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“Shannon-sama! Did you see? Sassi the Butterfly Lady’s site is back! Their comic is updating again!”

“That’s the comic about the land of dreams isn’t it?”

“Yeah, and Sassi brought one of her stuffed animals to life with her magical rose wand! His name is Geezmo.”

“That’s so cute.”

“Heh, maybe we should try that wand on Hikousen. It might wake him up for a few minutes.”

“zzzzzzz….”

“Heheee… Hikousen’s our guard kitty.”

“We used to have a link to Sassi’s comic on our other site. I added a new one to our Fun Place to Visit List It’s called Enchanted Dreams now.”

“That’s win. If she’s got magical powers and she’s fighting the bad guys, hey, she’s part of the sisterhood.”

“Yay! I like her comic ’cause of the butterflies. Everyone go see! It’s one of the best comics and we can’t wait for the next update! Ja minna!”

Woohoo! The AWN (I work there) 2008 Oscar Showcase is up and running, with no glitches or errors. I'm home sick today but Deron, Darlene, Bill, Kevin and Rick did an outstanding job preparing this thing to go off without a hitch. So much behind the scenes work goes into our Oscar Showcase for Animated Features and Short Subjects that I just have to stop and give the team a big shout out for being so fabulous.

Take a look below at the end product of weeks of work, getting permissions to use content, tracking down the right people, writing articles, posting images, designing things, making sure the voting mechanism works, the clips play, etc. AWN has the best people and they do the best work. They care and it shows. Stop by and show them some love. You can even vote for your favorites to win.


The AWN 2008 Oscar Showcase.

“Hooray! We found Alanna, Hikousen!”

“zzzzzzz….”

“Here’s what happened.”

“So Ranko and Alanna went to the athletic building?” Talitha asked as she and Cici walked out the side door of the band room.

“Uh huh,” Cici replied. “Alanna said Ranko went there to find you. Did you see Ranko?”

“No,” Talitha said, looking down. “From inside that cage I couldn’t see anything and I couldn’t speak, but for some reason I could hear and I wanted so badly to try and warn you that it was dangerous to come near those cages, but I couldn’t.”

“Me and Hikousen are ready for anything. Right Hikousen?” Cici looked down at the enormous cat she was carrying in her right arm. Hikousen continued purring, completely oblivious to everything going on around him. “He’s my best friend. He goes with me on all our adventures.”

“I like how Ranko always calls him our ‘ferocious guard cat.’” Talitha said, then smiled. Cici giggled.

“He’s always being big and fat because he’s a sleepy cat,” Cici said as she hefted Hikousen with her arm. Talitha stopped and looked around the entrance of the athletic building.

“It’s getting dark earlier now,” Talitha said, straightening her glasses. Lit lamps sat along side either side of the cement walkway on tall poles, and their yellowish light illuminated the sidewalk in front of the glass doors.

“I wonder if anyone’s here?” Cici asked. She glanced down at the stone timepiece on her wrist. “I don’t think there’s anything enchanted around here.”

“I don’t know if that’s good news or not,” Talitha said. “I’m almost sure those cages use some kind of powerful sorcery to keep people immobilized like that.” Very slowly, Talitha walked closer to the double glass doors. Inside, the half-lighted shadowy lobby looked eerie and indistinct. Talitha pulled the handle of one of the doors, which rattled. “It’s locked.”

Cici looked back and forth. “There’s nobody around at all.” Cici placed Hikousen on the grass alongside the walkway and walked over to the doors. She put her hands up to the sides of her face and peered inside. “Maybe we should knock on the window, ’cause there might be someone that can hear us.”

Talitha looked back towards the fine arts building. “This is very odd. Even on weekends there’s usually someone here.”

Cici backed up from the window and saw movement reflected in the glass. She whirled around and shouted. “Talitha! Look out!”

Talitha looked around quickly. To her left she saw a skelegor warrior only two paces away and charging at her with a bent and rusty sword! Talitha backed away and ducked to her left as the monster swung the wicked blade over and down towards her head. Talitha’s eye flashed and an explosion of golden light illuminated the entire area around the athletic building entrance. A resounding thump echoed off the brick walls of the athletic building as the fiend’s attack was neatly parried by the Goldenwood Shield.

