Weee! Finally properaly getting to this. Probably be last C+C since I'm
chomping at the bit to write some more:

In the dark, a match can be a horrible thing.

Espcially if you're standing in a vat of gasoline. :)

The grating as the match is lit comes as a surprise.  With a
guttering sound, the light flares into being; it
is insufficient to dispel the darkness.  Instead, with a
barely audible hiss, it struggles to hold the darkness back
from a tiny little circle, its flickering existence only
sufficient to illuminate the hand which holds it, and the
sheaf of papers held above it.  And even when the dull
silence is broken by a women's sobs, still the hissing of
that struggle persists.

Actually this is a very intruiging first paragraph. I normally don't like
prose this flowery, but it worked here.

"So you'll do it?"  This voice is that of a man, nasal, dull
in tone.  It is the voice of a person to fear, because for him,
reality has passed into the irrelevant.

Nah. He's just seeking to create his own reality, superimposing his will
over that which is already there.

There is a rustle, and the match moves away from the sheaf
of papers to hover above the neatly-ordered piles on the
drawing desk.  A new pair of hands is now seen, delicate and
graceful, with the signs of age only showing in finely lined
knuckles and the hints of spots.

'spots' seems plain. I'd add something.

Trembling, they press a

single piece of paper flat, and then reach for a stamp.
There is a long pause, and then the final thud as the
document is sealed.

The man's hand reappears, setting down the stack it has been
holding.  The passionate and reciprocated romancing of a
shifty-eyed schoolboy

schoolboy or girl?

"You've got it?"  This is a new voice, a rapid machine-gun
of a voice chattering the words like confident bullets.

The match-holder does not speak, but instead holds out the
tear-stained sheet.  As the man in the doorway reaches out
to take it, the dying light glints off his massive afro.

Ah. Nanbeshin (Can't remember how to spell the name, but no one forgets the
'Do)

The afroed man's teeth gleam, and he whispers, "Excellent."
And then all noise is swallowed up as the match, with a
sigh, is extinguished.

And Nabeshin pronounces, "Shit.  I burnt my fingers."

Knew that was coming. It was the final bit of problem with matches that went
unmentioned. :)

Great intro, btw.

                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~


That wasn't Takahashi in the prologue, just an unauthorized
stunt double.  After all, everyone knows that Takahashi's
masterpiece is not a passionate romance between Ataru and
Inu-Yasha;

Ah. So you were correct.

This is not a room, but a great hall.  The darkness is
banished from the center, where the eye is drawn to an
imposing dais; instead, the shadows lurk and cling to the
walls, which ponderously rise up to meet the vaulting
ceiling.  It is a place of the sort where kings and emperors
address the cheering masses, but at this time, the
silver-haired lord serenely regards only a single,
dark-haired beauty.  Pushing his tiny wire-framed glasses up
with a delicate finger, he says, "Hyatt.  Where is Excel?"

Heh. Let's see how you intro her.

The object of his attention comes to attention,

Might want to change the first 'attention' since it's redenduent, unless
that was what you were going for.

carefully,

as if afraid her bones might break,

Nah. Her bones hold up well. Internal organs and bleeding, well, that's
something else altogether. :)

and raises a hand in

salute.  "Miss Excel was going...."  The high, whispering
voice trails off as Hyatt's golden eyes roll back into her
head, and then she collapses, blood spilling freely from her
mouth over her pale skin and ornate purple uniform.

There is a short pause, which the author uses to change the
verb tense.

Heh.

No more than a litre of blood spilled out over the granite
floor before a blonde burst through the door and ran up to
the master of the hall, waving her hand madly above her
head.  "Hail Lord Il-Palazzo!  Excel has come to... oh,
sorry, Ha-chan, didn't see you lying dead there, just let me
get off you...."

Heh. Nice way of informing us without showing it.

"You will explain to me why you were late." Pausing, he
adjusted the hang of his ornate robe.  "My intuition is that
your answer to that question will also answer why I am
sitting on a barstool."

Most likely.

course this was a good idea, because all your ideas are very
good!  But I wanted to make sure that the throne had not
lied on its resume,

*Sigh*

fact, made a bad situation worse by burning a very long
time, but I highly recommend making it into Director of Food
Operations, because the fire was the perfect temperature for
cooking sweet potatoes, not that I had any...."

