Welcome to Gaia! ::

Very yay. 3nodding heart

....what? So I'm a masochistic reader. sweatdrop

eek heart

OhpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohPLEEZE... don't give up, Gen! heart Taking your time with the new chapters pays off in the long run, even if your readers whine and b***h...but the quality is HELLA better than worrying about speed and quanitity.

There are so many questions this chapter brings up. And the thing that stood out to me right away was this: an undercover agent who uses his own name. Assuming Ian Prentiss is his actual name, anyway. His targets in Brazil knew him by name, as do the present-day students he's spying on. Did any of the guards or the people watching on camera recognize him? One would assume they'd know who he was and, if the guards reported him killed, how many versions of "Ian" are reported dead from various missions? How many times has he "died" and been resurrected with the same name? Or at least, the same first name, since there's no indication of his last name in the Brazillian mission.

Cute, shy redhead with glasses steals mission objective. ninja heart

And OMG, the fights! *swoon* The matches are fantastic, both Beta and Alpha. I continue to enjoy seeing the different abilities and how they can be bent and stretched to cover things you might not think of immediately. The creative concepts abound here and it's inspiring just to read about them. To the point where I'm tempted to stretch and write a little Saga-fanfic, just to see how many different directions I can go with one "classification". whee

You rock, Gen. I know how frustrating characters who don't like to flow easily can be, but don't give up! Please, don't give up. heart Too much awesomeness would be lost and too many questions left unanswered. gonk

Gen, if it was a year between this chapter and the next, I'm sure almost every one of us would still be reading it. I know I would be. The wait has always been worth it, no matter how long we have had to wait. I hope you decide to keep with it.

I just wonder if this was intentional, or simply something both of you missed? I've always heard it was 'leading edge'.



I have to laugh, though. I was wondering why she would suddenly show up, with no guards or anything following him. Then she showed up, I got a little curious. I don't know how you did it, but after that, you put me at ease. I'm almost angry at myself for getting fooled as clearly as he was. xd

Mmmmm, fighting. Always fun. But that was not nice! Yeah, depress the poor chap! See how he fights then! I had thought of something, and was curious how it would work. How quickly does Marty change weight? Could he start running, jump, and change in mid-air, to turn himself into something similar to catapult shot, or a cannonball? That could have dire consequences for mostly anyone on the recieving end. I have to give props on that static field, in any extended conflict it will almost definately give victory to the one using it, how widely can he project that?

For some reason, the second time I wrote this, I forgot all about Kevin's match. So here goes. How much control over those vines and other such things can he manage? Can he pull them up in a large radius around someone, simply saturating the area with vines, so that even an aero or another 'hovering' foe won't have the ability to escape so easily? Or is it as limited as just bringing a few vines to bear on a target? Could he call up enough vines to pull a tank apart? That would be utterly amazing. I want to see where this goes.

Gendou is not a nice boy...if it takes concentration and focus for Jacob to remain incorporeal, and he either tires, or runs out, what happens if Gendou is there? That is a tricky attack, and I'm almost curious what happens if it is botched. But what other options does Jacob have? Can he focus and make only parts of himself incorporeal, and make it so that the only thing you can hit back are his fists or feet? Or perhaps conceal himself in the ground, popping up to strike when his opponent is unaware?

Teams....I look forward to that to no end. twisted

Could've sworn I posted something on these last two. No sign of it now though. confused

25:

Laura's playing a dangerous game with that sort of backstory: someone might stumble onto the original version, and find out details and, indeed, graduation. I think Alex recognises that, but perhaps is also somewhat unenthusiastic just from the memory.

Hobson vs the teachers is nicely done: usual defence of child by father, and response by the staff. Hobson's little bit on intent is interesting: I wouldn't have imagined the school would have to prove much there. Equally, I can't see how legal action would really be of any use against a school primarily hidden from the public laws: the ASM response, however, would no doubt have some effect, but Hobson seems reasonable enough, albeit angry.

Inches becomes feet: the joys of student legends. No suprise the guys stick with Weston. Hard to say if they know about Weston x Liz, but I doubt it'd make much difference either way. If it slights Cal, all the better.

Liz and Amy scene was fairly straightfoward. Supportive, guilty, the usual nice touches and feelings of such to it: good realism. Perhaps me reading into it a little, but does Amy seem a little... I don't know, but her awkwardness from earlier could have just been knowing about the cheating, but it also gave the idea of there being another triangle, where Amy likes Cal, but equally, doesn't want to hurt Liz as her friend. Nothing certain there, and obviously the dance may well remove or disprove that line altogether, but just something I felt.

Cal is suprisingly upset. I would've expected him more likely to be childishly unremorseful and focused on the anger of betrayal at that point, but equally, the eel after-effect may have been enough of a shock to stop that side of him coming out. And if he saw Weston with the wound, I can imagine that might've affected him. Either way, there's obviously more to him that it seems. And yay, Usagi gets an entire paragraph of screentime, including a full conversation! whee

The last paragraph is a nice rounding up touch.

26:

I liked the Ian bit. His background and patience were espoused, and the in-action effect was nice. There was a good strange quality of the grammar with him talking to himself, and it's not too suprising he seemingly has no compunctions about killing, given his earlier years. After all, if video witness evidence was going to be presented of him being involved, he could just as well have incapacitated the programmers, but instead he 'gores' them.

