Ponponpon
http://www.youtube.com/v/yzC4hFK5P3g&sh ... oplay=0&ap
Wand of Wonderfrom D&D/Something differenteverytime this song is played?
--------------------
Tom Mathews aka Disruptor

Rome, like Carthage, was a girl.  Roma.
I figure that Romulus is something like a male diminutive of Roma.
Caligula means little soldier's boot, and Dracula means little dragon.  (Caliga was the hobnailed sandal that the Miles wore.)  Regulus actually means little king.  (rex, regis)  (Ooh.  Little King's Story and the story of Regulus.  Look at the game on the LP Archive.  Whereas, Regulus got rolled down a hill in a spike lined barrel.)
I've a theory that Janus used to be the chief deity and war deity of the Romans.  That Romulus was added to the history prior to Numa when they altered their pantheon to put Mars (a.k.a. Mavors) in that positon.  Highly highly speculative.  (I mean, it first requires assuming that Mars had the position at some point, and it was then handed to Jove due to contact with the Greeks so that the Romans could do the 'your deities are our deities' thing that they liked to do.  They said that Odin was a form of Mercury.)
Or maybe it was a backstory they concocted for Quirinus.  (Twelve Kingdoms and Campione!  Somebody's Kirin kills Quirinus while traveling in another world.)
(As an aside, Remus in Guin saga has a very unfortunate name.  I also seem to recall hearing that Rind was the name of a princess Odin was supposed to have raped.)
Alucard with his usual powerset alone, sitting in the shadow world, might well be able to compensate for no friendly wild cards and an ineffective investigation by turning the virgin victims and attacking the problem from the other side.  I don't have a compelling reason why he would.

The Sorting Hat's song this year seemed normal enough at first --
a dozen verses or so telling the story of the founding of
Hogwarts, another dozen describing the Founders themselves and
what they looked for in students, a bit more about the Houses.
And then it got ... different.
"Oh, know the perils, read the signs," the Hat sang as it drew to
a close.
     "The warning history shows,
      For our Hogwarts is in danger
      From external, deadly foes.
      Beyond them far, though, can be found
      Both hope and allies great
      And ordered chaos comes to change
      What might have been our fate
      Though strong and wise, such friends as these
      Who're called on in the night
      Cannot alone stand forth and hold
      Our Hogwarts in the light
      Attend their words and learn them well
      And by their side then stand
      The music of the madness then
      Puts power in your hand
      Unite with them for Hogwarts' sake
      Or we'll crumble from within
      I have told you, I have warned you...
      Let the Sorting now begin."
The Sorting Hat then went still.  The Hall burst into applause
leavened with whispers and muttered discussions about the Hat's
strange warning.
Her heart pounding a mile a minute, Hermione looked down the
Gryffindor table to find Ginny looking back up at her with wide,
surprised eyes that Hermione was sure matched her own expression.
As Ron turned to Harry and said, "Branched out a bit this year,
hasn't it?", Hermione slowly mouthed "friends who're called on in
the night" to the younger girl.  Biting her lip, Ginny slowly
nodded.
"Too right it has," Harry replied as she and Ginny continued to
stare at each other, the same thought running through their
heads:  had their midnight ritual all those weeks ago been more
successful than they had thought?
"Tonight," Hermione mouthed, and Ginny nodded again.
                              * * *
I managed to suppress my start of surprise when the Sorting Hat
sang out the line about "the music of the madness".  Although I
spell my codename "Toons" instead of "Tunes" to avoid trademark
issues with Warner Brothers, it's pretty obvious what my intent
was and is.  Further, the translation that the Japanese of my
Earth use instead of lowering themselves to speak English --
*Kyoki no Kyoku* -- doesn't beat around the bush:  it literally
back-translates into "Tunes of Madness". 
(I suppose it should go without saying that the very rigid and
orderly, not to mention xenophobic, Japanese of my home timeline
find my metatalent frighteningly and disturbingly chaotic, almost
borderline demonic -- the antithesis of everything they believe
about the way the world works.  Which was one reason that even as
a rookie I was never assigned to Beta Team in Tokyo.
The other being that Hexe and Dwimanor didn't want their brand-
new loose cannon that far out of their sight.)
Anyway, if there was one thing I was intending on doing with my
classes, it was putting as much power in my students' hands as I
could.
So the Hat was obviously -- well, obviously to me (and, no doubt,
Albus) -- referring to yours truly.  I suppose it might have
pulled the info it needed for the song from my mind while it was
sitting on my head.  As far as I could tell, though, it hadn't
attempted to breach the mental defenses which Psyche had
painstakingly drilled into my thick skull during my first few
months with the Warriors.  (And thanks to him, I've been able to
detect, and repel, some fairly subtle telepaths over the years.) 
So... was it prophecy?  Having been a houseguest of the Norns for
a year or so, I wasn't about to discount the possibility. 
And I have to admit I was curious about what "strong and wise"
friends had been called on in the night, and by whom.  Because it
certainly wasn't me, on either end of that equation.  And I
wanted to know if it was something that had happened already, or
something yet to come.
After all, if they were prophesied allies, I wanted to identify
and approach them as soon as I could.
 
