Phoenix: Reignited

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Ok, I have not started reading this yet. But I seen the title and thought that it was a new take on a couple of other stories with the same name. Ranma gets locked as a girl and tossed out of the house and as she is living inn the street and almost dead she meets a US air force pilot and somehow they end married, with a kid later and not a bad set of stories.
Much different on this take.
 
Ckosacranoid said:
Ok, I have not started reading this yet. But I seen the title and thought that it was a new take on a couple of other stories with the same name. Ranma gets locked as a girl and tossed out of the house and as she is living inn the street and almost dead she meets a US air force pilot and somehow they end married, with a kid later and not a bad set of stories.
Much different on this take.
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Yeah, different story. But it sounds neat, too!
 
I seen them both on fanfication.net and both where good writing. I am into this one so far, the chapter of one of the girls just got asked to be hitched and talked Ranma into being part of the party.
I was looking at your site last night just a quick run though of this....350 chapters written....holy crap. How many words did you write and when did you start writing this story anyway.
 
Ckosacranoid said:
I seen them both on fanfication.net and both where good writing. I am into this one so far, the chapter of one of the girls just got asked to be hitched and talked Ranma into being part of the party.
I was looking at your site last night just a quick run though of this....350 chapters written....holy crap. How many words did you write and when did you start writing this story anyway.
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Chapter #375 posts tonight! <3

I started in May 2023.

The word count is a tricky calculation. I don't want to count this *Reignited* story entirely, because it's a rewrite, so the calculation I do is:

(word count of Reignited) + (word count of the original story) - (word count of the chapters Reignited has replaced thus far)

By that count, the wordcount is about 930,000 words. If you count Reignited as its own work, it's over a million.
 
2.26: The Gauntlet New
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    • "Huh. Sony's down again. I should buy a few more shares, I guess." Nabiki popped a piece of fried tofu into her mouth with her fingers, chewing as she turned to the next page in the business section of the newspaper. She idly scratched an itch through her orange tank top, swallowing and reaching blindly for another bite.

    "Where are you even getting the money for all that, Nabiki?" Akane looked up incredulously across the dining room table at her sister, having just finished her own breakfast.

    Chuckling, Nabiki snapped the paper closed, tossing the folded broadsheet to the table with a confident smirk. "Oh, please, little sister. My portfolio's performing wonderfully. Plus, I've already got the market cornered on recycled term papers at Shibuya Academy, I still get a piece of the action I passed down to Midori at Furinkan, and then I have my… other ventures, to boot." The brunette snickered, wagging a finger in the air with the spark of an idea. "Speaking of which, you mind being a doll and wearing that new green skirtall you got for Christmas today? Kuno hasn't seen that one yet, and with as cold as it's been, the poor boy hasn't seen any decent leg in months. Oooh, I bet I can even charge him extra!"

    "NABIKI TENDO!"     Akane crossed her arms over her chest in her beige gi, growling loudly over her elder sister's mirthful laughter.

    "Aww, come on! Don't be stingy, Akane." Nabiki shot a quick wink at her sister, making sure neither of the men in the room were looking before doing so. "After all, our dear pigtailed girl is nowhere to be found, so somebody has to pick up the slack in the modeling department. A girl's gotta make a living, after all."

    That little… did she just blackmail me because she knows where Ranko is?! Or was she just teasing? Either way, I can't take the risk. Akane glowered, lowering her eyes in defeat. I fucking hate this cloak-and-dagger bullshit. I just wanna be with her. It's all they could talk about a year ago. Why does it have to be so fucking taboo, now that we actually want it?!

    "Fine."     Akane turned her eyes away, crossing her arms with an indignant hrmph!

    Despite the tension in the room, it was a beautiful morning; the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the sliding door was open to the yard and the dojo beyond. Kasumi was shuttling back and forth between the dining room and the kitchen in her favorite pink dress, clearing the dishes from a resplendent breakfast. The girls' father and Mr. Saotome were sitting on the porch as they often did after breakfast, huddled over the shogi board. Genma was even in his human form, a rarity of late. Both men wore their training gi - Genma's in white, her father's brown - though Akane hadn't the foggiest idea why; neither had meaningfully worked out in weeks.

    Sighing quietly to herself, Akane thought about the crazy plan Ranko had suggested. Everything was ready, but now that it was time, she didn't know if she could go through with it. Her girlfriend's insane idea would send shockwaves through her family whether it worked or not, and what happened next, she had no idea. Sure, it could remove a big obstacle for our relationship, but at what cost? What if I can't do it? What if I let her down?