Il-Palazzo tugged on the tasseled cord which had descended
from the ceiling during the continuing rant,

Yes. She had that one coming.

and Excel was

sent plummeting into the pit

Not really a pit so much as a trapdoor and long vertical shaft. Just an
imagery thing to me.

that opened beneath her feet.

A distant splash was immediately followed, faintly, by,
"Snakes!  Why does it always have to be snakes!"

Bah. It was alligators once. It was a present from Il-Palazzo for Excel. He
gave her the opprtunity to make whatever she wanted out of the alligator
hide, once she killed them.

"This man is a martial artist, a very powerful one.  If he
acts to challenge ACROSS, he may very well thwart our
plans.

Il-Palazzo: Even worse than Excel unintenionally does.

 We must prevent this."

"Ah, of course!  Yes!"  Excel pumped her fist
enthusiastically in the air.  "So you want us to seek him
out, and challenge him to fair and honourable single combat,
and fight him, and lose, and go off and learn powerful
techniques in far-off, long-lost lands, and eat really good
Korean, the sort you can only get in Los Angeles, and then
return, stronger than ever, and...."

Actually, that would probably work. It's the standard way to go about it, in
such situations. And once he's finally defeated, he won't come back, since
they never do.

Excel nodded sagely.  "Yes, yes, of course.  We will
challenge him, and fight him, and defeat him, which will
crush his spirit and his hopes and his dreams," her eyes
took on a manic gleam, and hints of slaver dripped from her
fang-like incisors, "and then, to avenge his ruined honour,
he will train harder than ever and devote himself to one day
defeating ACROSS and all it stands for...." She ground to a
sudden stop, one finger pressed to her forehead in laboured
consideration.  "No, wait.  This is a stupid idea."

Only because she juxtaposed the two.

A gentle tug of the gloved hand opened another pit-trap.
Excel had time only to blink before she fell again,
shouting, "Never mind, Lord Il-Palazzo, I'll get right on
it, thank you for sending me out the fast way...."

Hehe.

"Tell Shampoo.  She tough amazon warrior, she can take it."

"No roles in this episode."

"Aiyah!"

Mousse: This is an Excel crossover. That can only be for the best, in this
instance.

He stepped around a puddle lying, unexplained, in the middle
of the street, and flexed the fingers of his right hand,
grinning savagely.  It had taken him time to find the
Master, time and hardships as he had fought his way through
the barren steppes, and then the steaming rain forest.
When, finally, he had fought his way free of the last raging
beast and found himself in downtown Kyoto, it had taken even

longer yet to persuade the Master to train him.

Oh dear. And what new 'dreadful' technique did he learn, I wonder.

The blonde one shook off her confusion and thrust a finger
trembling with emotion underneath Ryoga's nose.  "I will
tell you where you are!  You are in F Prefecture, in F City,
in F Neighbourhood, on F Street, in front of the...."  She
peered uncertainly at the sign beside them.  "G Building?"

'G Building?' Now where did they wander off to? :)

A gust of wind blew tumbleweed down the street, bouncing
along until it fell down an open manhole, from which screams
of agony ensued.

Heh

F City?  He'd never even heard of it before.  Was it even in
Japan?

Actually they leave that vague as well, though the residents do speak
Japanese. :)

"Oh, no reason," the girl sing-songed in a innocent voice,
and pointed behind him.  "Hey, look!  A semi-plausible
distraction like a water main exploding to disorient you
while I knock you out and tie you up to take you as a
prisoner and interrogate you later!"

Hehehehe.

"Oh, look, Miss Excel.  A cute little pig...."

New backup food supply? Menchi might feel jlited. :)

"Sure, Menchi would like the company.  Besides, you can
never go wrong with *two* emergency food supplies, and I
like pork better than dog anyways!"

Yup.

"Hello. Ikea Shop-by-Phone?  I would like to order a
throne."

Heh. Of course.

                      *     *     *

"It's amazing how fast we got to Nerima, isn't it, Miss
Excel?"

"Yes, Ha-chan.  What a wonderful country we live in, where
we have public transportation available to us that is so
efficient that it is easily mistaken for a plot
contrivance!"

Don't I know it. I use them all the time.

