Rufusluciusivan - Yes, that certainly was a few more hours later than what I would have liked, but I promised you Sunday so I wanted to deliver on that.
it's like you tried to give each of the sisters' most popular gadgets a chance to shine. And then added a sniper rifle with sleeping dart as a bonus gift.
And I enjoyed it.
Of course, I thought it would add to the Phantoms humiliation, as not only were they getting taken down and stripped by the very sisters who they've spent all this time hunting for, but they've also been knocked out by the very gadgets they were probably trained to avoid. Aaahhh sheer bliss, plus I remember that scene from one of your stories of where a couple of female snipers were taking down a group of guards using snipers filled with sleeping darts and I absolutely loved that scene and that idea, so I figured I'd take inspiration from that and use it as well, plust that also meant that Izanagi could get in on the action.
I especially enjoyed Ulla's and Willow's little conversation with Angel; but then again any moment featuring Angel trying to help others is a safe bet.
Angel will always be the one who truly wants to help other's, I think as time goes by, Ulla and (maybe) Willow will eventually see things in a more positive light, now I'm fully aware that these things do take time, so Angel naturally knows that they wouldn't change their views or look on things overnight, but she is very hopeful for these two women, that's for sure.
Good fights for the climax, though I'll admit that the justification for Ulla, Tina, and Kheshig confronting the Prophet on their own ALMOST stretched my willing suspension of disbelief. Though I understand the reasoning behind it, and in-context it doesn't seem out-of-character. Falcon had it a little easy, if you ask me though.
A little bit of this is because the original final fight was significantly different to this one. Now this doesn't mean I simply made it up on the spot, no, no, quite the opposite actually. I thought about it for a while and I discovered that is made sense for these three women to have the final confrontation, simple because, they are the leaders of the three different groups in this arc and even though their reasons were different, their end goal was still the same, and that was put a stop to the Prophet.
Interestingly enough. Falcon WAS supposed to have died in this final fight, and if I'm being honest, her death scene was originally very brutal as Ulla was going to really make sure she felt a lot of pain, before giving her the final killing blow.....But.....I had a change of heart at the last moment as that might have made this entire too dark and might have even put some people off altogether, so I tweaked it a little to just have her being knocked out. I also knew from the start that Jetset and Prophet would survive, so nothing changed there.
So about the reveal of the Prophet's identity, only one thing to say... WOW!
I really shouldn't have doubted you and tirepanted! I admit, I wasn't expecting the reveal that the Prophet was actually IMPERSONATING the real Ashley. (I stand by my statement that, in my opinion, having the real Ashley be the Prophet would have been a mistake.) What a twist! And what a clever way to include your cameo... and to raise the 'Ashley-being-mugged-o-meter'. With a classic 'victim who falls from the closet once the door is opened' scenario to boot. Reminds me of Firecat from Outlaw Star. Perfection. (I think Ashley can now officially hold the title of the 'most often mugged woman of this Board'. I didn't count per say, but I think she bested Macha's or Rebecca's and Linda's records.) Plus, it has the added bonus of revealing the Prophet's hypocrisy: Ultimately, she also mugged someone to steal her identity!
Aaaaahhhhhh Thank you very much. *phew*, I won't lie, that actually made me breathe a sigh of relief as I know that this was something that you had your concerns over and I could fully understand why....BUT......I am very pleased to hear that you enjoyed Ashley's little side adventure in this arc. The thing is that, when we started talking about Ashley being the Prophet, I already knew who the Prophet was, so I was never going to have the real Ashley be the Prophet, simply because as you so rightfully said. It would have just been so out of character for her and wouldn't have worked, so I liked the idea of not just a simple impersonation, but a full identity theft.
Oh yeah, that part with Ashley falling out the door in her undies, was greatly inspired but the amazing outlaw star "firecat" scene, as that is one of my favourite USB scenes of all time. That's why I even had Ashley shouting that she's the "real" Ashley, just to properly pay homage to that scene.
Hahaha poor Ashley, it seems she can't even go on holiday without being mugged for her clothes, or her identity.
but look on the bright side, she certainly has achieved an award for most times mugged for their uniform. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I think Ashley as a whole is just awesome sauce, so the fact that I got to use her in one of my own stories, is nothing short of amazing and was an honour for me.
I wasn't expecting a minor antagonist from an earlier story to make her return, but then again her taking the head of a group of anti-infiltrators is logical, given her previous part. And it explains why she refers to Theron and her family being killed by Tina and the Company. Does it mean that from the beginning it was a ploy to try to get her hands on Tina and her sisters? Or was the extermination of all infiltrators her goal, with Tina and her sisters as the side-bonus?
I was flicking through some of my original works to see if I had any characters that were still sitting around waiting to be used again, that's when I remembered Chun-Hei. Now after her initial encounter with Tina, she vanished as was presumed dead. Even Theron thought she was dead as she found one of her robotic hands and hung it up as a remind, but I never did actually confirm her fate. So I thought "yeah, why not" and I brought Chun-Hei back into the fold. So this does mean that she will be returning (at some point) and clearly she's doesn't just steal clothes, she flat out steals women's identities, so this could lead to some interesting scenes in the future.