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

A new set of knees

 

It was an interrogation room
plain and simple, and like I had seen on to many episodes of NCIS I sat there
and waited, my head resting on the metal table while I waited for the Special
Agent in charge to enter. Finally I heard the steps in the hallway, a door open
beyond the mirror, muffled voices, and then the door beyond the mirror closed.
More footsteps and I raised my head as the doorknob started to turn my ears
twitching with the sound. “So Lance Corporal Bostwick,” the Special Agent said
stepping into the interrogation room. “I have spoken with the other people you
brought back with you and our medical examiner is reviewing the Fen’s autopsy
of your friend. Why don’t you walk me through what happened that took you off
of our radar for two weeks solid.”

 

“Well,” I started, standing
up and allowing my tail to wag behind me. “The initial idea was to get the
ligaments in my knees replaced with bio-modded replacements. That way I could
come back to mother Corps,” At that the agent nodded, understanding that I had
protested and fought my discharge tooth and nail. “But then, things didn’t
happen the way I figured, and I ended up getting a good friend of mine killed
getting us all out of a bad situation.”

 

“That matches what we know of
the time between your discharge and your disappearance, how about what happened
when you woke after your “surgery”” the agent prompted.

 

I woke up one morning to find
myself in a cage, to say that it was a little disconcerting would be putting it
mildly. The taste I found residing in my mouth that morning was worse however,
as was the pounding headache that resounded in my skull. Squinting I looked
around the room the cage was in and figured it had to either be a warehouse or
a cargo hold of some  kind, otherwise you
just didn’t get the kind of room to stash four dozen chain link cages with room
to walk around blocks of four of the eight by eight cells. This wasn’t supposed
to be the way things worked, and if this was post op, me and that surgeon were
going to have a few words about his medical license. Then the lights came up
and I could really see, of course that was after they stopped stinging and
adjusted to the new brightness of florescent light.

 

Two men carrying MP5’s
pistols and combat knives walked in one of them yelling in an almost unintelligible
brogue. “Alright you beasties, on your feet and no funny business or we blow
your heads off.” It was at this point I noticed the collar around my neck and
around the necks of the others in the cages, shape charge wed-locks.

 

“Well frag me with a fish
fork.” I muttered as I stood up. The other thing I had noticed was the fur that
surrounded me. Oh I don’t mean my just my companions, I had to include myself
in that. We were about half and half catgirls and wolfmen. Ok, maybe not
wolves, but definitely canids, I swear one guy had ears like a basset hound,
and considering I did not have an impressive set of female assets, well, I
figured for the time that I must be one of the latter.

 

Once we were all standing one
of the guards walked just around the corner and hit a button causing the doors
on all the cages to open up. “Alright, everyone out of the cages and line up in
the doorway” the one with the brogue yelled and as I started forward I heard a
quiet little snick as a lock released. I was one of the first ones to step out
of the cages and as my feet hit the rock beneath them I attacked.

 

I wish I could say it was
something graceful and serene like what you would watch on a kung fu movie, but
it wasn’t. It was short, brutal and bloody. “Take them!” I called as I surged
toward the one with the brogue, the collar falling to the floor behind me. I
could tell that my body wouldn’t respond for the hand to hand combat that I had
spent so many years training in, the bones in my hands couldn’t be strong
enough I figured, so I put my shoulder into his diaphragm and drew his combat
knife to finish the job while he was doubled over.

 

The brogue finished by my
cutting his throat, I drew the pistol at his side as well and turned to handle
the other guard if he hadn’t been already. “Took you long enough, James.” I
heard a catgirl say as she lowered the other one to the ground dead with a
broken neck.

 

“Lawless?” I asked,
recognizing the voice.

 

“Let’s blow this joint.” She
responded grabbing the guard’s sub machine gun.

 

“So you fought your way out?”
the agent said sitting in the chair opposite me at the table.

 

“Yes,” I answered a hint of
dryness in my voice.

 

“And that’s when Sergeant
Lawler took the hit?”

 

“Yes,” I replied just as
dryly.

 

“Tell me about it?” he asked.

