(Inspired by Heart of Artemis hitting three tips in a row involving the Knives and Malta. Since Heart is, by background, a rebel Knife and an avatar of Artemis herself, this seemed the tips to go vigilante on.)

Sister
Jocasta heard the explosions and knew that the hero was coming for
her.

This
was good; she’d have hated to have gone to all that trouble to get
word of her defection out and not have her show up. She and Sister
Phoebe had gone around and around so long over control of the Knives
of Artemis, Jocasta had honestly forgotten what their original
disagreement had been about. Finally, though, after several years of
plotting and maneuvering, using missions against each other to curry
influence with the other sisters, and working to influence the Malta
Group towards one or the other of them, Phoebe had gotten the upper
hand. Jocasta ruefully reflected that she probably shouldn’t have
gone on that trip to Turkey, but the opportunity to tour the replica
of the Temple of Artemis in Istanbul had been too good to miss.
Unfortunately, it gave Phoebe the chance to finally corner her. (On reflection, it was probably Phoebe who had arranged the trip.) And
now she had to flee, to take advantage of the so-called justice of
Paragon City and its heroes, before her sisters meted out the only
punishment the Knives of Artemis held for fallen members.

Fortunately,
there was an easy escape. Sister Regina had long been a thorn in the
sisterhood’s side. The only member to successfully escape that Jocasta knew of personally, she had
fought crime in Paragon City, including the sisterhood and the rest
of the Malta Group,  since she had suffered a crisis
of faith and fled from the Knives. Jocasta had realized shortly after
Regina had started calling herself the “Heart of Artemis” that
she would be a perfect scapegoat for future plans. Should there ever
be a time that the sisterhood, or even just Jocasta, needed a hero to
do their work, they could influence Regina into doing
their bidding, calling on old alliances and blackmail to force her
back into the fold. Jocasta didn’t doubt that Phoebe had the same
plan, in case she had gotten the upper hand, but in this case Jocasta
had acted first.

Now,
all she had to do is hold out against her sisters until Regina showed
up, fought her way through the Knives, and arrested her. Then she
could give herself up, give the easily influenced authorities of the
Patriarchy their tidbits of information, accept their Witness
Protection, and disappear into the populace to plot a new way to take
control back from Phoebe. It was just a matter of staying out of view
of the other Knives until the moment came. She crouched between the
computers, her camouweave suit keeping her hidden in the shadows as
her sisters searched for her.

Further
explosions came from elsewhere in the base. Jocasta could hear shouts
of other Knives as they fell before the onslaught. She wasn’t
surprised; Regina had been one of their best, trained in all the arts
that the Knives used, from archery to assassination. She had recently
been seen wearing something less utilitarian than the uniform that
she had left the sisterhood in, a toga and armor in Classical Roman
style. Jocasta found the change puzzling; as the Heart of Artemis,
Regina had chosen another uniform, made of modern ballistic weaves
and suitable for combat, to distance herself from the sisterhood. To
change again, and to something that left her vulnerable, seemed out
of character for Regina, who was always a pragmatic and professional
student. Still, Jocasta was not going to give it much thought. She
wasn’t interested in fighting Regina, this time.

There
was a cry from down the hall. The Knives searching the area turned
toward it, and she saw something fly into the group. The canister
grenade bounced once, then a cloud of smoke billowed out. Standard
smoke grenade, Jocasta thought, but then she looked again. The smoke
seemed darker, thicker, and the Knives were blinded, even with the
goggles that every sister wore. One of the Knives cried out and
fell, an arrow transfixing her torso. The others turned, firing their
wrist crossbows, and a barrage of arrows felled them in rapid
succession. As the smoke began to dissipate, Sister Jocasta could see
a figure, distorted by a camouflage effect similar to her own
camouweave, walking into the room. She smiled; the Heart of Artemis
had arrived, just as expected. She stepped out, deactivating her
camouweave. "Excellent. I see you got my offer. Get me out of
here and I will tell you everything."

The
Heart of Artemis nocked an arrow and shot Sister Jocasta in the
chest. The impact almost drove the elder Knife off her feet, and only
the ballistic weave kept it from piercing her lung. Gasping for pain,
she staggered back. "What are you doing?!"

