--- DB Sommer <sommert@connecttime.net> wrote:

The venue was a meeting hall the leader had rented

for the occasion. All of the big gatherings were held
there. No press was allowed, as some of the tactics
the ALF had employed were technically illegal, if
morally right. 

Of course they’d get much better effects if they
simply legally lobbied for stricter laws against
unnecessary amounts of animal testing than releasing 1
thousandth of a percent into a wild habitat the
animals had never had time to adapt naturally for. :D

Luckily only minimal property damage had been

inflicted during most of the rescue operations, and
since the leadership had been adamant about *not*
publicly claming responsibility for their actions

Which either makes them pragmatic or genuine.

they had managed to fly under the radar for the most

part. Though there was a segment of the leadership,
led by Shinjiro Hikami, who wanted a more public image
for their heroic deeds.

Foreshadowing for involvement with Arioshi or just a
footnote?

Still, few complained about the current leader,

founder Itsuki Mikura. 

It may be an idea to run a short roll call the end of
each chapter, describing from which animes you’ve
plucked some of the new or long-absent characters, so
readers can keep track of if they’re unique to the
story or not.

A rescue operation, headed by Yakumo Matsui, had

great success in liberating what might very well be
the greatest rescue of animals to date. Sadly, he
could not be with us today, his fate unknown. 

He’s sitting in a tree eating bananas, throwing poo
and plucking fleas from his back… Speaking of which,
I had the impression that the KOW only planned to keep
him in that state for a few days at most. They seemed
too civilised to let him stay devolved on indefinite
time. Has he stayed in Wundagore to support the HE
afterwards?

Let us take a moment to remember he and our other

fallen comrades.”

*him

Man Beast spoke into the microphone, using impeccable

Japanese. In a firm, yet gentle voice, he said, “I
am the Man Beast, an innocent wolf changed into human
form unwillingly by a truly evil being who refers to
himself as the High Evolutionary. I find myself a
strange creature in a strange land, at least from my
perspective. An individual of both the world of nature
and the world of man, but truly belonging in neither.
Torn in two directions, not knowing which way to go.

Playing on the appropriate emotional strings as
always.

“Yes, my friends, let today mark the dawn of a new

beginning of the ALF. You can count on me to
personally spearhead the effort to release all those
who have suffered as I have at the hands of cruel,
inhuman monsters. 

Including incarcerated super-criminals? ;)

The crowd roared in approval, reenergized and

sounding like they were ready to march on the enemy
then and there. 

Does he possess large-scale emotion-manipulating
abilities like the other Hate-Mongers?

Tabur held his hand to his chin in thought. “Oh,

that makes sense. Yes, I suppose all the animals would
be emancipated then, wouldn’t they?”

With all the humans dead? Of course.

“Behave yourself,” Man Beast warned. “Just

because the High Evolutionary didn’t evolve any
females for us to mate with doesn’t mean you should
be ruled by your loins. I will want the full story
from her. Her extraordinary abilities are not
indicative of evolutionary advancement, like mine.
Something else is going on there. If you’re not
careful, your balls might end up in a mousetrap. And
if you screw things up for me with your lust,
remember, I can rip your throat out as easily as I did
him.” He pointed at the body.

An upcoming Man-Beast/Phantom Cats alliance? They’re
both striving for human eradication and MB (good
corporate director initials if you wish to use them)
would welcome to rule an army which already possess
militant, ruthless mindsets reminiscent of his own.

Man Beast smiled, a chilling, feral thing that hinted

on the edge of madness. “Oh yes, the times are
changing, as you’re about to find out, you aberrant
sacks of flesh. You’ll get what’s coming to you
for trying to jump the evolutionary chain ahead of
me.”

I don’t remember if he had such a complex original
motivation or if he simply had in-born animalistic
sadistic bloodlust (which he didn’t evolve beyond
like the other animals due to an unstable isotope) and
enjoyed killing and torturing people?  In any case
it’s a good idea to expand a little in the
explanation here for reader perspective. Perhaps
highlighting that he, being a wolf, views himself as
_the_ apex predator in nature and would get incredibly
insulted by the notion that any species could stand
above him without strictly basing society on sheer
bloodthirsty medieval social-Darwinism. Especially not
a bunch of physically and emotionally ‘weak’
omnivores who should be rightful easy prey for a
predator of his standing.