I appreciated the epilogue. It was a nice change of pace to feature other victims than Phantoms (and Ashley). Plus having the sisters score a victory against Anna felt so good. Like a back massage...
I smell that Anna-gram Pharmaceutics will play a bigger part in the upcoming stories...
Hahaha
oh but of course. Yes, I'm not a hundred percent sure how to handle it yet, but Anna will naturally be out for some kind of vengeance in the future, I mean in order to save face and her companies stock, she's just lied to everyone, and her plans for a batch of Ulla clones have now just gone up in smoke.....Or rather down the drain.....But she won't let this go, especially now she knows that Tina and her sisters helped her......Anna WILL return in the future.
Ha! Ha! So many occasions to reveal the identity of the Phantoms' financier, and never one clue. I wonder why.
I know, so many opportunities presented itself, yet I remained completely quiet about it and didn't reveal a thing....Hhhhmmmm, now why did I do that...... I guess we will just have to wait and see and find out just
WHO is financing the Phantoms, but everyone should not be weary as it will be revealed who this mystery business partner was and when they do find out, they'll see why it couldn't have been revealed sooner.
I had a regret, it would be that, with all the build-up that occured, the finale of this Arc was too quick. With all these characters, there was room for so much more interactions. I'm getting the feeling that this last part was too brief, especially the part between the final fight and the epilogue. As if it was lacking closure for some characters (Izanagi and Ellie for instance). Chapter 41 took a lot of time discussing the morality of some characters, but ultimately this chapter doesn't use all that build-up. But, as you said, having so many characters together at the same time makes the writing process VERY hard.
As I say, I did sit back on my chair when I first started this chapter and I realized that I had a lot of characters coming into this final part, so I automatically knew that I was going to stagger in some area's as there was just no way I could get everything done. But this of course, will not be forgotten and multiple characters will appear in upcoming chapters as I don't want to leave any questions unanswered, for example.........
1. A new story will be written with Chun-Hei returning.
2. I want to do a chapter with Elisha revealing to the sisters and to Felicity about her life as a Phantom.
3. I naturally want the white masks to return, because as I've said before, I really love their characters.
4. I want to do a chapter with Kheshig officially taking over the mantle as the Phantoms leader and showing just how different things are.
5. Ulla and Anna will naturally return as Anna won't let this go unanswered, so Ulla will be seeking the sisters help once more.
.......I have no idea which one of these will come first as I haven't started writing anything yet.
PS: I think your spellchecker was up to no good again
. Cassie is called Claire during this segment.
Oh god, your right, thank you for pointing that out.
Although as you will now see, I have edited out the mistake and corrected it, so Cassie's name is back in full glory.
Thank you very much again as well for your amazing review!
Tirepanted Thank you very much.
Well, admittedly, I suppose I read this chapter a bit differently than some other people, since Trackman outlined the twist for me beforehand to ask my permission. (I of course said yes.
) The reveal that Ashley was the villain would have felt out of character (and perhaps like a crossover gone too far) if not for the double-twist pulled in the second half of this chapter. Once Trackman explained it to me, it seemed like a fun idea.
Yes, and of course, I do greatly thank you for giving me permission to have Ashley featured in this story as Ashley herself has become a legend on this forum, now fair enough we all know her as the one who always looses her uniform, but she is still a legend none of the less and I consider it both an honour and a privilege to have her make a crossover appearance.
As for the rest of the chapter (both halves), it made for a good read. I think Rufus is correct that the finale was a bit quick, but the bulk of the chapter featured a lot of fun interactions, storylines tying together, and memorable USB sequences.
I do also agree that in hind sight, I probably should have made the final confrontation longer, but I was worried that I had already gone too long in the chapter without a USB scene popping up, so part of me felt like I was dragging on. But this is of course, something that I can easily rectify in an upcoming chapter as next time Chun-Hei confronts Tina, I promise we will have a much more intense battle.
The uniform steals themselves were a bit repetitive, but it makes sense as this was a Phantom-heavy chapter, so most of the victims would obviously be Phantom guards. The takedowns were brisk and fun, with a lot of memorable moments. My favorite was probably the mugging of Esme, Elaina, and Nicole - details like their use of face-covering helmets, plus being secured with their own handcuffs, made for a great little scene.
I knew that with this being the main infiltration of the Phantoms HQ, that there wouldn't be much variety in terms of uniforms, hence why I had to mix it up a bit and make sure that the takedowns themselves were varied enough so it didn't feel like that same thing over and over again, so I am pleased to hear that I succeeded on that front for you.
Of course, I'll never forget that you are quite partial to the idea of having guards being restrained by their own equipment and rightfully so too as it is a good concept, because after all, if all these guards have hand cuffs to begin with, then our heroines might as well put them to good use.
Thank you very much your amazing feedback and of course, I thank you once again for giving me permission. Ever since Rufus found a way to have a crossover with your characters (Ashley) from before, I too have been clawing at the bits as well to somehow include some of your characters in my work, so to me this really was a delight to write.