RudeBoyTXM@aol.com wrote:
Greetings!
I am Rude Boy, and this is my first fic to be posted to the FFML! I'm
pretty new to writing, so if I could trouble you for a bit of C&C, that would
be incredibly appreciated. Thank you much, and (try to) enjoy!
=====================================
An Untitled As Of Yet Ranma Fic Chapter 1
By Rude Boy
Damn it! Was Ranma's first thought as she woke up to a very wet, cold
sensation and her father standing over her, wielding a bucket and grinning
widely. "Wake up, m'boy!" Genma bellowed. "Time to practice!" Genma's goofy
smile was interrupted quite violently by the fist of his son, sending him
into lower earth orbit. "Kuso oyaji," Ranma muttered. She descended the
You should start a new paragraph here.
staircase silently and walked into the dining room. Kasumi was already making
breakfast, humming happily. As always, Ranma thought. She glanced toward the
table. Five places, she noted sadly. Every day for the past few weeks, Ranma
always hoped there would be that sixth place for breakfast. Ever since Akane
went to that party at her friend Sayuri's house and disappeared. The Tendo
family had put in a missing person report to the police, put up signs around
Nerima, even ran an ad in the newspaper begging her to come back, but to no
avail. Akane was gone, and Ranma knew that the sixth place at the table would
never be there again. "Good morning, Ranma," She was snapped from her reverie
And here.
by Kasumi's bright and cheery greeting. "Oh, good morning Kasumi. Breakfast
ready yet?" "Just about. Would you like some hot water, Ranma?" Kasumi asked
sweetly. She procured a steaming kettle from behind her back and offered it
to Ranma. Must be a Tendo family trait, Ranma thought to herself. She thanked
Kasumi and poured the contents of the kettle over herself. The now male Ranma
handed the kettle to Kasumi, who took it with a smile and went back to the
kitchen. He stepped outside, leapt up to the roof of the house, and waited
Probably here.
for his father to reenter the atmosphere. "Hm. Limo," Ranma said to himself
as he surveyed the street outside the Tendo household. A man stepped out of
the limo, clad in a black suit. "Black suited man," Ranma stated the obvious.
"Bulldozer, too. Limo, suit man, bulldozer." Ranma sat, pondering this
information for a good while. Then, suddenly it registered. Ranma jumped down
from the roof and ran into the living room.
He entered to see Soun Tendo arguing with the man in the black suit.
Well, not arguing really. The man in the suit was speaking slowly and calmly,
and Soun was sobbing, tears streaming down his face forming a pool at his
feet. "Hey, what's going on, Mr. Tendo?" Ranma inquired. The two men turned
to look at Ranma. Soun bit his lip at Ranma's query, then proceeded to
fiercely grab the martial artist, tears now cascading from his eyes. "Oh,
Ranma! It's terrible!!" Soun's next words were incomrehensible through his
"incomprehensible"
sobbing. Exasperated with the old man, Ranma turned to the man in the suit
for an explanation. "Let me explain," the man said. "My card." Ranma took it
And here.
and examined it. "Izuhara Takeshi. I'm with Tokyo's Urban Development
department. Basically, we need the land this house is on to build a new
expressway. Soun turned back to Takeshi. "You can't do this! I won't let
And here.
you!" He yelled, still sobbing. Ranma was about to question Takeshi again
Soun turned back to Takeshi and yelled, "You can't do this! I won't let you!"
through his sobs.
when he heard a familiar voice from the yard: "Ranma! I've found you!" "Aw
And here.
crap, what now?" Ranma muttered. He walked out to the yard to see Ryoga
standing on a rock above the koi pond, looking angry as usual. "Ryoga, I
And here.
don't have time for this right now! I'll beat the hell out of you later!"
This seemed to enrage Ryoga further. "This can't wait, Ranma! Come back
And here.
here!" he shouted, but Ranma was already in the house, knowing that Ryoga
would never be able to find his way inside. As Ranma walked back into the
living room, he found that Nabiki had joined in the conversation with the man
in the suit. "So, how much were you planning to pay us?" Nabiki asked. Soun
And here.
bawled even harder. "First I lose my beautiful daughter, and now my house!?"
And here.
He cried. Nabiki didn't seem to notice as she went over the numbers with
Takeshi. Ranma tried to say something, but was at a loss for words. The
Probably here.
Tendos were going to lose their home? He and pop could handle being homeless,
they did it for a decade, but he couldn't just leave the Tendos. They had
become family to him. Kasumi and Nabiki were in no shape to go on a training
trip. It seemed hopeless. "When did you notify us of this?" Ranma asked
Takeshi. "The documentation was on display at city hall for 6 months," he
And here.
responded tritely. "The documentation was in the basement, down a broken
staircase, in a locked closet with a sign that said 'Beware of the Leopard'!"
Soun shrieked, then went back to sobbing. "There's no leopards in Japan..."
And here.
he blubbered. Suddenly, Ranma felt a stong hand on his shoulder pull him back
into the yard and up onto the roof of the house. "Ryoga?" Ranma said,
This gives the impression that Ryoga has stretching super powers.
puzzled. "How did you find your way into the house?" "I told you this can't
And here.
wait, Ranma!" Ryoga reached into his bag and pulled out a strange, silvery
device with a few colored buttons and a red, blinking light. Ranma simply
stared. "What the hell do you have in that bag of yours?" he asked dumbly.
And here.
Ryoga began pressing a complicated sequence of buttons on the device. "Ranma,
there's no time. Look up." He complied, and found an armada of very large,
yellow, lumpy flying objects floating overhead. They filled the sky as far as
he could see. "What the hell are those!?" he howled. "Vogons," Ryoga
And here and here.
answered. "They've come to destroy the earth." As if prompted by Ryoga's
remark, the ships made their announcement, using every speaker in the world
to transmit their message. "We regret to inform you that your planet is
scheduled for destruction to make way for a new interstellar expressway. The
documentation was on display at Alpha Centauri 5 for the past century." The
speaker of the message paused. It seemed that someone had achieved
communication with the ships. "What do you mean, you haven't achieved
interstellar travel yet?" The voice resounded through the world. "Sorry
little planet, you deserve to be destroyed. Have a nice day." There was a
flash, and the earth was no more.
Paragraphs are wonderful things. You need a lot more of them. In particular,
you need a new paragraph every time you switch speakers. You also might want to
indicate that this is a crossover with a [Ranma/HHTTG] tag unless you want it to
be a big surprise in which case [Ranma/Xover] might work. All in all I'd say this
is a little on the rushed and uneven side. The change in tone between the first and
second halves of this prologue is so abrupt as to be jarring and and the darkness
of the first part should probably be toned down.