Cici shivered as the monster’s voice slithered through the cool evening air.

“Your friendsssss are helplesssssss….” the skelegor hissed. Talitha frowned as she peered over the golden edge of her shield.

“You can’t defeat two Ajan Warriors, minion,” Talitha said as she slowly began to back away, holding her shield ready. The skelegor crouched, taking an agressive stance and brandishing its rusty sword. It slowly advanced towards Talitha, not noticing the evergreen trees planted along the side of the building. Talitha retreated between two of the trees as the skelegor readied its next attack. Then suddenly she shouted.

“Graceful evergreens, come to my defense!”

The skelegor screamed as the heavy trees slammed together and trapped it. The monster twisted and thrashed around, dropping its bent sword on the grass. Cici ran forward and grabbed the sword, then backed quickly away.

“I got its sword Talitha!” Cici said. Talitha ran out from behind the row of evergreen trees and over to where Cici was. The skelegor’s enraged scream startled Talitha again as she examined the sword quickly.

“What do we do?” Cici asked. “What if it gets loose?”

Talitha straightened her glasses. “Transmute your lantern, Cici. I’ve got an idea.”

Cici dropped the sword on the ground and held up her timepiece. “Chronicler’s Lantern, transform!” she shouted. A swirling cascade of multicolored light emerged from the timepiece and the lantern of gold appeared spinning in the air, bathing the ground in a rainbow spectrum of light. Cici caught the handle with both hands. Talitha began to back away once again after picking up the sword.

“When I say ‘go,’ use your shield,” Talitha said, bringing the Goldenwood Shield around to protect herself. “Ready?”

Cici frowned as she readied her lantern. “Ready!”

Talitha closed her eyes and listened carefully for the voices of the evergreen trees. In her mind, she heard pleasant whispers. All of the plants around the athletic building began speaking at once. They were all very happy to hear Talitha’s voice. My friends, she thought. Please believe in us. Please believe that we will protect you as we protect all life.

The evergreens answered, and their words were encouraging. They questioned Talitha’s plan, however. She could sense their concern even as they released the skelegor. The moment it was free, the enraged monster recklessly charged at Talitha. Cici realized the skelegor was running right at her!

“Go Cici!” Talitha shouted.

“Spectrum Deflect!” The Chronicler’s Lantern’s light became very intense and a spherical wall of energy emerged from it, surrounding Cici.

The monster ran headlong into the edge of Cici’s shield. Instantly a violent blast of magical energy from the Spectrum Deflect threw the monster backwards! A reflexive swirling colorful sphere appeared around Cici for a moment, then faded.

“Got him!” Cici shouted triumphantly. “You better leave us alone! ‘Cause we gots magical powers too!”

The monster climbed back to its feet and scowled at Cici, then charged again. Cici held up her lantern and another flash of brilliant light appeared as the skelegor slammed into the Spectrum Deflect. This time, the power of Cici’s shield seemed to increase in intensity, and the monster shuddered as colorful discharges of electrical energy coiled around it. All at once, the skelegor disintegrated, and Cici’s Spectrum Deflect faded.

Talitha exhaled and closed her eyes in relief. Cici turned around with a bright expression.

“We did it, Talitha! We beat a Halloween monster all by ourselves!” Just then, Cici was distracted by her Lantern. “Look! My Lantern says something around here is enchanted now.”

Talitha walked over, still carrying the rusty sword. “That’s peculiar. It didn’t detect anything before. Is it this sword?”

“I don’t think so, ’cause it would have said so when the monster first appeared, wouldn’t it?”

“Let’s go back over to the front door. Maybe now we can get in somehow,” Talitha said, walking back over to where Hikousen was sleeping by the glass entrance to the athletic building.

“There’s another cage!” Cici shouted, pointing at a spectral cylindrical shape next to one of the lights near the athletic building entrance.

