Onward and upward....

Awesome! At this rate, you might start lapping me. ^_^

"That's right," he growled, almost to himself. "Feel it, Shin.
Feel it right to the core of your pathetic little bones. I want you to
feel what I'm doing to your precious ocean, and I want you to know that
I'm the one doing it. I want you to come, Suiko no Shin! I want you 

here,

and I want you to bring every friend you've got!"

He needs a new hobby.

He does, he really, really does. This whole "kill Shin" thing he has going 
on is not healthy.

If the Samurai
Troopers are anything worth knowing about, Setsuna should be able to 

tell

us something about them."

Whether she WILL say anything, though, remains to be seen...

That's true. Setsuna may have her reasons for keeping her mouth shut on the 
subject. Or worse, she may be more than willing to supply them with the 
wrong information, if it serves her purposes. I love Setsuna, but I wouldn't 
necessarily trust her any farther than I could throw her if the "fate of the 
universe" was at stake.

A number of priests waded in the shallows,
smiling and nodding amicably to the kids as they splashed about where 

the

large floating shrines filled with charms and talismans waited to be
purified in the seas for the year. Nearly sixty men dressed in black and
white ceremonial garb and wearing bright yellow headbands stood ready to
push the shrines out into the surf when the time came.

Very nice imagery!

Thanks. Like I've said before, the wonders of research. I've never been to 
Nango Beach, but I must have downloaded every tourist guide, photo page, and 
map of the place on the Internet. I like to use real locations if I can: it 
just seems more fitting for the shows that the fic is based on. When I found 
out about the Day Break Festival they hold here, and realised that they do 
it basically one or two days after Marine Day, it seemed like a great place 
to have Nise Suiko strike again.

If you try really hard, you can actually track the exact date of my plot 
points. I like that, for some reason. ^_^

stocky Chinese boy was wearing banana yellow trunks and standard orange
water wings, with what appeared to be an inflatable dragon around his
waist. A snorkel and a pair of goggles rested on top of his shaggy head,
glinting slightly in the light.

That is one of the dorkiest mental images EVAR. XD

Shuu lends himself to this kind of dorkiness easily. He's one of those 
pleasant guys to hang around who is actually so mature that he doesn't have 
to be mature if he doesn't feel like it. If that makes any sense. It's like 
having the world's largest ten-year old on your team.

Ami hoped they would be able to handle things without needing to
call in Sailor Moon. Usagi was as reliable as any friend could be, but
the more she used her powers lately, the weaker she seemed to become.

I won't bother repeating my objections to this plot point. Just note that I
have already objected to this at length. :)

Duly noted and recorded. Like I said, it's a matter of some debate for me. 
I'm still going back over my old notes to see where I may have messed this 
up. As mentioned, if it bothers enough people, then I will axe it. ^_^

I would like to point out, though, that I am trying to refer to "Super" 
Sailor Moon, here. That transformation is legitimately screwed up at the 
moment. Whether she still has normal SM powers seems to be where we are 
running into the problem.

He looked like the type of person who might try to
whisk a girl off on some whirlwind romance that ended with passionate
kisses in front of a roaring fireplace, and Ami had no idea how to let
him know that she was very busy saving the world and had no time for 

that

at the moment. Also, that he would need to call her back after she was
done saving things and could clear her schedule.

Down girl. Fire and ice do NOT mix...

Well, fire can sure make ice melt. And boil, if you give it enough time to 
do its stuff. ^_^

Ami Mizuno had practiced the art of being invisible to the opposite sex
specifically to avoid things like this. How could she possibly face the
other Sailor Senshi if she let herself get all flustered and tongue-tied
over some random guy?

Yeah. I mean, it's not like he's Urawa-kun, or Mercurius, or Tsukino 
Shingo,
or...

Let's not forget that in the manga she also was linked to Fish Eye and 
Zoicite, too. And the entire debacle with the Love Contest in "S". This was 
part of why I felt comfortable writing this scene. The simple truth about 
Ami is that she is shy, but desperate. She may choke up around boys, and she 
may want to act as though she does not care about boys, but when you 
actually check her track record, she has had more actual *attempts* at 
romance than any of the so-called "boy-crazy" Senshi.

Ami is a very lonely girl. She wants to find a guy, but has no idea how in 
the world to do it. For all her supposed "ice queen" status, I have yet to 
see her turn down a date when one was offered to her.

"Hi," the boy said calmly, as he lifted a paper cup filled with
shaved ice. "My name's Ryo Sanada. Want some ice? You look a little 

hot."

Aaaaa! Lame pickup line alert!

(sigh) No, sadly, Ryo really is so dense that he does not mean this to be 
taken in any other way.

"All right, off you get,"

[Ami] "Already did, four paragraphs ago."

*snerk*

"So, want some?" Ryo asked, offering the small cup of shaved ice.
"I just figured it gets pretty hot up here with the sun out and no 

shade."

Getting no response, he tried another approach. "Crowd control sure 

sucks,

huh? I'll bet your team told you to stay out of trouble, too."