"Punishment,
Jocasta," said the Heart of Artemis. "Punishment and vengeance
for lives taken and lies spoken!"

Jocasta
realized that she had misjudged Regina. Far from interested in taking
her to the authorities, the rebel sister had come to kill her. "So
be it," she said, raising her wrist crossbow and firing a
poisoned dart. The toxin on it was the product of years of research,
capable of rendering even the most durable hero unconscious within
seconds. She saw the arrow hit Regina in the leg, where her armor did not protect her. A few seconds and she would be helpless,
and Jocasta would finish her off and turn herself over to the Atlas
City Police. Detective Brogan would be happy to put her in protective
custody with the information that she had. She advanced on Regina,
her hand going back over her shoulder for her blade.

The
Heart of Artemis reached for another arrow and shot her again.

Stunned,
Jocasta felt the second arrow tear into her. Impossible! Regina
should be helpless. "How?!" she screamed. "How can you
still be on your feet?!"

"You
are asking the wrong question, Jocasta," said the Heart of
Artemis. "You should be asking how long did you think you could
go on blaspheming."

Jocasta
realized that the wavering outline that indicated Regina's location
was not because of a camouweave. The rippling effect was more like a
heat mirage, or the air around an open flame, and nothing like the
technological marvel that was a Knife of Artemis' cloaking device. She realized that no smoke grenade could billow smoke that dark, that dissipated so quickly, as if on command of its wielder. As
Regina approached, she saw, through the cloak, the other woman's
eyes. They were hard and without mercy, and they glowed with a light
that came from no science or technology that the Malta Group could
provide. Behind those eyes, she saw another visage, overlapping
Regina's. A face, ancient and immortally young, with the eyes
of a predator on a nocturnal hunt. A face carved in marble in the
wall of the temple in Istanbul. "Artemis...," she breathed,
realizing who had come for her.

The
Heart of Artemis spoke no more as she took a third arrow and shot
Sister Jocasta through the throat. ","
she said, in the voice of the Goddess, "" Then, without another word, she turned and left.

Gina
Pryde came to herself on a rooftop, overlooking a group of Longbow
agents and Atlas Park police securing the Knives' base. She watched
the ambulances take away the few women who she had not killed, and
watched the coroners cart out the body bags containing the ones she
had. The Goddess was satisfied with this, she felt, but she knew that
Artemis was no longer just content with protecting the people of
Cimerora. She had brought her hunt to Paragon.
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

Not sure if this belongs here, should be temporarily sticky-ed, or cross-posted in General... but:
Announcing: Third Annual Real World Hero Charity Drive! Details here
It runs from Nov 18 right through to the end of the year, including a charity auction ending on Nov 27.
Charities to benefit include:

• Operation Gratitude
  
• Donate Games
  
• Child's Play
  
• Heifer International
  

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=277012

Okay.  Take the weekend of Hurricane Irene, and replay it 50 degrees F colder.
That's the last few days. 
And just like the first time around, lots of power outages, broken trees, and I drove into work on Monday morning to find that we don't have power and that I should go home.
It would be funny except the storm's destruction is far worse this time around, particularly north of route 287.  Two places on my route to work the road was forced into a single lane by hanging, broken branches.  At one point I had to detour around a pair of trees that had fallen across the road and still hadn't been removed.  At another I had to drive under half of a telephone pole leaning out over the road and supported only by its wires.  From Bedminster on north, it looks like someone dropped a bomb on the place, then hosed it down with ice and snow.
So anyway, I drove back and ended up spending the day at home doing laundry and sleeping... and I have just realized that Halloween is all but cancelled, if not officially then practically, in our area because of the storm's after effects.  In past years, 5 PM has been the beginning of the peak TOTing period.  Today?  One kid, about 20 minutes ago.
Good thing we only buy candy we like.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Moved so it doesn't interfere with the flow of that story. This happens at least six months after http://drunkardswalkforums.yuku.com/topic/8517]The Gauntlet, and only if Mal lets magic loose in the world.