 Excel lifted the piglet high in the air with

both hands and smiled gently at it.  "Of course, Gyoza,
it'll be even more wonderful when all has been ground under
the heel of Lord Il-Palazzo!"  She ignored the pig's frantic
struggles.  "So we need to find this Ranma person quickly
and defeat him."  She peered around, one hand shading her
eyes.  "Well, this is Furinkan High.  Boy, there's a lot of
people here.  How to find this Ranma?  Maybe we should build
a dojo right here, and develop a reputation for brutally
crushing challengers,"

You know, that would work.

 >

"Ah, fair flower," the boy said mournfully.  He turned to
face her, hakama swirling, and bokken coming to rest on his
shoulder. "Why should such a sweet damsel such as yourself
be seeking out the miscreant knave Saotome?  I see!  You
must be yet another maiden that he has enslaved with his
dark magics and bound to his will!  Fear not, for I am Kuno
Tatewaki, Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, and a peerless
warrior!  I shall war for your freedom, even though my heart
is bound up in another, and verily, my mighty wooden shaft
shall strike with...."

You know, once she bleeds all over him, I see him backing off, if not
blaming Ranma for it.

Hyatt wandered back.  "Miss Excel," she whispered, "he says
he is a martial artist too."

Chewing on her lip, Excel stared at him.  "Two martial
artists in Nerima?"  She closed her eyes and ground her
knuckles into her temples.  "Tricky, tricky, very tricky.
How do make sure we fight the right one?

Just kill them all. :)

 Lord Il-Palazzo

will be very unhappy if we defeat the wrong one, and I don't
want him to be unhappy with him, I want him to smile at me
and praise me and promote me and rip off all my clothes with
a feather duster and throw me over an over-sized marshmallow
and

Hmm. Should have thrown in some reference to chocolate and gahram crackers
and make her into a giant Smore for his personal use. :)

Her only answer was a spray of wetness across her back.
When she looked back, she stumbled to a stop, slumped, and
then slapped Gyoza against her forehead.  "Ooops," she
muttered.  "I forgot that Ha-chan dies when she tries to run."

Not all the time. Just when it's convienent.

Ranma was mildly irritated.  Being attacked by Kuno was not
new, getting boring, and not particularly challenging.
Moreover, the new accusation of having "enslaved the
porcelain doll" was new, and Ranma had no clue as to
what it meant, other than it probably represented yet
another headache.

Well, he's certainly correct on that one.

"A member of a secret revolutionary society led by a cool
and mysterious mastermind?" she supplied helpfully.

"An anime character!"

"What?" she spat.  "Japanimation?  You take that back!"

Yes. We remember her great love of anime artists from her first mission. ^_^

Eyes widening in sudden panic, he spun on one foot....

To take a baseball bat in the stomach.

Nice move. Make it a metal one. None of that crappy wood stuff to hit him
with.

As he lay there, face down and fingers barely twitching, the
girl walked confidently up to him, nattering, "I don't know
what Il-Palazzo was worried about.  I mean, this fight is
really easy!"

Hehhehe. It won't last, of course.

"I don't think grenades count as martial arts, Miss Excel."

"Sure they do!  It's part of the East Uruguayan School of
Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu!"

Yes. Yes I can see that.

"Actually," Ranma interjected, "Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu
only works with the German Model 24 'Potato-masher'
Stielhandgranate.  What you're using is a US Army-issue Mk
II HE grenade."

Excel: It's a new technique I developed for it.

Nuns wore wimples, as did this girl.  Nuns also wore high,
white collars, often with a cross pendant, so that was okay
too.  Leather high-heeled boots seemed a bit off, but then,
Akane hadn't seen many nuns as young as this girl, so maybe
that was just an age thing.  Fishnet stockings were
definitely iffy, though.  Akane was quite sure that even if
they were okay, they should be hidden under a skirt, rather
than rising up to grasp a pair of garters that left only a
few inches of bare skin before a pair of skin-tight latex
bikini briefs took over the job of providing a semblance of
decency.  Nuns were also to wear habits, rather than black
silk and velvet corsets, and form-fitting shoulder-length
gloves, even fingerless ones, didn't seem very ecclesiastic.

And nuns never carried bullwhips.

