Quote:“You claimed that Harry Potter used a charm to tie Pettigrew up with magic,” Umbridge said. “Where did he learn this charm?” she giggled, a little tinkle of a sound that made Harry want to strangle her. “I do not believe that it is taught to second years.”

Don’t say anything rude, Ron, don’t do it, Harry prayed. He needn’t have feared.

“Oh,” Ron said. “Harry and I looked through my older brother Percy’s spell books.”

“Why?” she pressed. “Isn’t learning the required spells enough of a challenge?”

“Well,” Ron said. “We’re both pretty… pretty good at Defense Against the Dark Arts. And we wanted to learn more about them.”

“No other reason?” she asked. She sounded as though she did not believe him.

Ron’s ears turned bright red, and Harry squeezed his eyes shut. “Well…” he looked over at his mother. “My brothers… they like to have a laugh. We thought we’d… surprise them.”

Harry could see heads nodding in the crowd. He wondered if Fred and George knew that their reputation extended beyond Hogwarts. Despite the situation, Harry wanted to grin.

“Where did you practice these spells?”

“In the common room,” Ron said promptly. “Mostly when we knew that they were out flying or at dinner. It was over the holidays.”

“You practiced on each other?”

“Yeah,” Ron said slowly. Harry felt a sickening drop in his stomach, though he did not know why. What is going on here?

“Do you often allow Harry Potter to tie you up using magic?”

Quote:BAM!

BAMBAMBAM! CRACK!

The door to the Katsuragi apartment was kicked open. "What the hell?!" Misato shouted, already reaching for the nearby drawer where she kept her gun. Then, she remembered it was locked; for safety's sake considering there were teenagers in the place. "Crap." She reached to throw a plate at the intruders.

She put down the sukiyaki. "Okay, now what is this about?" There outside was Maya Ibuki, still in her NERV uniform. She was breathing heavily, but had a particularly determined expression.

"Oh, sorry for interrupting, Misato-sempai. We just have a new treatment plan." She gestured towards Shinji. "Seize him. Now."

Rei and Mana entered and forced the boy to the floor. Confused and curious, he did not offer any resistance. Until they handcuffed him with arms behind his back. "...hey!"

"What's going on?" Asuka asked.

"It occurred to me that we haven't exactly tried 'everything' in getting rid of whatever lingering stress or emotional insecurity he may have. Don't worry, we asked the meditation tutors over at the temple... it might work, it's a legitimate procedure." The boy's eyed widened with fear.

"So you mean..." Misato ventured.

Those up at the temple were were tantric Buddhists. "Yes. We haven't tried sex." Maya replied tonelessly. "Maybe even with multiple partners. Perhaps even simultaneously. And repeatedly."

"YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS!" Shinji and Asuka yelled together. "NO WAY, THAT'S INSANE!"

Rei took out a device. "Do not make me use this on you, pilot Ikari."

"Is... is that a ball gag?" gasped Asuka.

"Help." Shinji begged of his room-mates. Asuka considered how it was three-against-one, and found that such odds did not intimidate her at all. She began to rise from her seat.

"Hmm... bring her too." Maya said offhand, pointing to Asuka. The girl fell back on her chair and tumbled to the floor.

"Oh, no you don't! Stay away from me, you crazy deviants! MISATO! DO SOMETHING!"

Misato took another swig off her beer. Maya was acting too serious, too... overblown dramatic. Then, the younger woman winked playfully. Misato chuckled. Fine, she could play along. The boy was just taking everything all too seriously.

"Okay, just bring them back tomorrow. They've got classes." She touched her chin and made a thoughtful pose. "I don't suppose... no, a fivesome's enough for now. Go on, have fun."

Quote:Damn. Was he really that much of an asshole?
He pondered the question for a while.
Reluctantly, he concluded that he probably was.
Damn.
Ah, hell, what was he going to do about Sakura?
Two minds? That was just weird.
“So… Does it count as a threesome if the girl has two minds?” he wondered aloud.
Their steps faltered for a moment, and Sasuke shook his head. “Your ability to shrug off even the worst possible events with a joke never ceases to amaze me.” He didn’t sound all that amused.
Naruto shrugged helplessly, aware of that aspect of his personality. “You know that place they talk about when they say, ‘Yeah, I went there?’ That’s where I live.”
Sasuke glanced at him, frowning. “You know that place that the ANBU guy kicked me three times? That’s where my balls were. So shut up.”
Feeling even worse, Naruto shut up.

Quote: Yeah, Mecknights. I know it's a kiddy show, but I can't help it. The premise appeals to me. I may be an enchantment geek, but I actually prefer
outright fantasy over most magic fiction that gets put out these days. It's just… knowing as much as I do about how magical artifacts really work, I find
it harder to suspend disbelief when I see something which I know is really impossible on TV. Like, if the heroes are going to be riding around on a vehicle
that defies every natural law, I'm going to be much happier with some completely fantastic, utterly made-up explanation about "fuel-burning
motors" than a bunch of thaumobabble that somebody clearly strung together by taking random words from a high school text book.