“Wannabe”

"Well," Alec observed, "I can definitely tell you one thing about the victim."

"And that is?"

Alec straightened, rising slowly to his feet. He did so extremely carefully, with the slow and deliberate manner of a man aware that the surrounding floor and furniture were liberally coated in substances typically found within the human body.

"He's definitely dead," Alec said, thoughtfully.

Leon did not look amused. Not in the slightest. "I think," the policeman said, glaring at his costumed colleague, "I somehow knew that without your expert opinion."

"Oh," Alec mused, "did you? Yeah, I guess you would be professionally qualified to identify dead people. But you know, I've always figured eyeballing a dead guy really should be more of an art than a science."

"Look, Kazam," Leon said, suppressing the urge to sigh, "if you're not going to be helpful, I can go to MAGI and find a mystic who will. Preferably one who doesn’t think he’s a comedian."

"Wait, wait,” Alec interjected, holding his gloved hands up in a placating manner, ‘I'm not trying to be funny. Well, not more than I usually am, anyway. I meant he’s dead. As opposed to, I don’t know, undead. Hell, I can tell you for sure that’s an actual genuine one-hundred-percent dead guy, not a really good homunculus or something.”

“That’s surprisingly insightful,” Leon admitted, grudgingly. “Fine, sorry. I guess you are taking this seriously.”

The two men spent a long moment in silence, staring at the scene. The room would have been a reasonably pleasant living space, if it wasn’t for the bloody corpse on the sofa. The fact that the apartment’s former resident had suffered copious stab wounds and severe mutilation put a significant dampener on things.

“Wait til you get my bill. I charge extra for seriousness. Or I would, if I actually charged anything,” Alec said, finally.

“You’re a kind and generous soul,” the policeman retorted.

“I try,” Alec shot back, “I try. It’s part of my eternal pledge of service to the community.”

As he spoke, the magician made a few more motions with his fingers, tracing imaginary lines through the air. Combined with the borrowed sunglasses perched on his face, the groping gestures made him look like a politically incorrect caricature of a visually impaired person. Or failing that, a drunken tourist after too many cocktails. The fact he was wearing a small domino mask beneath the sunglasses didn’t help the image.

Then Alec stopped, frozen in mid-gesture.

Leon frowned too, because he’d been around costumed heroes enough to know that sort of thing was rarely a good sign. Cop instincts meant his hand twitched fractionally towards his holstered sidearm, before he forced himself to be calm. “Problem?”

“Maybe,” Alec said, slowly, a frown on his face, “maybe not. Might have to revise that dead verdict. I mean, our victim isn’t moving right now, but the murder weapon was zombies.”

“Zombies,” Leon repeated, in a low tone.

“Right, zombies,” Alec said, “well, I mean, strictly speaking the murder weapon per-se was the dagger over there. And there. And there.”

The magician pointed at the ritual blades littering the apartment, most still stained with blood.

“Probably the ones Pandora’s Box had on clearance back in August,” Alec continued, “I didn’t go down myself, but the tammyarcanus.org forums have review threads for athames, and...”

This time, Leon did actually give a sigh. He knew it wasn’t very professional of him, not the sort of thing a fine upstanding police officer should do. But he couldn’t help it. He could feel his blood pressure climbing in a way that would disappoint his girlfriend. And she was already on his case to cut down on the burgers and eat more fish. “Kazam?”

The magician paused. “Yeah?”

“Focus,” Leon hissed, “please?”

“Right, sorry,” Alec said, though he didn’t sound all that apologetic, “just trying to give some context. You have to realise, you’re not usually supposed to stab people with these things. They’re ceremonial. Consecrated tools, not weapons. Unless you’re really really angry, anyway. But yeah, zombies. Here, see...”

With a swift gesture, Alec lifted the sunglasses from his eyes, spun the frames around, and then placed them on Leon before the detective even registered the mystic hero had invaded his personal space.

Leon scowled, and yanked the glasses off. “Kazam, what the hell?”

