At 12:16 AM 9/12/99 -0400, DB Sommer wrote:

Finally got to this:

And finally got to replying.  First-year university is hectic. :)

    "I will kill you now."

Well, that will certainly grab one's attention.

Basically, a recap of what the last chapter ended on.  Classic serial
technique, also used in most episodic television shows.

    Makoto realized that he had to move, or he would die.  So he
moved.  Not, he hoped, quite as the Demon-God would expect him
to.  It had stepped off its perch on the figurehead now, and
stood only a few steps

You used 'stepped' earlier in the sentence. You might want to go with
'paces' here instead to keep out the redundancy.

*clickety-clack*

    Calmly, almost coldly, Makoto stepped forward and brought
the Power-Key Staff up in a sweeping motion, so that the
connecting prongs at the base came into contact with the tines of
the trident.

Heh. This could end up with a big payoff, or it might end up hurting like
hell.

These are the sort of risks you have to take when you're a super-powered
traveller from another dimension.  ^_^

    He destroyed a Tirian fleet in a single day, disabling and
sinking the ships, killing the soldiers as they desperately tried
to keep themselves afloat.  The visages of all he ever killed
were kept and savoured, collected like other men collect stamps.

Nononono. Make it topical. Say 'like other men collected Pokemon cards'.
^_^

Auurghh.  This just gave me the terrible idea of crossing over Mortal
Engines with "Pantyhose Tarou, I Choose You!".  Damn you, Sommer.  -.-

Seriously though, the two 'collects' are pretty close together there.
Might want to change one of them to something else, though nothing that
fits real well comes to mind. Perhaps 'accumulated' in place of the first
one or somesuch.

I'll come up with a synonym for 'collect'.

    Makoto's sense of self wavered, nearly fell.  The soul of
Lethiaphan was like a black hole, pulling him down within.  He
saw the heart of the Demon-God, the ocean king, and he screamed
in terror.  Mardruk and Ifurita had possessed feelings, emotions,
regrets--stunted, albeit, but they had been there, like seeds
buried beneath frozen earth, waiting to bloom, to flower into the
fully glory...  Lethiaphan had _nothing_, its

I'd use a semicolon instead of a comma there.

Will consider this.

    Air...

Oops! Forgot to breathe, did he?

Don't knock it until it's happened to you. :)

I myself have gotten so involved in complex tasks that I literally have
forgotten to breathe regularly enough.  Makoto's doing a very complex task
that almost takes him out of his body altogether.

    "Makoto!  Kid, you okay?

Hmm. don't know as he could call Makoto 'Kid' in this instance. Might be
better off to drop it and go with 'You okay?' Minor nit in either case.

I dunno, Fujisawa seems like the type to refer to his students as 'kids'.

    Nanami looked down at him; there were strong, rough hands
cradling the back of his head--Fujisawa-sensei's.  "Makoto, you
were screaming as if you were going to die as soon as you made
contact with it.  What happened?"

Makoto: I connected with the Demon God. Have you ever felt as though your
soul was going to be drawn down into a seething vortex of despair,
consumed in the eternal depths of night, never to know the light of day
again?

Fujisawa: Yes. The day Miz proposed to me.

Makoto: Well, it wasn't quite as bad as that, but it was still really
unpleasant.

Nanami:  I seem to remember something like that when I was eight...

Makoto:  What happened?

Nanami:  That was when my brother laughed for the first time...

    Afura strode over, a pale-green aura of air swirling about
her.  "Whatever happened, that one blast won't have taken care
of it,

Afura proved once again that her gift of prophacy was as shitty as usual,
as
the blow had ripped open an already stressed piece of metal in the armored
casing that housed Lethiaphan's central processing unit. Water poured in,
short-circuiting the higher functions of the Demon-God, effectively
lobotomizing him and sending him to the bottom of the ocean, and bringing
a decidely anti-climactic end to this fic.

And everyone lived happily ever after.  Even Jinnai.

BTW: Alan, I would hunt you down and taunt you and your Canadianess, if
you actually did this. ^_^

Wait till the ending of WUE, then.  ^_^

"Aaaah!  Dad!  Mom!  Akane!"

"Ranma!  Wake up!  Don't worry, it was all a dream.  And you're gay."

"Oh yeah.  Thanks, Akane."

Those who were at Otakon '99 probably get this.  The other 99.9% are
probably just really confused.  ^_^

    Makoto struggled to his feet, supporting himself with the
Power-Key Staff.  Nanami and Shayla each grabbed an arm to
steady him.  For some reason, a glare passed between them as they
did.

Hmm, unless this is supposed to be from Makoto's POV, we the readers know
why there's a glare between them. I'd drop the 'For some reason'
otherwise.

Will rephrase so it's not so limited a viewpoint.

    The crew of the Godswind were bustling all around the ship
now, manning weapons or making other preparation.

preparatons.

