Ronny Hedin <thark@hem2.passagen.se> wrote:

counted on was how difficult the journey there and back again would be.

There and back again? Returning to her hole, is she? ^_^

Careful, these jokes can be hobbit forming....

	Her stomach rumbled, demanding to be fed. When she'd left
Yinchuan, the food and water in her pack had seemed like a terrible
burden. Now she wished it had been more. She needed food, and sleep. Her

Maybe I'm just misreading, but...
"Now she wished there had been more of it." 
or
"Now she wished it had been more of one."

What I meant was that she wished she'd had more. Maybe I should put it
that way.

	Somewhere ahead, an animal howled. Ti Pi knew that rabid dogs
hunted in this part of the country. With her Amazon strength and
training, fighting the beasts off wouldn't be a problem -- if she heard
them coming. As she continued to walk, she stretched her senses to the

Rabid dogs don't usually come sneaking silently, do they? Or is
it just me having a picture of frothing, mad beasts? ^_^

I'm no expert, but I think that feral dogs would be able to manage a bit
of stealth... anyway, it's only Ti Pi thinking this.

utmost, trying to take in everything she could. A cool breeze blew
across her face. Insects chirped in an endless, monotonous rhythm. There
was no sign of anything remotely human.

I'd cut "there was". (though that's probably not technically correct)

Will think about it....

You'd think there'd be some *signs* of it, had the village been
wiped out. ^_^

('course, there could be a point in there not necessarily being
any signs of destruction; I guess that remains for me to see^H^H^Hread)

As we know now, they left because they thought an attack was coming.

	She looked up at the sky. The moon gleamed brightly amidst the
canopy of stars. The hills and craters seemed to form a face. It bore an
enigmatic smirk  -- as if to say, *I know something that you don't.*

IMO "a face - a face bearing an"
          or possibly a comma here (esp with -- later)

I actually had it that way originally, but several of the pre-readers
thought it made the sentence too long.

	The sensible thing to do would be to turn around now and sneak
away. Go back to Cunzhuang, or even all the way to Xining, and wait for
help. If they had beaten all of sisters, how could she possibly win? And
how would her walking into certain death help them?

I'd think solidarity ("the notion that everybody should have it equally
bad", as one of my friends put it) would be a strong point with
these folks... but then again, maybe not.

Oh, it is... but it's hard not to at least consider running away in this
sort of situation.

	She was probably harder on Zhen than she should be, but she
didn't want to do anything that might encourage him. He was exactly the
type of man whom she disliked -- all muscle, and no brains. And ever
since she had let him kiss her, he had seemed to think that they were
someday going to be wife and husband. She'd wanted to know what a boy's
kiss felt like. She had liked him, but not enough to commit her whole
life to him.

He snared her down, didn't he? (or does the "outsider only" bit have
a firm base in The Source? I forget)

I believe it does... the first Mousse story, where Cologne tells him he
has no right to fight for Shampoo.

	"Yes, Elder," Ti Pi replied formally, excitement washing away

Just a spontaneous thought... do the chinese names contain any
hidden puns most of us will never find? ^_^

Yup. :) Ti Pi should be obvious. Some of the others you'd need to know
Chinese to get the in-joke.

	"Giving my ribbon a name as if it were... alive." Kodachi
smirked. "How amusing. Let us get on with this, shall we?"

..a sweatdrop on the back of head indicating her worry at the
possible discovery of her secret research into genetics.

er.

or maybe not? ^_^

Ohohohoho! I'm not telling! Not yet, anyway.

	All eyes turned to Kasumi. "Me? Well, I think we should give
Kodachi a chance. She said that she was only teasing you, Ranma. Why
shouldn't we believe her?"

Because she'll have a lot more opportunity for mischief while
they're "alone" in China and in-part forced to rely on her? Wouldn't
somebody make the ol' "she's just trying to weazel in" observation?

Maybe, but this scene was already a bit lengthy as is....

*silently wonders what the world looks like when a village of
melee combatants even _matters_ in a big-scale war(?)*

Well, the Amazons, like Ranma and company, are not your ordinary melee
combatants. Exactly why the Mongols are interested in them is not clear
yet, but (hopefully) will be.

reputed to be a man of great personal power. Curiously, though, some
people claim that they've seen the General and that he's actually a
woman."