 

We had found their vehicle
park, a few different cars that were low-slung and fast just sitting there, and
an old Volvo prison bus that was obviously meant for moving their victims when
it happened, shots ringing out from behind us and the answering staccato of a
controlled sub machine gun burst. “Everyone on the bus,” I yelled at the civs
grabbing all the keys off the peg board next to the door. As the civs started
loading I heard the chatter of gunfire behind us and ran back after Lawler. She
had gotten all the victims clear of the hallway just as the bad guys came
around a corner and just opened fire at us.

 

“How did she take the round?”
the agent asked.

 

“By being stupid brave and
leaning around our corner a little too far, allowing one of them to get a clean
shot on her.” At this point I shook my head. “Lean hades, she practically
stepped out into the hallway and sprayed it down before we retreated to the
bus. One of them must have been faster than the rest though because as she was
following me onto the bus, me sliding into the driver’s seat, she pitched
forward, shot in the back by one of the bastada. A which point I closed the
door, hit the gas and shoved the bus into gear, building enough speed to crash
through their garage door airlock and probably depressurize the hole bloody
place.”

 

“And you got here on the
bus?” the agent asked, I just nodded in response. “Describe to me what happened
when you got close to Earth.” I started out just giving him the eye, an eye
that had made privates and PFC’s run for cover and hide, after a moment though
I continued the story.

 

“Well to begin with they
obviously hadn’t had time to fuel the bloody thing, cause it only had a quarter
tank when we crashed the gate. Thankfully one of the cat girls was an astronomy
student and I knew that the best way for us to spot anything was to get out of
the plane of the elliptic. So a short trip up and then after putting us on a
course that we figured would intersect Earth, we would shut down the engine and
drift ballistically until the air got soupy before starting the engine again.
That thankfully stretched the fuel, and between that and the solar gravity well
we were able to get near Earth, the fun part started then.”

“Any station on this net this
is Volvo alpha four three charlie, we are bingo fuel and declaring mayday,
please respond.” James called for the third time into the radio.

 

This time he got a response,
"Four three Charlie, this is Korolev tower, what is your position?"

 

“Korelov, four three,” James
responded. “Position unknown, I can see earth and the moon; we're coming in
from out system and above the eliptic. We are ballistic with I think a good
chance of hitting earths gravity well, and we wont survive if we do.”

 

"Understood, Four Three
Charlie. We will dispatch a tug to your location; switch your main transponder
to seven-four-one megahertz and stand by; we'll home in on that signal."

 

“Korelov, I don’t think this
thing has a transponder,” James answered, “we just broke out of a reaver
holding facility and hotwired the first transport that could handle the forty
of us.

 

"('Well, this is going
to be fucking fun.' 'Sshh!') ... All right, Four Three Charlie, set your radio
to channel ten and hit the squawk button as hard as you can. We're waking up
rescue at Kirby, Port Luna and the Watchtower. Hang tight, Four Three Charlie,
we're coming to get you."

 

“I was born to hang Korelov; it’s
the others we're worried about, complying however." With that James
switched the channel on the waved CB and pushed the squawk button in the
standard, DIT DIT DIT, DASH DASH DASH signal pattern of an SOS.

 

Within twenty minutes someone
had pulled up and was towing them toward the moon, a base and for the 38 civs
that they had been able to get out of there, safety. “I swear Lawless,” James
said to the catgirl’s corpse beside him. “I swear, I’m gonna make it to where
they can’t do this to anyone ever again. I’m sure someone over here has a clue,
and if they don’t. I’m gonnna give them one.”

The Special agent nodded. "Alright Lance Corporal, everything else checks out, this should be considered more of a debrief than an interrogation so I wish you luck in your new life."
I shrugged, "Thank you special agent?"
"Gibbs," he answered leading me out of the room and into the main concourse of Stellvia Station. "Semper Fidelis marine." he finished shaking my hand and turning away.
"Ooh Rah gunny." I whispered and turned away. Now all i needed to do was find out who was in charge of fighting these "Boskones", and how to join. I figured the best place for that would be a bar, "Now where's a bar?" I asked myself outloud.

(Thoughts)
 

As whatever is wrong at PWI seems to be at the net.router level and is affecting at LEAST both CO and STO.
There are a good 60 pages full of tracert information on the sto forums about the problem so far. *wry grin*
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

"Sometimes it's better to rebuild from nothing but the cloths on your back."
This is still sort of rough and unfinished, but figured I'd share to show that I do actually write things.

Quote:-snip- see newest post for redux.

Something has changed within me

Something is not the same

I'm through with playing by the rules

Of someone else's game

Too late for second-guessing

Too late to go back to sleep

It's time to trust my instincts

Close my eyes and leap!

It's time to try

Defying gravity

I think I'll try

Defying gravity

Kiss me goodbye

I'm defying gravity

And you won't bring me down

I'm through accepting limits

'Cause someone says they're so

Some things I cannot change

But till I try, I'll never know!