Ha! Obviously she's never been to a Catholic School.

She came to a stop so suddenly that Akane almost ran into
her, and then picked her up bodily and threw her sideways
into a nearby dumpster.  "Stay low!  Anyways, what I
discovered that was if I had left the order and married him,
we would have had two children.  And the older child, a
daughter, would have grown up to be powerful in magic, the
reincarnation of some ancient malevolent spirit from ancient
history.  With that power, she would enslave the world,
bending it into a dictatorial, inflexible regime in which
she would rule every thought and emotion and enforce her
idea of perfection."

Sounds good to me. Lord knows, I'd do it given the opportunity. She should
be proud her daughter will make something out of herself.

                      *     *     *

A single sneeze brought Ranma back to consciousness, and he
struggled groggily to his feet.  "Where'd she go?"

Glancing quickly around, he realized that the
girl... Excel... had fled the scene, along with her really
sick friend.  He grinned.  It didn't matter.  She would be
back, and they'd fight again.  He was looking forward to it.
That had been a decent fight.  Plus she was pretty cute.

Heh. He'd better be careful with that kind of thinking.

"I gotta train.  Besides...."

Besides, Ranma thought, staring up at the afternoon sun,
Excel knows Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu.

Hehehehe. You're just plain evil, Bjorn.

"But needs must I elsewhere to continue my fight," Kuno
observed, "as my dishonourable foe would seem to have fled."
He ran a dispassionate eye over Kodachi's classmates, who
seemed to have gotten over their shock and gotten on to the
ogling state.

It shan't last once they get to know him.

 >

Kuno nodded gravely.  "Indeed, though it pains me to admit
it."  His eyes narrowed as he drew a new bokken.  "I can not

cannot (I think)

"Kodachi Kuno leaving early?"  Still standing in front of
the chalkboard, the teacher shook his head sadly as he
surveyed the wreckage.  "Yet another disciple who could not
take the magnificence of Great Teacher Largo!  Ph34r m3!"

Hehehe.

Grimacing, Ranma snarled, "Don't try an' make me feel
better!  I gotta get better -- a lot better -- or I won't be
so lucky the next time." He turned to go.  "I'm gonna go ask
Cologne ta help me;

Won't work. She has no further scenes in this. :)

As one, Ranma and Ukyo turned.  The sun had almost set,
hanging low to blind them with reddish beams, but as the
barely-distinguishable silhouette took another step towards,
he moved into sharp focus when his massive, incongruous afro
produced a solar eclipse.  "Who are you?" Ranma gasped.

Nabeshin. Gotta be. It's like the bowling episode. He's here to provide no
help whatsoever, under the guise of assistance.

"Hotcha!"  Happosai came bounding over from the direction of
the recent fight, a bag almost twice the normal size bouncing
on his shoulder. "Wotta haul!  Stunned insensible and flat
on their backs -- just the way I like 'em!" He caught sight
of the small party near the street and changed course,
waving enthusiastically.  "Ranma!  And... Nabeshin!"

Heh. I figured it was either him or Hinako that would recognize him.

"Nabeshin!  Long time no see."

"We were comrades-in-arms -- no, we were friends.  We fought
together, we trained together, we drank together, we chased
girls together.  Well, he chased them; they just came to me,

Of course, we must qualify our statements.

Reaching his hand into his coat, Nabeshin nodded.  "Good
question." Shrugging, he turned and tossed a dark lump
lightly to Ukyo, who, taken by surprise, fumbled after the
catch.  "Here."

Finally getting a good grip on it, Ukyo took a close look
and blinked.

"Don't hold on," Nabeshin suggested.

Don't Hold on to a Grenade Fu, eh?

Ranma prostrated himself before Nabeshin.  "Master!  I beg
you to teach me!"  He had never seen that attack done
before, only heard descriptions of it; never in a million
years would he have believed that any man could master
Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu to the point where they could
deliver it with such grace and perfection.

"ranchan...."  Weakly, Ukyo's arm struggled free from the
detritus to tug at Ranchan's shirt.  "hurts so much,
ranchan...."

The pain will continue for all of us, Ukyou-chan.