Wot's a preparaton, some kind of dinosaur?  ;)

Will change to "preparations".  :)

    "He hasn't surfaced yet," Afura said worriedly, crossing her
arms.

    "He will," Makoto assured her in a raspy, fearful voice.

Five hundred leagues away, a head broke the surface of the water. Scanning
the horizon, Lethiaphan realized he had lost his targets and shouted,
"AHHHH! This always happens to me! Why the hell did they allow a Hibiki to
program my directional guidance systems?!"

He did, however, shout it with the emotionless logic of the cold,
analytical killing machine he was.

all around it.  The shells exploded

harmlessly against the swirling barrier of water.

    "Neat trick," Miz called.  "But I can do it too."

    She leapt from the boat as it turned to present its
broadside to the Demon-God, and landed upon the water.

And promptly sank like a rock.

Whoops!  

    The faceless war machine stood unmoving upon the surface of
the waves for a moment, and then began to walk towards her.  It
raised the spike of its hand, and the blades began to whirl.

    "Ha!"

"Neat trick," Miz called.  "But I can do it too." A set of spikes shot
out of her hand, and began to whirl as well.

-.-

    "Simple manipulation of water molecules," it said
tonelessly.  "Now I shall show you complex manipulation."

Right now would be a good time for someone to shoot him in the back while
he's showing off.

It would, wouldn't it?

    He was going to sink.  The Demon-God might be able to walk
upon the water, but Masamachi certainly wasn't.

Not unless he dug up on old style D+D Ring of Water Walking there isn't.

It would go nicely with the +10 Cat they've got...

yelling battle cries at the top of his lungs.  A cloudy haze of
power began to become visible around him, as the Demon-God's head
snapped back and forth as though spring-loaded.  Amazingly, he
seemed to be almost holding his own.

Why amazingly? Fujisawa's damn powerful, especially when not loaded up on
smokes and liquor.

I think I'll remove the 'amazingly', actually... Miz has an even more
inflated opinion of Fujisawa's power than is justified by it.

    Dear God, she thought with a curious mix of elation and
fear, he's going to rip its head off.
    Abrubtly, the two of them dropped beneath the surface.  The
Demon-God had ceased to let the water buoy its feet.  For a few
seconds, Miz was certain that her heart stopped beating.

I thought she could travel through water. That was how they entered the
Bugrom fortress, wasn't it? she could just go down and check them out.

She does, but there's shock and confusion for a few seconds, and then Afura
appears, which distracts her.  Fujisawa and Lethiaphan are only below the
water for the time it it takes them to have a short exchange.

    The sea exploded.  A towering flume of water rose.  And
rose.  Two struggling figures could be vaguely seen within the
mist and spray, but she

Might want to say 'Miz' here, since Afrua is also on the scene, although
most readers should be able to figure out who you mean.

*clickety-clack*

    The blades opened.  The most awful sound Miz had ever heard,
a wet, grating, steel-on-bone scream, filled the air.  Blood, so
much blood it seemed impossible, sprayed through the air and fell
to the ocean in a crimson rain.

    Masamichi fell the long fall towards the sea, and dropped
below the waves in utter stillness.

Ohhh, that's not good.

Don'cha hate it when you get your upper body ripped into shreds by
merciless artificial killers?

    Rising higher into the sky, Afura brought her arms down to
the sides.  A funnel-shaped column of wind swept down from the
sky high above her, and what was for all purposes a miniature
tornado engulfed Lethiaphan.

That's it. Sever his connection with the ocean and he becomes considerably
less dangerous.

This is almost exactly what Ifurita does to Afura when they fight, as well.
 :)

    Round and round Lethiaphan spun, trapped within the
hurricane.

Sounds more like a tornado than a hurricane.

Yup.  Will fix.

painfully against her

shoulders, her stomach, her exposed face.  Afura tried
desperately to stay in the air and protect herself at the same
time, but it was futile; the balls just kept on coming,
hammering her like rocks,

Now, are these flying out from the waterspout in all directions, or just
hers? I was under the impression he was still spinning around, and doubt
he would he able to successfully target only her is he's still spinning
that fast.

Basically, Lethiaphan drew up as much water as he could (using his trident
as a focal point to bridge the gap between the air and the water), and then
threw it out in all directions, knowing that he'd nail Afura quite a few
times that way.

    Gasping, barely able to move her arms and legs because of
the pain of so many bruises, she kicked her way to the surface
seconds later and swallowed desperate gulps of air.  The
Demon-God was a distant shape, speeding across the ocean towards
the ships.

A persistant bugger, isn't he?

You noticed?  ;)

    "Crap!  Here it comes again!"

    Makoto touched Shayla's elbow.  "What happened to Afura and
Miz?  Fujisawa-sensei?"