Perhaps something in the spirit of:

“Oh yes, the times are changing, as you’re about
to find out, you tasty litters of cowering prey.
You’ll get what’s coming to you for trying to get
ahead of a true predator in the evolutionary food
chain.”

“He certainly believes it,” Daredevil informed

the others.

Giant Man wasn’t as bothered as usual about being

in his heroic guise. For a change he was doing some
real good in helping to examine this ‘Ryouga
Hibiki’ person that the Hulk turned into. Or turned
back into, if Ryouga was to be believed. A quick talk
with the young man showed Ryouga had no idea of how or
why the transformation occurred, only that his memory
blackouts were a fairly recent occurrence. Curiously,
finding himself in strange locales was not. Evidently
he was as directionally challenged as his emerald
alter-ego.

Tofu could play the role of Doc Samson to hypnotise
the very similar personalities into merging. 

An amusing counter to Banner’s and his alter ego’s
mutual antagonism would be if Ryouga and Hulk met up
on an astral plane and immediately became best
friends. :D

Ryouga had been docile the entire time, complaining

about an upset stomach which seemed to have carried
over from his larger form. 

Did you make the change to blow-dart frog poison as I
suggested? I believe it’s the most lethal on the
planet.

Reed Richards was off in some other dimension with

the Challengers of the Fantastic

Heh. A semi-DC/Amalgam crossover? Will more DC-related
characters show up?

Seeing he had an audience, Ryouga unburdened himself.

“It was three years ago that a backstabbing jerk
named Ranma Saotome backstabbed me.”

Heh.

“In the beginning he seemed okay, but then he

showed his true colors during lunch. Battles over
bread were vicious, and due to my problems with
directions, I always made it there when there was next
to nothing left. Every time I was about to grab the
last one, he would snatch it away from me. He did that
for a week straight, leaving me with nothing to eat. 

Yup. What most of the more condemning people forget is
that Ryouga’s direction sense really made it a
severe problem for him, since he’d be starving
without available recurrent meals. Of course, while
Ranma knew about his handicap, he probably didn’t
think that far.

“He offered to share it with me.”

I think canon Ryouga would have been somewhat pacified
by a sincere apology of this sort.

Ryouga’s nostrils flared in anger. “He

apologized, saying it was the responsibility of the
strong to help the weak. 

And what narrow definition does he use to define
strength? There are plenty of paths and mindsets and
burdens, which take different types of great strength
to shoulder. For example, contrary to popular notions,
it takes far less strength to dehumanise and numb
oneself than growing enough of a backbone to maintain
empathy and conscience.  Calling someone inferior and
useless to his or her face like this is incredibly
insulting… but hardly enough of a reason for a
vendetta. 

I lost my temper and challenged him to a fight then

and there because of what he said. But then he pulled
out a list and read it, then said fighting in school
wasn’t something paragons of virtue were allowed to
do, but he would challenge me to an arm-wrestling
contest.”

I still think Ryouga should have won or at least
reached a draw. Even if he can’t throw around 50-ton
boulders in your world he should still be kept at peak
or slightly above human standards.  In any case I
think you’ll need reasons and provocative arrogance
on Ranma’s part cumulatively comparative with his
canon actions to provoke this kind of reaction on
Ryouga’s part.

Ryouga looked at him in confusion. “Heck no. He won

fair and square. He looked as bad as I felt, too,
barely able to move his arm. He said I was the only
guy his age that had ever made him work so hard for an
arm wrestling match. When he found out I knew martial
arts, he suggested we become friends. Then we could
spar and stuff like that.”

So you already considered the above aspects. Good for
you. :)

“Well, I couldn’t let these guys pick on her. So

I walked over and told them to knock it off. Then they
called me a mutie-lover and tried to beat me up. I
tossed them aside without even working up a sweat.
Like most bullies that get stood up to, they were
cowards at heart. They started bawling their eyes out
and ran off.

Hmm. I recall that you implied to use randomly
magical-powered individuals or something similar in
place of the mutant term with Xavier heading Gakuen
Academy (name?). It may turn too diffuse to introduce
both concepts on top of each other. You could switch
to have them call her ‘bakemono’ or something of
the sort instead if this becomes a problem. Of course
it would be amusing to see lots of different
superhuman/supernatural anime/Marvel-oriented
sub-groups get education and intermingle at the same
complexes.