                      *     *     *

Excel pursed her face in contemplation.  "Well, what I said
to Lord Il-Palazzo was, 'So you want us to seek him out, and
challenge him to fair and honourable single combat, and
fight him, and lose, and go off and learn powerful
techniques in far-off, long-lost lands, and eat really good
Korean, the sort you can only get in Los Angeles, and then
return, stronger than ever,' and he said I was right, and
that's a moment I'll treasure for ever and ever, for it
shows that our heart and souls are truly as one, and one day
he'll profess his love for beautiful Excel openly, and then
take out a tube of cake icing, and... ah, Lord Il-Palazzo,
you're so dreamy!  You're all that a simple, innocent, yet
stunningly beautiful and incredibly sexy girl like me could
ever hope for!"

Yes, that sounds right.

Excel scrunched up her brow.  "Good point.  After all, we
have a glass of water, so we won't starve to death, and we
still have to," she quickly counted off her fingers again,
"go off and learn powerful techniques in far-off, long-lost
lands."

"You wish to be trained?"

Hmm. Now who will this be.

from the Heavens, to give us divine inspiration so that we
may develop a powerful school of martial arts based on the
theory that the fist can be treated as the flint, and the
enemy's tonsils, the steel, which when brought together,
strike the sparks of pain,

Actually, that sounds rather neat. Silly, but neat.

"Really?"  Excel jumped to her feet.  "That's nice.  As she
brushed herself, she glanced over the table, and her eyes
widened in shock.  Dancing a jig of righteous outrage, she
shouted, "Ah!  Ha-chan, don't hog all the water!"

The entirely-not-a-leprechaun master sighed deeply, and
bowed her head as if to summon patience.  The act caused her
massive coiffure to drive Excel deep into the floor with a
ringing gong noise.

Heh

"Right!"  Excel burst from the floor, and pointed
triumphantly at the crone.  "Ha-chan!  We can be trained in
secret, powerful techniques by this leprechaun in order to
fulfill the wishes of Lord Il-Palazzo and defeat Ranma!
Ha-chan?  Ha-chan?  Oh."  Her shoulders slumped as she
watched the crimson waterfall drip from the table-top.

Bit plain. Have the glass of water she was hogging now be filled with blood
as well as blood staining the tabelcloth or something.

Excel leant forward.

"Moira O'Callahan."

Hmm. If I was supposed to recognize the reference, I didn't.

                      *     *     *

Gy... no!  Ryoga knew that it was time to escape;

Heh. Nice slip.

Bolting between her legs and trying to make a break for it
was an option.  So was squatting and doing his "cute little
piglet" routine, but Ryoga was also fighting an urge to
scratch the back of his head and laugh nervously.  Faced
with too many alternatives, Ryoga followed his heart, and
tried to choose all of them at once.

Heh

About to squirm free, Ryoga paused.  For once in his life,
he realized, he didn't have to fear having his curse
revealed.  He would be dunked in hot water, he would be
human, he would apologize profusely, he would leave.  Once
it was established that he was not, in fact, a pig and hence
a food source, they would have no more use for him.

Nah. It won't work.

'Oh, damn,' thought Ryoga fuzzily, as blood sprayed forth.
Then he realized that it wasn't *his* nose that was
bleeding, and befuddled, he could only stare as Hyatt's eyes
rolled back into her head, and she toppled, shuddering, to
the side.

Heh. Watch on overdoing it with her deaths, though. She's useful for other
things too.

tougher, so I will be tougher, so I will be stronger so I
can fight Ranma and defeat him and stomach the really spicy
Korean food

Darn. Speaking about Korean food all the time gives me a craving for
Mexican.

Just before dawn breaks, the night takes on a luminous
appearance: a darkness by which you can see.  In this
not-light, Moira O'Callahan carefully studied her lined
visage in the bottom-most part of a full-length mirror.  "I
can do this," she muttered, and then fell silent again.
Abruptly, she nodded, her tresses leaning out to push
against the mirror until the glass bulged inwards and
cracked.  "Because I'm old enough, I'm withered enough, and
doggone it, people fear me."

Hehehehe. Cute reference.

Excel gurgled again and tried to swallow.

"Don't rush your meal, student.  You won't get to eat again
for a while."

                      *     *     *

"What the h

Heh. Why do I think it's going to pick up with 'ell'

Will  continue on.

D.B. Sommer





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