I by far preferred this version
of the meeting between Baahnid and Ranma;
while not as action-filled and direct as the scene in draft 2, the
conflict
was definitely there, but more subtle now, filled with dread and the
sense of
forces greater than us. This time, there is only the tangential
reference to
the human girl Baahnid once loved; once again, he had experienced a
world with
characters who would have been familiar, yet unfamiliar, to us.
And once
again, although not specified here, he did the forbidden and used the
Spring
to achieve a human form which, while leaving him vulnerable, allowed
him to be
with his human love. And what of Ranma? Why did he kill
his Ranma? Well, he
blamed him, rightly or wrongly, for Kasumi's death way back when.
That
backstory would have been explored later and had great relevance to
how these
two would have clashed.
But once again Ranma was
set on the road to finding the City of the Dead in
the haunted Wastelands, where answers awaited him. Answers, if
he survived.
So, again, a clear quest. And, again, a ship and crew to take
him there.
So a word about some more
lesser known characters. Sonya, Kei, and Lou
(Lukish) are from a manga called Midnight Panthers, by Yu Asigiri.
If you
know it, you can skip this next bit. It's a strange but fun little
series
about a group of female idol singers in a post-apocalyptic world.
They are called
the Pussycats, and they go town to town with their mentor, a wrinkled
old hag,
putting on concerts for their adoring fans in their skimpy costumes.
Unbeknowst to the fans, though, these three women are actually the
assassins
known as the Midnight Panthers. Sexy Sonya seduces her targets,
preferring to
send them off with love before killing them. Lovely Kei is a
shapeshifter who
turns into a panther and kills her targets, then eats them. Tomboyish
Lukish
is very strong and immune to poisons and drugs, and thus gets stuck
with the
monsters. Together they travel the land, giving good fanservice
while
fighting and usually losing their clothes.
So why use these characters?
Not sure, really. I wanted to use some
characters who weren't in the spotlight, and I've never seen these
three in
any fanfic. I liked the series; Yu Asigiri is a woman, and though
sex was
prevalent throughout the series it was tasteful. Also, the plots
were just
strange enough to be interesting, from the appearance of Lou's brother
Bad
(and later, his twin, Sid, who always got possessed by Bad's ghost)
to the
original Midnight Panther, to the weird relationship between the girls.
Kei,
who always ate her male lovers before getting her pleasure, was always
frustrated and constantly fondled Lou (who protested, but as Sonya
noted,
rarely fought back very hard). Sonya and Lou were another matter;
Sonya's
kiss was the only thing which could reach Lou on two occasions when
she was
being controlled. They fought like sisters, but always ended
up coming
through for each other.
And a lot of their background
was never explored, so I decided to use them.
After all, the idea wasn't to get Ranma to fall in love with Sonya
as much as
to contrast her, a woman who'd been sold as a child and raised to use
sex as a
weapon, with him, a guy from a straitlaced society who had no reason
but
cultural inertia to hold on to his old beliefs. And of course,
there was the
rest of the crew. For them to risk the hazards of the borderlands
and the
wastes, they must all have had stories. Bad pasts to forget,
or adventures to
seek, or just riches to plunder.
And the story continued pretty
much the same from there, as you see. But,
once again, and at pretty much the same spot, I stopped. This
version I was
much happier with, but still I started to get restless. I ran
out of steam,
even though I knew where the story had to go from there. It happens
sometimes, but I always thought I'd pick up from there again and keep
going.
But I didn't. I ended
up giving the thing up in the end, not so much from
any feeling of inadequacy as that I just wanted to do something different.
More about that in the notes
for version 4.