The collision is interesting, both in that whether it's accidental or not isn't totally given (but it seems unlikely that it is, seeing as she's English according to the accent), and equally that it'd be damnably hard to get back from the girl seeing as he's now wanted on-campus. Intriguing that someone took enough time to watch him: who, I wonder, and are they still watching at his present location?

Alex and Meghan: teacher interactive fun, and I love Meghan calling Alex a pervert. Classic, that is.

Marty vs Evan is a good fight: builds on Marty's previous problems, and expands on the beta-intelligent factor, as well as the whole static field effect being an innovative power from a writer's perspective. 3nodding It'll be interesting to see how other (esp. female, given dance) students react to Marty's display.

Michael vs Kevin: not much to say. Nicely written, descriptive as necessary, standard fighting. 3nodding

Gendou vs Jacob: I loved this one, Gendou's innovation and Jacob's abilities both. I was slightly confused as to whether or not Gendou could physically exist underground and at the same time in Jacob (and, indeed, follow Jacob with his eyes), but thinking about it on an atomic level now, it makes sense. I was expecting a fatality of sorts when I saw Gendou was involved, given his destruction of the targets earlier, but obviously Jacob counteracts that (I suspect Gendou was picked first, and Roth chose Jacob as being the only non-Rene who could stand up to him - could Marty, I wonder, and would doing so provide the necessary confidence boost for the boy?). Gendou's perspective on the matter of student vs student training would be interesting to find out, and I love his dispersion at the end.

Team efforts will be interesting, in that, if they include e.g. Robin, there'll be a lot of supporting going on (if the students are thinking, at least).

And I wouldn't worry too much about production speed, especially given illness and workload. I don't know about you, but I find it preferable to write the whole chapter at once, rather than spread it out too much - it helps keep writing style consistent for me at least. And certainly, I don't worry too much about a slow update, although certain other Modists do advocate some need for a Gendou weekly 'fix'. whee That at least should indicate there's no reason to drop it just because it's coming along slowly.

Whilst I'd prefer keeping it in one thread, I think that's unreasonable given how long this looks like it could go on for in terms of story arcs, so a second thread would probably be best.

First off, I rather like this style. 3nodding

All right. Now we start to get into a lot heavier things. The relationship between Laura and Hobson in '01 is not as alarming as it originally seemed, since he's still a law student in '98. And especially since Erich seems to have been at the Academy at the same time as he and Susan. He seems to have been a rather young teacher; presumably not more than seven years older than his students, possibly less. Still a "taboo", the teacher/student relationship, though that's never stopped them from happening in the first place. It adds a lot more realism to the subject.

A little bit more of an explanation of Erich "Radiation Man" Geiger's (that name cracks me up every time whee ) powers, which is always good.

A quick question; was the Superiority Movement established back then, or is Hobson simply just vocal in his opinions? Either way, he's not missing an opportunity to try to Recruit the Aberrant Youth of America To His Cause. Even if he's not specifically Up To Something. (I'd do the standard "trademark" symbol, but Gaia likes to eat that sort of thing.)

And once again, I find myself wondering at the long-term consequences of the government training these children to be not only assassins, but straight-out killers. They obviously haven't put a noticeable damper on their personalities (except perhaps Rowan's), but how long will that last? And how long until it blows up in America's respective face?

(On a side note, I've actually been envisioning certain scenes of this in comic-book format. I'm not sure what to make of that, though it's obviously a combination of your wonderful writing and my overactive imagination.)

Back to the present.

Rene figured out the trick to her powers; give a generic direction and let it work itself out. And while it's not perfect yet (fishy! xd Is there something with Real-Rene and fish that I'm not aware of, or is this just Original Gendou Wackiness?), she's deliberately making progress. I can imagine that when she gains further control over her powers and her thoughts, she will be able to actively change things with specific outcomes as well as she can change things at the moment with a generic outcome.

Rene (at the moment) seems to be far more suited to teamwork than Weston; though to be fair, Dave was taken out rather quickly at the start, so we haven't seen much of his teamwork outside Rowan's classroom. I imagine next time, he'll be a good commander.

Can Adam direct light streams or are they just unfocused flashes?

As far as the realization that the teachers would have let them hurt each other, I'll let someone handle that, instead. Like Rommy, who's much better at that than I am. But here's the thing; Rene, while not intending to do lasting damage to Weston (as she thought the teachers would step in before it got that far), was fighting all-out. Weston was obviously holding back the entire time (making the lighting strike in front of her, instead of actually hitting her, for example); is this because he knew the teachers wouldn't step in immediately, or was he simply not trying to hurt her in the first place? Either one is as likely as the other; I refuse to believe that Weston was throwing his power in her face (figuratively, of course).

But this could start to be yet another wedge between the students.

In any case, yet another marvelous chapter.

Hmm... "Erich did not disagree"... Sign that he doesn't fully agree, either? Or did it just sound better in context phrased like that?

It's nice to see Rene using her powers a bit more effectively, though it appears that Weston is right to be concerned about acid/etc and Rene to be worried about students getting hurt.

No. Please tell me we haven't gotten that saccharine yet. gonk xd

Oh my! So much to catch up on, and all of it amazing.
So many good comments. ; ; Gah, English test. Must study first, comment later. Bravo, bravo!

Sacharrin? As in the artificial sugar substitute thingy? Or something more carnal?