Too long I've been afraid of

Losing love I guess I've lost

Well, if that's love

It comes at much too high a cost!

I'd sooner buy

Defying gravity

Kiss me goodbye

I'm defying gravity

I think I'll try

Defying gravity

And you won't bring me down

Unlimited (Unlimited)

My future is unlimited (unlimited)

And I've just had a vision

Almost like a prophecy

I know it sounds truly crazy

And true, the vision's hazy

But I swear, someday I'll be...

Flying so high! (Defying gravity)

Kiss me goodbye! (Defying gravity)

So if you care to find me

Look to the western sky!

As someone told me lately:

"Everyone deserves the chance to fly!"
And if I'm flying solo

At least I'm flying free

To those who'd ground me

Take a message back from me

It's time to fly

Defying gravity

I'm way up high

Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I'm defying gravity
And you won't bring me
You won't bring me
Down!
(Alternate final lyrics from the stage production:
Tell them how I am defying gravity

I'm flying high, defying gravity

And soon I'll match them in renown

And nobody in all of Oz

No Wizard that there is or was

Is ever gonna bring me down!
Bring me down!)
-- Wicked, "Defying Gravity"
(The performer in the video clip above, Kerry Ellis, was the understudy and successor to the original Elphaba, Idina Menzel, in the original London cast of Wicked.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Mal had no objections when I showed him this in IRC I'm still going to post it here for consideration.

Quote:{{shipbox
|shipname= Lunar Fox
|shipimage=
|caption=
|registry=
|hull= Custom - Based off the Systems Alliance Cruiser from Mass Effect
|length= Main 40 meters - Full 70 meters
|width= Main 6 meters - Full 32 meters
|height= Main 8 meters - Full 21 meters
|drivetype= x2 Plasma Spike Engines
|driverating= 0.05
|manufacturer= Volunteers, $Daneside Company, $Fen Company
|owner= Dakota
|flag= Kandor City
|port= Kandor City
|purpose= Houseboat, Workshop
|datelaunched= Late 2021
|crew= One to Six
|supcrew=
|faction= Supers
|weapons= 1x Spinal mounted Gauss cannon 10x pop-up 10mm point-defense.
|status='''Active'''
}}

Markings
White with black highlights.
Stylized winged silver fox overlaying the moon.
== Layout ==
Deck Layout
"Gun Deck" - Bow to Stern
Pool, Main Airlocks( with Companionways down), Loader(Port)-Ammo(starboard), Armory(port)-Workshop(starboard), Cargo, Air Hanger
Main Deck - Bow to Stern
Storage, Companionways to upper deck, Guest/crew quarters, Living Area (Mess-Lounge-Game room-First Aid), Bridge, Captain's Quarters, Ground Hanger
Overall internal styling, seamless blend of Ultra-modern Trekkie, Polished brass and wood. In a 'soft' utilitarian design.
The Pool Room has retractable shutters for the windows on the ceiling and walls. With a retractable cover for the pool itself. The pool itself is a odd design as the shallow 'end' is actually a round hump in the middle where the run for the gauss rifle passes through. Pool also doubles as a emergency heat sink for the ship.
The Bridge. A large wood and brass ship's wheel dominates the rear of the room with a holo ploting table forward of it.
== Auxillary Vehicles ==
Modified Federation Type-6 Shuttlecraft"Touch screens?, I had proper flight controls installed."
M12 LRV Warthog
== History ==
The Lunar Fox was a project started early 2018 by Dakota 'dane side. While it started quiet others where quickly pulled into it as he called in favors to help on different engineering challenges.
== Class Quirks ==
Swoosh! - The Lunar Fox's doors was designed with help from some Trekkie friends of his.
Always on Holiday - Oddly the ship doesn't seem to like being crewed by people in uniform.
Arrr! - Helm only responds if the pilot is wearing a pirate bandana.
== Trivia ==
Fenspace's Best-armed Houseboat.
==Notes==

{{Space Craft}}

This is indeed a Harry Potter fanfic.  It is, in no particular order:

A continuation, peggy sue, crossover, mega-crossover, fusion, alternate universe, original flavor, darkfic, crackfic.  Perhaps the only thing it won't be is a lemon.  Hmm, maybe . . . no.  No.

Oh, by the way, there may be spoilers.  Untagged spoilers at that.  Given the title, you may be able to guess one particular spoiler.

-Murmur

For some reason, I've had two posts get their formatting messed up.  Both times, there is a big empty space at the start of the message, and in the second one the first two lines got centered.  Anyone have any idea what is going on?
Post one
Post two
Edit:
Make this post number three.
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.