Hi! ^_^

again. She was

Oniwabandana, now and forever.

A moron.

Well, I'm not arguing if you're not arguing. Youma tend to picked for a 
number of reasons: strength, speed, or just plain meanness. INT is not 
usually a required stat for the class, if you get my drift.

Until Usagi decides, meh, and goes scrubby scrubby again.

Not the conclusion most people have reached, but I will agree that it is 
still a viable one at this point in the story. All we really know so far is 
that Nana is *convinced* that Sailor Moon can't change her back. It is 
possible that she could be wrong.

Yeah, these monks
have their claws into her soul, but I'm willing to bet Usagi is a little 
bit beyond them.

Hard to say. The Ankoku Priests are from YST, so they've never bumped into 
Usagi in canon. All we really have to go on is how they ranked against the 
Troopers... and they were some of the scarier opponents those boys ever 
faced.

Among some of the things the Ankoku have done: seal the Troopers' armours so 
they could no longer transform, build an orbital death cannon, supercharge 
one of the Masho until he was able to overpower all five Troopers, mind 
control the entire city of Shinjuku, KIDNAP the entire city of Shinjuku, 
open portals into hell dimensions, trap the Troopers inside towers of hate 
and bitterness in order to sap their power, etc.

I'm still not saying that they are stronger than Usagi - I consider her to 
be pretty much on par with Ryo in the Kikoutei, and he was knocking them out 
with punches - but they are fairly insidious in their own charming little 
way. It's not whether she can beat them: it's whether she can find the *way* 
to beat them.

When you consider that both Ryo *and* Usagi have the power to shatter the 
entre universe and remake it in their own image if they feel like it, that 
more or less goes for any enemy they face. ;p

Anyway, I found this intro a bit long winded. I seem to recall most of this
explained through dialogue before. I got bored and skipped ahead.

Oh. Sorry. :)

I had alluded to what was going on with Oniwabandanna, but a lot of people 
were really curious as to the exact hows and whys of her return to youma 
status. I guess I might have rambled a bit while I was answering that. I'll 
try to keep a lid on it in the future. ;)

This was her big chance
to make an impression on somebody who was pretty important in the Dark 
Kingdom, and she did not want to blow it.

This implication that good impressiong would remain with him is indicative 
that her fall to the dark side wasn't nearly as permanent as one might 
hope.

True, but it is also the way most youma seem to think. There is a lot of 
time and effort put into making a good impression with their masters in the 
hope that it will last. Every high ranking general seem to have their 
"favorite" youma, so it stands to reason that there must be some kind of 
meritocracy involved in all the backstabbing and politicking.

As far as I can tell, the entire Dark Kingdom seems to be built on one 
gigantic game of "Master and Servant".

Shouldn't she be strangling puppies or something, as opposed to being 
humbly
thankful for what blessings she has?

She doesn't feel comfortable enough to start expressing her own desires just 
yet. There are too many large and scary people around who could eat her if 
they didn't like what she had to say. I'm sure she'll get nastier once she 
settles in. :)

You there, do my bidding or I
shall annihilate you in the twinkling of an eye.

I would just like to say that I thought this was a perfect description of 
how things get done in the Dark Kingdom. :)

You've got to admit, it doesn't leave much room to wonder about one's place 
in the food chain, does it?

With a sense of unease, Oniwabandana reached up and gingerly touched her
earlobe with a single fingertip. As she had suspected, her entire hand
came away coated in blood. Anything that needed to be said in a language
like that could not possibly be saying anything worth translating.

First of all, that was kinda cool.

Thank you! ^_^

Second of all, she's still lacking in ye old lust for power.

Yeah, like I said, Oniwabandanna is still new in town. You don't try to take 
over the place when nobody knows your name. The first thing she is trying to 
do here is score herself some backup to cover for her. She learned that 
lesson very well in her former life: GET FRIENDS. Friends will at least give 
you a place to hide when your enemies are mad at you.

One of the things Jadeite liked most about her was that she was nervous 
enough to be careful. Youma with a lust for power might do something stupid 
like try to read the book out loud. I can promise you that if there are this 
many ancient toms of forbidden lore scattered around, at least *one* of them 
is going to lead to the King in Yellow. And the King in Yellow does not like 
unexpected visitors.

       "Things move all the time around here," he said crankily, and
turned back towards Nise Suiko. "Don't let it bother you."

So Badaguy isn't nearly as powerful as he claims.

(snerk) Wizards never are. The ones who brag about how awesome they are 
always tend to be weak, and the ones who mutter humbly about how they "may 
know a few simple tricks" are usually either Gandalf or Merlin. ^_^

his wards are evaded by a
second rate ninja,  and then he can't see her.