Ryouga’s anger returned. “He popped up not more

than a minute later with those little punks leading
him to me. He asked me if I had roughed up those
bullies, well, he said ‘poor defenseless kids’, I
called them bullies, which they were, so I said yes. I
told him they had it coming since they were picking on
the girl not more than a minute before. He looked
around and asked me what girl, since he didn’t see
one and it was in a big playground with lots of wide
open spaces. I told him it was the invisible one and
that I didn’t like his tone of voice. It didn’t
help that all those snots started crying again and
accusing me of taking their lunch money. When I told
them to knock it off or I’d really make them sorry,
Ranma got all sad and said he couldn’t stand it when
tough guys picked on weak kids and didn’t even have
the guts to admit to it. I didn’t like being called
a liar, so we had a fight.

“He tricked me with his superior height and

strength!” Ryouga shouted. “Worse, the next day,
he lied to everyone claiming I was the bully, dirtying
my name. Everybody treated me like I was a leper or
something. So I challenged Ranma to a duel to get my
revenge for tricking me and dragging my name through
the mud. Only the jerk didn’t show up for it. I
waited two days and he never showed.”

That’s actually a pretty inventive solution to the
origins of the feud. Severely dirtying Ryouga’s
reputation for something he didn’t do through a
misunderstanding would do it.

“How long did it take you to get there?” Iron

Rose asked,

Ryouga ticked the numbers off on his fingers. “Um,

three days, I think.”

“I knew it,” Iron Rose mumbled.

On the other hand it’s not like Ranma or most others
wouldn’t know that Ryouga has brain damage in that
area, so it’s hardly unexpected or something he
could help.

Ryouga was lost in fantasies of vengeance once again.

“I traveled all around Japan, and even China,
searching for him. It was there that something…
horrible happened to me.”

Constantly living in fear of being turned to lunch by
any passing stranger or animal coupled with always
being lost away from home, school, friends and any
luxuries of civilisation makes Ryouga the most
miserable character in the entire series. It’s hard
not to feel sorry for him.

Ryouga ignored him. 

*her

“In any case, I’m seeking revenge on Ranma for

all 
the wrongs he did to me.”

Well, he didn’t get you cursed here, so it’s not
like he did something truly unforgivable.

Giant Man spoke in soothing tones. “On the

contrary, you’re obviously the wronged man here. Not
only would it show you’re the better man by turning
the other cheek, but you can’t fight this Ranma.”

“Why not? I can take him easy.”

“Because you might turn into the Hulk,” Wasp

pointed out. “You still don’t know what makes you
change back and forth. What if you were to change in
the middle of a fight? Why, Ranma would end up a big
red splotch, and we’d have to arrest you ourselves
for murder, and we wouldn’t want to do that to a
teammate.”

They handle Ryouga perfectly. Much like the Hulk
he’s a nice guy at heart, but you have to explain
things slowly and calmly for his benefit. ;)

“Body language, which is just as good and nowhere

near as invasive. Mind reading is a gray area when it
comes to the law,” Daredevil said.

Daredevil consistently uses gaps in heartbeat to
determine lies.

“Someone stole my set of mechanical arms. A nutcase

that named himself, ‘Dr. Octopus’. I believe he
was Japanese, actually. He evidently read an article
about the arms, thought they would be a wonderful
addition to his villainous repertoire, and decided to
steal them from me. He hit me in the face with a
pastry, and while I was blinded by a tasty cream
filling, he put them on and fled with them.”

Nice with a Defending reference. Have you heard any
words of its current status?

However, the fact he is still alive and with no

visible affects from his exposure seems to bare out a
theory several gamma theorists, such as myself, have
postulated, but had no way of testing.

Better make that ‘radiation theorists’.
‘Theorists limited to a particular wavelength
spectra of light’ sounds pretty silly, comic book or
no.

“While it’s a minority opinion in the scientific

field, I have always been firm in the belief that
while intense bombardment of gamma radiation will
usually result in death, cancer, or other toxic
syndromes, a small percentage of the population might
be mutated by them, changed into something far beyond
those of normal people. In the case of Mr. Hibiki, he
acquires additional mass through unknown means,
possibly some heretofore undiscovered chemical
reaction, and becomes nigh-invulnerable. 

Make that ‘extra-dimensional reaction’. It’s how
he quickly draws or sheds additional mass when
transforming or healing. Otherwise he’d need to draw
upon and modify matter from the local terrain, which,
say, might leave gaping craters in the landscape.
Pseudo-scientific of course, but at least it’s
logical within the frame of the story. ;)

Octavius stared curiously at him. “While the

physical changes are almost certainly a result of your
gamma irradiation, the change in your mentality is
not. It’s quite impossible. 