    Akane's father broke the awkward silence, startling her as he emphatically slammed a piece down on the shogi board hard enough to rattle its neighbors nearly out of their places. "Ha! Got you, Saotome!"

    His opponent adjusted the wire frame of his glasses as he surveyed the board. Grumbling as he found all of his strategic options - within the rules and without - closed off, he removed his last piece from the wooden board. "Good game, Tendo! Another?"

    Soun shook his head, rocking back and standing from his cross-legged position on the floor. "No, I'm afraid not. I have some city council business to handle. And besides, weren't you going to patch the dojo roof today? It's still leaking terribly in there."

    Genma glowered, a sullen expression darkening his face as it often did when he was forced to take on responsibilities. "I suppose I can take a look at it." He stood, stretching with his hands on his hips, and his spine popped a few times as he arched it backward. "We're too old to be doing that sort of work though, aren't we? I thought this is why we had kids, eh, Tendo? Then again, my useless lump of a son isn't much help, abandoning us all like he did."

    Akane gritted her teeth, trying to center herself and not let her emotions show. The closer she and Ranko had become of late, the harder it was to even look at her girlfriend's father, let alone listen to him constantly put her down. You shut up, you old son of a bitch. You'd be so proud of her if you knew what she's doing. At least, you would, if you had anything resembling a soul. She cringed, hiding the two halves of the lacquered chopstick she'd just broken in half in the hip pocket of her gi pants.

    "Saotome, I'm sure Ranma is doing what he thinks is best." Soun clapped his longtime friend on the back hard enough to elicit another quiet pop from his neck. "After all, he's eighteen. He's practically a man now."

    From her seat at the table, Akane chuckled grimly. If you only knew, Dad, she mused.

    A loud guffaw snapped Akane's attention back to Ranko's father. "Please! At the first sign of trouble, he ran away!" Genma turned his back to Akane, leaning on the doorframe and gazing out at the still koi pond in the yard beyond. "That's not how a man behaves. That's the act of a coward."

    How fucking dare you,     Akane thought. Her mind raced. Her pulse quickened. Her face flushed. After everything Ranko's been through?! After she spent months sleeping on the street to try and preserve her honor? After having to build her whole life over from scratch, while you sit here on your fat ass and eat our food and won't even lift a finger to… I won't let it stand. I can't!

    Akane stood, slamming her hands down on the table. "You stop talking about her that way! You stop it right now, Mr. Saotome!" She did her best to hide her wince as her words still lingered in the air. Shit. Shouldn't have said she, Akane admonished herself. She worried that doing so would tip them off to even the tiniest part of Ranko's new life, but she had been too angry to measure her words.

    Genma turned to look at her. "Akane, I don't understand why you still defend that little ingrate. You should be the angriest of all. He abandoned you, too. He had a responsibility to you, to your father, and to the art, and he ran away. Clearly, his engagement to you didn't matter to him at all. He threw you away." He crossed his ankles, leaning back on the doorframe and folding his arms over his chest. "Like trash."

    Akane growled at him, gripping the edge of the oak table tight in her hands. She wasn't sure if she was holding it to steady herself, or to prepare to use it as a weapon. "You… you don't even know if Ranma is alive or dead, and you stand there and talk about him like he's dirt! That's your fucking child! Do you not even have a heart?! How DARE you?!"

    "Oh, my!" Kasumi clicked her tongue, resting her hand on Akane's back. "Akane, dear, please try to be more mindful of your lang…"

    "Back off, Kasumi!" Akane shrugged her sister's hand off of her shoulders, her fiery glare never leaving her family's seemingly permanent houseguest. She did not so much as turn to offer a conciliatory glance to her sister, even if she did regret snapping at Kasumi.

    Ranko's father shook his head, scoffing under his breath. "Oh, he's not dead. He's too resourceful for that, at least. I'm sure he's out in the woods somewhere, probably lost. Maybe he ran to his mother, like all weaklings eventually do. Truly, I'm surprised he hasn't come crawling back in disgrace already. I'm sure it'll be any day now."

    Akane's hand made its way up the seam of her gi top, her face red with fury. If I go through with this, there's no turning back. Maybe Ranko was right. Maybe it's the only way. And besides, even if it doesn't do what she hoped… the son of a bitch has it coming.