Talitha straightened her glasses, looking up at the sickly grayish-blue magical cage. Inside she could just see the outline of a person.

“It’s Alanna,” Talitha whispered. “What do we do? How do I get her out of there?”

“Just put your hand on the outside and it goes away,” Cici said. Talitha placed the palm of her hand up against the shimmering wall of energy. A series of simple reddish-colored glyphs flashed brightly, then faded. A moment later the cage vanished suddenly. Alanna Kawa slumped to the ground.

“Alanna!” Cici ran up. “Is she hurt? Is she sick?”

Talitha knelt down and placed her hand on Alanna’s shoulder and nudged her gently. “Are you okay, Alanna?” A few moments later, Alanna’s eyes opened slowly.

“Hayashi?” Alanna’s voice sounded tired. “What happened?”

Talitha smiled. “You’re safe now.”

LadyStar™ Cici n’ Hikousen’s Haunted Halloween Hunt is Copyright © 2007 Heavy Cat Multimedia Ltd. All Rights Reserved

“It’s Teko! He’s making another flower appear in his beak!”

“Just like in the Venom Deeps.”

“Look! My timepiece is glowing. That flower must be enchanted.”

“It’s real pink rose too.”

“Teko flew away! I wonder why Teko sits outside in the trees all the time?”

“I think he misses Jessie.”

“I miss Jessie too.”

“The clue is, ‘anything could be a link.’”

“I wonder if we’ll be able to find them?”

“Well, we’re the Ajan Warriors, right?”

“Right! That’s what Ranko always says!”

“We’ve got our treasures and our powers back, so let’s go see what we can find together, okay?”

“Okay Talitha! Come on Hikousen!”

zzzzzz

“I found Teko and he gots clues for everybody so you can help us find all my friends! If you look around our site starting tomorrow you might find some of Teko’s clues and if you do it will help us find everyone faster! Come on Hikousen! Let’s keep looking.”

zzzzzz

“I’m glad you came to help us, Acey!”

“Hey, we’re all on the same team! Let’s put together a good plan and we’ll find your friends. You can count on that.”

“Yay! Now we’re gonna beat those mean Halloween monsters, Hikousen!”

“zzzzzz”

“Communications link with LadyStar web site established, Commander.”

“Outstanding. We’ll handle the updates from here, Cici. You and Hikousen take this commlink and go find your friends. If you need us, just say ‘Cici to Hana’ and you’ll be patched in to Z-bot’s communications network.”

“Okay! Let’s go Hikousen!”

“mmmmzzzzrrrwwzzzzz”

“Well, you look like an awfully tired cat, but I have to use my desk if you don’t mind.”

zzzzzz

“Oof! You’re a heavy one aren’t you? Arrrgh! You’re too heavy for me! Well I was headed for class anyway so I guess you can stay here until you find another place to sleep.”

“Okay, here’s that computer that Talitha was using with the green letters. She did a ‘ping’ something and that made it so Acey could hear us. Let me try it.”

“New Satcom signal detected. Low-power ATS IP network data source at terminal location E29A64. Core communications database identifies sender as ‘Talitha Hayashi’ ninth-grade student. Location: Tree Shores High School. Priority transmission source identified. Message recorded for relay to Hana. Activating primary com channel. Stand by location E29A64.”

“Help us Acey! Oh wait, I have to type it. H-E-L-P U-S A-C-E-Y“

“Distress signal detected. Upgrading alert status. Switching transmission network to secure frequency. Activating secondary com channel.”

“Z-bot to Hana.”

“Hana, Acey here.”

“Reporting auto-upgrade of alert status. Receiving distress signal from priority transmission source at station E29A64, bearing 304 mark 18, range 82,000 kilometers. Sender has been identified as ‘Talitha Hayashi’ Location: Tree Shores High School. Standing by for instructions.”

“Yellow Alert. Activate autocombat systems.”

“Affirmative. Autocombat systems engaged.”

“Patch me in to primary secure com channel.”

“Affirmative. You’re on Commander.”

“This is Commander Acey aboard the Hana. Please describe your emergency.”