... (a little while later)




"If that's the only way you can think of that we're different, you haven't been paying much attention," I said, gathering the
figures up and shoving them back in the case. "Anyway, I was almost done… I was actually going to go down and use the ball room. It wasn't open last
night… and… what?"

She was staring at me as if I'd suggested we strip naked and run through the pent. Well, actually, she was staring at me as if she were somebody other
than Puddy and I had suggested that.

Quote:"So... what do you think?" Max 'Daredevil' Beeching said. He'd flown

back seat on one of the armed Tornadoes that had been scrambled after

the 'ghost' plane.

"I don't know what to think, man." Richard 'Groundloop' Davies, the

pilot from the other intercepting plane, said, shaking his head. "I

guess the gremlins got sick of messing with our planes and started

building their own." This would normally have resulted in laughter;

not now. Not after what the six airmen had seen in the cockpit of

that Stuka.

Quote: "You've ruined me for life," Nene complained from the couch in the living room. "Not only am I going to gain ten pounds after this, I'll never be able to enjoy a normal hamburger ever again."

"Oh, do -not- start with the 'oh no I'm getting fat' stuff again," Linna told her from the loveseat opposite. "I've seen you eat an entire birthday cake and get away with it. Russian genes. Speaking as a fitness instructor who fights a constant battle against cellulite, it -disgusts- me."

Nene stuck her tongue out. Priss slumped into an armchair with another beer and snorted. "Yeah, Russian genes," she said. "That means she's a ticking time bomb. The second she hits 35? -Boom.- Beware of Neo-Soviet expansionism."
"No way!" Nene protested.


Priss gave her young colleague a wicked grin. "Tick. Tick. Tick."
"My mom's 42 and she still looks just fine, thank you."


"In Soviet Russia, cake eats -you,-" Priss went on remorselessly.
"Shut uuuup."

Quote: Matrix Dragon wrote:

---

From the latest Iron Age:

Quote: "You've ruined me for life," Nene complained from the couch in the living room. "Not only am I going to gain ten pounds after this,
I'll never be able to enjoy a normal hamburger ever again."




"Oh, do -not- start with the 'oh no I'm getting fat' stuff again," Linna told her from the loveseat opposite. "I've seen you
eat an entire birthday cake and get away with it. Russian genes. Speaking as a fitness instructor who fights a constant battle against cellulite, it
-disgusts- me."




Nene stuck her tongue out. Priss slumped into an armchair with another beer and snorted. "Yeah, Russian genes," she said. "That means
she's a ticking time bomb. The second she hits 35? -Boom.- Beware of Neo-Soviet expansionism."




"No way!" Nene protested.




Priss gave her young colleague a wicked grin. "Tick. Tick. Tick."




"My mom's 42 and she still looks just fine, thank you."




"In Soviet Russia, cake eats -you,-" Priss went on remorselessly.




"Shut uuuup."

Quote:In the dark corners of the world, things are breeding, ancient things, which ruled this world before man. There are things within only a few miles of some major cities that, if set free, would turn the blood of men to ice and fire, which would shatter the thin veneer which is all that holds mankind separate from its savage ancestors.
Their power is rising, and the stars moving into place. Their prophecies speak of their inevitable victory, that the time comes when mankind shall be as the Great Old Ones, 'free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy'.
I have felt it myself, the call of the darkness that seeps into your soul when it seems there is only pain and death in the world, the temptation to cast all rules aside and live only for your own pleasure, your own vengeance. Power without responsibility inevitably leads to the abuse of power, a spiral down into the darkness.
That's why, these days, I kill these motherfuckers and take their stuff.

Quote:I drove up to the front gate of Reito's mansion; I have to wonder what his neighbors think of young, pretty nuns constantly visiting him. They probably think he's got some sort of weird nun-brothel going on. Cooool.

Quote:"Well now Lars, when you knock a lady up, its the responsible thing to do to marry her."

"One, technically she knocked me up. Two, aren't we all a bunch of irresponsible psychopaths? Three, don't you have three wives?"

"Yes, well, what is our policy on hypocrisy?"

"'Do as I do because I'm probably lying to you anyway'?"

"Which would mean...?"

"I should build my own harem?"

"Almost, because as you said, she's the father in the relationship."

...

"I should build Skuld a harem?"

"Seems like the reasonable thing to do given the circumstances."

Quote:"...I'm going to need some help on this. How do I ask her about her taste in women without getting 'debugged'?"
"Exac--wait, what? Hold on now--"
"You did say that Skuld is the father in this relationship. If I'm going to build her a harem, I'll need to figure out her taste in women..."

Quote:“You know, if you don’t kill the vamps right off, you can make a lot of money,” commented Willow as she rifled through the pockets of an unconscious vamp. There were ten of them all stretched out, clamped to the ground by Earth Spells. Since Halloween, her redheaded friend had become much more greedy. Willow was making sure nothing valuable was being destroyed by random dustings. “I get about five hundred bucks more a week by doing this.”

“Do you have to take their clothes too?”

“You kidding?” Willow looked at the Slayer like she was crazy. “I’m the biggest supplier for the thrift shop industry in Sunnydale. That’s a lot of money.”