Not really. If his body functions can mutate his brain
can as well. I believe this was the original idea
before the mpd aspect was introduced. The mutation
being the actual cause for the new personality would
have made most sense to me, but the official version
went the opposite way.

There’s nothing gamma rays can inherently do to

allow an outside force to take over your mind. Its 
effects are physical in nature. If it simply made you
less intelligent, I would assume your mind is
physically affected by the transformation

Yup

“Then that is probably correct. Luckily, this other

personality of yours seems very passive under most
circumstances, although quick to anger, from what your
friends say.”

Well, as mentioned previously, the Hulk’s
personality truly is extremely similar to Ryouga’s
own, so I’m not sure they would automatically assume
it’s a full-blown mpd. Within the story world,
without outside information, I would have settled for
that the personality is the same but brain efficiency
is inhibited and uses different parts of the memory
depending on the state.

The surrender would be coming soon, once the real

bombs dropped. Even that knowledge didn’t affect
him. Despite being in the Japan of the past, he felt
no surge of patriotism or sense of loss over what was
to come. 

So he’s Japanese at least? Then again you could have
turned an alien like Kagato Japanese for all I know,
so it’s not much of a clue. :D

All that mattered was saving his love in *his* past,

so that he could have a future. He’d personally drop
the bombs himself to prevent the Tragedy. He’d
sacrifice anyone, everyone, if it meant saving her.

Wait a minute… I remember skimming an introduction
text to an anime show based on this premise a while
back. A schoolboy skipping back and forth in time over
the summer break to prevent his girlfriend from dying
I believe. Definitely not my type of show, so I never
took much notice and definitely didn’t watch it, but
could he be Kang’s new identity? After all, given
that Ariyoshi wasn’t a villain in her original
setting, you seem to play a bit loose with character
roles. He could be based on a good guy.

And the seeds for their destruction would be planted

now. He had checked the timeline furiously. Removal of
them at the juncture he would travel to changed
nothing of Kang’s own past. She would live, he would
be who he was, and all would be well.

Can he change his own previous timeline without a
major paradox preventing it? I don’t think Marvel
rules allow it except though higher-dimensional
interference. Though I’ve heard that certain
mathematicians theorise that a person can exist
without a past. 

Well, there was one exception: their contact, whom

Tetsuo had known before the incident which had
transformed the other into one of the few ‘super
powered beings’ Japan had during the war. 

*the latter

Of course, he was shared with the Germans and

Italians too, but that was inevitable, given the
contributions all had made before Agent Axis’
creation. 

Damn, you’re getting really obscure here. I read an
issue of Invaders where he was the central hive
intelligence for an army of cloned superhuman chock
troops, but otherwise have virtually no recall of him.

Now he was an amalgamate of the best spy from each

country, thanks to a freak accident. He had the
strength, agility, and intelligence of all three, and
his skills in espionage were unparalleled on the
planet. 

That is a pretty cool premise I’ll admit. Though as
far as nazi-themed villains go I prefer Baron Strucker
and the original Master Man & Warrior Woman.

Once more in Japanese, Agent Axis said to Kang and

Tetsuo. “Sorry about that. Sometimes I’m of three
minds on matters. Luckily majority rules, and all of
us are quite rational.” He handed Kang a small metal
box with a single button and a mesh, like on a
walkie-talkie. “Push that and the robot activates. 

Sleeper? Tough, but not Sentinel level.

Even as Agent Axis quaffed the water and Kunou

laughed gleefully over his future victories, Kang
activated his time travel device to the preset
coordinates. There was a moment’s disorientation,
then the world switched while Kang appeared to stand
still. Suddenly it was the middle of the day, and he
stood outside the gates leading to Avenger’s
mansion.

He pushed the button and said to the speaker,

“Activate and kill everyone in the building above
you.”

Smooth idea for a set-up. :)

However transporting Kang in space as well as time
without any explanation to how the robots were hidden
below Kuno Manor destroys a bit of it. You could make
it smoother still by letting Kang receive the payload
at the future location of Avengers Mansion. Make a few
comments about the eccentric old samurai family which
lived there who had came upon hard times during the
war and had agreed to rent it out for a few months for
a very hefty sum; That the lot was large and secluded
enough to insure privacy. Then leave trustworthy
workers to handle burying the robots and shift to the
present to give the order.

