first time wonder this.)

I'm not sure what your intention is with this cameo, so I don't
know what to suggest.

Building up to something later. Like Kyosuke, from KOR, whom I took
liberties with, some of the 'outside' anime characters will be a bit off,
since different things have happened to them than from the canon
contemporaries. It's an attempt to fuse things with two diverse mediums
(super hero style comics with manga/anime), so I have to go for what I hope
will be a (more or less) happy medium. Of course, as you show, I disappoint
at times with some characterizations. I could just use all originals
characters for these sorts of roles, but would prefer to keep as many anime
characters in them as possiblities, keeping the fusion feeling to the fic.
Some play minor roles, while others will be more important. Part of this
simply that the R 1/2 cast isn't big enough, even with one shot antagonists,
to have enough charcters to do what I want. Some are just plain needed for
major roles. The Goddesses from OMG! play a major role in one of the
subplots, which will become obvious in the second storyarc, as will some
others characters.

The smaller man wore a costume that was dull yellow, only
broken up by blue along his hands and upper arms, and on his
boots. A large blue 'W' was in the center of his chest. The
only other odd feature were a tiny set of white
wings on his mask, located around the ears.

Now THESE are a couple of pretty obscure Marvel supervillains;

I would debate that. Power Man was pretty active within the first 100 or
issues of Avengers. It was only after Luke Cage beat him for the name that
he sort of dwelled into obscurity until his revitalization as Goliath, and
then hitting the big time as Atlas in 'Thunderbolts.'

As to Whizzers (all three of them), well, this costume is based on the
original from the 40's, who's been dead for a while. I take a nod to the
second one from the 'Squadron Sinister' (who were originally Avengers foes),
since Mint will be thinking along the same lines as that one about his
identity.

I didn't place either costume until they gave out their names
below.

Well, I do sort of have to do that. I'm not that good as describing
villains' garb, truth be known. One of the reasons the Swordsman's garb is
going to be different from the original, though still in keeping with the
swashbuckler the original liked to portray himself as.

"It's obvious. With your name, and the color of your yellow
costume, you can
only have one super power..."

"...That of super peeing," Ryo finished.

Heh.

It is kind of an understanable mistake. I mean that costume. And don't get
me started on his origin, involving mongoose blood transfusions. :)

day when she spotted a quick movement below. Two female
police officers bolted out of a restaurant and into their
car. On a whim, Hawkeye shot a cable arrow into the ground
next to the rear driver's door and slid down the
length of cable even as the car started up.

Problem:  Miyuki's Honda 'Today' doesn't have rear doors.

That one was trashed a while ago. They're on their 3rd vehicle this month.

driver's badge. "Kobayakawa-san, I'm one of the heroes that's
new to this town, name's Hawkeye. You need any assistance?"

The pair looked the archer over cautiously. Kobayakawa was
the first to speak. "I remember you. Aoi said you helped him
nail some would-be rapists last week."

"Saturday night," Hawkeye confirmed.

Shouldn't Ukyou be reacting to Miyuki's use of "him" for Aoi-chan?

Uk's missed the reference. No, really. It's not an oversight on my part. :)

And my first characterization nit is with Miyuki being first
to speak.  She'd stop to think here, whereas nobody's ever accused
Natsumi of thinking before she speaks.

"Let him in," Tsujimoto whispered in Kobayakawa's ear. "Since
we're dealing with superpowered bad guys, we can use the help.

And there's no way Natsumi would say such a thing, though Miyuki
might.  Natsumi would be quite confident that she's stronger than
the SPB's.

Nat's ain't that strong in here. At least not yet.

Besides, he's wearing tights and has a seriously hot ass. This
might be our only chance to hit on a major hunk."

After the YUA movie, the two of them would have enough of a rep
throughout Tokyo that they'd be requested by name for any situation
which dragged in superheros.

Haven't seen it, and in any case it's doubtful those events would have
happened here. Unless the movie involved super villains causing havoc. :)

But, IMO this is quite like Natsumi to react like this to a hot guy,
as long as they're not arrogant.

"I'm not that superficial," Kobayakawa said.

Tsujimoto gave her a warning stare. "How long have we been partners?"

Kobayakawa considered that and sighed. "Fine, I am. But I'm
more subtle about it than you."

I think it would be more like Natsumi to remind Miyuki that she
CAN'T look, as she has Nakajima.

Now this I can answer. Ken hasn't been himself lately, and it's pretty much
eroded his relationship with Miyuki to the point of which it's all but over.

A one meter ball of twisted plastic and metal, the remnants of
a sushi stand, came hurtling through one of the walls of the
airport and landed squarely on the hood of their car, caving in
the entire front portion of the vehicle and forcing it to an
instant standstill.

I expected Natsumi to leap out, catch it, and throw it back.
Or at least step out, lift it off the hood, with grunts, then
throw it back with a 'kiai'.

Already explained above.

two officers cringing in anguish as they stared helplessly out
their shattered front window and at the remains of what had been,
five seconds ago, their pride and joy.

"That's the third one this month," Kobayakawa wailed. "The
chief's going to bust us to a street beat for sure."

It's Miyuki's pride and joy, not Natsumi's; the latter wouldn't care,
except for the effect on Miyuki.

Explained as well, since even Miyuki hasn't had it long enough to form an
attachment (in light of what happened to one and two in the last few weeks.)
Natsumi's scared not so much of the car being totaled, as what might happen
to them because it got totaled.

  OTOH, Miyuki should be giving

a stare in the direction of the bad guys that would give them
pause if they're looking.  And, given that Miyuki is going to
do the repairs anyway, why does the chief care?

Might have been funny to have Miyuki grab her paintball pistol
and go running in to shoot the bad guys in the eyes.

Nah. At this point she'd be in the way. The heroes are going to get the
chance to play heroes now.

Actually, this whole YUA cameo is another instance of what I
cited above, w.r.t. City Hunter.  Why cameo if you're going to
depart from established characterizations?  Those who recognize
the cameo aren't going to enjoy it.

As I mentioned above, it is only a halfway point for the characters. Given
how little fanfic exposure most of the cameo characters get (There's like,
what, eight City Hunter fics on the net?) I do hope I'll get a little more
leeway with them. Still, I'll try to be more aware of the problem try to
work things to a more happy middle ground with what the canon characters are
really like to what they are like here.

I mean, let's get serious:  Miyuki, Natsumi, and Saeba Ryo
between them might be able to stop Mint and Lime without any
help from your heros at all, given the weapons Ryo never
seems to be without.  But you aren't giving us any of their
above-ordinary talents at all.

Do remember though, that the principle cast of this fic from R 1/2 have
almost all been altered in some way either in the past (Ranma and the
serum., Ukyou and archery) or present (Ryouga now), and it's not
unreasonable to assume it's happened to other characters that pop up from
other sources, such as the ones here. Now, I will explain said problem as
the opportunities present themselves, but I can't do it here now. It would
drag the story out. Still, I do see your point.

when taken individually, but they went together like oil and
maple syrup.  Akane knew that was a bad mix. She had tried it
in Home Economics, and it hadn't turned out well at all.

Heh.

Well, at least this ends on a happy note. :)

Hope the second half works out better for you.

D.B. Sommer



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