Well, there was nothing *wrong* with his wards - he just wasn't expecting 
intangible ninja intruders, and thus failed to plan accordingly. This is a 
fault, to be sure, but not one we can really blame him for. As Oniwabandanna 
herself pointed out, Badamon had no reason to even know she existed, much 
less plan his defenses with her in mind.

trap aimed
at getting somebody or other to think wierd things. but I don't know any of 
the youma to be that into psychological warfare.

Youma are not usually into psychological warfare, no. They prefer the kind 
of warfare that involves yelling and hitting.

Nise Suiko could be off killing baby harp seals and choking out
polar bears just for shits and giggles, as far as Shin had been able to 
discern. It sounded like the sort of depraved thing that
maniac might do for fun.

I dunno. It does sound kinda fun.

Yeah, but Shin is kind of person who cares about the plight of endangered 
animals. Ergo, it stands to reason that his evil twin would be going out of 
his way to pick a fight with endangered animals and beat them up for fun.

Nise Suiko has a very strong sense of fun. He just finds it in places that 
disturb Shin greatly.

      The screen slid open with Shin aside and
hurled open the bamboo screen door leading to the main hallway, throwing
himself at the person's back as they were taking off their shoes.

some pronoun plurality confusion. he was taking off his shoes. Masculine is 
generic in english

Good catch! Will have to give that one the ol' spit-and-polish.

"Trust me, Ryo: girls
always have stuff like this worked out years in advance. You might be a 
little confused right now, but I can guarantee you that Ami Mizuno knows 
exactly what she's doing."

Aiight. I really like the dialogue these people have.

A lot of people seemed to enjoy it. ^_^

I want more of that
and less overblown author exposition.

Okay, I'll do my best. I do so love to poke my opinions in here and there, 
though. I find too much dialogue gets monotonous. Especially during fight 
scenes: who has time to be monologuing when they are fighting?

      "Hello, Rei," Ami said, smiling politely. "Does something seem
to be the matter?"

Okay. All that above this part? Not necessary.

If you say so. I was sort of trying to recap without being obvious about it, 
since the last time we saw Ami and Ryo was a few chapters ago. I'm also 
always worried that a new reader might pick this up and get confused about 
what's going on, so I try to refresh people's memories every so often. 
Sometimes it does get extraneous, and I will try to keep a lid on that.

Ami's emotions come through pretty well through the conversation, and we 
never really want to know too much about what these fools are thinking 
anyway.

Yeah, I still recall the last time I went near the mind of Shuu Rei Fuan: 
Super-cool total badass. I've been a little scared to go back ever since, 
although I do love him for being so straightforward to write. Not to mention 
fun! ^_^

Shuu: "I am Shuu Rei Fuan! Men, you may now begin trembling in fear. Women 
shall also be allowed to tremble, but only with anticipation...."

A pretty decent chunk, but real slow going.

It was a pretty slow chapter. Mostly I was just setting up for things that 
are going to be happening later. Also, I really wanted somebody to fight a 
dinosaur.

I stand by that decision. :)

Ultimately, nothing happened
except to a couple of characters I'm only mildly interested in.

Uh-oh. I don't suppose you would be kind enough to let me know which 
characters those were, would you? So far, I'm pretty much shooting in the 
dark as far as guessing what people are and are not interested with. I've 
gotten some requests to cut back on all the Makoto and Touma stuff, so they 
will be out of the scene for a while, but if you have a preference, please 
feel free to let me know. I'll try to touch base on everyone important.

Y'know, the scary thing is that I still have to work the Outer Senshi and 
the Masho into this. I've barely got half of my main cast so far. :)

You may find it necessary to have more events occur to the guys and girls 
you're writing dialogue for. That way there's a bit more of an emotional 
investment in whether or not they die.

Fair enough. I guess I'm guilty of assuming that people are already invested 
in those characters. I really should focus on the core group more fiercely. 
I keep forgetting that a lot of my readers do not know Shin Mouri or Ryo 
Sanada from a hole in the ground.

That being said, the rest of your audience already cares about these 
people, so I'll go blow it out my ear. I dunno. more dialogue and less 
exposition.

I'll do my best. :)

And like, more beating up Ryo. That was funny. I liked that.

I'll do my best. :)

Thanks for writing! I'll have to see what I can do about adjusting my 
dialogue to exposition ratios. Usually I have a pretty good flow, but I 
guess this chapter fell a little flat for you. Sorry to hear it, but I guess 
I'll just have to work twice as hard next time. Thanks again for the 
comments!

Later!

-Morgan



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