“Huh...I could have sworn you had the codec for aura viewing,” the magician muttered, “uh, well, nevermind. Not important. I’ll probably have to stream it to a monitor or something for evidence later, anyway. Though an active scry would probably be better, I guess. Just take my word for it. There were dead people in here. Besides our victim, I mean.”

“So you’re saying,” Leon asked, as he pocketed the sunglasses. They were his to begin with, but considering what he’d just seen, he no longer felt comfortable wearing them. The costumed mage had done...something...to the lenses. “The killers were zombies?”

“No. More like murder weapon part deux was zombies,” Alec explained, folding the glasses and slipping them into a coat pocket,  “I’m pretty sure someone was controlling the undead that broke in here. Remotely. Though, you know, with necromancers? A lot of them are kind of zombies themselves. Kind of comes with the territory. That territory being a grave, mostly.”

“Fine, whatever,” Leon pressed, “but they’re gone? If we send the forensics guys in here, they’re not going to be jumped by zombies hiding in the central heating or garbage chute?”

“Pretty sure they’re long gone, yeah. I can try to track them, but...yeah. Anyway, a zombie wouldn’t fit in the radiator pipes. Or even the trash thing. Unless this is a very strange building, or they’re very small zombies,” Alec said, “but downsizing isn’t that bad yet, even in this economy.”

“Okay. And our victim isn’t going to suddenly get up and lurch at us?”

“I...can’t say for certain,” Alec said, after a second, “but, uh, probably not? You said this was the third one, right? Third one this week? The other victims didn’t go zombie, did they?”

Leon scratched his head. “The guys at the morgue haven’t called to complain.”

“Not yet, anyway,” Alec pointed out.

Leon stared. “Are you trying to tempt Murphy, Kazam?”

“I wear a costume and do magic,” Alec replied, “I tempt Murphy just by breathing.”

“So did that guy,” Leon said, “and look where it got him.”

“Yeah,” Alec said, quietly. He glanced round the living room. Beneath the blood and other fluids, most of the space in the apartment was occupied by professional paraphernalia. There was even a box large enough to fit a person sitting in one corner, the sort with hinged doors and slots to insert swords.

Near the broken television, which had likely been knocked over in the violence, a big framed picture hung on the wall. It was a theatrical poster of the hand-painted style, depicting a man just barely recognisable as the apartment’s owner. The resemblance wasn’t that close, partially because the man was obviously a lot younger in the promotional image, but mostly because the face on the poster hadn’t been savaged repeatedly with a knife. The man in the picture wore a top hat and tuxedo with tails, a traditional stage magician’s costume.

“I’m trying not to think about that,” Alec admitted.

* * *

A/N: Alec Kazam is my main from Champions Online, currently on Virtue as a Time Manip Corruptor. Leon McNichols is Spud's character, the PPD officer originally of Bubblegum Crisis extraction. This was planned for Halloween, but it's increasingly clear I won't have it done for full posting by then, so I'll be releasing brief chunks before and after the 31st.
-- Acyl

A little something for your Hallowe'en reading enjoyment: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/200 ... in-f.shtml]The Great Old Pumpkin, by John Aegard

Any more seasonally-appropriate stories out there?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

http://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewWKVEV ... ccfbPQNMbg

Like I say, I don't know what this song might do for Doug, but it's just plain too much toe-tapping fun to listen to for it to do nothing. Emotion Control: Elation maybe? Judging by the three songs and handful of interview-style clips uploaded on his YouTube/VEVO account (which is why I linked that way instead of embedding) he embodies what I consider to be the best spirit of 80s hard rock; that nothing is better than having a good time and making a loud noise about how good a time you're having.

- CD, is too boring to party hard by most standards but likes what he does when he does what he likes
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

... I call it "Wardrobe Malfunction", because you'd think this sort of thing would have been guarded against.

http://xkcd.com/969/]%[link=http://xkcd.com/969/]http://xkcd.com/969/]

(Fridge Logic: Wouldn't the differential negate most of this, though?)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/26 ... _backdoor/]Tsunami Trojan: First Mac attack based on Linux crack

The virus itself is run-of-the-mill; I'm pointing this out for the fact that it's proof there's viruses out there for any current O/S.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012