Damn, he's sharp. XD

Ami: "I am falling desperately in love with you, and all you want to talk 
about is crowd control?"
Ryo: "Well... Yes. Pretty much."
Ami: "You really are stupid, aren't you?"
Ryo: "Oh, I haven't BEGUN being stupid, yet!" ^_^

*snip Nise Suiko/Shin fight* Nicely written fight scene. :)

Thanks, I put a lot of work into that one. Fighting underwater is 
interesting, but the visuals can be a little hard to get across. Sometimes I 
really wish I could do this story in doujinshi form, or something, just so I 
could get some of the fight scenes across better. Then I remind myself that 
I have other things I need to do with my life. ^_^

Ryo Sanada did not have a nose for trouble. He had an entire body
for it.

Good line!

Thanks: I liked it, too. ^_~

Damn! He had wanted to
make a good impression, too. He'd have to make a point to be extra
charming from now on, or she might decide he was some kind of jerk.

Oh damn...poor Ami'll never knew what hit her... XD

Ryo has that affect on most of the people he meets. Just when you think he's 
as dense as a stump, he up and does something utterly brilliant at just the 
right moment and knocks you for a loop. ^_^

"Ah, crap," she muttered, and glanced over at the boy as he
wrapped his tiny arms around her leg and buried his face in the back of
her knee. Maybe if she kicked really hard she could get him over that
wall before the monsters attacked? Sure, she thought to herself, and
maybe if I really try I'll be able to grow wings and fly away before 

they

get me, too. Like that would ever happen.

Well, y'never know...

Well, not for another season, at least. ^_~

Quickly sweeping the child into her arms, Usagi dove between two of the
creatures and bolted down the street as fast as her coltish legs could
carry her. The child started wailing at the top and Usagi resisted the

Some words missing after 'at the top' maybe?

"of his lungs". It was supposed to say "at the top of his lungs". Sometimes 
I seem to lose words out of my sentences - I guess maybe because I'm typing 
too quickly, and my brain just fills in the gaps when I'm re-reading without 
me noticing. It's kind of annoying, really.

"Hi!" the girl chirped. "I'm Sailor Moon. Warrior of justice and
defender of the Earth - not to mention love, purity, and all things just
plain awesome. Ring a bell?"

NICE entrance! XD

Like I said earlier, Sailor Moon's speeches can actually be a lot of fun, if 
you're willing to give them enough of a tongue-in-cheek feel to pull them 
off properly. The trick seems to be that you need to make people fairly 
certain that she is kidding, but also a bit worried that she might be 
serious.

"Aw, man, and they're kind of cute, too!" the boy in orange
whispered back.

I like his attitude. Come for the battle, stay for the orgy!

Shuu Rei Fuan knows what he likes, and he likes three things: wine, women, 
and songs about wine and women. ^_^

"Attacking large groups of people," Ami mused, "and stealing their
energy at random. I think we may have seen this tactic once or twice
before.

Once, or twice, or...a few dozen times...

Well, most of their enemies were more obsessed with gathering mystical 
artifacts of some kind. Dream mirrors, Heart crystals, the ginzuisho, stuff 
like that. Only the Dark Kingdom were really into energy gathering. Well, 
them, and the aliens. And of the DK and the aliens, there was only one enemy 
who preferred targeting large groups of people and taking their energy en 
masse. Zoicite was more concerned with finding the bearers of the Rainbow 
Crystals (golly, more artifacts that turn you evil once they get removed! 
Human beings must be full of the things). Nephrite (like Ail and Ann) 
preferred going after specific individuals, not groups. And to this day, I 
am still confused as to whether Mamoru and Kunzite had any actual goals at 
all.

All signs here point to Jadeite. This whole attack really does fit his modus 
operandi, right down to using the youma minion to handle the actual draining 
while he sits somewhere far away and watches. Which is exactly what 
Radanthus is hoping the Senshi will think.

"He said 'Our master will still reign supreme over all the dark
realms, now that you have removed his only opposition'." Rei said grimly
as she knelt and drew a ward in the sand with her finger. "Whoever this
guy is, he must have been someone we missed the last time. Someone who
was just waiting for Beryl to be out of the way so he could take over,
himself. And we paved the way for him."

Ooops.

Well, you know how it is - there's always somebody who wants to be top 
dog...

"If Nise Suiko is involved, then you can count us in, too," Shin
said, stepping forward and putting his hands on his hips. "I'll be 

blowed

if I let that blackguard run around spoiling MY good name."

Nicely put!

I like Shin because he gets to use words I would otherwise never be able to 
type. I mean, seriously, can you picture any of the other Senshi or Troopers 
using a word like "blackguard"?

Touma, Seiji, Ryo thought to himself as he watched the sun setting
over the rippling sea, wherever you guys are, be careful. I have a bad
feeling that you're in a lot more trouble than any of us realise.

But they'll have good company, if I'm not mistaken.

Oh, yes. The very best of company. ^_^

Good chapter...will get to the next one by the end of the month. :)

Cool! Thanks for dropping a line, man: I really appreciate it. I'm a bit 
behind on my replies, and I'm trying to catch up, so I apologise if this 
seemed a bit more truncated than usual. Good to know that I've managed to 
keep your interest - the good news is that I think the next couple of 
chapters make very little reference to the Sailor Moon issue, so hopefully 
that will buy me some time to find out where I got this backwards.

Later!

-Morgan



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