Fifty meters beneath the earth, entombed in a

concrete chamber with no way out, surrounded on all
sides by tons of earth, the Fourth Sleeper activated.
It processed its orders and raised its head up toward
the 
surface.

Just _one_ Sleeper!? That’s not nearly enough to
handle Hulk & Thor and I don’t think Kang would be
foolish enough to make such an uncertain gamble. Bury
at least 8 of them to be on the safe side.

It was a doomsday device created in a freak accident

by scientists of the Third Reich in the waning days of
the war. Its method of destruction was simple. It had
the ability to combust any material known to man. 

Well, it’s not nuclear fire and thus not nearly
enough to bother the Hulk. Mjolnir/Mjölner should
protect Thor as well. Good trap othervise. There’s a
difference between straight battle and an unexpected
raid after all and Hulk&Thor don’t constitute a team
by themselves (and thus presumably won’t cause the
accident Kang worries about).

Ryouga didn’t like robots. He didn’t know why. He

just didn’t. In fact they bothered him almost as
much as Ranma. He didn’t care for hills lately
either, and he didn’t know the cause of that either.
Just that they made him uneasy, no matter how serene
they might appear.

Heh. That would explain a lot.

“Sorry,” Hulk said, then heard a thumping.

Turning, he saw the Fourth Sleeper running at him.
Rather than becoming angry, the Hulk laughed and stood
his ground. “Stupid No-Neck Robot thinks Hulk will
fall for the 
same trick twice.”

:D

The Hulk said, “Hulk will help take robot apart.

Hulk is good at it.”

Funny

Kang screamed in rage for an eternity that literally

only lasted a second.

Serves him right for only sending a single robot,
though unless it had malfunctioned everyone would have
died from the initial magma blast, so it wasn’t
entirely his fault.


David Johnston wrote:

Y'know using a real organisation's name like this

isn't how the comics would do it.
  

Oh? I didn't know it was. It was a play off the old

'Mutant Liberation Front' from the X-Titles.

You could make a Youkai, Bakemono or Phantom Cat
liberation front instead. ;)

Nah. They were being tortured with soup.

Turned into soup you mean?

Could be. Some heroes are going to become their canon

counterparts. Nova, for instance.

So he becomes a big deal in America now that none of
the usual A-listers show up?

Also forgot to add Eliot Franklin (Thunderball of the

Wrecking Crew) to the list. He was brilliant enough to
make miniature Gamma Bombs and was referred to as the
African American version of Bruce Banner.

Low-level exoskeletons seemed to be his limit. I think
Black Panther & Nightshade are supposed to be the two
foremost african-american (or african in BP's case)
Marvel scientists.

Loud? I'm not getting the joke.

*quite instead of quiet

He would be uncertain. I think the canon reason was

that solar radiation played a part in it, since
everyone else hit by gamma rays had been indoors.
Although that might have been overridden in a later
story somewhere

I think the current version is ‘proper’ genetic
aberrations and a strong hidden image of something you
want to become, identify with or try to hide. Doc
Samson became a sculptured hero and Leader became a
super-genius as they wished for, Abomination became as
twisted outside as he was within, Hulk unleashed his
tortured inner child, Madman became a weird-looking,
unstable and powerful machiavellian schizophrenic as a
mix of all 3 symptoms etc. Sasquatch connected with a
mystic beast and was transformed through magic rather
than science.. 

% Plans are for Double A to have an impact in the
current timeline, though. So he's not a one shot
character.

The remote-controlled spy army could have potential.

% The other three had far different, less impressive
abilities (especially since it was only when all 3
combined that they were a doomsday weapon). They were
actually part of a different program from the 4th, and
were created by different, more conventional means.
The 4th was just given the label since its objective
was similar to the other three. 

There was only 1 semi-powerful Sleeper robot? Oh well,
it was over 10 years since I read the profile.

I messed around with its canon control as well. The

original means of awakening it, and subsequently
defeating it, were... well, Sailor Moonish in nature.

Pink big-eyed fuzzy animal perfumed love-bomber
strike! Or was it Dragon Man-style falling in love
with a beautiful girl who patted it on the head?

"Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us." - Nelson Mandela

"Evil will always win over good, because good is stupid" - Ordinary psychotic-delusional Internet pundit

Real-World Heroes: http://www.moreorless.au.com

The World's most comprehensive climate study: http://www.climateprediction.net

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