“Receiving response, Commander. Relaying… T-H-E H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-N M-O-N-S-T-E-R-S“

“Halloween monsters? Analysis, Z-bot?”

“Negative. Station E29A64 is no longer transmitting.”

“We’ve got to get down there and find out what’s going on. Rendezvous with the Hana at the Tree Shores High School Band Room and remain on station, Z-bot. Acey out.”

“Affirmative, Commander. ETA six minutes.”

“This is where Talitha was using the computer, Hikousen, but we gotta be real quiet ’cause it’s like a library.”

“mmmmmwwwrzzzzzz”

“That’s the teacher’s desk I think. It’s the one with all the papers. Maybe I should transform and then I can use my powers to make them go away.”

zzzzzz

“Or I can use big fat purring kitty power.”

*oof* “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….”

“You’re gonna sleep there Hikousen. Don’t move until I get back. I’m gonna go use Talitha’s computer so I can call Acey to help us.”

“mmrwowrzzzzzz”

“What in the name of…”

“Greetings humans! heh heh heh… seems we’ve got us a web site now that everyone else is gone. We brought some of our friends along too.”

“Pathetic humanssssss. . . . Your Ajan Warriorssssssss are finissssssssshed. . . . You thought we were defeated at the Lithic Pavilion, but you cannot defeat ussssss ssssso eassssily. . .”

“So as you can see, we’re in charge around here now.”

“This is all so pointless. Why is everything so pointless?”

“Oh, I’m afraid we’ll find the last of the Ajan Warriors soon enough. . . heh heh heh get it? ‘I’m afraid?’”

“I’m so depressed.”

“Go ahead you simpering humans. See if you can find them! We dare you.”

“They get candy and parties and what do I get? A candle burning the top of my head for two weeks. Go away and leave us alone.”

Happy Halloween!

Jessica, Shannon, Talitha, Ranko, Leila and Alanna were all together at school. But one by one, they have vanished. Only Cici and Hikousen are left, and they’ve set out to rescue their friends.

But they need YOUR help. The nefarious Haunted Halloween minions have trapped Jessica and her friends in ensorcelled cages hidden somewhere around the LadyStar web site. Each time you discover one of the ensorcelled cages, you will be able to read another chapter of the story of Cici n’ Hikousen’s Haunted Halloween Hunt. If you can find them, you will be helping Cici and Hikousen solve the Halloween mystery.

Starting Monday, October 15th!

Starting Monday night, October 15th, you have until Halloween night, October 31st, to help rescue all six of Cici’s friends. Then, on Halloween night, the seventh and final chapter of the Haunted Halloween Hunt will be published exclusively right here on the Magical and Mysterious World of LadyStar. Can you defeat the Halloween minions and rescue Cici’s friends?

The Haunted Halloween Hunt Rules

• The ensorcelled cages and story chapters are on the Ladystar.net site only. It is not necessary to click any off-site links or links provided by any site other than LadyStar.net
• You may find clues hidden around the site as well.
• Be observant and read the Halloween story chapters carefully. There might be clues hidden there.

Are you up for the challenge? Prepare yourself. The minions are waiting, and they know what scares you . . .

“Acey gots a.. huh?”

zzzzzzz….

“Where did everybody go, Hikousen?”

mwrowr?… zzzzzzz….

“My timepiece…. Hikousen, my timepiece is glowing. Something enchanted is around here. Umm.. I’m supposed to do an update so ummm… there’s a video on Acey’s site about Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party but I gotta go find Alanna ’cause something’s not right. Ummm.. bye.”

zzzzzzz….

“I think there’s lots of people who come to our site and want to learn all about LadyStar but they get confused ’cause we have so much stuff going on!”

“I know I get confused and I’ve been here for a while now.”

zzzzzzz….

“Do you realize Hikousen’s been asleep for six years?”

“Heheee.. he’s our guard kitty.”

“Okay, do the update. You guys always run off on these crazy tangents and we never get the update done.”

“Okay Alanna-sama. We’re gonna tell you all about a page that new people might not know about ’cause it’s a click that Talitha-chan put in the site instead of in our menu which we don’t have any more.”

“And if you understood that, you are WAY more mentally focused than me, because my brain just turned into mashed potatoes.”

“See, looky! This is one of our buttons, and it’s on all of our articles no matter where they are on our whole site. It’s the red heart button with our logo and it’s called the Crimson Thunder Heart logo. This is what it looks like:”

“Clicking that button will always take you to our What is LadyStar? page, which will give you a good introduction to our site and our story.”

“If you look on the left column under the poll question we got right now…”

“don’t forget to VOTE!”

“Yeah! Anyway, there’s four book covers in the left side column. Those are all of our books, and when you click on them you get to read them for free right here on our site. We did that ’cause we want everyone to read our stories and join in all our neat adventures!”

“So if you’re new to our site, welcome to LadyStar and be sure to read the What is LadyStar? page. Then you can jump right in to our stories. We just got through updating the Call of the Huntress Preview Page (which is my book *happy dance*), with all six of our current previews of the third book in our series. The first two books are complete and published and you can read them all for free.”

“See you all in the story, folks. Ten Update Friday continues! Don’t miss out!”

“Hi everybody! It’s meeee! Our new site is gonna be one year old in a couple of months, and so I got aaaaall my friends to help me make a list of all our favorite articles from since we started the new site! First we got Irina-san who is gonna start the countdown!”

“Number ten best of all LadyStar update is Pluto is always a planet because Talitha-chan says so!“

“That was the beginning of the big Pluto controversy on the big site here. Like I always say, if other people don’t want Pluto, we’ll take it. It’s always a planet here.”

“Yeah! Okay, the number nine best article we did is by Daphne-chan!”

“Hi Jessie! Okay, number nine is Alanna explains what a Drum Major does.

“Alanna-sama is the best drum major ever! Okay, now Cici-chan is going to tell us what the number eight best article on our site is!”

“Number eight was when we got to meet Acey and she told us all about video games and her spaceship! It’s called The Hana has Landed.”

“Gamepowa is such a great site.”

“Yay! Now Alanna-sama has the number seven best article!”

“Okay Hoshi, number seven is Ranko Yorozu’s Jam Session.”

“Still epic after all these updates.”

“Word. People still ask me when we’re going to jam again.”

“We should all get a group and play together! Okay, Shannon-sama is going to tell us which update is the sixth bestest.”

“Okay, number six is The origin of the chocolate number button.”

“Heheee… my most favorite button in the whole world. Okay, Leila-sama gets to say which is the number five best update.”

“Number five is The Rescue of Shannon’s Math Book.”

“Hooray for Hikousen!”

zzzzzzz….

“Okay Ranko-chan gets to tell us which is the number four best update.”

“Sure thing, Goofy. Number four is Drum Major girl’s Ultra-Deluxe Pizza!“

“And we never put onions on a pizza ’cause Alanna-sama says so! Okay, now for the three best updates. Tara-san is going to tell us about number three.”

“Okay listen up. Number three is There’s clubs and sports besides marching band?“

“Our band is the best because we have lots of drummers like Leila-sama. Okay, the number two best update is by Talitha-chan.”

“Number two is Jessica takes a music trivia test“

“But which one is the number one update?”

“Easy. It’s Professor gots the POWA!“

“Yay for Talitha-chan! We’re going to have lots more great updates soon! Ja minna!”

zzzzzzz….

“We must find way to move overweight cat or Shannon will never pass Geometry.”

“How long has he been sleeping on those books now?”

sigh “Days… weeks… who knows?”

“Shannon-sama! Shannon-sama! Looky! Looky! Looky! Oh! Wait!”

“Could someone please explain what that was just now?”

“I call them Doofus Disasters. She runs through the room giggling about something and then when you ask her later what she was so happy about she doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I got something in the e-mail and it’s about Hikousen!”

“Hoshi, what are you talking about?”

“I got e-mail on Jessie’s Letters and they said how to get Hikousen to stop sleeping on your math book.”

“This should be good. What did they say?”

“They said to get Cici-chan to help and maybe she can make Hikousen sleep somewhere else!”

“Of course. That could work!”

“Little Bit! Help!”

“Hi Ranko!”

“Here’s the deal. You gotta get ferocious guard cat to stop sleeping on Miss Shannon’s books, got it?”

“Okay Ranko! Come on Hikousen, let’s go get something to eat.”

mwrowr?

“He meowed!”

“Yay! Hikousen listens to Cici-chan!”

“I got my math book back!”

“Oh yeah, I knew it all along.”

“O Rly?”

“Heheheeee.. Thanks for helping everyone! You’re the best! Ja ne!”

“It’s my book, it’s my book, it’s my book, happy, happy, happy meeeeee!”

“We got two previews now and the second one said it was only part one, so are there gonna be lots more parts for that preview?”

“I hope so, because it looks like there’s going to be a lot of action in Book Three.”

“I wonder if we have to fight really tough monsters and stuff, because if we don’t have our treasures, we’re not gonna be able to use many of our powers yet.”

“We’ll find those treasures soon. That sorcerer won’t be able to hide them from us for long.”

“Better watch out or we’ll send The Ferocious One after him.”

zzzzzzz….

“Hi! Um.. I’m Cici and Jessie said I could do an update all by myself and so me and Hikousen are gonna answer a question.”

“Maybe we should help her“

“Nah. Relax, she’s doing fine.“

“The question says umm…”

“Go, little bit! Go, little bit!“

“shhhhh…“

“It says ‘Cici are you gonna play an instrument someday’ Yeah! I wanna play the drums just like Jessie’s friend Leila ’cause she gets to make lots of noise! Right Hikousen?”

zzzzzzz….

“Hikousen says he wants to play the drums too!”

*giggle*

“yay!“

“Um.. oh yeah, if you have a question or stuff you wanna say you can send it to Jessie on her Jessie’s Letters Page!”

“WaaaaHOOOOO!!“

“Way to go Cici you did it!”

“I did a whole update all by myself!”

“Yay for Cici-chan!”

“That was pretty good.”

“At least she picked the right instrument.”

“Heh.”

“I’m Commander Acey. I’m the pilot of the starship Hana. Our mission is to rendezvous with our sponsors at these coordinates so they can help us with our new video game site Gamepowa.”

“Gamepowa! That’s us! That’s one of our sites! See? Looky! It’s over there in our Fun Places to Visit list. We’re your sponsors!”

“This is the World of LadyStar site?”

“Yay! We’ve got a spaceship pilot now!”

“Welcome to Goofyland.”

“So you’re going to be running Gamepowa for us?”

“Affirmative. Our mission is games, reviews and links to cool stuff. We’re going to feature games that girls like, because girls play video games too.”

“Word.”

“Yay video games! I like the one with all the talking animals!”

“Looks like you’ve already got a fan, Commander.”

“Heh.”

“Is that robot your pet? I have a pet too! His name is Teko!”

“This is Z-Bot. He is a combat engineering chassis with advanced communications circuitry. He maintains our datalinks with the Hana.”

“What’s the Hana?”

“The Hana is my ship: an Orchid-class corsair with interstellar drives and quad-pulse disruption cannons. Z-bot, confirm the location of the Hana.”

“Affirmative. Hana: Corsair hull Gamma-74, bearing three-one mark ten. Range 217 meters.”

“Check the Professor over here. She’s starting to get that mad scientist look with all these robots flying around.”

“Oh my…”

“Just one other question?”

“Shoot. NO! Heh heh heh… shouldn’t say that to somebody with a blaster. Ehhh.. what’s your question?”

“What is that?”

zzzzzzz….

“That’s my cat Hikousen. He’s always sleeping and purring and being big and fat.”

“Errrr…”

“We’re gonna be your sponsors, so you’re gonna to come visit us whenever you have something neat on your new site, right?”

“Affirmative.”

“You can all come visit us too. We’re going to have a lot of fun.”

“Yay for Gamepowa and Commander Acey and Z-bot! Bye everyone, see ya soon!”