At 23.11 21.7.1999 EDT, Kenjiko2@AOL.COM wrote:
Lina just stared. Breaking bricks with... Magic. Ranma and
Akane must be using some strange magic. But if they were, why
couldn't she sense it? She'd tried before, but the only magic she
could sense was the residual energy of Ranma's curse.
But how could anyone do the things she'd just seen without magic?
Her new "cousin" was a lot more than she seemed. WHAT, Lina didn't
know.
So she did the only thing she COULD do.
Eat breakfast.
There is one tiny problem with this scene, a problem which goes by the name
Philionel Saillune. The guy who can do couple-hundred-feet jumps (just watch
NEXT episode 13...) disintegrate lesser demons with his fists, and never
uses weapons. Lina's seen unarmed fighting before, so IMHO she wouldn't be
THAT baffled. (Amelia doesn't use weapons either, by the way...)
Also Gourry's fast and good enough with the sword do completely
undress a person in less than a quater of a second, and Lina herself tends
to jump rather high on occasion without any apparent magical help. ^_^
####
Breakfast with Lina and Ranma was, to say the least, unusual.
Lina's ability to consume mass quantities usually tended to leave
others less than sated. But Lina had never met someone using
Anything Goes Martial Arts Eating tactics.
Lina could eat more than Ranma... possibly. But there was no way
she could match her speed. Ranma ate with a weird mixture of
delicacy and hyperactivity.
Actually, most of the time Ranma eats rather normally in the manga (IIRC).
His appetite is rather small compared to Lina and Gourry's.
And this isn't the first time somebody's after Lina's food... (see NEXT
episode 1. It includes a fork battle between Lina and Gourry.)
<SNIP>
For reasons that are hard to explain, Gourry's innate good cheer
and happiness made the two extradimensional travelers somewhat at
ease. In a way, he reminded them of a giant swordwielding Kasumi.
They had found themselves taking an immediate liking to the man.
Umm... Gourry's a mercenary, and a swordsman. He's incredible dense, but IMHO
has no (other?) Kasumi-like qualities.
<SNIP>
"No. We strike. Hard, fast, and leave NOTHING in our wake. We
owe it to ourselves and to all banditry to erase even the POSSIBILITY
of a second Inverse."
This guy is STUPID. Terminally so.
The henchman blinked. "We do?"
"Of course we do. Honor amongst thieves and all that."
"We have honor?" replied the confused henchman.
"No, but we can pretend. Gather the men. If what I've heard
about Inverse is true, she will be distracted by food and we can, as
it were, get the drop on her. Them. Whatever."
"You mean a cowardly ambush and gang-attack?"
"Precisely."
"Oh, good. I was afraid you were talking about a fair fight for
a second, what with all that honor stuff..."
"I may be educated, my dear flunky, but that does not mean I'm
stupid."
He's challeging Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev. (and a pair of rather
unimportant martial artists. ^_^) He's beyond stupid.
<SNIP>
"Hai," nodded Lina. "Check out the library there to see if they
know anything about a Reality Chain. With luck we won't run into
Amelia."
Fat chance! (and, IMHO Lina doesn't hate Amelia. she's just a tad annoyed
by her presence. At times. ^_^)
<SNIP>
"You have GOT to be KIDDING! That's the stupidest thing I've
heard since... since... Hell, I haven't ever HEARD anything that
stupid before!" (And Gourry doesn't count in this case!)
"It is not! And anyway, there's no way you can escape! We have
the inn surrounded! So you might as well come out and face your
inevitable fate!"
Lina turned to the others. "I have a problem here. One of those
guys is a low-level magus. He's got a detection crystal, which means
the instant I try to charge up a fireball or anything like that it's
attack in force time. Ranma, how big can you make those chi-things
of yours?"
Ummm... I don't really see the problem here... Her casting time for Fireball
is non-existent. Then again, if she wanted to make a really big Fireball...
<SNIP>
Before Chief could give an order to attack, his men were attacked
instead. Ranma went into one of her high-speed zigzags, slamming
bandits left, right, and often up. Akane decided that even with what
Ranma had taught her some things never change, and went into an
improved version of her old "Beat the Hell Out Of The Morning
Perverts" method she'd used over a year and a half before. Gourry
went into a demonstration of swordsmanship that would have had Kuno
begging at his feet and calling the blond "Sensei". And Lina started
casting Flare Arrows and Frost Arrows like they were on sale.
Freeze Arrows. And seeing that the others are doing rather well on their own,
Lina'd be at least as likely to go back to eating as to participate in the
fight... ^_^
Hmm... It was a good chapter. The one thing that bugged me was how amazed
Lina (and no one else) seemed to be all the time and how Ranma seemed to
outshine
Lina througout the chapter. (thus says the guy in whose fic Lina is
constantly outshining
Ranma... ^_^) Now, I only hope there's going to be a chapter in which Ranma
and Akane
are going to have their minds blown off by Lina's rather strong magical
abilities.
Otherwise it would just be unfair. ^_^
And I do admit that Lina-being-amazed-and-no-one-else has happened before.
(like when
she first met Philionel...) The girl just takes herself a bit too seriously
sometimes...
Lina:<dangerous voice>Is that so?
Jussi:Oops...
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Jussi Nikander
Jussi.Nikander@alien.nixu.fi
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Certified evil GM.