Rather than attack it all at once, they naturally went after it one at a
time and got picked off one by one, which is what usually what happens
when heroes confront a new, powerful foe.

Of course.

    "They're all in the water," Nanami said distantly.  "They're
all alive."

    Shayla turned on her.  "What?  How do you know?"

    Nanami blinked.  "I saw.  It's not that far."

Hmm. Developing hawklike vision, eh?

*whistles innocently*

    The two closest cutters were suddenly engulfed by spinning
columns of water.  When the columns fell, the decks were swept
clean of crew.  The boats began to sink, dozens of tiny holes
punched in their hulls.

Hmm. Lethiaphan appears unaffected by all the combat from before. I don't
see how they have any hope of defeating it if it could survive all it just
went through without being damaged.

Yes.  Odd, that.  It's as if there might be... something more to it than
appearances originally show... (foreshadowing!  foreshadowing!)

    Lethiaphan stood only a few feet away from them, sea-slick
and filled with terrible purpose.  It strode forward, and even as
Shayla cried out and charged for its back,

Why charge instead of trying to fry him?

Panic over Makoto, mostly.  Also, as indicated in the next paragraph, she's
basically running while preparing a blast.

    Lethiaphan turned around.  "Master?"

    Makoto stared past the Demon-God at Jinnai with wide eyes.
"Katsuhiko,

Hmm. I thought he usually used 'Jinnai' rather than Katsuhiko , although I
can't be sure if I remember that correctly.

If I remember correctly, he calls him Katsuhiko when he shows up atop the
Eye of God, and inadvertently saves them from the Phantom Tribe.

    The Demon-God cleared the distance between them in one leap,
and landed to face the crew and Shayla.  It raised its spike; the
blades opened, spun a few thousand rotations in a second to
concentrate moisture from the air, and bolts of water flew across
the deck of the ship, knocking down

It didn't try to kill them instead, or couldn't it fire the water fast
enough to gain killing impacts with them?

Efficiency, really.  Jinnai told it to protect him, and it did.  It took
less power to knock them down than it would to kill them, so it knocked
them down.

    His side, where Lethiaphan had torn him up, still felt numb.
Hesitantly, he touched it.  His shirt was torn to shreds, but his
skin was whole.  Smooth, even, and hairless as a child's.

Hmm. Heals fast now too?

*whistles innocently*

    Awkwardly, he patted her on the back.  Her shoulders
trembled under his palm.  "I'm okay, Miz."

Well, he's not dead, but I'm not so sure he's okay, in light of the
continuning changes he seems to be undergoing.

*whistles innocently*

    "Don't forget," he replied.  "I'm not a normal man."

"I have a ten inch <noun>"

It's ad lib time. Fill in the above statement with the noun of your
choice.

Ear, right?  It's gotta be ear.

    Makoto slumped heavily in the chair, the Power-Key Staff

Have you been capitalizing 'Staff' too? Can't remember.

Yup, I have been.

    "This isn't another Ifurita," Fujisawa said.  "It's tough."
Almost unconciously, he touched his side.  "But I don't think
it's unbeatable.  If we come at it with a plan, we might just be
able to take it down.

About time someone considered that. You think they would have learned
after their first fight with the Bugrom and Jinnai.

The main problem here was that they were attacked by surprise, and their
forces were divided by circumstance... they didn't have time to coordinate
a plan.  

    Though he tried to twist so that he entered feetfirst,
Deva's toss made him hit the water in an awkward, painful
bellyflop that knocked all the air from his body.  Instinctively
he gasped for air, and a wave washed over him, pouring water down
his throat and into his lungs.  He choked and his head dipped
below the water.  Frantic kicks of his legs barely managed to
drive him back above the surface, where he attempted to tread the
water around him, and expel the water inside him, at the same
time.

A hard thing to do. I know, I've tried.

Having come close to drowning several times, this scene probably carries
more weight of experience than most of the others I write.  :)

    Despite that, when he saw the long, serpentine body rippling
through the ocean towards him, he was strangely relieved that he
would not have to toil any longer.

Hmm. We'll see if that is the end for delightful Nahato or not. Too bad we
gotta wait until next chapter. Wah!

I don't think it will spoil anything to say that I think Nahato is too good
a character to kill indiscriminately.  :)

Overall a very good fight. Fujisawa's healing factor caught me off-guard.
The good guys were particularly ineffective in even delaying Lethiaphan,
but its almost obligatory at this point in this type of story. In spite of
that, you kept the tension level quite high and the possibilty of death
for any of the main characters was there for me, so a very nice job. Your
prose was excellent, as always. Everything was fast paced and flowed very
well, the scenes shifting from one to another effortlessly. Overall,
another excellent piece.

Cool.  Now if I can just finish WUE39 so that I can actually start
_writing_ the next chapter...

Thanks as always for the commentary, DB.

Ciao,
-Alan Harnum