Buffy just sighed and sat down next to her mace until Willow was finished.

Quote:“Attention fleet, this is General O’Neill” he started. “Colonel Pendergast has remarked that I should say something deep and inspiring on the eve of this historic mission…”

There were a few moments of silence; Carter couldn’t help but smile.

Some things never change…she thought.

“Yeah, I got nothing.”

Something’s really never change…

“Anyways, I think that the most appropriate thing I could say right now would be the Sheppard’s prayer Alan Sheppard’s prayer that is: Dear lord, please don’t let us fuck up.”

Pierce let out a snort of laughter, and even Ramsey was having a hard time maintaining decorum.

“Well, that’s about it. Set your courses for Atlantis; let’s go find another city the Ancient’s managed to loose; Prometheus out.”

“Yup, I’m inspired.” Mitchell quipped. Teal’c merely raised his eyebrow.

“Indeed.”

Quote:Anyway….

BEGIN THE TRAINING MONTAGE!

…I wish.

Why the hell does Rocky get his weeks of Hell compressed into a three minute scene accompanied by inspirational music, but I, Arisawa Tatsuki, a girl who could beat Rocky with one hand, must struggle through mine the old fashioned way? I want justice!

Quote:"You must be swift as a coursing river,
With all the force of a fierce typhoon,
With all the strength of a raging fire,
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon!"

The instant the song ended, the entire DA collapsed to the floor.
For several minutes, the only sound in the room was a chorus of
deep, gasping breaths. Then, finally, Ron Weasley propped
himself up on one elbow and glared at me. "What the bloody
hell," he panted between breaths, "was *that*?"

"Ron!" Hermione squeaked breathlessly. "Luh- *Language!*"

"That, my dear Ronald, was your first training montage."

Quote: And so that left NERV in the awkward position of offering the pilots the illusion of a normal life. And an illusion it was as despite appearances; they
kept both Shinji and Asuka on very short leashes. Their guardian worked for NERV and their school crawled with NERV agents. Whenever they
stepped out of either their house or school, they were followed by a cloud of invisible Section Two agents as a matter of course, and when inside NERV
Central, the MAGI system tracked their location in real-time.

The one location they would be perfectly safe as, of course, the MAGI never made mistakes.

The Vice Commander admitted to himself he had taken a somewhat Luddite delight in the fact that it had failed so miserably to predict their actions today,
showing the damn things were not foolproof no matter what Akagi insisted, a fact that had left her rather red faced at the security breach.

Quote: MELCHIOR, which had been given the duty today of tracking the children among the thousands of other 'housekeeping' tasks it performed,
had no remote sensors in the pre-NERV buildings area to log the Children vanishing into 'Utility Vehicle Shed 16-Bravo'. It did have the
perimeter of the area locked down however, meaning there was no way the Children could come back out of the area without being tagged, so the fact
it had lost positive tracking on them wasn't much of a concern to the semi-sentient mainframe.

So when three quad-bike ground-keeping vehicles came screaming out of the utility area two minutes later like bats out of hell, it did take a
look as a matter of course. But as the heavy motorcycle helmets hid all key features from the facial recognition software and the old black and white camera
prevented a skin tone/clothes match, a positive ID could not be determined.

Taking a few nanoseconds to investigate, the mainframe checked its files carefully before firmly deciding there was no reason for NERV personnel under the
'Evangelion Pilot' category to be using vehicles assigned to 'Geofront Maintenance' personnel. And so, 'happy' that it had logically
deduced the integrity of its perimeter, MELCHIOR retuned to waiting - with the infinite patience of a computer - for the children to re-emerge as it
knew they would, sooner or later…

Quote: "You're still a stooge Third Child, but you're a good class of stooge. And for whatever it's worth, I do respect you…Shinji. Now
that doesn't mean I can't get utterly pissed off with you at times…but you've earned my respect respect over the time I've
gotten to know you…and my friendship".

"A…arigato" he managed to stutter his reply out as a smile and a deep blush he couldn't help pushed its way onto his face at her words.
Asuka in turn gave him a tight smile of her own, her eyes shining with an unbroken spirit despite her confession of her 'loss', before she turned
away and placed her helmet onto her head, starting her engine back up before turning back, as if suddenly remembering she had forgotten something.

"Oh by the way Third Child regardless of winning or losing here, our agreement was 'if I beat you to that fountain'. We
have to cook Rei dinner as we lost to her, but our bet is independent of that. Tschüs"

And with a roar, Asuka sped off down the bridge.

His ego held him in place for a good ten seconds or so as he rejoiced in the feelings Asuka had admitted to him. It was more then she had ever
admitted in their first life together, to his face at least, and right now, he felt so confident, so strong that he would have taken an oath he
could have probably knocked out Angels by spitting at them and powered his Evangelion on ego alone…

Wait. What had that been about their bets…?

His eyes went wide.

That sneaky German son of a-

Quote: Star Ranger4 wrote:

---

I dont think it could work that way, Kent.... its only a single room, one that configures itself as needed. The second someone needed something other than an
Umbridge cell, poof she's loose.