    "Who knows? With the way he looks as a girl, I'm sure he can find some way to make a living." Genma turned to the open door, looking up at the sky with a self-amused laugh that turned Akane's stomach like gas station sushi. "Either way, I truly am ashamed to call that honorless whelp my son. When he does inevitably come begging for forgiveness, I'll see that he's punished for his insolence."

    The teen quaked in rage. "That's it! You have no right to speak about her that way! Not after everything you… I've… I've had enough out of you!" She reached a trembling left into the pocket inside her gi top, pulling out a piece of heavy ivory parchment folded into thirds. It was lined with columns of formal kanji characters, the black ink in a carefully-practiced calligraphy that had taken her five tries to get right. She held it up for a moment before slamming it on the table in front of him hard enough to rattle her empty teacup and wooden rice bowl onto the floor. Here we go, Ranko. Hope you know what you're doing, she thought to herself.

    Genma turned and laughed, glancing dismissively down at the paper as Akane lifted her palm from it. "Oh? And what's th…" He fell silent as his eyes parsed the first few characters. It couldn't… she wouldn't dare! She wouldn't dream of it!

    Akane's father walked over and looked down at the paper curiously. Like his best friend, he too recoiled in horror at the sight of it. "No, Akane, you can't! You mustn't!"

    The black-haired girl growled through her gritted teeth, granting only the slightest turn of her head to address her father. "I can, and I will!"

    The enraged young martial artist turned back to the balding, bespectacled man, her brown eyes flashing with fury. Akane's breath shook in her lungs. She could hear her heartbeat thundering in her ears, and to her, it sounded like the drums of war. It may as well have been.

    After all the times you stood up for my honor, Ranko… It's my turn. It's the least I can do… for the woman I love.

    She spoke with a simmering rage. Her voice was not loud, but every word was sharpened into a razor's edge. Every syllable dripped with venom. She knew her words would strike fear into the old man's heart, and she wanted them to. She needed them to. She was counting on it.

    "Genma Saotome… I, Akane Tendo of the Tendo School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts, hereby challenge the Saotome School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts for your dojo!"

    Genma seemed to shrink in stature, and he sniveled meekly, staggering back a few steps and looking to Soun in desperation. "Akane… why… how could you…"

    "Do you accept?!"     Akane's voice snapped through the air like a whip, and Kasumi cowered back into the corner by the doorway into the kitchen at the sound of it. "Or do you yield?!"

    ~~~ END BOOK TWO ~~~​
     
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    • Here ends Phoenix: Reignited Edition Book II. With a final wordcount more than double its counterpart in the original Phoenix Saga, the new-and-improved Embers stands as a testament to exactly what I was hoping the Reignited project could be at its best. I am so proud of this book, and I feel confident that it's gone from one of the two weakest in the series to one that can proudly stand among its siblings.

    That said, the addition of nearly fifty thousand words was the equivalent of adding a whole Book I's worth of content, and coupled with trying my best to keep up the timelines on Book XIII too, it's taken a lot out of me. Reigniting a chapter is a more intensive effort than whole-cloth new chapters; for every word that the final wordcount change reflects, it's a change of 10 words by the time you figure deletions and rearranging things. Every plot twist has to be meticulously researched to ensure it doesn't break established future canon. Every description has to be checked to make sure the table that was pine in book IV isn't cherry in book II. It's a lot of mental gymnastics to write, in the same evening, the same characters three years apart in the same timeline without creating any butterfly effects.

    Reignited is an amazing project, and I'm glad to be doing it, but it's exhausting, and at the end of the day, I don't really feel much like I've got a lot of new storytelling to show for it; just, telling the same story better. Book II was a hell of a lot of work, but Book III was the only weaker book in the original series. It will likely double, if not triple, in wordcount, and that's an undertaking I don't feel mentally ready for.

    So, I'm going to take a little break. Not huge - we're not going on hiatus or anything! I'm giving myself a couple of weeks to recharge, catch up on sleep, take a mental health day or three, and try to build up a little bit of backlog for both book XIII and Book III of Reignited.

    The Reignited Edition of Phoenix Ignited Book III, "Flames", launches on Tuesday, February 18, 2025.

    Of course, if you can't wait, you're welcome to continue on starting with book III of the original Phoenix Saga. Look for book XIII chapters to continue to drop on Mondays in the interim. And, of course, if you want to discuss all things Phoenix, and hang out with an amazing crew of nearly 200 Firebirds, you're welcome to join us in the Storytellers' Speakeasy, my official fan Discord.

    See you in a few weeks!
     
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