*conspiracy theory* The General is actually Kodachi, who's infiltrated
the Ranma gang to make sure they don't stop her? ^_^

Hee hee! Anything's possible!

	"Are there any further questions for the agent?" Bi asked. "If
not, then perhaps she should be excused."

Waaah! But I *want* to know! ^_^

That's pretty much Ti Pi's reaction at this point....

attitude. Ranma seemed to think that he had a right to have beautiful
women at his beck and call -- even when he treated them like dirt. Women

I don't really see how this relates to *this* case, which is more
of his refusal to lose.

This is Mu's judgement, which may or may not be all that accurate....

	"Akane, I like Ukyo, really I do. But sometimes it seems like
she's a few cups of flour short of an okonomiyaki. Know what I mean?
Just calling her 'cute' was enough to make her go from wanting to kick
my butt to wanting me to marry her."

Hoho. Take every chance, do you, Gary? ^_-

Of course! Don't you? :-)

	"I-- I don't know." She wanted to believe that Kodachi was
telling the truth. Maybe it was because the thought of crazy old Kodachi
becoming more powerful than Ranma was so frightening. "I think we should
get some sleep now, OK? We have to get up early tomorrow."

Gaah. I know it's correct as it is, but even after reading the sentence
again and again, my mind keeps trying to interpret the sentence
as "Ranma was so frightening", reading the "than" as "that" and
ending up with an awkward mismatch.

I'll see what I can do.

	Maybe Kodachi wasn't using a trick. Maybe she had spent the past
seven years doing nothing but training. Ranma hadn't. Not with the
intensity he had in high school, anyway. What if while he had been
taking college courses and starting a family, she had been learning
martial arts techniques from someone as good as Ke Lun?

Yeah! So tell us already!%�!"#&%"#& !#&!%! ^_^

Not 'til part 7! Nyyyah! (But there'll be what I think are some pretty
obvious clues in part 2.)

	A ki power. Kodachi had been training in serious martial arts
for how long? The last few years? And she already had an attack that
could make Ranma helpless. Akane had been training in Anything Goes
since she was a child, and she could barely generate enough ki to make a
tiny ripple in the kitchen faucet water.

That could make a Ranma totally unaware of the technique helpless.
Not the same thing. ^_^

True.... Of course, they're not necessarily right about it being a ki
attack. (Would I give away the answer for free like that? He he he!)

able to make her own magic come.

Her magic come? err...

uh, second thought, forget that. *grin*

Now THAT one I'll have to think about. Would make a weird lemon.... :-)

watch. "They'd better hurry." She wore a faded pair of jeans and a red
Ikasama University T-shirt. The smile she gave Ukyo was cautious, but

Really, I think the gang should start being a little more careful
with what institutions they use. ^_^

This being Japan, they were lucky to get into a university at all.... :)

Expectations on HaM have become so haussed I don't even think I can
trust myself to judge it. At least not yet.

Fair enough. This chapter introduced a lot of things, and it's bound to
be a little unclear where they're going right now.

Despite that though, I feel as though this is a *type* of story I
won't really like as much as, for example, the preludes. Still, I
guess that's just my loss.

Well, stick around. You might be pleasantly surprised. Or not. Dunno.
:-)

Also, so far it feels almost a bit over-cliched in parts. Yeah,
I realize many of the patterns are probably started upon mainly to
be able to *break* them, but at this point it feels like a bit too
much. Most obvious examples, as noted in the comments, are the
"betraying Elder" and "Mousse given a chance to defect" scenes.

Maybe you could clarify this a bit. I'm not sure where you're expecting
these things to go. Part of the reason for them is to show that it's not
clear who the group can trust and who they can't. It's the same with
Kodachi: is she working for the other side (as you postulated above), is
she just a loose cannon, or is she going to be cooperative if annoying?
I'm not telling. Nya ha ha!

The point is, typically fics where the gang goes off to battle some
threat or other, the interpersonal conflicts get shoved aside and
everybody fights as a team. I'm not going to speak about any specific
character, but overall that's NOT going to be the case here. This group
doesn't know who it can and can't trust, and that's going to make the
mission doubly difficult.

Thanks for the comments!


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics