Hi again. This is long overdue, but I might as well. Unfortunately, this one won't be as detailed as the first one, but I'll try make something worth reading. Also, I don't remember much of my first one, so should I repeat things unnecessarily, just ignore it.

The second sentence of this chapter begins with "Highwaymen of Yusagovia...", but we've established that they're the topic of interest in the first sentence, so I guess a simple 'They' would have sufficed.

..."A young woman in a dark green dress, sitting opposite her had an upturned lip."...This reads awkwardly. I suggest either putting a common after "opposite her" or ditch the comma idea. The former one is better for 'categorising'.

..."“Sit still, and give me all of your possessions,” the highway man said..."...Consistency is nice. You've so far made 'highwayman' one word, so you should stick with it. Not to mention that I think it is one word, not two.

Up to this point, I think you might be trying to cram too much information into one sentence. Excuse my bluntness, but while there's no harm in trying, your sentences don't flow as elegantly as they should - although it could be just me, sometimes, I find myself having to go back to read the sentence again in order to make sense of it. This is especially so in your longer sentences (which is a rather redundant piece of information). I guess that might come with practice, though, but just a point to make.

In the paragraph beginning with, "The highwayman pointed his pistol...", the word 'pistol' appears too many times, & at rather noticeable points. Also, again, there are a few too many ideas in one sentence, Better comma usage might help the situation though, so you don't really have to rephrase everything. & while you have huge ideas in the middle (in this case, it's "passengers too focused on the pistol"), it detracts readers from the main point of the sentence because it got broken up by a big slab.

In the next paragraph, the word 'fight' appears too much in the span of only a few sentences.

"Renatta though, continued to watch the scene unfold with all of her attention."...A comma before 'though'.

"...deliver her into the hands of a servant that was to meet her at the station."

...'That' is for objects, & 'who' is for humans. In this sentence, it should be '...a servant who...' etc.

In your following parts, especially your dialogue, there are many commas which, if added, will improve the flow of your story. But that's for you to see...

"...and eight rooms more out of the mansions three hundred."...A missing apostrophe there.

There are lots of details in your story, ones that seem to be relevant but unnecessary. Does telling us all this information really add to the story? In general, if it doesn't add to the story, it mightn't be a bad idea to destroy it. Unless, of course, it is significant at some later time. But right now it seems like some kind of plot dump or pointless imagery.

You use the word 'unseemly' way too much. Even if it is a character speaking, it gets to the point of annoying when it is emphasised every few sentences.

So from what you've wrote so far, I'm assuming that Paul knows Nikita from childhood & Renatta knows that, even though she doesn't know Nikita. Paul is a family friend of some sort & grew up with Renatta & they have some sort of relationship between them?

That was a nice ending sentence for the chapter though. I give you that ]

Posting a short note to say that I received your beta request. Will be back in one to two weeks to see what I can do to help

-Mark

Hi! This is your sample review.

..."She knew that it would work, no thimble of doubt floated around in her expansive mind."...Both 'parts' (I believe they're called 'clauses'?) of the sentence - by that, I mean: "She...work" and "no...mind" - can stand alone as complete sentences. Therefore, the comma should be a semicolon (I use dashes out of habit, but people tend to prefer the semicolon).

..."The alarm was blazing so loudly that she initially had trouble reassembling her thoughts, but she had always adjusted well to the sudden sound of the alarm and in her ears it quickly became akin to the tick tock of a clock in the background."...Repetition of 'alarm' is a bit awkward - consider just mentioning the sound. Also, the way you say it makes it sound as if she's been there many times and it always sounds. 'Tick tock' doesn't seem to fit the rather serious tone of the story, so maybe consider 'ticking'?

..."Even the spinning orange lights hadn’t caused her pause and that had been the case for such a long time, that she couldn’t even recall when she had first ceased to notice them."...I get the basic idea of the sentence, but it's a little longwinded and confusing. I suggest that you rephrase it, and split it up into multiple sentences if need be.

..."...only of monitors, panels covered with keys, and glass, all made of plastic and metal, all gray..."...Too many commas here - it makes your sentence sound choppy. As a general rule, it's probably good to have no more than three or four (if you must) commas in a sentence, but here, the breaks are especially pronounced because they're so close together.

Light comes from your alarm, but an alarm usually refers to a sound...unless you're trying to say that the alarm has both the sound & the light components? But that's not really intuitive.

..."She typed in the codes quickly, remembering them easily..."...I can't exactly pinpoint what is wrong with this part, but all I can say is that it sounds a little awkward. Perhaps it's the positioning of the two adverbs in the same place in their respective parts.

..."There were shouts outside the heavily reinforced metal door, as guards struggled to get it open..."...It sounds smoother without the comma, and I don't think there's a problem with removing them.

..."If there was one thing the evil monster was, that was paranoid."...I believe you mean 'paranoia' - it's the noun form of paranoid. The same goes for the next sentence. 'Overly careful' is also not a noun, so if you're trying to say it's a monster, you're going to have to change it into a noun.

And who is this 'He'? 'He' randomly got introduced and it's somewhat annoying not having a more solid idea. Unless, of course, the story revolves around the mystery of 'He' in which case I can't say anything.

..."Making being an employee in the Time Travel Division a hassle..."...I can't really explain why, but for the sentence to sound complete, you need to change it to something along the lines of, "This made being an employee in the Time Travel Division a hassle..."

..."This was important, breaking into the Research Center meant that everything she, her family, her friends, and all the people she loved had worked so hard for—mainly staying alive and ready to fight when the long awaited advantage came—could all be for naught."...Again, both parts of the sentence ("This was important", "breaking...naught") can be complete sentences independent of each other, so the comma should be a semicolon. Also, for sentences like this where you're trying to say something important, it's best to keep it short so that its impact is more immediate - otherwise, the reader may spend too long reading/pondering the meaning of the sentence. The little inserted bit ('mainly staying alive...came') also lessened the impact of the sentence. It's good for showing people how desperate they are, but doing this introduced a new idea before what you've said what you're trying to say (the main idea of the sentence). This distracts people from the main idea and therefore makes it seem less important.

There are some similar errors scattered throughout that I won't pick on here.

"Anyways" is a bit informal and I suggest you use 'anyway'.

You should watch out for long sentences in your writing. They can be good, but sometimes they run on. Usually, this is because you're trying to cram too much information into one sentence, and a good way to remedy it is to rephrase it & split it up into the number of sentences you need. It would also reduce the problem with comma overuse.

I think you should especially watch out for one thing you seem to like to do, which is along the lines of, "This is half, but this is the second idea which you want to add to this sentence, of the first idea." It can work well, but it can also be disruptive. As an extension of this, maybe you can try to vary your sentence structure more to further create interest in your writing.

And the mysterious 'He' resurfaces again. When you first changed the pronoun I thought that you made a typo and it was meant to be 'she', except then I realised that couldn't have been the case when you wrote them both into a sentence. So this is a mysterious figure who's been watching her all the time, knowing she'll thwart him, & is perfectly fine with it? I guess that's not what I'm that concerned about because you can easily explain it later or add a twist, but note that not defining him can be a little confusing and annoying.

So basically what happens is that she trains, and then sneaks into some high-security place and cracks their codes so she can use their prototype time machine. I'm guessing she'd be pretty desperate if she's willing to trust a prototype.

Overall, your story so far is good in terms of content. It's a sufficient introduction into the rest of the story, and I guess there was a fair bit of suspense when she was trying to work out the controls. Of course, I could delve into details like where she got her training & how she had all the equipment needed, but I'll not be too mean for now. I think the best part of it for me was the ending, where I finally got some idea of what was going on, and some sort of conclusion to the confusing beginning.

I'm guessing you put it into italics because it's a flashback. Although some books do it, & italics are indeed used for flashbacks & other things separate from the plot, I think that as a piece of online publication and standing alone in a chapter, you can just have it formatted normally. It will also be less annoying and increase readability and reader-friendliness.

The pace is a bit slow for my liking, but I'm guessing that it's necessary for this part, when you're trying to show her working with the machines. The narrator's voice...well, the storytelling sounds a little passive and news reporter-like, with some extra information thrown in. I don't know exactly why, but I'm supposing that it's somehow linked to your sentence structures and the way you present your ideas. As for other aspects like characterisation, setting, and an overall feel for the story, I don't have much to say (for obvious reasons). What I'm most interested in now is her background (or rather, the background of her people & why they're so desperate), her way of rectifying it, & her reasoning behind it. And I'm rather keen to meet her character too.

Out of interest, did her training ever consist of what she'll actually do when she's time travelled? She'll obviously be different to everyone else, so have they taken that into account, or are they just hoping that she'll adjust in time?

That's all I can really think of for now.

Have a nice day.

WOW!At first this story was a bit confusing cause of the compilcated science talk and trying to imagine the torus and how it worked...but WOW! THIS STORY IS SO AMAZING! I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE ONE OF THOSE CRAPPY LOVE THINGS BUT IT WASN'T, AND IT HAD THE CORRECT INFORMATION AND EVERYTHING! GAH I'M IN LOVE!

I Like, I Lust, I Love!Please Update Soon!